Kings, Taxes and High Priests Comparing the Ptolemaic and Seleukid Policies

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SOMMARIO

Silvia Bussi, Premessa 9

Patrizia Piacentini, Introduzione alla giornata dedicata all’Egitto faraonico e copto 11Silvia Bussi, Introduzione alle giornate ellenistica, romana e tardoantica 13Edda Bresciani, Presentazione 15Pascal Vernus, L’acte fondamental du pouvoir dans l’Égypte pharaonique : l’‘ordre royal’ (oudj-nesou) 21Patrizia Piacentini, Beginning, Continuity and Transformations of the Egyptian Administration in the iiith Millennium bc  : the Scribal Titles 37Stephen Quirke, Fragment Epistemology ? Profiling the Society and Economy of Late Middle Kingdom Lahun 47Christian Orsenigo, « Venite a me, voi che desiderate vedere Amon ! » : Amenhotep figlio di Hapu negli Archivi di Egittologia dell’Università degli Studi di Milano 59Willy Clarysse, The Use of Demotic in the Ptolemaic Administration 69Anne-Emanuelle Veïsse, L’expression de l’identité dans les pétitions d’époque ptolémaïque. Étude préliminaire 81Katelijn Vandorpe, A Happiness Index for Antiquity ? Hellenistic Egypt as a Case-Study 91Gilles Gorre, Sylvie Honigman, Kings, Taxes and High Priests : Compar- ing the Ptolemaic and Seleukid Policies 105Silvia Bussi, Fiscalità e templi nell’Egitto tolemaico 121Chatarine Lorber, The Grand Mutation : Ptolemaic Bronze Currency in the Second Century b.c. 135Bernard Legras, Autour du papyrus dit de Cléopâtre : les prostagmata lagides et les interactions romano-égyptiennes 159Luigi Gallo, Aspetti demografici dell’Egitto greco-romano 173Barbara Anagnostou-Canas, Les prêtres de Bacchias face à l’administration romaine 183Kai Ruffing, The Trade with India and the Problem of Agency in the Economy of the Roman Empire 199Maria Federica Petraccia, Il ruolo dell’esercito in occasione dello scisma donatista e il trattato contro i Donatisti di Optatus Milevitanus 211Tito Orlandi, La copticità dell’Egitto copto 229Marco Di Branco, Alla conquista del passato : la storia dell’antico Egitto vista dagli Arabi 241Daniele Foraboschi, Conclusioni 251

Recapiti dei collaboratori del volume 259

Titos Flavios Demetrios (Ipswick Museum).

KINGS, TAXES AND HIGH PRIESTS : COMPARING THE PTOLEMAIC

AND SELEUKID POLICIES

Gilles Gorre · Sylvie Honigman

Students of Ptolemaic Egypt and the Seleukid Empire tend to think that the two dynasties developed separate political cultures. While this view may cer-

tainly be upheld in general terms, we intend to show that in some areas, a com-parative approach may nonetheless bring out similar attitudes. The topic we shall discuss are the devices through which the two dynasties managed to tighten their control over the economic assets of the native temples located in their respecti-ve realms. Whereas the Ptolemaic policy is now well known thanks both to the detailed documentary evidence and intensive modern investigation, evidence for the Seleukid Empire is scant and scattered over four geographical areas, namely Judaea, Asia Minor, Syria, and Babylonia. Despite the fact that Egypt and each one of these Seleukid provinces had distinct cultural and religious traditions, the evidence documents strikingly similar patterns of relations between the respec-tive royal administrations and the priestly personnel in charge of the revenues of the various temples. Therefore, our working hypothesis will be that the different sources of evidence cast mutual light on each other. By cross-referencing them, we may get a better sense of how both the Ptolemaic and Seleukid dynasties sou-ght to take command of the economic assets of the temples. In the two realms, we argue that the fiscal reforms per se were systematically coupled with the royal administration’s increased interference in the appointment of the priestly person-nel in charge of the temple economies.

In this paper we shall narrow the scope of our comparison to the Ptolemaic policy towards the Egyptian temples and the policy of Seleukos IV and Antio-chos IV towards the Jerusalem temple between 178 and 172 bce, with the aim of showing how they cast light on each other. Prompting our comparison is the recent publication of an inscription from Marise, the capital of Idumaea, which was the capital of one the meridarchies comprising the Seleukid satrapy of Koile ¯ Syria and Phoinike ¯. 1 While hitherto the Seleukid policy in Jerusalem was known only through literary accounts which in hindsight appear to be heavily biased and misleading, the inscription provides the basis for an entirely new interpretation of the circumstances that led to the Judaean rebellion against Antiochos IV, by documenting the appointment of one Olympiodoros by Seleukos IV in 178 bce,

1 According to Aperghis, Judaea was probably included in the meridarchy of Marise ¯. See G. G. Aperghis, Antiochus IV and his jewish Subjects : Political, Cultural and Religious Interaction, in K. Erickson and G. Ramsey (edd.), Seleucid Dissolution : The Sinking of the Anchor, Wiesbaden, 2011, pp. 67-84, esp. 22.

gilles gorre · sylvie honigman106

to take care of the shrines of the satrapy of Koile Syria and Phoinike. 2 Although the extant fragments include no reference to Olympiodoros’s actual title, we see that both his earlier career and newly-acquired powers are comparable to those of Nikanor, whom Antiochos III had appointed as high priest (archiereus) of all the Seleukid satrapies in cis-Tauric Asia Minor in 209 bce. 3 For convenience we will therefore refer to Olympiodoros as a provincial high priest as well. 4

The Olympiodoros inscription casts light on the account found in 2 Maccabees 3 : 1-4 : 6 of the visit of Heliodoros, Seleukos IV’s prime minister, to Jerusalem. According to the author, a certain Simon, who was prostates of the Jerusalem tem-ple, quarrelled with the high priest Onias III over the agoranomia of the city, and in revenge treacherously reported to the provincial governor about the surpluses of money stored in the temple treasury. Following this denunciation, Seleukos IV dispatched Heliodoros to Jerusalem in order to seize these monies, but when Heliodoros tried to force his way into the temple he was repelled by God’s angels. The inscription enables us to re-interpret this incident as a symptom of tensions between the Seleukid administration and the Jerusalem high priest over the pay-ment of newly-instituted taxes on the temple revenues.

