and of his own reply in justification of himself, and asking Zeno to use his good offices with the great man as soon as he could find a favourable opportunity. Apollonius, either because he distrusted Panacestor's capacity, or because he had resolved henceforth to pay more attention to his estate and thought it expedient to have his best man on the spot, shortly afterwards despatched Zeno to Philadelphia and placed him in supreme control.

From this date Zeno continued, save for brief absences, to live at Philadelphia, and at Philadelphia he presumably died, since it was on the site of the village that his papers were found. The wider horizons, Syria or Asia Minor, now fade out save for occasional references; even Alexandria is a little remote ; interest is concentrated on the narrower sphere of local affairs in the Fayum or at Memphis. Nevertheless the collection does not lose its value. The papers, forming the bulk of it, written after Zeno's removal to Philadelphia are a priceless source of information for the economic history of Egypt in the third century B.C., and they are by no means lacking in human interest.

Philadelphia, as the name implies, was a new foundation, or possibly an older village renamed and refounded. The estate, though it included fertile land, clearly required a very extensive system of drainage and land reclamation. Hence Zeno was kept very busy, and we are enabled to follow in detail the various operations which go to the organisation from a quite elementary stage of a great domain: the surveying and valuing, the draining and embanking, the importation of gangs of labourers, not only from Egypt but from abroad,* experiments in scientific agriculture and stock-breeding, the establishment of new industries, extensive building operations, and so forth. One letter refers to the building of temples to Isis, to Serapis and to the Dioscuri; another instructs Zeno to show a distinguished visitor named Anticritus round the town and point out the features of interest. Naturally all this machinery did not at all times work smoothly. A good illustration of this fact is afforded by the justificatory letter of Panacestor just referred to :

I got to Philadelphia (he writes) on Phamenoth 16 and at once wrote to Zoilus and Zopyrion and the royal scribes to join me that we

*We hear for example of a gang of Troglodytes employed on the

estate.

: 1926 A GREEK ADVENTURER IN EGYPT

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might carry out your instructions. Zoilus was on tour with Telestes and could not get away; the royal scribes and Zopyrion's man Paues came in 12 days' time. With them we surveyed the land, classifying it by farmers and by crops, in five days, and then sent for the farmers and read them your concessions, urging them to make their valuation in accordance with the directions in your memorial or in agreement with us to make contracts under seal (?). They asked for time to think it over and four days later took sanctuary and refused to make any valuation, fair or unfair, saying they would rather renounce their right to the crops, on the ground that they had an agreement with you to pay a third of the produce. Well, I and Damis argued and argued with them but effected nothing; so we went to Zoilus and asked him to go with us, but he said he was too busy sending off the sailors. So we went back to Philadelphia and after 3 days decided, since they would not value in accordance with your memorial or make any advance, to ask them to present whatever lower valuation they thought fit; and they gave us the one we have already sent you.

We see from this letter that strikes were known even in ancient Egypt, and indeed we have several references to them both in this collection and elsewhere. In one of the British Museum papyri Pataecion reports to Zeno a strike among his goatherds; at Florence is preserved a petition, probably addressed to Zeno, in which a slave-girl declares: "I am worn out with carrying wood and stacking it (?), but I don't want to go on strike as the other girls do when they are unjustly treated: but for my part I know how you hate injustice!"

Of course people did not, in the ancient world any more than to-day, strike for the mere fun of the thing, and there were doubtless genuine grievances at work. The native farmers referred to in Panacestor's letter had probably good reasons for hesitating to sign an advance valuation of their crops on the terms dictated by Apollonius. Some peasants imported from the Heliopolite nome to cultivate 1000 arourae of Apollonius's estate, perhaps the very persons mentioned by Panacestor, complain bitterly in two London papyri of the conduct of Damis, as also of " another scribe, an Egyptian, one of the bad sort," they put it. "There are," they declare, "lots of blunders in connexion with the 10,000 arourae, because there is no agricultural expert. Call some of us up and hear what we have to say."

There is perhaps in this last complaint a touch of the hostility always felt by the old-fashioned practical farmer towards newfangled ideas; the scientific agriculture of their new masters was

very likely not any more to the taste of the Egyptians than is English control to modern Egyptians.

I referred just now to a slave-girl working on the land, but most of the slave-girls we hear of in these papyri were employed in the woollen industry. The native Egyptian wool was poor, and Apollonius, no doubt with the encouragement and perhaps at the suggestion of the King, resolved to improve the breed by importation from abroad. We learn that there were on the estate both Milesian and Arabian sheep, two specially fine breeds. The unfortunate animals of the first breed were not only compelled to wear clothing through the hot Egyptian summer with a view to protecting their wool, but had their wool plucked out by hand instead of being shorn. Apollonius also established a wool factory at Memphis.

