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American Journal of Philology 132 (2011) 1544 2011 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

COURT, CHORA, AND CULTUREIN LATE PTOLEMAIC EGYPT

IANS. MOYER

Abstract. Indigenous Egyptian elites who held titles in the late Ptolemaic courthierarchy offer a counterpoint to the typical model of Hellenistic court society

as a culturally and ethnically exclusive social space. Though underrepresented instandard accounts, several Egyptians held the honorific title of kinsman of theking (syngenes). Statues of these men wearing the mitraof the syngenes in theforecourts of temples, together with Greek and Egyptian epigraphic evidence,show that indigenous elites who circulated between Alexandria and Upper Egyptcontributed to the creation of a transcultural space that was critical for maintain-ing the power of the Ptolemaic state in the Egyptian choraduring the troubledconditions of the second and first centuries B.C.E.

INTHEFINALCENTURYOFPTOLEMAICRULEOVEREGYPT, visitorsto the temples of Hathor at Denderah or Horus at Edfu would have seenstatues of priests and important officials placed in the temple forecourtsin continuance of a tradition that stretched deep into the pharaonic past.Among these statues, the visitors might notice some cloaked and strid-ing figures distinguished by a mitraworn around the head, a band notunlike the diadem worn by the king himself. If they could read demoticor hieroglyphic Egyptian, they might even notice an inscription that

identified the subjects of these statues as kinsmen or brothers of theking, bearers of the title syngenes, the highest in the hierarchy of thePtolemaic court. These kinsmen from towns up-country, in the Egyptianchora, proclaimed that they had entre into the most privileged space inthe kingdom, the Graeco-Macedonian royal court at Alexandria.

In celebrating status and royal affiliation in text and image, thesestatues of kinsmen illuminate one of the later chapters in the three-cen-turies-long history of negotiations between the Hellenistic court and theEgyptian elites of the chora, between the indigenous and the immigrant

cultures of Ptolemaic Egypt. The position of the Egyptian kinsmen wasultimately the result of a transformation of the Ptolemaic court that hadbegun early in the second century. In the reign of the young Ptolemy V

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16 IAN S. MOYER

1

All dates areB.C.E

.2Habicht 1958, 56. See also, for example, Mooren 1978; Weber 1997, 3235; Savalli-Lestrade 1998, 289354. For the ethnic exclusivity of the Hellenistic courts, note Herman1997, 2078. Mooren 1985, 222, refers to the Ptolemaic court of the late third century asHellenic and hermetic. Ma 2003, 18688, follows this model but uses Pierre Briants term,dominant ethno-class.

Epiphanes (204180)1, the social space of the court had expanded, and

an elaborate hierarchy of honorific court-titles extended the prestige ofroyal affiliation beyond the kings immediate circle of Friends to includemembers of the Ptolemaic administration working far from Alexandriaat the regional and local levels. The statues of Egyptian kinsmen fromEdfu, Denderah, and elsewhere, along with other evidence of Egyptiancourtiers, show that this expansion eventually crossed the ethnic andcultural boundaries that are usually taken to define the ruling stratum ofHellenistic kingdoms. In the process, the court becameat least in onecritical regiona more flexible and transcultural space that extended into

those parts of the chorawhere the intervention of the Ptolemaic statehad been the most gradual and had met the most resistance.

1. THE SOCIAL SPACE OF THE HELLENISTIC COURT

This opening picture of Egyptian courtiers and the transcultural dimen-sions of the late Ptolemaic court runs counter to most generalizeddescriptions of the society that ruled the Hellenistic world. Since Chris-

tian Habichts seminal study of the Hellenistic herrschendeGesellschaft(1958), a well-developed line of research has maintained that power inthe Hellenistic kingdoms, including those established in the Near Eastand Egypt, was the exclusive preserve of a Graeco-Macedonian elite. Thecore of this elite was the Hellenistic royal court constituted by the kingand his friendsmen who were virtually all Greeks and Macedonians,recruited and maintained through personal relations of philia. ThoughAlexander himself had adopted Achaemenid ceremonial traditions andhad integrated prominent Persians into his court (Spawforth 2007b), the

model that his successors followed is usually traced back to the relativelyinformal Macedonian institution of the kings companions and defined bya Hellenic ethnic and cultural exclusivity.2The history of this Hellenisticcourt follows a familiar periodization: the paradigmatic (even ideal)form was an institution of the third century, but in the subsequent ageof decline the court was formalized into elaborate and artificial hier-archies, and a few natives even found their way into the ranks of court

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17COURT, CHORA, AND CULTURE

3For the periodization, see Habicht 1958, 1416. Weber 1997 largely follows him,though he does note the later incorporation of Egyptians into the Ptolemaic hierarchy. Onthe other hand, Boris Dreyer in this volume argues that the differentiation of the courthierarchy began already in the third century in the Seleucid case.

4Mooren 1975b and 1977, along with several other shorter studies; see also Savalli-Lestrade 1998.

5Elias 1983 (rev. 2006), with important critiques by Duindam 1994; 2004. Recent

collections on ancient courts include Winterling 1997 and Spawforth 2007a.6Herman 1997. Also important is Weber 1997 and to some extent Mooren 1985(based only on Polybius).

7Polyb. 5.26.13; 5.34.4; 5.41.3; 16.22.8; 22.13.5; 23.5.4. Further examples in Herman1997, 213, n. 33. He also identified a number of peculiarities of Hellenistic court society inthe third century (1997, 22324).

society.3The third-century model is derived primarily from Greek literary

sources, and especially the detailed accounts of events and individualsat the Hellenistic courts in Polybius Histories. The major exception tothe preponderance of attention devoted to the third-century courts is inthe study Ptolemaic Egypt itself. Here the comparative wealth of docu-mentary evidence facilitated Leon Moorens detailed prosopographicalstudy of the court hierarchy in the second and first centuries, to which Ishall return shortly.4

But it is PolybiusHistories, and particularly his accounts of interac-tions among courtiers and between kings and courtiers, that have attracted

the most attention in formulating the Hellenistic court as an object ofhistorical-sociological study. Drawing on Norbert Elias and a stream ofwork reacting to his analysis of early modern European courts, scholarsof ancient history have recently paid renewed attention to the royal courtsof antiquity.5Abstracted from the particular historical questions that hepursued, Elias model has proved a useful comparandum for outliningthe features and functions of ancient courts. Especially important for theHellenistic period is Gabriel Hermans analysis of the Hellenistic courtas a social milieu with several characteristics that it shares with othercourts.6These include: specific norms; rules of conduct and ceremonialpracticesin particular those regulating access to the ruler; the idea ofthe court as an abstraction based on a palace or household that was physi-cal but also multifocal and mobile; and the emergence of courtiers, thequintessential representatives of the court society. In PolybiusHistories,the sole source for Hermans study, courtiers are called (those around the court) or simply .7The Hellenistic court wasclearly an entity recognized in contemporary thought and language, and

the recent approaches inspired by Elias and other historical sociologists

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18 IAN S. MOYER

8Lefebvre 1991; for the central insight of his complex work in brief, see his ownconvenient summary (34849) with Smith 1998, 54, also quoted by Unwin 2000, 18. Inhistorical terms, his revised Marxian periodization was much more concerned with urbandevelopment (1991, 3133, 4759); Smith 1998, 57, provides an overview.

