The Ptolemies and the Ideology of Kingship

It is now almost exactly a century since Grenfell and Hunt presented us with the Revenue Laws Papyrus, a text which prompted the modern emphasis on the nature of Ptolemaic monarchy as intricately bureaucratic and centrally organized. Over the years, that monarchy and its administrative structure have been variously conceived, with assessments ranging from almost unalloyed approval of a government seen as innovative and progressive,¹ to the most recent condemnation by the late Eric Turner of an oppressive rule which squeezed Egypt so severely as to bankrupt it for the future.² I am not going to be so banal as