Moreover, it casts new light on the circumstances that led to the deposition of Onias III, the high priest of Jerusalem, only three years later. According to 2 Maccabees 4 : 7-10, when Antiochos IV succeeded Seleukos IV in 175 bce, Onias III was ousted from the high priesthood by Jason, his brother. Two years later the latter was in turn deposed by Menelaos, who, was not their kin, thereby bringing an end to the dynasty of the Oniads who had held the high priesthood for over two centuries in Judaea (2 Macc. 4 :23-25). According to the author of 2 Maccabees, it was Jason’s and Menelaos’s sinful activities that prompted the Judaean uprising against Antiochos IV in 168 bce. 5 Whereas the Olympiodoros inscription suggests instead that a crucial factor triggering the rebellion was the fiscal reform initiated by Seleukos IV, of which there is no mention at all in the literary sources. 6

Even with these two sources at hand, additional comparative evidence is requi-red if we are to reconstruct the chain of events with any precision. We argue in this paper that the most instructive parallels to the events of Judaea can be found in the Ptolemaic policy towards the Egyptian temples. In particular, whereas 2

2 seg 57.1838, ll. 22-24. On the Olympiodoros inscription see H. Cotton, M. Wörrle, Seleukos IV to Heliodoros : A new Dossier of Royal Correspondence from Israel « zpe », 159 (2007), pp. 191-205 ; D. Gera, Olympi-odoros, Heliodoros, and the Temples of Koile Syria and Phoinike, « zpe », 169 (2009), pp. 125-155.

3 Antiochos III’s decree for Nikanor is known through two inscriptions, seg 37.1010 (seg 54.1237, inscrip-tion from Mysia), and seg 54.1353 (inscription from Phrygia).

4 Although of course the titles and precise functions of offi cials may vary from one satrapy to an-Although of course the titles and precise functions of officials may vary from one satrapy to an-other.

5 The date when the Judaean rebellion broke out is disputed, since from the sources it is uncertain whether it did during Antiochos IV’s first or second campaign in Egypt (169 and 168 bce respectively). However this matter may be sidelined in the present discussion.

6 The detailed discussion of the Judaean material is offered in S. Honigman, The judean Rebellion Against Antiochos IV. A Historical Interpretation Based on a Revised Literary Analysis of 1 and 2 Maccabees (200-164 bce), Berkeley, forthcoming, esp. chapters 9 to 11.

kings, taxes and high priests 107

Maccabees does not suggest any connection between the events related to Helio-doros’s visit to Jerusalem and the deposition of Onias III three years later, the link between the two episodes becomes clear in light of this Ptolemaic parallel.

The comparison between the two dynasties’ policies may be conducted at three levels : first, the appointment of the high priest of Ptah in Memphis by Ptolemy II Philadelphos, and that of provincial high priests in Asia Minor, Syria, and now Koile Syria and Phoinike ¯ by the Seleukids, the earliest known instance dating to the reign of Seleukos II (246-226 bce). 7 Second, we shall discuss the use of temple administrators who acted as royal representatives in the temples. Instances are now documented in Egypt, Judaea, Asia Minor, as well as in Babylon and Uruk in Babylonia. Third, we shall compare the kings’ interference with the appoin-tments of high-ranking temple personnel. While the Ptolemaic replacement of old, socially well-entrenched priestly families with homines novi has come to light from the study of prosopographical data, 8 we argue that Antiochos IV’s replace-ment of Onias III with successors lacking dynastic legitimacy followed a similar pattern. In both cases, the change of personnel was a means for the royal admini-strations to get a firmer grip on the economic managements of the temples.

However, before we discuss the fiscal policy of the Ptolemaic and Seleukid dy-nasties in Egypt and Judaea respectively, we need to start with some general ob-servations that will help us situate our comparative perspective.

1. Justifying the comparative perspective

1. 1. Differences in cultic organisation between Egypt and judaea

As a preliminary point we need to spell out some basic differences in the religious organisations of the two areas which may have bearings on our analysis. Four issues are worth emphasising. First, the difference between monotheism and po-lytheism has no relevance to the question of temple economies. 9 Like all the neighbouring cultic systems, the Judaean system was based on sacrificial rites, and although in Hellenistic times it was centred on a single temple – whereas Egypt had a polycentric network of temples, each headed by its own high priest – the economic function of the temples was very similar in both regions.

Far more relevant is the status of the ruler within respective the religious sy-stems of these two societies. In Egypt, the Pharaoh was recognised as the main intercessor between men and the divine world, 10 and the temple priests as the

7 In his letter publicizing Nikanor’s appointment Antiochos III refers to a precedent under his grand-father. See seg 37.1010, ll. 40-41.

8 G. Gorre, Les relations du clergé égyptien et des Lagides (« Studia Hellenistica », 41), Louvain, 2009. 9 S. Honigman, The judean Rebellion, cit., ‘Introduction to Part i’, offers a refutation of the common

view that the Judaean ‘religion’ is incomparable to other contemporary religions because it is monotheis-tic, based on anthropological studies of religion.