9Lefebvres historical overview considers all of ancient Greek and Roman civilizationas part of his period of absolute space; but surely reassessments of ancient economies

and urbanism permit various spaces in antiquity to be reimagined as verging on the his-torical space that he associated with urbanism, the separation between production andreproduction, socio-economic differentiation, and accumulation (Smith 1998, 57; Lefebvre1991, 4849). For the domination of space and the states rationality of accumulation, see(with similar qualifications) Lefebvre 1991, 28081.

have undertaken to study it as a social configuration of various interde-

pendent relations among kings and courtiers.The ancient terms for the court and its courtiers, like the morerecent ones, make it clear that the court was also a form of social space,in the sense developed by Henri Lefebvre: it was a space producedthrough human activity and through the reproduction of social rela-tions. Lefebvre barely mentioned royal courts.8Elias, however, began hishistorical analysis of court society under Louis XIV by examining thestructure of aristocratic dwellings as spaces in which and through whichcourtiers consumed conspicuously, but also asserted their rank and social

distance, and engaged in various spatial practices related to those of thepalace at Versailles (2006, 4572). In a similar vein, one could say that theHellenistic royal courts were the overblown households at the economic,political, and administrative cores of states derived from and producedby Alexanders massive, violent, primitive accumulation and dominationof space.9In this wider context, the court was a space of appropriation,redistribution, spectacular consumption, as well as its own productionin the form of palaces and their attendant spatial practices. The socialspace of the Hellenistic court was also produced by, and reproduced,a narrower set of relations between the king and his courtiers. In itselaborated form (to which I shall turn shortly), the Ptolemaic court inparticular was a social space defined by graded relations of kinship, friend-ship, and other forms of social or physical proximity to the person of theking. The privilege of proximity to him was expressed and experiencedthrough titles, insignia, and the spatial practices embodied in the palaceor its itinerant equivalents. Social connections between king and court-ier were maintained economicallyby a kind of exchange, a reciprocity

that was actually a symbolic violence of dependency and obligation onthe part of the courtier, euphemized as an economy of material rewards

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10On this type of domination, see Bourdieu 1977, 18997, esp. 19091.11Polyb. 5.26.1213. Walbank 19701979, 1.55960, notes that the calculation-board

known as the Salamis tablet has a series of columns for monetary calculations that rangefrom a bronze coin to a talent.

12

The kings behavior was constrained to some extent by the rules of the game,and courtiers could and did pursue their own goals: see Habicht 1958, 912; Herman 1997,21213, 22022; Weber 1997, 4243, 5861. Cf. Duindam 1994 and 2004, who has arguedthat Elias model exaggerates the power of the monarch and underestimates the level ofmutual negotiation between court and monarch.

and honor (especially the prestige-fetishes of royal proximity) given in

return for service and loyalty.10Remarking on the vagaries of court life,Polybius summed up the Hellenistic court of his day with a wonderfulspatial and economic metaphor: he observed that courtiers are likepebbles on reckoning-boards . . . at the will of the reckoner they are nowworth a bronze coin and now worth a talent.11His view is thoroughlysteeped in a Greek anti-tyrannical discourse that emphasizes the servilityand dependence of courtiers, and one must take him with a grain of salt.Whatever the insecurities of their position, those on the board were ableto compete for the power, status, and wealth that flowed from proximity

to the king in this privileged space.12The question remains, however, as to whether non-Greeks and non-

Macedonians were kept off Polybius reckoning-board and excluded fromthe space of the court. In the case of Ptolemaic Egypt, the usual pictureof the Hellenistic court as a space produced and occupied by a limited,ethnically homogeneous Hellenic elite does not adequately account forchanges in the court over time. The best counterpoint to this model isthe group of Egyptians who held the title syngenesand who took partin the spatial practices of the late Ptolemaic court at Alexandria, or atthe very least represented this space and its practices in the documentsthey produced. Following Lefebvres analysis of the production of space,these indigenous elites contributed to the (re)production, and even thetransformation, of the space of the court as they brought back theirrepresentations of the court to the chora. The statues of these Egyptiankinsmen wearing themitraof their rank in the forecourts of temples, alongwith Greek and Egyptian epigraphic evidence, show that the indigenouselites who (at least discursively) circulated between Alexandria and Upper

Egypt created a transcultural space that was critical for maintaining thepower of the Ptolemaic state in the Egyptian choraduring the troubledconditions of the second and first centuries.

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20 IAN S. MOYER

13On the revolt, see Pestman 1995; McGing 1997, 28589; Vesse 2004, 1126, 8599.14Mooren 1977, 5458; 1981, 300.15For this modification of Moorens thesis, see Savalli-Lestrade 1998, 37173: she

notes that Agathocles sought to defeat his opponents at court by having them sent awayon various missions (Polyb. 15.25.2021), and that the rivalry between Sosibius, Ptolemaiosand their supporters, and the regent Tlepolemos and his supporters, encapsulated a conflict

between an aristocratie de cour and an aristocratie de fonction. See also Herman1997, 214, who points outthat Polybius account of the reign of Ptolemy IV reveals divi-sions between the courtiers proper, those who administered the country, and those whoconducted affairs outside Egypt (Polyb. 5.34; 5.40.23). A divide existed, too, between thosewho built up their power within the court and those who had the support of the military(5.36.4). Cf. Mooren 1985, who analyzed the factions at court in this period solely on the

