CORN DOLE ARCHIVE

this situation, however, he called himself an ex-phylarch, see e.g. 2930 2, where the corn dole list of rhemboi sundries is submitted by a "former phylarch." A subscription to 2908 ii may even indicate that they acted together as a college. It runs (31–4) "with the phylarchs and the guarantors present, let him provide the symbols of citizenship." Outside Oxyrhynchus collegiate activity is attested for phylarchs (P. Eitrem 6 = SB 7375; Hermopolis?) and for their successors the systatae (P. Beatty Panopolis i 180, 195, 338). In 2908 ii, however, it is possible that there is a mistake for "of the phylarch." The gnostēres guarantors can remain in the plural: compare the two subscribing to 2892 i 28–30.

The Roman dole

Perhaps the most important aspect of the new archive is the possibility which it affords of confirming or correcting our views of the Roman corn dole. There can hardly be any doubt that the Oxyrhynchite dole is modelled closely on the Roman system. As in Rome the basic qualifications are citizenship and residence, freedmen are admitted, the distributions are calculated by the month, probably at the same rate, and controlled in some way by tokens. It is regarded as a gift from the emperor, as in Rome at least from the time of Severus.

There are local differences, as we might expect. We know of nothing in Rome to correspond to the leitourgēkōtes those who have performed liturgy and the homologoi registered persons and there is so far nothing to suggest that children could draw the Oxyrhynchite dole, a puzzling aspect of the Roman system. But the resemblances are more important. It is very clearly confirmed, for instance, that the doles were not a provision for the very poor, but a perquisite of the already privileged middle classes of the cities, as in Rome. On the other hand there is no sign that the dole was available to the city councillors or magistrates, and we may probably conclude from the Roman situation that it was not.

The received view of the lottery is the first one which seems to need modification. Van Berchem concluded (p. 27) that the fixed number of recipients and the lottery for places did not last beyond Caesar’s reform of the dole as described in Suet. Jul. 41. The passage runs: recensum populi nec more nec loco solito sed vicatim per dominos insularum egit; atque ex viginti trecentisque milibus accipientium frumentum e publico ad centum quinquaginta retraxit; ac ne qui novi coetus recensionis causa moveri quandoque possent, instituit, quotannis in demortuorum locum ex iis qui recensi non essent subsortitio a praetore fieret.

"He held a registration of the people not in the usual way or in the usual place, but street by street through the landlords, and reduced the number of persons receiving corn from the state from 320,000 to 150,000. To prevent the calling of future meetings for registration at any time he also laid it down that a lottery for the places of the deceased should be held by the praetor every year among those who had not been enrolled."

The Oxyrhynchite regulations for the compilation of lists by the phylarchs according to districts and for the control of the numbers by lottery are clear reflections of Caesar’s. It is hard to believe that the Oxyrhynchites would imitate regulations that had gone out of use at Rome by the date their dole was established. Of course that date is not known,