Epigraphische Forschungen zur Geschichte Lykiens VIII. Ein ptolemäisches Prostagma aus Limyra über Mißstände beim Steuereinzug

Abstract

Publication of a fragmentary royal letter (3rd cent. BC, the author must be Ptolemy II or III) belonging to a collection of documents exposed on the wall of a public building (anta of a temple?) in Limyra. The letter must have been addressed to local or regional heads of the Ptolemaic administration. Its subject is mismanagement of tax authorities in Lycia and, perhaps, neighbouring Ptolemaic possessions due to careless control by the royal oikonomoi. The description of the problem and the measures of redress envisaged by the king shed important new light on structures of administration in Ptolemaic Lycia that correspond even more than expected to what we know for Egypt from the contemporary papyri.