2. THE EGYPTIAN KINSMEN OF THE KING

The title syngeneswas part of a new, more elaborate articulation of thespace of the court that first emerged early in the second century duringthe reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes (204180). In its initial form, the newsystem included ranks that were familiar from earlier Macedonian andPtolemaic court societies: there were friends, bodyguards, successors,and other gradations based on these concepts. In his fundamental work onthe Ptolemaic hierarchy, Mooren (1977, 1973) argued that it was createddeliberately by Aristomenes, the regent and guardian of the young king,

or by his successor in that role, Polycrates. The creation took place at atime when the Ptolemaic state was in a weak position and facing variousthreats, including a major revolt in Upper Egypt which had resulted inthe secession of the Thebaid under the independent rule of the Egyptianpharaohs Horwennefer and Anchwennefer (207186).13

In Moorens view, the system was aimed primarily at the bureau-cracy and was intended to strengthen the connections between the kingand his officials by extending the honor of court titles to them.14On theother hand, the new system was also a reform of the court itself, whichhad just emerged from a period of intrigue and conflict centered on ten-sions between an inner and an outer court; that is, between factionsand individual courtiers permanently at the palace and those friends ofthe king who fulfilled administrative or military functions elsewhere andwere only intermittently in his presence. In the context of such tensions,the new hierarchy of titles served to rationalize the system of honors andprivileges in an increasingly large and complex court, while also integrat-ing more thoroughly those royal agents stationed at a distance from the

palace, thereby fostering the loyalty of Ptolemaic officials and extendingthe space of the court beyond Alexandria.15After the troubled reign of

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basis of familial relations. On divisions between inner and outer courts more generally,see Weber 1997, 3738, 53; Spawforth 2007, 8, 18, 23, 8485.

16Cf. the discussions of ceremonial and social distance in Elias 2006, 11013; Duin-dam 1994, 13334.

17Mooren 1977, 3941. Despite the absence of earlier evidence either within Egypt oroutside, Mooren (21) suggested thatsyngeneswas part of the original hierarchy; but it doesseem to have undergone further development in the reign of Ptolemy VI and afterwards

(2124), so the later addition ofsyngenes

cannot be excluded.18Although Mooren 1977 argued that a direct connection between court rank andofficial position was in place from the start, it probably developed in a more adhocwaythrough accumulated precedents, rather than as a set of fixed rules (see Thomas 1983).

19Mooren 1975b; 1977 (see discussion below); 1978; 1981, 299301; 1985, 222. For amore balanced view of Ptolemaic elite society, see Rowlandson 2007.

Ptolemy IV and his murder, and the under-age succession of Ptolemy V,

the multiplication of ranks in the hierarchy may also have served to mag-nify Ptolemaic kingship as an institutionalized social position. Orientedby proximity to the king as the source of all prestige, the hierarchy notonly elevated courtiers, but it also increased the social distance betweenthe king and those on the periphery or completely outside the courtstopography of value.16

Although the hierarchy was undoubtedly the intentional creation ofa particular moment, Moorens careful prosopographical study reveals itto have been subject later to piecemeal and adhocprocesses of develop-

ment. The new system began with at least five titles but was expanded overtime; by the first century it included eight ranks. The title syngenes, thepinnacle of the hierarchy and an entirely novel court title, is not attesteduntil the reign of Ptolemy VI Philometor (180145). Royal kinship hadobviously existed before, and there were literal kinsmen of the king whohad been important at court, but up to that point the title syngeneshadnot been conferred as a fictive status in the Ptolemaic kingdom.17Overtime, the court-title held by a Ptolemaic official also began to correlatewith his importance and power in the administration of Egypt, and afterabout 145 this connection was relatively consistent.18From 135, to chooseone apposite example, the strategoiof the Thebaid all bore the title ofsyngenes.

Not long afterwards, indigenous Egyptiansyngeneisbegin to appearin the evidence. Their numbers and significance, however, have generallybeen underestimated, and Egyptians are a negligible presence in mostdiscussions of the Ptolemaic court.19In particular, while Moorens pro-sopographical work on the court hierarchy is fundamental (as mentioned

above), his survey omitted a number of Egyptians who held the rank

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22 IAN S. MOYER

20See Mooren 1975b, 3334; 1975a, 23637. For the arguments in favor of the equiva-lence, see Yoyotte 1969, 135; 1989, 8384 (drawing on Meulenaere 1963, 91); Guermeur2000, 74; Gorre 2009, 46162.

21By comparison, in Moorens catalog (1975b) there are thirteen syngeneis withEgyptian names: nos. 058, 0120, 0123, 0124, 0127, 0128, 0129, 0132, 0138, 0148, 0341, 0342,0343; Mooren 1981, 301, n. 73, acknowledges seven of these as Egyptians. Many of the otherEgyptiansyngeneisare included in the prosopography compiled by Gorre 2009, i.e., his nos.4, 5/6, 8, 11, 29, 30, 32, 38, 76. The remaining five Egyptiansyngeneisare mentioned by Gorre(17, 20, 45, 47, 52, 141) but are not included in his prosopography. I list them by referencenumber in the ProsopographiaPtolemaica(PP) where possible: Psais (PPVIII 301c; III/IX 5708); Kalasiris, son of Monkores (PPI/VIII 266, II 2118, III 5627); Monkores II, sonof Pamonthes-Plenis (Farid 1995, 297; O.Strass.dem. 631; O.Theb.dem. 22); Ptolemaios,son of Ptolemaios/Pa-sher-pa-khy (Farid 1992, 10514); swd=f-p-, son of Ptolemaios/

Pa-sher-pa-khy (Farid 1992, 10514). I exclude from this count foursyngeneis

who appearto have been ethnically Greek, but adopted Egyptian language or cultural practices, orboth: Eraton, Plato the Younger, Dorion, and Aristonikos (Gorre 2009, nos. 2, 24, 54, 75).Another possible example is the syngenesAsclepiades, who also bears the Egyptian title(= mrm,general), and is perhaps to be identified with Mooren 1975b, no. 0264(see Quaegebeur 1989, 167).

of syngenes. The main reason is that he did not accept the equivalence

between the Greeksyngenesand the Egyptian version of the title, sn ny-sw.t(brother of the king), an equivalence now confirmed and generallyaccepted.20By counting up all the figures that Mooren studied, togetherwith individuals from demotic and hieroglyphic texts excluded by him orunknown to him, I have so far gathered twenty-six Egyptian individualswho held the titlesyngenes, almost all of them connected to the Thebanregion.21This total is a figure that represents about 20 percent of all thesyngeneisattested in Ptolemaic Egypt.

