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Document Details : Title: Imperial Pork Subtitle: Preparations for a Visit of Severus Alexander and Iulia Mamaea to Egypt Author(s): VAN MINNEN, P. , SOSIN, J.D. Journal: Ancient Society Volume: 27 Date: 1996 Pages: 171-181 DOI: 10.2143/AS.27.0.632402 Abstract : In this article we present a papyrus from Oxyrhynchus kept in the Special Collections Library at Duke University. It records preparations for an upcoming visit of the emperor Severus Alexander and his mother Iulia Mamaea to Egypt. Evidence for a projected visit has emerged only recently. Whether the visit ever materialized is unknown. Just twenty years ago J.D. Thomas and W. Clarysse published a papyrus from the University of Michigan collection containing instructions to the strategi and the royal scribes of Middle Egypt regarding preparations for the visit. The Duke papyrus provides evidence that these preparations were indeed carried out at the local level in Middle Egypt. Even more interesting is the light it throws on the organization of the preparations for the imperial visit and on the average weight of pigs in Roman Egypt. Aurelius Onnophris alias Lykarion, epimeletesof pigs from the village of Paomis in the Oxyrhynchite nome, informs the strategus under oath that he has forty pigs ready. He submits what seem to be duplicate declarations to the strategus directly and apparently not through the village scribe of Paomis. This seems to contrast with the administrative structure in evidence for other imperial visits. More interestingly the papyrus gives the weight of the forty pigs, two thousand Roman pounds. This raises a number of practical issues: how did the epimeletes establish the weight of the pigs and how did he maintain it until the pigs were ordered to the nome capital, where the imperial visitors and their retinue were presumably to be fed and entertained? |
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