Egypt Question

In East Roman Egypt, how much landed aristocracy was in place? Or was the territory just a granary for the Romans to live on save for Alexandria?
 

Hecatee

Donor
From what the papyrus found in Egypt tells us, you had a class of rich, landed men living in Alexandria (or further yet) and delegating their power to a class of administrators, whose mails we have sometime conserved.

Next to those were priests of the big temples, which owned massive lands. They will be replaced by the christian monasteries from the 4th century onward : while the first monastery was founded by Pachomus in the early in the first half of the 4th century, we find some 3000 monasteries in Egypt by his death in 345 and more than 7000 by the end of the century. Often small, they do get grants of lands from both poor and rich people, as well as the lands of those who come to take the vows.

Finally you did also have a class of small landowners, and then people only working the land.

Spend some time on papyri.info to read the words of all those ancient egyptians (not all papyrus are translated, but enough are to help you get a sense of the exchanges in this time)
 
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