The Rise and Development of the Office of Agoranomos in Greco-Roman Egypt

Abstract

This article traces the evolution of the office of agoranomos in Greco-Roman Egypt and compares such developments with those of the official’s counterparts in the rest of the Greek world. I argue that the office’s third century transformation into a liturgical position in Egypt mirrors identical changes in Greece, Asia Minor, and Roman Palestine in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, as seen through the papyrological, epigraphic, and historical record. This comparative approach reveals a wider trend in the Greek East and demonstrates the importance in considering the Egyptian evidence in treatments of the office in the rest of the Greco-Roman world as the office in Egypt was not an anomaly.