e. The Apomoira for the Temples

In this context we may now turn to a more practical item, the apomoira , a tax of generally 16.7% (in special cases, a reduced rate of 10%) on the proceeds from vineyards and garden land. This was most likely a traditional tax paid to the temples at least in late pharaonic times; hence the name of the tax is probably translated from Egyptian: demotic dni.t.w , "portion," namely, of the gods.^[95] As was mentioned, Philadelphos added a new priesthood, the kanephoros of Arsinoe, to the eponymous priesthood of Alexander in 269 BC when Arsinoe II, his sister and wife, was still alive or, more likely, shortly after her death in the beginning of June of 268 (see section II.1.b with nn. 61 and 73). At that time cults for Arsinoe were founded throughout the country, probably with retroaction to the beginning of the year on March 28/29 (Dystros 25), 268 BC .^[96] In order to finance the expendi-

[94] Quaegebeur, "Cleopatra VII," 44f. with regard to Arsinoe II; see also his other contributions to this subject (n. 68). Cf. Hauben, "Aspects," 466f.; "Par. le blais du culte dynastique, les Ptolémées donc pouvaient relier les gens, aussi bien les Égypfiens que les Grecs, chaque groupe dans sa propre tradition, à l'état ptolémaïque."

[96] The date is derived from P. Rev. Laws col. 37 (M. T. Lenger, C. Ord. Ptol . 18), which in the twenty-third year ordered the farmers of vineyards and gardenland to provide written information on the total harvest for years 18-21 (i.e., for the period before collection through tax farmers began) as well as information on the amount and the temple to which the apomoira was paid in each year; the temples had to submit corresponding information (see above). The beginning of the eighteenth year was obviously the administrative starting point for the appropriation of the apomoira to the cult of Arsinoe. The year began on the evening of March 29, 268, but the vintage would not begin before the middle of July at the earliest. In the calculation of the Macedonian regnal year, I retain Dystros 25 as the Macedonian new year's day (see Agonistiche Inschrift , 39-43 and tables; also Pest-man, Zenon Archive , 215ff. [Pestman's tables start with 260]); Samuel, Ptolemaic Chronology , took Dystros 24 as the new year's day, and in this he is now followed by R. A. Hazzard, "Regnal Year"; E. Grzybek, however, Calendrier macédonien , follows a suggestion of F. Uebel that makes Dystros 27 the new year's day (BO 21 [1964]: 312; Kleruchen , 14; but see eundem, "Jenaer Kleruchenurkunden," APF 22/23 [1974]: 89-114, and Koenen, Agonistiche Inschrift , 41 n. 79; see also n. 113, below). Furthermore, the calculation is based on the assumption that the twenty-five-year cycle, which can be reconstructed from P. dem. Carlsberg 9, was not adjusted by one day as Samuel suggested (pp. 58f.). Therefore most dates fall one day earlier than they would fall in Samuel's calculation.

tures, the proceeds from the apomoira were reassigned to the cult of Arsinoe, or more specifically "to sacrifices and libations" in her cult (P. Rev. Laws 36.19). We can only guess that the proceeds were meant to serve the cult of the new goddess in both Greek and Egyptian temples.

In a next step, the system of collection of this tax was changed and brought in line with the collection of other taxes by the state. From April 14, 264 BC , the tax was farmed by the highest bidder—a Greek procedure—although the actual collection was left to officials of the state, thus adding additional control. The proceeds in wine and money went to the treasury, and we may assume that the treasury was to transfer them to Greek and Egyptian temples, where they were to serve the new cults of Arsinoe. In short, the administration of this tax was absorbed into the Greek system; moreover, the Greek authorities had it in their power to divide the proceeds between Greek and Egyptian cults.^[97]

An exception was made for the temples: they were exempted from paying this tax (P. Rev. Laws 36.7-10) and continued to collect it from tenants of their .^[98] In light of this fact we can now better understand the king's repeated assurances that the temple could keep this revenue. In the Rosettana the synod of the Egyptian priests, gathered at Memphis in 196 BC on the occasion of Epiphanes' coronation (see section II.1.a), recognizes that, according to the Greek version, the king "has ordered . . . that the apomoira which is owed to the gods from vineyards and gardens and from other possessions that belonged to the gods during the reign of his father, should remain in place."^[99] Similarly, in the philanthropa decree of 118 BC ,^[100] the joint rulers order that the temples will continue to "receive the apomoira which they used to

[97] P. Rev. Laws 36 (C. Ord. Ptol . 17) and 37. On the so-called Revenue Laws, a collection of regulations regarding tax farming, see J. Bingen, Le papyrus Revenue Laws: Tradition grecque et adaptation hellénistique , Rheinisch-Westfälische Akad. d. Wiss., Geisteswissenschaften, Vorträge G 231 (Opladen, 1978), esp. 17f. on the apomoira; Préaux, Économie , 165-181, and Monde hellénistique 1:378; H. Kortenbeutel, RE Suppl. 7:43f. While the tax for gardens was always paid in money, the tax for vineyards was originally paid in wine, although, around 190 BC , payment in money became optional and later obligatory (now see J. Kaimio, P. Hels . 1:122-126).

