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all rights to the disputed property and any future claim to the said
property.^63 A rare type of text exists which records the end result of
litigation, beginning ≈d=y qnb.t firm=k, “I have disputed with you.”^64- PS
4.1 Citizenship
Although there was no formal category of “citizen” in the Egyptian
tradition, individual men were generally distinguished in legal texts
by occupation and/or ethnicity. Greeks living in the Greek cities
(Alexandria, Naucratis, Ptolemais) had the status of citizen. Some
ethnic groups under the Ptolemies were organized into politeumata.^65
At times individuals were named as being from a specific town. It
is uncertain if this reflects an occupation (i.e., that the town was a
military garrison) or was used for tax registration purposes. It is pre-
sumed that in Demotic sources, Egyptians were meant when not sin-
gled out, although this did not matter in the eyes of the law. What
mattered, in terms of what court in which a case was heard, at least
by the second century B.C.E., was the language of the document.^664.2 Class
Herodotus distinguished seven classes (genos) within the social struc-
ture of fifth-century Egypt: priests, warriors, cowherds, swineherds,
tradesmen, interpreters, and boatmen.^67 Four centuries later Diodorus
Siculus described five classes: farmers, herdsmen, artisans, priests,
and warriors.^68 The classes of men listed by both classical authors
do in fact often appear as the titles of parties in Demotic contracts.^69(^63) P. Berlin 13554 (245 B.C.E.), discussed by Martin, Elephantine Papyri.. ., 360–62,
esp. 361, n. 6. Cf. P. Mattha 6:3.
(^64) Zauzich, “Die demotischen Dokumente,” 101; Kaplony-Heckel, Tempeleide...,
- At the conclusion of the so-called “Erbstreit archive,” the losing party entered
into an agreement before the strategos(P. dem. wiss. Strasb., 16).
(^65) Thompson, Memphis, 101–2.
(^66) P. Tebt. 5 (118 B.C.E.).
(^67) Histories, 2.164.
(^68) Diod. Sic. I, 73–74 specified five “classes”: priests, warriors, herdsmen, hus-
bandmen, and artisans. See the discussion in Lloyd, Herodotus.
(^69) Hence the connection would be that there were property-owning classes. In
all classical authors, the two groups identified by all were priests and soldiers, the
two large land-owning classes beside the king.
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