My criteria for identifying Egyptian ethnicity are crude but defen-

sible in this case. The individuals I have identified all have Egyptiannames, and most are attested in demotic or hieroglyphic Egyptian texts.Determining ethnicity on the basis of names is, of course, an uncertainbusiness, especially in later Ptolemaic Egypt, but many of these twenty-six Egyptian syngeneisare attested in Egyptian-language commemora-tive inscriptions or show other signs of affiliation with Egyptian culture.As to those only appearing as Egyptian names in Greek sources, it isimportant to recall Willy Clarysses argument (1985) that Egyptian orbicultural individuals often adopted Greek names and used them whenworking in the Greek linguistic and cultural context of the Ptolemaicadministration; in consequence, Egyptians are likely to be underrepre-sented in official Greek sources. Given this likelihood, 20 percent is asignificant proportion, and it poses a challenge to the idea of the ethnic

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22Courtiers with Egyptian names or other possible Egyptian ethnic indicia: Santo-bithys, (PPI 326); Chomenis, (leader of native troops) and also (Mooren 1975b, no. 0213); Isidotos, and (Mooren

1975b, no. 0214); Inaros, (Mooren 1975b, no. 0226); Herodes (priest ofEgyptian temples at Elephantine, Abaton, Philae), and (Gorre 2009, no. 1); Apollonios Euergetes (member of an Egyptian family), (Gorre 2009, no. 5; see also Mooren 1975b, 161); Dioscourides (Egyptian mother; buriedin Egyptian sarcophagus), (Gorre 2009, no. 50). Others to be consideredinclude Ptolemaios (bearer of the Egyptian title ()/ph. ry-db), (Quaegebeur1989, 161, 167), and Pelaias (bearer of the title my-btpynny-sw.tbty, perhaps translating (Gorre 2009, no. 82; see next note).

23The title , for example, is transliterated into demotic (Clarysse1987, 21) and hieroglyphic (Collombert 2000, 48). The title is translated

directly into hieroglyphic Egyptian as ntymy.wmy-b.wtpnH. m.f(who is among the firstfriends of the king, Philae II, line 4; Sethe 1904, 2.217, line 6); cf. the title of Pelaias inthe previous note. The fragmentary demotic version of the Philae text appears to read ntyhn[w]nn[.w](who is among those who are good [or esteemed?]).

24Demotic variants listed in Clarysse 1987, 2930; see also Farid 1989, 15960, fordemotic and hieroglyphic attestations.

exclusivity of the court hierarchy. But what can these numbers really tell

us about the actual presence and participation of Egyptians in the socialspace of the court?There is one glaring peculiarity in the evidence that suggests cau-

tion is required in attempting to answer this question: by far the larg-est number of Egyptians with court-titles hold the title syngenes, thehighest in the hierarchy. All the known Egyptians (defined by the samerough criteria above) who held lower titles amount to less than a thirdthe number of the syngeneis.22It seems implausible that this imbalancereflects the actual distribution. Perhaps the lower ranks are underrepre-

sented because they or their families lacked the resources to produce thedurable, monumental commemorations that document so many of theEgyptian syngeneis. This is a reasonable conjecture, but another answermay lie in the title of syngenesitself, and its successful translation intothe Egyptian language and its representational contexts. Among all thetitles in the court hierarchy of the second and first centuries, it is the onlyone for which a new Egyptian counterpart was created.23

Egyptian versions of the title show a range of linguistic approachesto incorporating it into the Egyptian language. At times, syngenes wastransliterated phonetically into either the demotic or hieroglyphic scriptand marked by a determinative as a foreign word (e.g., >snynys).24There are also, as already mentioned, translations of the terminto equivalent phrases such as sn ny-sw.t (brother of the king) in

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29For these distinctions, see Mooren 1977, 3841, 4648; he is followed by Weber1997, 5357; Samuel 1993, 18587.

30Savalli-Lestrade 1998, 36873, argues that the new system of titles applied to thecourt as well as the administration. Mooren 1977, 48, addressed the exceptions that blurhis distinction by arguing that those real friends who held honorific titles did so only byvirtue of their office; but that begs the question, from whom did they receive their com-missions? As Thomas 1983 points out, a number of cases suggest that adhoc decisionscould be made in the case of particular appointments to office and court rank, perhaps bythe king. There is also a problem of evidence: honorific title-holders tend to appear in

Ptolemaic administrative documents, but real friends only in literary sources that givesufficient details of interaction with the kingand these sources are less plentiful for thesecond and first centuries. This said, the one substantial contemporary literary descriptionof the later Ptolemaic court, the LetterofAristeas (discussed further below), mentionstwo figures who are in direct contact with the king and bear the honorific title archiso-matophylax(12, 40).

Before taking up that task, however, let me anticipate an objection

that could be made to my attempt to locate Egyptian elites in the socialspace of the Ptolemaic court: namely, that these individuals only appearrelatively late in Ptolemaic history, when the nature of the court hadchanged and titles had become honorificin other words, when theyno longer necessarily signified the effective or real relations betweenthe king and his friends that had constituted the third-century court andstill continued to shape the inner court at Alexandria.29This argumentposits that, despite the restructuring of the court hierarchy, there was acontinuing divide between those courtiers in the administration and those

associated with the royal household in Alexandria. In fact, actual proxim-ity to the king probably did still count for something, but the distinctionbetween honorific title-holders and real friends is not so clear-cut. Thekings friends in the older sense could acquire a formal title in the newhierarchy either while at the court itself or by virtue of appointment tosome administrative or military position that sent them away from it.30In any case, literary sources do in fact mention three examples of Egyp-tians directly connected to the monarch. Around 165, the Egyptian rebelDionysius Petoserapis, described as one of the friends of the king andwielding considerable influence at court, began his attempt to gain powerin Egypt through court intrigues at Alexandria, before withdrawing to thesouth to incite armed rebellion there. In 142, an Egyptian by the nameof Ptolemy Sympetesis was given the extraordinary command of all ofCyrene (probably as strategos) by Ptolemy VIII himself. Although nospecific title is mentioned, this is around the time when the court hierarchybecame linked with positions in the administration, so he would presum-ably have acquired some sort of court-title in his new position. Near the

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26 IAN S. MOYER

31Dionysius Petoserapis: Diod. Sic. 31.15a (see McGing 1997, 28995; Vesse 2004,2744, 99112); Ptolemy Sympetesis: Polyb. 31.18.6 (see Walbank 19701979, 3.486); Achillas:Plut. Pomp.77. On Dionysius Petoserapis and Achillas, see Rowlandson 2007, 41.

