Throughout the years of Ptolemaic rule, victims of crime in all areas of the Egyptian countryside called on local police officials to investigate wrongdoings. What was this ancient police force like - would it have seemed familiar to someone used to modern law enforcement? Drawing on a large body of textual evidence for the cultural, social, and economic interactions between state and citizen, Dr. John Bauschatz of the University of Arizona demonstrates in his recent book that the police system was efficient, effective, and largely independent of central government controls. No other law enfor
|