This volume reprints Naphtali Lewis’ important book on the uses of papyrus records reconstructing life in ancient Egypt.
Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt
complements
Life in Egypt under Roman Rul
e (also in the series
Classics in Papyrology
) by providing a perspective on the earlier period. The author presents a series of portraits, describing the lives of inhabitants ranging from the grand (like the Strategos Diophanes) to the humble (like the village clerk, Menkhes). He sets these figures against a prosperous, busy backdrop that he terms “Eldorado on the Nile.”