32Cairo CG 700331; London BM EA 1668. Derchain 2000, 16, 2231, 4453; Lloyd

2002, 12327; Rowlandson 2007, 44. There is some disagreement as to how to read thename. Though Derchain 2000, 22, reads the signs as Snw-r, Lloyd 2002, 123, and n. 24,prefers Snn-ps(w). I follow Guermeur 2003, 336: Snw.w. The argument of Gorre 2009, 118,that the title mr-pr p.t-ny-sw.t refers to a cult position in Coptos is not convincing; seeLloyd 2002, 12427.

33See esp. Lefebvre 1991, 3646.

end of the Ptolemaic period, an Egyptian named Achillas appears as one

of the chief advisors to Ptolemy XIII.31Finally in this connection, there is also evidence that a few Egyptianshad positions (formal or not) at the third-century court. Individuals likeSenu, the governor of Coptos, a close advisor to Ptolemy II Philadelphuswho also held the position (real or honorific) of overseer of the royalhousehold (mr-pr p.t-ny-sw.t) of Arsinoe,32suggest that Manetho of Seben-nytos, the priest, historian, and Ptolemaic advisor, was not as exceptionalas once thought. These are all suggestive examples, but in much of theevidence to be discussed below, the formal, even formulaic, nature of the

texts makes it difficult to determine the real extent to which Egyptiansyngeneiswere integrated into the social space of the Ptolemaic court.Nevertheless, it was part of their discourse of self-representation. To useLefebvres terms of analysis, their representations of space, their evocationof the representational space of the court in defining their social status,and their concrete spatial practices, all contributed to the production ofthe courts social space.33

3. EGYPTIANS AT COURT:REPRESENTATIONS OF SPATIAL PRACTICE

In Polybius, as mentioned above, the members of the Ptolemaic courtare denominated (the courtiers) or (thosearound the court). Their name and their social existence are derivedfrom the (the court)or indeed the palace, since the word was used to describe the entire royal residence at Alexandria. This wasperhaps more than a simple synecdoche. The palace and its proper

denizens were so closely entwined that calling the palace the court couldalso function as a metonymy: the palace was the particular space of thecourtiers. But how was this social space produced, and how did it func-tion to reproduce the social relations that it embodied? The physical

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34Goddio 1998, esp. 4350; also Yoyotte, Charvet, and Gompertz 1997, 8485.35Elias 2006, 4547.36See Nielsen 1994, 1920, 133, on the governors palaces at Tyrus and Ptolemais.

Note also Callixenus description of the Thalamegus(Ath. 5.204d206d), and the palaceof Aetes in Colchis (Ap. Rhod. Argon.3.21534).

details of the palace are difficult to reconstruct. Despite the intriguing

finds of the underwater survey led by Franck Goddio, the remains ofthe palace quarter at Alexandria have revealed little of its Ptolemaiclayout.34 Nevertheless, the archaeological evidence does give a senseof the density and scale of the construction in the area, to some extentconfirming Strabos description of the monumentality of the palaces atAlexandria a few years after Octavians defeat of Antony and Cleopatra(17.1.8, adapted from Loeb):

The city contains the finest public precincts and also the royal palaces,

which constitute one-fourth or even one-third of the whole circuit of thecity; for just as each of the kings, from love of splendor, was in the habitof somehow beautifying the public monuments further, so also he wouldinvest himself at his own expense with a residence, in addition to thosealready built, so that now, to quote the words of the poet, there is build-ing upon building.

The palace quarter that Strabo saw was the end result of three centuriesof the production and reproduction of the particular space of the Ptole-

maic monarchy and the society through which and over which this systemruled, including, of course, the court. Other literary sources provide somefurther glimpses of its space and spatial practices, especially the socialdistances measured out by the ceremonies of entre and audience thatunfolded in the massive complex of the palace.

Polybius account of the events leading to the death of Agathoclesat the hands of the Alexandrian mob in 203 reveals that the palace ofthat era had at least three gates leading to its interior, as well as a specialentrance for official audiences, known as the chrematistikospylonor busi-

ness gate (15.31). As in other court societies, the kings residence andhousehold were the mediating space through which he ruled his subjectsand administered the kingdom.35The chrematistikospylonof the palaceat Alexandria was likely a monumental portal similar to the colonnadedpropylaionof Ptolemy IVs massive, palatial Nile barge (the Thalame-gus), or to the faades of better preserved Hellenistic governors palaces,although undoubtedly on an even more impressive scale.36Polybius alsodescribes a monumental courtyard that was used for audiences with

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37Polyb. 15.25.3: . Nielsen 1994, 20, 130, suggests thatthis occurred in front of the chrematistikospylon.

38Polyb. 5.81.5. See Spawforth 2007, 9497, for particular attention to the ceremonial

tents in which Alexander conducted business and sat in judgment.39This is the most favored date, but the issue continues to be debated; see, in brief,Fraser 1972, 1.696700, 2.97072, n. 121; Collins 2000, 9899. Particularly relevant here arethe references to archisomatophylax(n. 30 above), suggesting that the author has in mindthe court hierarchy of the second and first centuries.

4017375; trans. adapted from R. J. Shutt in Charlesworth 1985.

large numbers of people: the largest peristyle in the palace, where the

self-appointed regents Agathocles and Sosibius announced the deaths ofPtolemy IV and Arsinoe III to the household troops and soldiers stationedin Alexandria.37The space of the palace and its official functions also hadto be mobile. When on campaign, Ptolemy IV had a conspicuous andofficial tent (epiphaneskaichrematistikeskene) in which he dined andconducted his business, perhaps in the manner that Alexander had donea few generations before.38

The chrematistikospylon and the chrematistikeskene were notmerely points of access; they were portals through which access was

controlled, and in which the relations of power between the king andthose who approached him were enacted. The pseudonymous LetterofAristeasprovides some rare insights into the ceremonial constraints onaccess to the later Ptolemaic court. Although this text purports to bea contemporary account of the translation of the Torah into Greek byseventy-two Jewish scholars at the court of Ptolemy II (28246), it wascomposed in the second half of the second century by an author whowas likely a Jewish resident of Alexandria;39 several details show thathe was very familiar with the Ptolemaic court and administration in theperiod roughly contemporary with the earliest of the Egyptiansyngeneis.When recounting the scholars reception at the palace, the narrator ofthe letter describes how the king, in his enthusiasm to meet them, waivedthe usual protocol:

When we reached Alexandria, news of our arrival was given to the king.Andreas and I were introduced to the court, we paid our warm respects tothe king, and we presented the letters from Eleazar. The king was anxiousto meet the members of the deputation, so he gave orders to dismiss all the

other officials, and to summon these delegates. The unprecedented nature ofthis step was very clear to all, because it was custom that those who arrivedregarding business (chrematismos) should come into the presence of theking on the fifth day after their arrival, while representatives of kings orimportant cities were rarely admitted to the court within thirty days.40

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41Elias 2006, 9195. Note the exclusion of Apelles from the royal quarters of PhilipV, with immediate and devastating consequences for his social prestige (Polyb. 5.26.911;Herman 1997, 216).