10 Ph. Derchain, Le rôle du roi d’Égypte dans le maintien de l’ordre cosmique in L. de Heusch et alii (éds.), Le pouvoir et le Sacré, Bruxelles, 1969, pp. 61-73 and Ph. Derchain, La différence abolie : Dieu et Pharaon dans les scènes rituelles ptolémaïques in P. Gundlach et C. Raedler (edd.), Selbstverständnis und Realität, Akten des Sym-posiums zur ägyptischen Königsideologie in Mainz 15-17.-.1995 (« aät », 36/1), Wiesbaden, 1997, pp. 215-223.


king’s deputies. 11 This aspect of the royal ideology was reasserted in late dynastic times, resulting in the increased control of the temples’ economic assets by the Pharaohs, a tradition upheld by the Ptolemies. 12 Thus the high priest of Ptah, who was to become the highest-ranking official in the priestly hierarchy of Egypt under the Ptolemies, bore the title of ‘coadjutor of the king’. 13 In contrast, in Judaea the king had no cultic function.

Third, another crucial difference relates to the respective political status of the high priests. In Egypt, the high priest of Memphis had no political power at all. He was by no means the representative of the Egyptian subjects vis-à-vis the Gre-ek king, and if we leave aside the part he played in the coronation of the Ptole-maic kings as Pharaohs, 14 he was exclusively concerned with the religious and administrative life of the temples. The lack of any Ptolemaic aulic component in his official titles is evidence that he was not a representative of the royal admini-stration. Conversely, in Hellenistic times the high priest of Judaea stood at the he-ad of the ethnos of the Judaeans, and in the absence of an imperial governor, they enjoyed broad political powers. 15 Finally, while the dynastic cult was one of the major responsibilities of the high priest of Ptah, in Jerusalem the king was simply honoured by sacrifices performed in his name – namely, those he commissioned himself. In our view, these differences may be treated as regional specificities, and are by no means a hindrance to a comparative discussion of the respective econo-mic policies of the Ptolemies and the Seleukids towards the temples.

1. 2. The high priest of Ptah as compared to the local and provincial high priests of the Seleukid realm

That said, because the network of Egyptian temples could be organised into a hierarchic structure, both within each nome and between these, from his creation under Ptolemy II (see below) the high priest of the temple of Ptah in Memphis seems to have enjoyed a double position. On the one hand, within the Memphite nome his cultic and administrative powers were similar to those of other Egyp-tian high priests who in their respective nomes throughout the country stood at the head of the local networks of temples – and in this capacity his powers were comparable to those of the high priest of Jerusalem, and similarly of other high

11 S. Sauneron, Les prêtres de l’Égypte ancienne, Paris, 1988, pp. 40-41. 12 D. Agut-Labordère, G. Gorre, De l’autonomie à l’intégration : Les sanctuaires d’Égypte face à la Cou-

ronne des Saïtes aux Ptolémées (vie-iie siècle av. j.-C.), « topoi », forthcoming. 13 On the high priest of Ptah, see below. Although the title of ‘coadjutor of the king’ is admittedly only

documented in relation with Psenptais II, who was high priest under Ptolemy XII (80-50 bce), there is no reason to doubt that it applied in earlier times as well. On Psenptais II, see G. Gorre, Relations du clergé égyptien, cit., pp. 334-335. 14 G. Gorre, Relations du clergé égyptien, cit., pp. 302-303.

15 On the high priests of Judaea in Persian and Hellenistic times, see J. C. VanderKam, From joshua to Caiaphas : High Priests After the Exile, Minneapolis, 2004 ; M. Brutti, The Development of the High Priesthood during the Pre-Hasmonean Period : History, Ideology, Theology, Leiden and Boston, 2006. Watts convincingly argued that the high priest enjoyed considerable prestige in early Hellenistic times. See J. W. Watts, The Torah as the Rhetoric of Priesthood, in G. N. Knoppers and B. M. Levinson (edd.), The Pentateuch as Torah : new Models for Understanding its Promulgation and Acceptance, Winona Lake, in, 2007, pp. 319-331.


priests who stood at the head of temple states and other non-Greek constituencies in Syria, Asia Minor, and Babylonia. On the other hand, insofar as the high priest of Ptah had primacy over all other local Egyptian high priests throughout the country, his rank matched that of the Seleukid provincial high priests, albeit with substantial differences in the respective prerogatives. As far as we can discern, the Seleukid provincial high priests (archiereis ton hieron panton) were chosen between the ‘king’s Friends’ and belonged to the highest rank of the royal administration. Given that they were outsiders to the local priesthoods, it is implausible that they enjoyed cultic powers in the local temples. Their prerogatives must have been strictly administrative and financial. This, of course, is in contrast with the first high priest of Ptah. As the head of the Egyptian priestly hierarchy, the high priest of Ptah enjoyed both cultic and administrative powers (see below). Moreover, in contrast with the high priest of Ptah, the creation of the Seleukid provincial archiereis per se does not seem to be related to the institution of the dynastic cult, since the earliest known ones antedate this reform. After its institution, however, the provincial high priests appeared to be in charge of it. 16

The following table summarises the respective powers of the various categories of high priests in Egypt and the Seleukid realm. It compares their ranks (local and su-pra-local), functions (administrative and cultic, including the dynastic cult), 17 their source of power (internal priestly vs. royal appointment), and their link with the king.

egypt seleukid empire

High priest of Ptah Egyptian local high priests (including the high priest of Ptah in the Memphite nome)

Provincial high priests Judaean high priest

Power level

At least nominally, pri-macy over all Egyptian high priests

Local (nome) Satrapy Local (ethnos within the satrapy)

Nature of functions

Acts as delegate of the king-Pharaoh.Primarily administrative

Mostly administrative and financial within each nome. 18

Mostly administrative and financial.Secondarily, dynastic cult.

Political (internal affairs of the ethnos)Administrative and fiscal

16 See J. Ma, Antiochos III and the Cities of Western Asia Minor, Oxford, 2000, pp. 26-27. On the Seleukid high priests, see also H. Müller, Der hellenistische Archiereus, « Chiron », 30 (2000), pp. 519-542, and L. Cap-detrey, Le pouvoir séleucide, Rennes, 2007, pp. 322-327.

