A world full of associations: Rules and Community Values in Early Roman Egypt

Langellotti, M

doi:10.1017/9781009281317.009

A world full of associations: Rules and Community Values in Early Roman Egypt

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Micaela Langellotti

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Abstract

This chapter investigates the nature of the relations between the rules of professional associations and the shaping of community values in early Roman Egypt. Using as a case-study the village of Tebtynis, in the modern Fayum region, from where we have three sets of regulations for three different associations (of a non-identified association; of the farmers of the imperial estate of Claudius, so-called apolysimoi; and of the salt-merchants, halopolai), and other contemporary documents from the same site, the aim of this chapter is twofold: first, to identify the values embedded in the regulations of the professional associations of early Roman Egypt and establish how far these values reflected those of the local community; second, to determine whether these rules aimed to create a well-ordered society (and whether they succeeded in doing so).