42Cairo JE 46059. See Bianchi 1976; 1978; Kaiser 1999 (dating the emergence ofthis type to ca. 125).

43Daressy 1917, 9193; Meulenaere 1959, 3, 1011, 24 (dating); Knel 1984, 14245,no. 64; Abdalla 1994, 811, fig. 3, pl. V; Gorre 2009, no. 8.

44Cairo JE 46059, col. 2: wdpr(f)pr-ny-sw.tntnntwfh. h. msm-bh. h. mf.45

Cairo CG 690. Gorre 2009, 133, transliterates the phrase wrh. swm stp-s

,h.

t mpr-nswand translates as grand favori du palais, admis dans la demeure royale, followingDaressy 1893, 15960. Borchardts entry in the CatalogueGnraldiffers; following it, Itransliterate wrh. swmstp-s,k. mpr-nsw(for the writing, see Wilson 1997, 180). See also thestatue of Pelaias from Tanis (Cairo CG 687; see Gorre 2009, no. 82), where the inscriptionrefers to him as my-btpynny-sw.tbty, perhaps a translation of the titleprotosphilos(first

The act of entering the court and coming before the king was constrained

by ceremonial delays of at least two different durations depending on thenature of the visitor. Traversing the distance between the ordinary, out-side world and the king in his court became a ritualized spatio-temporal

journey. All this, of course, heightened the prestige of those who wereregularly in the presence of the king or could claim entre to the court.To use Elias terminology, such distinctions of access and presence becameprestige fetishes indicating the social position of an individual by meansof the spatio-temporal coordinates of the court.41

A few surviving biographical inscriptions of Egyptian syngeneis

show that this prestige-fetish of entre was also a mark of distinctionin the formal commemorative discourses through which Egyptian elitesasserted their social identity. A statue of the Egyptiansyngenes(snny-sw.t)Pachom, discovered in the course of excavations at the temple of Hathor atDenderah (see Plate 1), depicts a high official in the striding draped-malestyle of late Ptolemaic Egyptian sculpture.42The statue has been datedto the late second or early first century. Although found at Denderah,the lacunose inscription indicates that this Pachom wasstrategosat Edfu,serving as the chief administrative official of that nome.43In describingvarious honors granted to him, the hieroglyphic inscription on the backpillar of the statue proclaims that (when) he proceeds to and goes forthfrom the palace, he is not hinderedstanding and sitting in the presenceof His Majesty.44Another inscribed statue of an EgyptiansyngenesfromDenderah makes a briefer claim to the same privilege. Panas, the son ofPsenobastis, who wasstrategosthere at the end of the Ptolemaic period,is described as great of praise in the palace, he who enters the house ofthe king.45The statues of two other first-century syngeneisfrom Upper

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30 IAN S. MOYER

friend). He is described as k. h. m.fmdr.t, trans. by Zivie-Coche 2004, 191, as qui pntrejusqu Sa Majest dans ses appartements (preferable to the reading in Gorre 2009, 419).See Wilson 1997, 124142; Erman and Grapow 19261963, 5.600.

46The inscriptions on two statues of Korax (Cairo JE 45390; Philadelphia 40-19-3)include the phrase wsh -nmt.tm stp-s (wide of stride in the palace, Daressy 1916, 269;

Ranke 1945, 241). Gorre 2009, 125, reads the phrase as wsh

mstp-s

(important au palais),but wsh -nmt.tmakes better sense of the walking-legs sign in both inscriptions. For the ex-pression, see Wilson 1997, 259, and the references below. The statue of Plato the Younger(Cairo JE 48033, back pillar col. 1) calls him wrh. swmpr-nsw,wsh -nmt.tm n(or rw.t?)(great of praise in the palace, wide of stride in the audience chamber); see Coulon 20018889, 91; Gorre 2009, no. 24.

Egypt, Korax and Plato, express the privilege of free movement at courtwith a particularly vivid turn of phrase: they are described as wide ofstride (wsh -nmt.t) in the palace or in the kings audience hall.46The phraseevokes, in a very corporeal way, the image of the courtier walking quicklyand confidently through the space of the court.

Suggestive though the phrase may be, it does not necessarily lead usto the courtiers distinctive bodily habitusat court, let alone his experi-

ence of movement in this space. The formula wsh -nmt.twas not new tothe Ptolemaic period, but is attested at least as early as the 30th Dynasty

Plate 1. The temple of Hathor at Denderah. Photograph by author.

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47Meulenaere 1955, 22930. For the early attestation, see Bayonne, Muse Bonnatno. 498 (Meulenaere 1962, 3334).

48See, for example, Spence 2007, esp. 29091, on the New Kingdom court, and Coulon2002, 1112, on the Middle Kingdom. For the space of the palace (esp. the throne room)described as sacred (dsr) in the New Kingdom, see Hoffmeier 1985, 17783.

(38043).47It, and other expressions of free movement and access to the

palace, were continuations of longstanding Egyptian discourses developedin the context of pharaonic courts. In these earlier courts, as in so manyothers, access and entre were privileges of court rank.48This does notmean, however, that formulaic expressions like wide of stride in thepalace were meaningless archaic survivals of a bygone dayfar from it.While it is impossible to tell from the evidence available whether theseparticularsyngeneisdid actually stride through the gates of the palace, thefact that they situated themselves in the space of the royal court in publicself-representations shows that these statements still had a pragmatic

utility in discourses of identity and social standing. Although archaizingin many respects, late Egyptian modes of elite self-presentation were notmanifestations of an ossified and uncomprehending formalism, but livingtraditions capable of transformation and adaptation; the translation ofthe title syngenesconfirms the point, as does the display of visual signsof court rank discussed below.