17 This entry summarises the data detailed below.18 The Greek title archiereus corresponds to lesonis in Demotic texts and ‘director of the prophets and chief

of the sanctuaries’ in hieroglyphic ones, evidencing that the priest who stood at the head of each temple had primarily administrative functions. The cultic functions were devolved to ‘specialists’ who performed the cult under his authority. See Gorre, Relations du clergé égyptien, cit., pp. 188-189. Presumably, this was true also of the high priest of Ptah in Memphis, whose career started with an administrative appointment.

On the ‘specific titles’ referring to an actual cultic function, see H. De Meulenaere, Priester(tum), in W. Helck, E. Otto (edd.), Lexikon der Ägyptologie, iv, Wiesbaden, 1982, col. 1098 : « à la Basse-époque (…) les prêtres spécifiques des divinités locales se multiplient, en particulier en Basse-égypte. Leurs fonctions se dissimulent souvent sous des désignations énigmatiques qui sont intimement liées à la nature et aux traits caractéristiques de la divinité qu’ils servent dans un lieu précis », and J. Yoyotte, Titres spécifiques et prêtres provinciaux, « aephe », 79 (1971-1972), pp. 175-178.


egypt seleukid empire

and financial functions in relation with dynas-tic cult, primarily in the Memphite nome and, at least nominally, through-out Egypt

Cultic, including often dynastic cult and also cult of local gods (through delegation of actual per-formance)

No cultic prerogatives in local temples.

Cultic prerogatives, in-cluding sacrifices on be-half of the king.

Sourceof power

New priestly family Pre-Ptolemaic and new priestly families

Court official Before Antiochos IV, tra-ditional priestly family

Link withthe king

First appointment by Ptolemy II, subsequently dynastic, subject to royal confirmation

Appointment by the king, nominally enthronement by the high priest of Ptah. Acting as the Pha-Acting as the Pha-raoh’s delegate

Royal appointment Until Antiochos IV, au-tonomous dynastic suc-cession

However, as just stated, these differences per se are no obstacle to the comparison between the respective economic policy of the Ptolemies and the Seleukids to-wards the temples. To emphasise its basic similarity, we may contrast it with the attitude of the Achaemenids.

1. 3. Comparing the economic policies of the Achaemenids and the Hellenistic dynasties towards the temples

In Pharaonic times, the temples of Egypt enjoyed substantial economic support from the Pharaoh. In contrast, the subsidies allocated to the temples were sub-stantially cut down under the Achaemenids, while the temples were encouraged to provide for their own economic needs. 18 The same was true in Babylonia. 19 In contrast, the Hellenistic kings repeatedly boasted about their concern for the welfare of the temples. As successor of the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies presented themselves as restorers of the Egyptian temples. Thus, as he claimed in the satrap stele, Ptolemy satrap gave them back the lands that had been confiscated during the second Persian domination, 20 whereas in the Mendesian stele, Ptolemy II pu-blicised that he provided for the cult according to the tradition established by the gods themselves. 21 Similarly, both the Ptolemies and the Seleukids manifested their concern to increase the ‘honours’ offered to the gods. To this end, the tem-ples were granted regular royal contributions, or syntaxeis.

18 D. Agut-Labordère, Le sens du Décret de Cambyse, in J. élayi (éds.), La Transeuphratène à l’époque perse : Pouvoirs, sociétés et religions, Actes du vie Colloque international, Paris, 6-8 novembre 2003 = Transeuphra-tène, 29, pp. 9-15

19 The Neo-Babylonian kings provided substantial subsidies to the temples. Despite a process of initial continuity in the aftermath of Cyrus’ conquest of 539 bce, the Persian attitude towards the Babylonian temples changed for the worse after two rebellions successively suppressed by Darius the Great and Xerx-es. On the change of policy under Darius, see M. Jursa, The Transition of Babylonia from the neo-Babylonian Empire to Achaemenid Rule, « Proceedings of the British Society », 136 (2007), pp. 73-94 ; under Xerxes, see C. Waerzzegers, Royal patronage of temples in the neo-Babylonian period, in K. Radner and E. Robson (edd.), Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Civilizations, Oxford, 2004.

20 D. Schäfer, Makedonische Pharaonen und hieroglyphische Stelen. Historische Untersuchungen zur Satra-penstele und verwandten Denkmälern (« Studia Hellenistica », 50), Louvain, 2011.

21 H. de Meulenaere, P. Mackay, Mendes, Warminster, 1976.


However, in compliance with the typically Greek principle of reciprocity, in exchange for this munificence the Hellenistic kings expected to receive a greater part of the latter’s revenues. 22 Thus the institution of regular subsidies by the kings of the two dynasties went hand in hand with tough fiscal policies, and re-forms of personnel were instrumental to these two aspects.

2. the high priests of ptah in memphis and the seleukid provincial high priests

2. 1. The high priest of Ptah in Memphis and the reform of the apomoira

The clearest illustration that these royal subsidies served to justify the fiscal poli-cy of the Hellenistic kings towards the temples is the set of reforms carried out by Ptolemy II Philadelphos, in which the introduction of the royal cult in the Egyptian temples, the distribution of the tax of the apomoira to the temples, and the creation of the office of the high priest of Ptah in Memphis were intercon-nected.

As is now well established, to index his subsidies to a stable source of revenues, Ptolemy II Philadelphos effected reforms to the tax levied on vineyards and or-chards, the apomoira. While before the reforms, the part of the tax that was levied on vineyards and orchards located in sacred lands were collected by the temples themselves, under Ptolemy II the task was reassigned to tax farmers appointed by the royal administration. 23 As a consequence, the temples lost the control of their own revenues, while a double system of royal supervision was being created that comprised financial control – achieved the system of collection of taxes and distribution of the royal subsidies by the royal administrators – and hierarchic supervision through the national synods and, at least nominally, the allocation of new powers to the high priest of Ptah in Memphis as the ultimate authority over all the temples and priesthoods of the country, with the title ‘high priest of all the gods and goddesses of Egypt and chief of all the prophets of Egypt’.

