Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-995ml Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T08:41:48.848Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Labour and administration: the evidence of the contractual papyri

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2009

Peter Sarris
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

THE NATURE OF THE DOCUMENTS

Although the Apion estate accounts reveal in broad outline the economic structure of the family's Oxyrhynchite landholdings in the sixth century, they shed relatively little light on the precise terms on which the estate's labourers, supervisors, and managers were actually employed. For this aspect of the life on the Apion estates, we must turn to the testimony of the contractual papyri.

The major contractual components of the archive may be divided into three. First and foremost in terms of the light they shed on the management of the estates are the homologiai (ὁμολογιαί), which generally consist of contracts of employment. In many respects, the homologiai bear close resemblance to the contracts of surety, the enguai (ἐγγύαι), which constitute our second type, and which describe in greatest detail the terms on which the mainstay of the agricultural workforce was retained in the service of the household. Third are the cheirographiai (χειρογραφίαι), contracts acknowledging the receipt of items issued by the Apion estate to its employees and dependants. This third category shares certain affinities with other documents found within the archive of relatively minor significance to our understanding of the workings of the household. As such, these documents (styled apodeixeis/ἀπόδειξεις), along with documents of receipt termed idiocheira (ἰδιόχειρα) and grammateia (γραμμάτεια), are not examined here, although their existence should be noted.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×