4. THE COURT IN THE CHORA

We should bear in mind that these biographical inscriptions proclaimingthe privileges of entre enjoyed by Egyptian syngeneiswere composedfor a very limited audience. Since they were in hieroglyphs, only thosetrained to read and write this ancient script could understand the titlesand honors described. This written discourse, therefore, was effectivelylimited to the elite priestly milieu from which the Egyptian syngeneiscame. There were, however, other audiences and other ways for Egyptiancourtiers to communicate their status. The head of a prominent second-

century family from Edfu commissioned a poet named Herodes to com-pose epitaphs in Greek elegaic couplets for members of his family, whichwere then inscribed on stelae set up in the necropolis of Edfu at Nagel-Hassaia. The name of this patriarch was Ptolemaios, but he also hadthe Egyptian name Pamenches. Jean Yoyotte has perceptively shown that,in addition to their Greek grave stelae, these Edfu notables had stelaeinscribed in hieroglyphs in a traditional Egyptian manner, in which they

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32 IAN S. MOYER

49Yoyotte 1969; see also Clarysse 1985, 6264.50

Cairo CG 9205, lines 38: | , , | | . | | . . .(for the full text, see Bernand 1969, no. 5).

51According to Mooren 1977, 85, the strategoiof the Thebaid bore the title syngenesafter about 135.

went by their Egyptian names and titles.49This was a family that lived

in two worlds, occupying important positions in the Ptolemaic court andadministration, but also in the Egyptian temples at Edfu, Denderah, andelsewhere. Their dual funerary monuments addressed (at least formally)both worlds. In the Greek epitaph of Apollonios, the son of Ptolemaios,the voice of the departed defines his identity and achievements in rela-tion to those of his father:

I am Apollonios, son of famous Ptolemaios, whom the Benefactors hon-ored with the mitra, the sacred perquisite of the kinsmans dignity. Loyalty

took him even into the inner parts of the country and up to the ocean.Therefore, gazing on the fine fame of my father, I felt the urge to reachthe same excellence . . .50

This text proclaims that the Benefactors, Ptolemy VIII Euergetesand his two wives, granted Ptolemaios the title of kinsman and also theemblem of that rank: themitra. Though the Greek epigram is not explicitabout his military and administrative positions, Apollonios hieroglyphicstela refers to him as great chief of the army (mr m wr), chief of

the cavalry (mrsmsm), and first lieutenant of his majesty in the south(dnwtpynh. m=frsh rwm-rsy), so he appears to have held the positionofstrategosof the Thebaid (Cairo CG 22050), one of the most importantposts in the Ptolemaic administration. He also held the court title ofbrother of the king (snny-sw.t)51and therefore would have worn thesame mitraas Ptolemaios.

Father and son communicated their status with a visual symbol thatcould be understood by all, even those unable to read either Egyptianor Greek. Unfortunately, there is hardly any evidence that can provide

information on the contexts in which the Ptolemaicsyngeneiswould havedisplayed the mitrawhile alive. Perhaps a rite of investiture lay behindthe brief reference to the Benefactors honoring Ptolemaios with themitra, a ceremony that is also suggested by the biographical inscriptionon the statue of the syngenesPachom mentioned above:

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52Cairo JE 46059, col. 2 (see n. 43 above for bibliography).53There is one possible exception: a fragmentary letter written in demotic (P.Claude

2, 95 B.C.E.) that describes the gift of a chiton of the Pharaoh and a crown of gold (w.tgtn.t (n) Pr- h. n wglm (n) nwb) from the strategos Ptolion to a certain Horos of thePtolemaic garrison at Pathyris. Unfortunately, there is no mention of the kinsman rank;see Chauveau 2002, 4957.

54His names are known from: the hieroglyphs on the statue; a statue base from Edfuinscribed in Greek (SB I 1560); the demotic inscription on the base of his sons statue(Cairo CG 50047; see further below); and a lintel from Denderah inscribed in hieroglyphs

(Cauville 1991, 79, pl. 32). The name Pakhom (P

hm) refers to Horus in falcon form (seeWilson 1997, 178, for references), thus the Greek is equivalent.55Statue first published by Meulenaere 1959, 1217; see also Stricker 1959, pl. IV, no.

6; 1960, 28; Bothmer 1969, 17879, pls. 12829, figs. 34041, 343; Bianchi 1978, 98100, figs.5960; 1988, 12627; Walker 2001, 18082. Prosopography: PPI.265, 990; III.5711; VIII.301;Mooren 1975b, no. 0127; Gorre 2009, no. 9; see also Farid 1990.

twn.n.f sddf m tr n h rpf (m) hkr.w ny-sw.t wty sn.nw rdnf mh. n swy r

h.tf...52

He [the king] rewarded his speech in the time of his administration (with)royal ornaments without peer. He placed a fillet of gold on his brow . . .

Otherwise, however, the best evidence for the mitraas an emblem of rankis found in statues that were placed in the forecourts of Egyptian templesin Upper Egypt.53No statues are known for Apollonios or Ptolemaios,and the head of the statue of Pachom is missing, but four other statuesof syngeneis, all from the Thebaid, depict their subjects wearing a mitra.In two cases, the head of the statue is still connected to the body, so themitra is plain to see. The statues are all of the striding draped maletype mentioned earlier. This statue-type was a new style of visual self-presentation that emerged around 125 (Kaiser 1999)in other words, atthe same time that Egyptians began to appear in the highest ranks of thecourt hierarchy. In this style, the subject is shown standing with one footforward in the pose of a well-established Egyptian sculptural tradition,but one hand is held at the front of the torso, usually clasping part of anew tripartite costume that is draped over the body: a fringed outer shawlcombined with a short-sleeved tunic and a long wrap-around skirt.

A rough, partly finished statue in this style that is now in the collec-tion of the Detroit Institute of Arts (51.83; see Plate 2) shows a strategosandsyngeneswho isnamed Pachom in Egyptian and Hierax in Greek.54The statue, which was probably set up in the forecourt of the temple ofHathor at Denderah in the middle of the first century, bears a mitra.55Pachom steps forward with his left foot, while his left hand clasps part of afringed outer garment at the front of his body; the right hand is clenched

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34 IAN S. MOYER

Plate 2. Statue of Pachom, ca. 5030B.C.E.

Grey granite. Detroit Instituteof Arts 51.83. Founders Society Purchase, William H. Murphy Fund. TheBridgeman Art Library.

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56Cairo JE 46320 / CG 50047, most recently published by Abdalla 1994, 58, pls. IV,VIIc, fig. 2, but with minor errors in the text (see next note). Earlier discussions: Daressy1919, 18688; Spiegelberg 1922, 8890; 1932, 1920, pl. XI; Rowe 1940, 1718, fig. 2; Meu-lenaere 1959, 36; Bothmer 1969, 157; Dack, 1989, 87. Prosopography: Mooren 1975b, no.0128; PPIII.5688; VIII.292b; Gorre 2009, no. 10.