The Greek factory system did not however supersede the small-scale individual industry. An interesting memorial to Zeno gives us some insight into the latter, and incidentally shows that our modern advertising methods are not so modern as might be thought

To Zeno, greeting from Apollophanes and Demetrius, experts in the weaving of women's woollen garments of every description. If you approve and require our services, we shall be glad to serve you. We have heard of the fame of your city [this reference to the newlyfounded village of Philadelphia betrays the advertising expert] and what an excellent, fair-minded head it has in you, and so we resolved to come to Philadelphia to you, both ourselves and our mother and our wives. [The scribe has inadvertently written wife.] Please therefore grant us an audience, that we may get to work. We are prepared to make, if you desire, cloaks, tunics, girdles, mantles, sword-belts, bed-wraps (?), and, of women's garments, tunics open at the side, embroidered wraps (?), plain robes, purple-edged robes; and to give instruction if desired. Instruct Nicias to assign us quarters. Don't be surprised at our request; we can give you references, some here, people of standing, and others at Moithymis.

Philadelphia was also the scene of a rug-weaving industry; and one of the weavers, probably the foreman, writes to Zeno to complain of a fellow-workman :—

Returning to my report on Nechthembis the rug-weaver, who is an agitator, it proves to be true that he has stopped work on the rugs. The one weighed yesterday, though still moist, was 6 minas underweight. He has done things even worse than this, for which, if care to look into them, he deserves to have his hands cut off. He has

you

a

A

C

made the rugs a cubit too short and too narrow by two palms, so that they won't fit the couch. . . . Moreover he has corrupted the other weavers also. If you will allow me to tender samples in competition with them I will let you have two rugs over and above the 14. When he knew that I was laying information against him, he was preparing to make off yesterday, but I seized him and had him taken to prison.

The sentence about competition with the other workmen suggests that this memorial was dictated by something more than a disinterested desire for justice. There was in fact a general eagerness among the workmen of the Fayum and neighbouring districts to use the opportunity afforded by the exploitation of the new estate for turning an honest penny for themselves. We have seen the woollen weavers offering their services. In another papyrus we find some linen weavers doing the same, with a statement of their terms and the explanation, to justify their demand, that "each piece requires three workmen and one woman, and is completed in six days." Again, a potter offers to supervise the pot-making, and adds :

You must know that the potters slander me: they say that I am always writing to you with unprofitable accusations against them. But don't take any notice of them; I shall never cease sending you any information that may be of advantage to you. And indeed, whereas I have delivered to Anosis jars to the capacity of 2000 ceramia the other potters have not, but they look askance on me.

Along with all this information on economic and administrative matters, side-products as it were of the busy enterprise that was going on, we get interesting little glimpses into social conditions in Egypt. Thus we find a roaster of lentils writing to Zeno that "the people in the city roast pumpkins, and so nobody nowadays buys lentils from me," and adding “they take up their position early in the morning beside my lentils to sell their pumpkins, and so I get no chance to sell my lentils." In another document a subordinate of Zeno's, ordered to buy hay, writes that the peasants won't sell for corn, but only for money (an interesting illustration of that transition from an economy based on grain to one based on money which the Greek occupation at least hastened if it did not begin). Another subordinate writes that, hearing that the king is expected and that hay is being commandeered for the horses of his escort, he has hidden the hay which he had collected. We also hear of the curing of dice

from gazelles' bones with details as to process and price. There is an interesting reference to tree-planting in a letter from Apollonius to Zeno: "Plant fir-trees, over 300 of them if possible, and at any rate not less, all over the park and round the vineyard and the olive groves; for the tree has a handsome appearance and will be to the advantage of the King." From another papyrus we learn that the roses grown in the park brought in no less than 60 drachmæ a year. Equally modern is a communication from a certain Aristeas, who-anticipating the troubles of many a modern decipherer of papyri-writes that he cannot read his correspondent's letter because it is so much obliterated; "but I thought the subject of it was the allotment."

The interest of these letters is, indeed, almost inexhaustible; but we must not linger further over this period in Zeno's life. In a Cairo papyrus, dated in Peritius embolimus of the 33rd year, that is in 252 B.C., a member of Zeno's circle, named Artemidorus, writes to him on business matters. The letter begins :

Artemidorus to Zeno, greeting. I trust you are well. I too am well and Apollonius is in good health, and our affairs are flourishing. At the moment of writing we are on our way to Sidon, having accompanied the queen as far as the frontier.

There can be no doubt that in this letter we have a contemporary record of the wedding journey of Ptolemy's daughter Berenice, whom her father, with a view to establishing good relations with Syria, married to Antiochus, the king of that country. Ptolemy, as we know from other sources, accompanied his daughter as far as Pelusium, where, being in poor health, he bade her farewell, and entrusted her to the care of his Finance Minister, Apollonius. The match thus concluded in order to bind together Egypt and Syria, proved disastrous in every sensedisastrous to Berenice and disastrous to Syria. Antiochus, in order to marry Berenice, had divorced his wife Laodice; but on Ptolemy's death he recalled her, and when he died shortly afterwards (it was suspected from poison administered by Laodice) Berenice's life was in imminent danger. No sooner had Ptolemy III, Euergetes, ascended the throne in 246 B.C. than he was compelled, if his sister was to be saved, to march against Syria; and the result was the conquest-it is true, only temporary-of a large part of the kingdom.

At the beginning of the reign of Euergetes, Apollonius