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Bryn Mawr Classical Review 96.10.5

Richard Alston, Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt: A SocialHistory. London and New York: Routledge, 1995. Pp. viii, 263. $59.95.ISBN 0-415-12270-8.

Reviewed by Susan Stephens, Stanford University,susan.stephens@forsythe.stanford.edu.

The jacket illustration for this book is a bronze statuette, probably from the first century AD, ofa falcon-headed man (the Egyptian god, Horus) garbed in the costume of a Roman generaland executed in a thoroughly non-Egyptian fashion. The statuette could have beencommissioned by Roman soldiers garrisoned in Egypt, in which case it argues foradaptation of native beliefs by the conquerors. Alternatively, it may have been Egyptian,hence a symbol of conquest transformed into a pro-Egyptian emblem of Pharaonic power.But whatever its origin it is an admirable example of the complexity of the interaction betweenthe conquering and now resident Roman army and their subject peoples which the authorsets himself to reconstruct. This study is one of a growing number that appropriate the massof papyrological material to write social history and in the process attempt to repositionEgypt as central to the ancient historical enterprise, instead of an aberration from anotherwise homogeneous empire.

The book is a study in nine chapters (with two appendices) of the Roman army in Egypt fromAugustus to Diocletian. The author begins with an introductory chapter summarizing thecurrent state of work on Roman military history. The dominant model employed in writingRoman military history, he contends, is that of historians like M. Speidel or E. Birley, whoseek to understand ancient armies and military practice in terms of modern armies, on the a

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priori assumption that the role and goals of the military have remained constant throughouthistory, allowing only for differences in technological sophistication. Not surprisingly, thisapproach has come under criticism from Roman social historians who question itsfundamental assumptions. Alston positions his own work as integrative, attempting to answersuch questions as "what the army was for, what the soldiers did, who the soldiers were andhow the army related to the civilian population" (p. 6) by using the abundance of documentarymaterial from the province of Roman Egypt. While he acknowledges the uniqueness of Egyptin terms of culture, ecology, and administration, he argues that the army in Egypt wasstructured no differently than in other provinces and that to some extent every province had aunique cultural history and specific logistical problems to overcome. He attempts, wheneverfeasible, to provide corroborating material from places outside of Egypt.

Chapters Two through Six treat respectively the location of legions in Egypt, patterns ofrecruitment and settlement upon retirement, legal status of soldiers and veterans, what thearmy actually did with its time from day to day, and its economic impact. The procedure ineach chapter is roughly the same: to outline the current state of the scholarship on eachissue, for example, how did the army affect the economy of the empire, then to assess towhat extent the Egyptian evidence requires modification or amplification of the status quo.Among the more interesting conclusions of these chapters are: (1) the number of troopsseems to have decreased from about 22,000 to 12,000 over the three centuries of the study(though it increases again in the fourth century). (2) Troops appear to have been positionedand deployed for reasons other than control of Egypt proper in this period. The garrisoning oftwo of Egypt's three legions near Alexandria indicates that a relatively higher priority wasgiven to control of the city and the Mediterranean. (3) There was no apparent governmentpolicy for recruitment or for the settlement of veterans. While a relatively high percentage ofveterans settled in the Fayum, they would at no time have constituted more than 10% of thetotal population of the region (if that). (4) The presence of the army had relatively little impacton the overall economy of Egypt, and the wealth of veterans, though sufficient to allow them toenjoy relatively high status within their village communities, was by no means on the samescale as that of the imperial elite. While these conclusions may not seem particularly startling

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to papyrologists, they do, in some measure, run counter to received wisdom (or speculation)on the impact and function of the army elsewhere in the early Roman empire.

Chapter Seven takes a different approach: Alston focuses on the village of Karanis in theFayum to examine the ways in which soldiers and veterans interacted with the rest of theEgyptian population. The region of the Fayum in the northwestern quadrant of Egypt was anarea of heavy veteran settlement and recruitment with the result that a number of militaryfamilies can be traced through several generations along with their property holdings. Romansoldiers and ex-soldiers neither form a separate class nor enjoy the greatest wealth, thoughthey do belong to the upper stratum in the village. While Roman citizens themselves, theyhave dealings with the Greco-Egyptian population and even intermarry. Alston claims thatthere is no evidence at all that the presence of a large population of soldiers over a relativelylong period of time much altered the local culture. "The veterans of Karanis were not in theforefront of the process of Romanisation. In spite of the presence of a significant minority ofRomans, Karanis remained a typical, if somewhat large, Egyptian village" (p. 142).

Chapter Eight briefly sketches the changes to the army following the reforms of Diocletian ineffect to reinforce his limiting of this study to the period between Augustus and Diocletian.While the rationale for his decision is clear, it has the unfortunate consequence of excludingthe Abinnaeus material (dating from AD 342-4) from detailed consideration and comparisonwith earlier evidence (though he does treat it in passing). Further, the fact that the number ofarmy units and fortifications in the chora seems to have considerably increased in the fourthcentury raises a suspicion that conclusions about "Romanisation" and general impact of thearmy in Egypt might well be altered by inclusion of later material.

Nine is an all to brief final chapter that tentatively integrates the conclusions Alston reachesabout Egypt with evidence on the function of the army from other locations in the empire,primarily Britain because of the finds from the fort at Vindolanda near Hadrian's wall. Here, afar more detailed discussion would have been welcome, particularly of any evidence thatmight have run counter to Alston's general conclusions about Egypt.

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There are two detailed and valuable appendices. One provides a critical review of thedocumentary evidence for each of the military units that have been attested for Egypt. Thesecond summarizes the archaeological evidence for the army in Egypt, this latteraccompanied with drawings of five forts, the most impressive of which is Mons Claudianus inthe Western desert. This latter appendix would profit from the addition of a map that is moredetailed than Map 2 (printed on p. 34).

Roman military history is a subject usually neglected for both political and practical reasons: ithas been out of fashion since the end of the cold war and military historians tend to write onlyfor themselves in a technical language that borders on the opaque. While papyrologistsregularly study the military documents found in Egypt, their conclusions have tended toremain localized within the papyrological community. Alston's study demonstrates that thisneed not be so. This is a well-researched and lucidly written book that skillfully subordinatesthe mass of detail to a clearly discernible central argument. As in all such studies, thecredibility of the conclusions in each section varies with the available documentation and thereader's willingness to accept many of the necessary but unprovable inferences that underpinthe arguments. However, Alston is careful to distinguish for the reader fact from inference,and to articulate clearly the basis for his inferences. One minor problem throughout thisotherwise admirable book is the question of audience. Alston appears to be writing for thegeneral classical and/or historical reader rather more than a specialized set of militaryhistorians or papyrologists. He sets out in some detail the organization of legions andauxiliaries, but occasionally he seems unaware that his reader might not be entirely familiarwith Egyptian geography or administration. But these are insignificant flaws in a book that iswell worth reading.