Download or read book Economics Decision Making and Fiscal Participation in Late Antique Egypt written by Todd M. Hickey and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is based on the extensive papyrological documentation concerning the Middle Egyptian holdings of an aristocratic family that moved in the stratosphere of late antique society. It responds to recent arguments that the Apion estate was an exemplar of late antique agricultural capitalism and to a much older claim that the Apiones derived the majority of their wealth from massive vineyards in the Oxyrhynchite nome. The argument for capitalism is largely wishful thinking; on the Oxyrhynchite estate, a safe and steady income was valued above all else, and the risks of the market were to be shouldered by others. The Apiones' vineyards, moreover, though significant, were nowhere near as large as has been thought. As a result, one must posit a significant amount of holdings outside of the Oxyrhynchite just to bring the family up to the income level of an average senator from the West. This discovery is significant because the Apiones are usually cited as the exception par excellence to the traditional view that members of the Roman senate were much better off than their counterparts in Constantinople. More importantly, it enables a quantitative demonstration that the Apiones were willing participants in the imperial administration, not "feudal magnates" (with private armies and "proto-serfs") who were locked in a power struggle with the State for control of the provinces.