Archiphylakitai in Ptolemaic Egypt: A Hierarchy of Equals?

Abstract

Since Pieter Kool’s dissertation on police in Greco-Roman Egypt, scholars have subscribed to the view that police administration was uniform across the kingdom and that police chiefs ( archiphylakitai ) in villages were connected to nome-level chiefs by a lengthy chain of command. This paper argues that neither was the case: that administrative structures varied from nome to nome, and that the hierarchy of archiphylakitai was flat. Chiefs answered to civil, financial, and other police officials, not to higher archiphylakitai . The “hierarchy” of police chiefs, unlike similar hierarchies in other spheres of government, was easily accessible, surprisingly flexible, and efficient.