Although this step revived an old function, 24 the establishment of the high priest of Ptah as the highest ranking priest of Egypt may be regarded as Pto-lemy II’s innovation, given the established hierarchic structure of the Egyptian network of temples. Traditionally, the hierarchy of the gods was mirrored in the

22 On the notion that royal euergetism was a means of redistribution balancing royal taxes, see J. Ma, Kings, in A. Erskine (ed.), A Companion to the Hellenistic World, Malden, ma, 2003, pp. 177-195, esp. pp. 182-183. See also V. Chankowski, Introduction, in V. Chankowski and F. Duyrat (edd.), Le Roi et l’économie : Auto-nomies locales et structures royales dans l’économie de l’empire séleucide, Lyons, 2004, pp. 9-21, esp. pp. 15-16. On the principle of reciprocity between men and gods, see for instance R. Parker, Pleasing Thighs : Reciprocity in Greek Religion, in C. Gill, N. Postlethwaite, R. Seaford (edd.), Reciprocity in Ancient Greece, Oxford, 1998, pp. 105-125 ; and J. M. Bremer, The Reciprocity of Giving and Thanksgiving in Greek Worship, in C. Gill, N. Postlethwaite, R. Seaford (edd.), Reciprocity, cit., pp. 127-139.

23 K. Vandorpe, Agriculture, Temples and Tax Law in Ptolemaic Egypt, « cripel », 25 (2005), p. 165-171. In the same vein, in the beginning of the second century, the collection of the harvest tax was also reassigned to tax farmers appointed by the royal administration, see K. Vandorpe, The Ptolemaic epigraphe or harvest tax (shemu), « AfP », 46/2 (2000), pp. 169-232. 24 Gorre, Relations du clergé égyptien, cit., p. 293.


hierarchy between sanctuaries. 25 The prominent status of Ptah in the Pharaonic titles of the Ptolemies since Ptolemy III, and the connection between Apis, the animal hypostasis of Ptah, and Serapis, evidences the importance of this particu-lar god in Ptolemaic times. Therefore we may reasonably assume that, alongside their role in the coronation of the Ptolemies as Pharaohs, the temple and high priest of Ptah were granted at least nominal primacy over the rest of the Egyptian temples during the Ptolemaic period. Moreover, it is probably no coincidence that the founder of the priestly dynasty, Esisout-Petobastis, had played a decisive part in the introduction of the royal cult in Memphis under Ptolemy Philadelphos be-fore he was appointed as the first high priest of Ptah by this king. 26 Subsequently, this position became hereditary.

According to the biographical inscriptions of Annos and Teos, sons and suc-cessors to Esisout-Petobastis, after his time the high priests of Ptah were granted wide administrative powers over the temples of the country, acting as the king’s representatives in the temples – in which function they were answerable to the royal administration. 27 This role may be inferred from their administrative title as the ‘accountable scribe of Pharaoh for all things in the temple of x’, 28 though there is little record of their actual prerogatives, and hence it is difficult to deter-mine whether and how this command was effected in concrete terms. Some idea of their functions may be gleaned from the sporadic evidence and our general understanding of the hierarchical structure into which the Egyptian temples and priesthoods were traditionally organised. It appears that the high priests of Ptah inducted the priests of other temples into office – presumably this means mainly the high priests of other nomes, who in turn inducted the subordinate priestly personnel within their respective nomes. 29 Although there can be no doubt that in fiscal and financial matters the local high priests of other nomes primarily an-swered to the local royal administration and not on the high priest of Ptah, star-ting from Esisout-Petobastis’s successors, the high priests of Ptah may have super-vised the distribution of royal subsidies (syntaxeis) specifically aimed at financing the royal cult to temples. It is fairly certain that this was so in Memphis and the Memphite nome, but several clues suggest that their province may have extended to the rest of the country as well. Thus Esisout-Petobastis, the first incumbent, boasted that he was ‘given the bread of all gods and goddesses of Higher and Lo-wer Egypt’, 30 whereas Psenptais II, who was high priest of Ptah in Ptolemy XII’s reign (80-50 bce), claimed that he was entrusted by the king with the ‘matters of

25 This is clearly documented for Pharaonic Egypt by P. Harris. See P. Grandet, Le Papyrus Harris i (« BdE », 109), Le Caire, 1991.

26 D. Thompson, Memphis under the Ptolemies, Princeton, 2011, pp. 121-122. According to his biographi-cal inscription spelling out his successive appointments by Ptolemy Philadelphos, at the beginning of his career, Esisout-Petobastis supervised building works in the temples of Memphis, and was later in charge of the dynastic cult of Arsinoe. Only after this did he become high priest of Ptah, and this position became hereditary in his family. See G. Gorre, Relations du clergé égyptien, cit., pp. 289-296.

27 Ibid., pp. 307, 309. 28 Ibid., pp. 285, 299, 304, 311, 316-317. 29 Ibid., pp. 306-308.30 Ibid., p. 291.


the temples of Higher and Lower Egypt till the end of the year’, that is with the administrative powers over their revenues. 31

2. 2. The Seleukid high priests

It would appear that the provincial high priests appointed by the Seleukids fulfil-led fairly similar administrative functions to those of the high priest of Ptah and the local Egyptian high priests. Their main task seemingly was to oversee the distribution of the royal subsidies to the various temples located in their respec-tive districts, 32 as may be deduced from the royal letters publicizing their appoin-tments, which regularly refer to the king’s concern for increasing « the sacrifices and the ‘other honours’ » due to the gods. This phrase is found in Antiochos III’s letter of appointment of Nikanor as high priest and overseer of the sanctuaries in cis-Tauric Asia Minor in 209 bce, whereas Seleukos IV’s decree about Olympiodo-ros in 178 bce employs a similar tone. 33

The Ptolemies’ declared concern for the welfare of the temples and their re-spective allocation of royal subsidies, the establishment of the dynastic cult of Arsinoe within the temples, and related reform of the apomoira, and finally the loss of the temples’ economic independence, together form a coherent system within which the Ptolemaic fiscal policy towards the Egyptian temples operated. An additional repercussion of the introduction of the dynastic cult and the re-form of the apomoira was a change in the social composition of the priestly per-sonnel within the temples themselves. In this aspect too, the coherent picture that emerges from the Ptolemaic evidence affords crucial insights into the nature of the relations between kings and temples within the Seleukid empire. As we shall see, there are striking parallels with Judaea. But let us first analyse how the royal administration gained control over the Egyptian temples.