[100] For the philanthropa decrees see sections I (on P. Tebt . 1.5), II, and II.2, as well as the final remarks of this paper.

receive from vineyards, gardens, and other possessions."^[101] In other words, the temples retain the apomoira which they used to receive, that is, the apomoira paid by the tenants of their .^[102] The use of this apomoira from temple land remained unrestricted; it was for the gods in general.

Did the temples lose money, clout, and independence through Philadelphos' appropriation of the apomoira? If we are right in suspecting that the proceeds of the tax from nontemple land was now shared between the Greek and the Egyptian cults, the Egyptian temples would have continued to receive part of it for their cults of Arsinoe. Under Epiphanes the proceedings from the apomoira were earmarked for (Arsinoe) "Philadelphos and the Gods Philopatores."^[103] Again we may expect that this was applicable to the Egyptian as well to the Greek cult, but in practical terms the change will not have meant much. The restriction to the cult of Arsinoe and Philopatores was less of a burden than it seems. In the Egyptian temples Arsinoe as well as the Philopatores were worshiped as the ancestors of the ruling kings. When the synodal decree of the Egyptian priests gathered at Kanopos was moved to introduce cults for the ruling couple, the king and the queen were added to the rifles of all priests, just as they were added to the Greek priesthood of Alexander; the ancestors were included in the honors (see sections II.1.a

and b). An entire new class of priests was established, festivals founded, statues erected, and so on, and the ancestors were part of this. Moreover, inasmuch as Arsinoe and the Philopatores were of the Egyptian gods, the priests may have been able to use some part of the allocation even for their regular cult.^[104] the supervision would have been in the hands of the kings representative in the temple, the epistates . According to the evidence available, these controllers were selected from priestly families (see n. 17). In short, the fact that this revenue was earmarked for the cult of Arsinoe and, later, the Philopatores, must have been an enticement to introduce the Greek cults into the Egyptian temples, albeit in an Egyptianized form.

Given the extent of the cult of queens and kings we may expect that the apomoira collected by the state was good business for the temples. The proceeds were designated for the cult of Arsinoe at a time when the development of new vineyards and garden land boomed. Much of the land reclamation in the Fayum produced vineyards, because the planting of vineyards was a popular means of creating privately operated landholdings. Hence, even before the new regulations went into effect, the area of land subject to this tax had grown substantially; all vineyards, except those belonging to the temples, were now subject to this tax. Thus, the total volume of the tax must have been growing far beyond what the temples had been able to collect. Given the growth of the income from the tax, it is not certain whether the temples had less profit from it than at the time when they collected the tax themselves. The state's system was more effective than collection by the temples.^[105] By way of analogy, the churches in modem Germany have never been better off than since the state began to collect a tax to finance the churches (the so-called Kirchensteuer ). In short, the apomoira brought money into the temples, financed the new cults and chapels, and, in spite of the restrictions on the use of the money, was a boost for the economy of the temples.

There remains a reservation: the temptation not to deliver to the cult what was designated to it must have been great when the state was in a crisis, in particular since the temples lacked any means of control. Yet contrary to what has sometimes been said, we have no clear attestation that the apomoira was ever used for secular purposes.^[106]

[104] Cf. Quaegebeur, "Documents égyptiens," 713f.

[105] The impact may have been different in different parts of the country, depending on the number and sizes of gardens and vineyards.

[106] Secular misuse of the revenue has been claimed for P. Köln 5.221 and P. Col. Zen . 1.55. The former (edited and discussed in detail by H. Schäfer) is an account and calculation of payments of apomoira presumably from about 189 BC . After an empty space, the same scribe wrote an instruction (?) for the distribution of wine with reference to an order by the dioiketes: one portion is to be used in Ptolemaïs, another portion is to be brought to the military camp in Theogonis for furnishing the wine rations, and a third portion is to be reserved for home consumption in the villages and for furnishing the wine ration of an employee of a scribe. The wine is here used for secular purposes, but with regard to both syntax and content the connection with the preceding account of apomoira is less clear. Moreover, the actual use of the wine does not address the question how the account was settled between the state and the temples; the state may well have transferred money to a temple account. The Col. Zen . papyrus is a receipt for amounts of wine; one is taken from the apomoira paid to the goddess Philadelphos and is to be used for the wages of the guards under the recipient's charge. This transaction is subject to analogous difficulties of interpretation; see Préaux, Ëconomie , 180f.; for the Rosettana and P. Tebt . 1.5, which also have been claimed as evidence for secular use of the apomoira, see above.