57According to col. 1 of the inscription, he had control over Edfu, Denderah, Nubia(i.e., the Dodekaschoinos), Philae, El Kab (Eleithyiaspolis), and Hierakonpolis (Kom elAhmar). In Abdalla 1994, 5, his title of syngenes(snyns) has been mistranslated as Esna.

For the correct rendering, see Spiegelberg 1922, 89; 1917, 12829.58Cairo 6/6/22/5 (Farid 1989); see also Gorre 2009, no. 32. On the costume, seeBianchi 1978; 1988, 6667.

59Louvre E 20361. Daressy 1893, 162; Farid 1995, 29697; Gorre 2009, no. 12.60The leopard skin is also worn with the tripartite costume on the statue of the

syngenesPlato (Cairo JE 38033); see Coulon 2001, esp. 87, n. 15.

at his side. Another statue discovered in excavations at Denderah and

now in Cairo depicts the son of Hierax/Pachom, the high official andpriest Pamenches, who wears amitradecorated with rosettes.56This statue,which probably dates to the very end of the Ptolemaic period (ca. 30),is also of the striding draped male type. Like his father, Pamencheswas a syngenes, and also a strategos (mrmwr) with authority over aconsiderable area of Upper Egypt.57

The two other statues of syngeneis wearing mitrai are damaged,but carved on the back pillars of each statue are the loose ends of themitrawhich would have hung down from a knot tied at the back of the

missing head. One of these statues, that of the syngenes Pachompsais,is also from Denderah, and depicts him in the same tripartite costumeas the other statues.58There is, however, a variation in the statue of thesyngenesPamonthes-Plenis,59who was a member of a prominent familyfrom Hermonthis (modern Armant), a short distance to the south ofThebes. On top of the usual garments, he wears a panther skin that wasthe traditional mark of asem-priest (a specialist in funerary rituals) andalso associated with the priesthood of Amun at Thebes.60

This hybrid image of the Theban priest wearing the mitra of ahigh-ranking courtier once again raises the question of the culture andethnicity of the Ptolemaic court. What role, if any, did such distinctionsplay in relations between the Ptolemaic court and the indigenous elite,especially in the case of the priestly courtiers, the Egyptian kinsmen ofthe Macedonian king? The assertion of court status can hardly be takenas a sign of Hellenization in individuals who retained such overt indiciaof their Egyptian affiliations as their language, their names, their religiouspractices, and so forth. Rather, the overlap and interaction between the

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64Quaegebeur 1993. See also Allam 1991, 111, n. 7, 117, 11920; Sauneron 1954;Clarysse 2000, 54. Coulon 2001, 107, has suggested that Plato the Younger (Gorre 2009, no. 24)received oracles from Amun while conducting judicial business in the temple forecourt.

the kinsman was a transcultural sign, not one limited to a single cultures

frame of reference. Like those who wore it, the mitracould move freelywithin and between at least two privileged spaces of social practice andrepresentation. The Egyptian syngeneis described here not only hadaccess to the space of the court, but they were also priests of the divini-ties at Edfu, Armant, Thebes, Denderah, and elsewhere, and as such hadthe privilege of passing through the gates of the temples (near to whichtheir stone likenesses stood) and on into sacred space. The statues of thesyngeneiswere placed in the forecourts of the temples, a liminal spacethat played multiple roles for the inhabitants of the Egyptian chora.

In addition to serving as the site of various rites which they may haveattended, and at which thesyngeneismay have officiated as priests, it wasthe same monumental space where the kinsmen of the king, in theirrole asstrategoi, would at times have carried out their own chrematismosof receiving petitioners and exercising judicial functions.64Here, in thisspace that mediated between the profane world and the more sacred andsecluded parts of the temple properan area, moreover, accessible on atleast some occasions to the wider populationthe mitrawas a perfectlyintelligibleclaim to the prestige and power that emanated from accessto the kings court. Through the brothers of the king who wore it, theinhabitants of the choraexperienced a mediated and distant connectionto the king himself.

CONCLUSION

As mentioned earlier, kinsmen first appear in texts dated to the reignof Ptolemy VI Philometor as part of a system of court-titles originally

created under Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The elaboration of this new hier-archy of honorific titles was part of an internal political reform under-taken in response to the crises that the Ptolemaic kingdom faced at thetime: instability within the court, external threats from the Seleucid andAntigonid kingdoms, and, of course, revolt in Upper Egypt. The newtitles both extended the reach of the court into the choraand added tothe prestige and authority of the officeholders who were carrying outthe kings business there. This symbolic effort was especially importantin the Thebaidalongside, indeed, the more substantive changes in its

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65See Vesse 2004, 18183. Later in the Ptolemaic period, the offices of epistrategos

andstrategos

of the Thebaid may have been combined, or (if separate) commonly held bya single person. See Huss 2001, 52526.66Research for this article was supported in the first instance by a generous grant from

the Mellon Foundation and membership at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Ialso thank Ann Russman and her staff for their assistance while consulting the Corpus ofLate Egyptian Sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum.

administration that followed the restoration of Ptolemaic control there

in 186: the creation of an epistrategosbased in Ptolemas with authorityover the chora, and the administration of the Thebaid as a single unit byastrategossuperior to thestrategoigoverning its various nomes.65Startingduring the reign of Ptolemy VIII, local indigenous elites regularly heldthis high position as the governor of the Thebaid or served as strategoiof multiple nomes, and they therefore played crucial roles in the exten-sion and maintenance of Ptolemaic power in the south. They did so askinsmen or even brothers of the king (if the Egyptian translationsare taken literally), the most exalted members of the court hierarchy.

Fictive kinship with the king extended the social space of thePtolemaic court to the critical and sometimes turbulent Theban regionand to the Egyptians who increasingly exercised the states power there.The surviving statues of some syngeneisshow that this expansion of thecourt was made visible in the choraby a new transcultural practice: thegrant of amitraas a sign of their kinship with the king and their integra-tion into the imagined social space of his court. The Egyptian identitiesof the kinsmen show that the ethnic and cultural boundaries of theherrschendeGesellschaftwere quite porous in the Ptolemaic state duringthis period. At the same time, the display of the mitraon statues set up inthe forecourt of Egyptian temples or near theirpropylaia, together withthe integration of the title into the Egyptian language and its graphictraditions, reveals that membership in the court did not necessarily involveHellenization or assimilation. The alliance between indigenous elites andthe Ptolemaic court could be forged in an imagined transcultural spaceat the intersection of two privileged spacesthat of the temple and thatof the courta space that stretched from the palace in Alexandria to

temple forecourts far in the south.

66

UNIVERSITYOFMICHIGAN, ANNARBOR

e-mail: [email protected]

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