Urbanism and the Urban Community in Roman Egypt *

Abstract

Urbanism in the ancient world has been of abiding interest to ancient social and economic historians, but very little is known about the populations of cities. The nature of the papyrological material is such that certain features of communities can be assessed and quantified. We concentrate on the issue of population, considering both the number of people living in the various types of settlements and occupational structures. The results demonstrate essential differences between urban and rural settlements. The final section considers segmentation of the urban community itself. Through analysis of the residence patterns of members of particular social groups, we show that the city displayed a certain amount of social zoning and suggest that the fundamental social division in the city was between the elite and the rest of the population.