Violence in Roman Egypt [[electronic resource] ] : a study in legal interpretation / / Ari Z. Bryen

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910788304803321
• Autore: Bryen Ari Z
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Philadelphia, : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2013
• ISBN: 0-8122-0821-8
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (374 p.)
• Collana: Empire and After
• Disciplina: 296.09/014
• Soggetti: Criminal procedure (Egyptian law); Criminal procedure (Roman law); Violent crimes - Egypt - History - To 1500; Victims of crimes - Legal status, laws, etc - Egypt - History - To 1500; Violence - Egypt - History - To 1500; Egypt History 30 B.C.-640 A.D
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Front matter -- Contents -- Introduction. The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life -- Part I. The Texture of the Problem -- Chapter 1. Ptolemaios Complains -- Chapter 2. Violent Egypt -- Chapter 3. Violence, Modern and Ancient -- Part II. From the Language of Pain to the Language of Law -- Chapter 4. Narrating Injury -- Chapter 5. The Work of Law -- Chapter 6. Fusion and Fission -- Conclusion. Nomos and Its Narratives -- Appendix A : The Papyrus on the Page -- Appendix B:Translations of Petitions Concerning Violence -- Papyri in Checklist Order -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments
• Sommario/riassunto: What can we learn about the world of an ancient empire from the ways that people complain when they feel that they have been violated? What role did law play in people's lives? And what did they expect their government to do for them when they felt harmed and helpless? If ancient historians have frequently written about nonelite people as if they were undifferentiated and interchangeable, Ari Z. Bryen counters by drawing on one of our few sources of personal narratives from the Roman world: over a hundred papyrus petitions, submitted to local and ; imperial officials, in which individuals from the Egyptian countryside sought redress for acts of violence committed against them. By assembling these long-neglected materials (also translated as an appendix to the book) and putting them in conversation with contemporary perspectives from legal anthropology and social theory, Bryen shows how legal stories were used to work out relations of deference within local communities. Rather than a simple force of imperial power, an open legal system allowed petitioners to define their relationships with their local adversaries while contributing to the body of rules and expectations by which they would live in the future. In so doing, these Egyptian petitioners contributed to the creation of Roman imperial order more generally.