3. The lower-ranking representatives of the royal administration within the temples

3. 1. The increasing grip of the royal administration on the Egyptian temples

Up until Ptolemy II’s reforms, the social composition of the priests serving in the various temples across the country remained relatively unchanged. In particular, the temples continued to be headed by the same established priestly families who

31 Ibid., p. 332. Like the Greek pragmata, the hieroglyphic word khet, ‘thing, matter’ has a financial mean-ing. D. Thompson, Memphis under the Ptolemies, Princeton 2011, pp. 129, 135, seems to accept that the pow-ers of the high priests of Ptah extended over all the temples of the country. A possible objection to this contention might be the fact that the trilingual priestly decrees that recorded the decisions of the priestly gatherings summoned by several Ptolemaic kings bear no record of the privileged position of the high priests of Ptah. However this omission may be explained by the fact that the kings themselves attended these gatherings. Given that the high priests of Ptah were ‘coadjutors of the king’ (see n. 13 above), in the actual presence of the king-Pharaoh we may surmise that their privileged status was de-emphasised, and that they attended the gatherings simply as local high priests of the Memphite nome.

32 As noted above however, it is uncertain whether the authority of the high priest of Ptah extended outside Memphis. 33 See seg 37.1010, ll. 36-37 (Nikanor) ; seg 57.1838, l. 36 (Olympiodoros).


had been appointed either by the Nectanebids or the Persians. The royal court exercised limited control over temple affairs from within through the lesonis, who was appointed by the local priests, although as a temple administrator he was an-swerable to the representative of the royal administration. 34 Moreover, in practi-ce, the lesonis could simultaneously bear the title of epistates, and as such he acted as a direct agent of the king.

That said, the introduction of the Ptolemies’ dynastic cult of Arsinoe in the temples and the relative reform of the apomoira to finance it, offered Ptolemy II the chance to increase his grip on the inner priestly administrations. Notably, the double task of establishing the cult and managing the royal subsidies was not en-trusted to members of the old, high-ranking priestly families, but to priests from families of second rank. Needless to say, these new men owed their prestigious positions entirely to their links with the king.

In each temple the ‘agent of the Pharaoh’ (prostates in Greek) now served as the local representative of the royal fiscal administration. Epigraphical evidence indicates that in most cases this figure was selected from the priestly personnel of a distinct temple rather than from the local priesthood, and therefore acted as a member of the royal administration in the temple to which he was appointed, having authority over the lesonis, who, as noted above, was the representative of the inner administration of the temple.

In the same vein, as K. Vandorpe has shown, at the end of the third and the beginning of the second centuries, the families of temple scribes who had been traditionally levying the taxes were replaced with royal scribes. In this way the sta-ples collected through the harvest tax, which until then the temple scribes would store in the temple granaries – could now make their way to royal granaries. 35 Moreover, probably in conjunction with this reform, the temple lands themselves became subject to this tax.

3. 2. Simon the prostates and the Babylonian paqdu

Even though the detailed procedures were different, the correlation between the appointment of the high priest of Ptah and of the local Egyptian high priest, the establishment of royal subsidies to the temples through the reform of the apomoi-ra, and the increased grip of the Ptolemaic king on the inner temple administra-tions, offers a telling parallel to the events described in 2 Maccabees 3. The relevant section reads as follows :

One Simon from the priestly phyle of B… who was prostates of the temple, had a dispute with the high priest over the agoranomia of the city. Unable to prevail over Onias, he

34 See M.-P. Chaufray’s unpublished PhD dissertation, La fonction du lésônis dans les temples égyptiens de l’époque saïte à l’époque romaine, Paris, école Pratique des Hautes Etudes, 2011.

35 K. Vandorpe, Paying taxes to the Thesauroi of the Pathyrites in a Century of Rebellion (186-188 bc), in L. Mooren (edd.), Politics, Administration and Society in the Hellenistic and Roman World. Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Bertinoro, 19-24 July 1997 (« Studia Hellenistica », 36), Louvain, 2000, pp. 405-436 and The Ptolemaic Epigraphe or Harvest Tax (shemu), « AfP », 46 (2000), pp. 169-232.


went to Apollonios son of Thraseas, who was governor of Koile ¯ Syria and Phoinike ¯ at this time, and informed him concerning the indescribable sums of money with which the treasury of Jerusalem was replete, to such an extent that the amount of the sur-pluses was incalculable. These funds, he said, had not been brought to the account of the sacrifices, but could fall under the authority of the king. In a conversation with the king, Apollonios reported the disclosures concerning the money. The king summoned Heliodoros, the chief minister, and sent him with orders to collect the aforesaid money. (2 Macc. 3 :4-7) 36

The first issue requiring clarification is Simon’s position in the temple at Jerusa-lem. Based on the context of 2 Maccabees 3, this equates readily with the roles of the ‘agent of the Pharaoh’ (Gk. prostates) of the Egyptian temples and the paqdu temple officials of Babylon and Uruk, likewise known as prostatai in Greek. Both the said agents of the Pharaoh and the paqdu acted as royal representatives within the priestly personnel, administering the temple’s economic activities. 37 Evidence from both Babylon and Uruk records the paqdu as overseeing the expenditure of temple incomes, such as the payment of wages and rations, and issuing regula-tions about exploitation of temple land ; in Uruk the paqdu is also documented issuing regulations about exploitation of temple land. 38 Thus the only difference was that while the appointed Egyptian prostates was brought in from outside as it were, the Babylonian paqdu comprised only high-ranking members of the local priesthood.

The idea that, like the agent of the Pharaoh and the paqdu, Simon was the representative of the Seleukid king within the priestly financial administration of the Jerusalem temple is borne out by the subject of his quarrel with the high priest. As G. G. Aperghis has suggested, the agoranomia referred to in the above quote consisted in the supervision of the market business that took place under the porticos of the temple precinct, and whose revenues were collected by the temple administration. 39

36 Translation by J. Goldstein, ii Maccabees. A new Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Gar-den City, ny, 1983, modified. For a detailed discussion of the interpretation and translation of this quote, see S. Honigman, The judean Rebellion, cit., chapter 9.

37 According to T. Boiy, Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon, Leuven, 2004, p. 209, in Akkadian paqdu means ‘delegate’ or ‘representative’. As E. Bickerman noted, prostates is used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew paqid, which is the Hebrew equivalent of the Akkadian paqdu. See E. Bickerman, Héliodore au temple de jérusalem, in Studies in jewish and Christian History, Leiden, 1980, pp. 159-191, esp. 161, n. 17. On the paqdu, see the summaries by G. G. Aperghis, The Seleukid Royal Economy. The Finances and Financial Administration of the Seleukid Empire, Cambridge, 2004, pp. 286-287 ; and L. Capdetrey, Le pouvoir séleucide, cit., pp. 183-184 and 327-328.

38 See R. van der Spek, The Babylonian City, in A. Kuhrt, S.M. Sherwin-White (edd.), Hellenism in the East : The Interaction of Greek and non-Greek Civilizations from Syria to Central Asia after Alexander, London, 1987, pp. 57-74, esp. 63, 64 ; Id., The Seleukid State and the Economy, in E. Lo Cascio and D. W. Rathbone (edd.), Production and Public Powers in Classical Antiquity, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 27-36, esp. 31 ; Boiy, Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon, cit., pp. 195-96, 209-10.

39 G. G. Aperghis, jewish Subjects and Seleukid Kings : A Case Study of Economic Interaction, in Z. H. Ar-chibald, J. K. Davies, V. Gabrielsen (edd.), The Economies of Hellenistic Societies, Third to First Centuries bc, Oxford, 2011, pp. 19-41, esp. 26. For a more detailed discussion, see S. Honigman, The judean Rebellion, cit., chapter 9.


In such a context, we may infer that there was a connection between this ago-ranomia and the object of Simon’s report to the Seleukid governor. Given that, according to the rules of reciprocity, any increase in royal subsidies would logi-cally be matched by a rise in taxes, and based also on the example of Ptolemy II’s complex set of reforms, we propose the following reconstruction : following Seleukos IV’s appointment of Olympiodoros as high priest of Koile ¯ Syria and Phoinike, and the king’s respective pledge to increase the royal subsidies to the temples of the satrapy, in turn the temples were obliged to pay more into the imperial treasury. As the king’s representative in the Jerusalem temple, Simon was required to report on temple revenues not allocated to the sacred funds, and therefore liable to taxation. We may surmise that the revenues from the agorano-mia were a major target of the tax reform. The expedition of Seleukid troops led by Heliodoros through the satrapy of Koile Syria and Phoinike suggests that this sudden hike in taxes was met with resistance, Heliodoros being sent to provide support for the governor. Despite this show of force, according to 2 Maccabees 3 the high priest Onias successfully resisted Heliodoros’s attempt to seize the con-tested levies from the temple treasury.

To conclude with the presence of royal representatives within the temples in Hellenistic times, this administrative device per se was not a Hellenistic innova-tion. In Egypt the lesonis is documented in pre-Hellenistic times, 40 whereas in Babylonia the institution of the paqdu seems to date back to the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled in the sixth century bce. 41 However, as was seen above, far from merely exploiting the traditional channels of control, the Hellenistic kings devised new and much more aggressive ways to meddle with the inner administrations of the temples. Not content with prompting the rise of new priestly personnel to oversee to the establishment of the dynastic cult and manage the royal subsidies, the Ptolemies progressively interfered with the high priests of the local temples as well. Again, although the details are diffe-rent, the rationale that seemingly underpinned the successive reforms imposed by the Ptolemies, namely replacing socially entrenched families with new men, provides a useful analogy for understanding why Antiochos IV deposed the high priest of Jerusalem. The relations between kings and high priests will be our last topic.

4. A hellenistic innovation : meddling with the high priests

4. 1. The high priests of the Egyptian temples under the Ptolemies

In Egypt the shift in the social composition of those appointed as high priests of local temples persisted throughout the period of Ptolemaic rule. 42 As noted

40 M.-P. Chaufray, La fonction du lésônis, cit.41 R. van der Spek, The Seleukid State and the Economy, cit., p. 31.42 G. Gorre, A religious continuity between the dynastic and Ptolemaic Periods ? Self-representation and iden-

tity of Egyptian priests in the Ptolemaic Period (332-30 bce), in E. Stavrianopoulou (ed.), Shifting Social Imaginar-ies in the Hellenistic Period : narrations, Practices, and Images, Leiden, forthcoming.


above, up until the introduction of the dynastic cult by Ptolemy II around 270 bce, the temples had continued to be headed by the same lines of priestly fami-lies established before Alexander’s conquest. Alongside the creation of the high priest of Memphis and the emergence of the new men entrusted with establi-shing the dynastic cult and managing the apomoira funds within the temples, the once-eminent families gradually vanish from the epigraphical records, indicating the loss of royal support and hence evaporation of their social prestige. This so-cial shift occurred under the reigns of Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III (from ca. 270 to the 220s). Although their disappearance from the records indicates that even for old families of entrenched social status, continued royal support remained a decisive source of status and prestige, we may presume that through the years the old families had garnered additional social power in their local environment from their protracted dynastic prominence. Diversely, the high priests of Ptah and the new families representing the king within the temples owed their social standing exclusively to royal appointment, and were hence likely to be all the more eager to serve the ruler’s interests. In particular, they could be expected to be more compliant with the royal demands for new taxes.

The last step of this evolution occurred after 125 bce, as the priests who stood at the head of the temples were progressively replaced by high-ranking army of-ficers and local district governors. Not only were the new incumbents complete outsiders, with no family ties whatsoever with the local priesthoods, but in some cases they seem not to have had the required ritual competence to carry out the cultic duties traditionally performed by high priests. 43

4. 2. The deposition of Onias III by Antiochos IV

It is likely that the Seleukids were keenly aware of the Ptolemaic rationale of replacing old, socially-entrenched families with men chosen from second-rank families who, owing their promotion to the king, were expected to serve his inte-rests eagerly. In our view, the scheme just outlined for Egypt may well explain the deposition of Onias III, Jerusalem’s high priest. According to 2 Maccabees 4 : 7-11, Jason ousted Onias III shortly after Antiochos IV’s accession to the throne in 175 bce, and usurped the high priesthood by promising to effect a substantial rise in the tribute rate, to which the king consented. There is something dubious about this version of events, which depicts Jason as exclusively responsible for displacing Onias, and Antiochos IV merely reactive. Given Seleukos IV’s appointment of a provincial high priest three years earlier, and comparative evidence from Egypt,

43 In some cases, the new profile of the temples’ high priests seems to reflect the need for the temples to seek the protection of powerful men, in a time of protracted political and economic instability. The earli-est known example of this new generation of high priests is the career of Herodes, son of Demophon, citizen of Ptolemaïs, which is recorded by several inscriptions from the temple of Philae, dating between 163 and 142 bce. See S. Pfeiffer, Die Politik Ptolemaios’ VI. und VIII. im Kataraktgebiet : Die ‘ruhigen’ jahre von 163 bis 132 v. Chr. in A. Jördens, J. F. Quack (edd.), Ägypten zwischen innerem Zwist und äußerem Druck. Die Zeit Ptolemaios’ VI. bis VIII., Wiesbaden, 2011, p. 235-254.


it is far more plausible that from the outset the increase in the tribute rate was instead imposed by the king himself. 44

As the legitimate heir of the longstanding Oniad line, Onias III enjoyed a po-werful social and political position in Judaea. Notably, he had already proved ut-terly uncooperative with Seleukos IV’s fiscal demands, and had impeded the royal envoy Heliodoros from seizing the contended monies on behalf of the king. In our view, Onias’s successful resistance to Seleukos made Antiochos IV realise that if he wished to impose his fiscal demands, he first needed to undermine the au-tonomy of the high priesthood, which meant removing the prestigious dynasty of the Oniads from power, and in their stead appointing a man lacking traditional legitimacy. 45

Conclusion

Compared with his predecessor, Antiochos IV was far more aggressive in the fi-scal reforms he applied in Koile ¯ Syria and Phoinike ¯, which involved not only a steep increase in the tribute rates, but also a change in the priestly personnel at the highest levels of the temple hierarchies. This, at least, was the case in Jerusalem. We may surmise that Antiochos’s brutal policy was motivated by his forthcoming military expedition against Egypt : to finance his campaign, the king needed to extract higher surpluses.

If this is so, it becomes clear that even though the Ptolemies and the Seleukids implemented comparable fiscal policies, ultimately their goals were different. Whereas the Seleukid kings were interested in extracting higher revenues from the temples, in Egypt the royal administration aimed more at tightening its con-trol over the temples themselves. That said, as in Judaea, the appointment of the central high priest in Memphis and those of the local Egyptian high priests was effectively associated with a tax reform, and the royal administration did establish a tighter control on the collection of the taxes. For the temples, this entailed both increased taxation and the loss of their financial independence. Moreover, the royal policy resulted in the introduction of royal personnel in the temples.

Having outlined all the elements of the discussion, we are now in a better posi-tion to assess the practical consequences of the religious differences pointed out at the beginning of this paper. First, the formal religious status of the Egyptian king explains why the Ptolemies were qualified to encroach extensively upon the inner workings of the temples. From an Egyptian point of view, their interference with temple life was perfectly justified : as Pharaohs, the Ptolemaic kings were entitled to conduct all aspects of the temple’s affairs – a prerogative endorsed through the

44 This conclusion rests on literary and historical arguments. For a detailed discussion, see Honigman, The judean Rebellion, cit., chapters 7 and 9.

45 If we may believe 2 Maccabees, Antiochos IV first chose Jason, Onias’ brother, and therefore an Oniad himself. This choice may have been motivated by the king’s willingness to soften the impact of his coup. However, for unclear reasons Jason was overthrown two years later, and the new incumbent, Menelaos, who reportedly promised a new increase in the tribute rate, had no family ties with the Oniads (2 Mac-cabees 4 : 23-25).


increasing control of the royal administration on the temples revenues from the 26th dynasty onward. 46 In contrast, in Judaea the part of the temple economy that financed the sacrifices was out of the king’s reach.

Second, the political status of the high priest in Judaea may explain why similar policies led to very different outcomes in Egypt and Judaea. Whereas removing high priests in Egypt had limited consequences outside the temples themselves, in Judaea such a move automatically prompted a political crisis. As it happens, the combination of Antiochos IV’s sharp fiscal demands and his brutal meddling with the local leadership went one step too far. In 169 bce, Antiochos’ campaign in Egypt provided the opportunity for the rebellion.

These differences notwithstanding, the interest of the comparative approach, as shown in our discussion, is to bring in the whole picture – combining motiva-tion and practice – regarding the appointment of the royal high priests. Whereas the biographical inscriptions of the Egyptian high priests illustrate the praxis, the Seleukid letters of appointment of the provincial high priests shed light on the ideological background.

46 D. Agut-Labordère, G. Gorre, De l’autonomie à l’intégration, cit.

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Kings, Taxes and High Priests Comparing the Ptolemaic and Seleukid Policies

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