The tablets and papyri of antiquity are time capsules that show us a specific moment of the past fascinously, sometimes even in the first person. There is everything from The oldest trigonometric systemor from applied geometry a thousand years before Pythagoraseven stories or anecdotes that reveal us How was life thousands of years ago. Therefore, when the longest Greek papyrus was found, the world was expectant. It turns out that it was something else.
A papyrus in Israel, a Roman case. An unprecedented discovery has thrown New light on the functioning of the Roman judicial system and the fight against financial crime in the eastern provinces of the Empire. An international team of researchers from the Academy of Sciences of Austria, the University of Vienna and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has published The study of a Greek papyrus of more than 133 linesthe most extensive ever found, found in the Judea desert.
The document, unknown until rediscovery in 2014offers a direct testimony of a trial for fiscal fraud and falsification of documents in the Roman provinces of Judea and Arabia, a region shaken by Jewish uprisings against Rome in the I and II DC centuries
As we will see, life then was not as different from what it is today.
A legal testimony of imperial Rome. The papyrus, initially Erroneous classified as Nebateoshe remained forgotten for decades until Professor Hannah Cotton Paltiel realized something. When examining it in the Parchment Laboratory of the Israel Antiques Authority, it identified its true nature.
That finding motivated the formation of a specialized team to analyze its content, later confirming that it was actually, of notes of prosecutors in a trial against Roman officials on the eve of the Kokhba Bar Revolt (132-136 AD). Not just that. The document of the document is surprisingly dynamic, showing procedural strategies and discussions among prosecutors on the strength of evidence. An exceptionally well documented case within the judicial context of the province of Judea, comparable in importance, for example, to the process of Jesus, especially in terms of written evidence of Roman procedures in the region.
A fiscal fraud scandal. As for the pure content of the same, the judicial case documented in the papyrus involves two defendants, Gadalias and Sauloswho operated a network of fraud based on fictitious sale and fraudulent slave manumission without paying taxes required by Rome.
Gadalias, son of a notary and possibly Roman citizen, had a criminal history of violence, extortion and falsification of documents. For his part, Saulos, his accomplice, designed the scheme to avoid Roman taxes, using counterfeit documents to register non -existent transactions.
The punishment. Under Roman law, falsification and fiscal fraud were serious crimes, punished with forced labor or even the death penalty. The arrest of Gadalias and Saulos not only responded to its criminal history, but also happened in a context of growing political tension. His case, in fact, developed between two great Jewish revolts: The diaspora revolt (115-117 AD) and The Kokhba Bar Revolt (132-136 AD)which led the Roman authorities to suspect that their activities were linked to a conspiracy against the Empire.
By the way, the papyrus mentions TO TINEIUS RUFUSthe governor of Judea when the revolt of Bar Kokhba exploded, and places the activity of the defendants in the context of the visit of the Adriano Emperor to the region in 129-130 AD said connection suggests that The Romans saw any illegal activity in the area suspiciousespecially those that could be interpreted as acts of challenge to imperial authority.
Economic and social implications. One of the most intriguing aspects of the case is the lack of an obvious economic benefit in the fraudulent liberation of slaves, which raises questions about the motivations of the accused. Among the hypotheses that are considered is the possibility that the case was linked to the traffic of people or the Jewish tradition of redeeming Jewish slavespractice based on biblical precepts.
Not just that. The document also provides valuable information about the Roman legal administration in the Eastern Mediterranean, Confirming the application of institutions such as the judicial tours of the governor of Judea and the mandatory jurors in the provincial courts. These structures, widely documented in Egypt, can now be confirmed in other regions of the Empire, which reinforces the image of Rome as that highly organized state with a legal supervision system that even reached the most remote areas.
The enigma of the papyrus. He Papiro P. Cotton was found in Judea’s desert, possibly in a cave used as a refuge During the Kokhba bar revolt. It happens that its conservation is a mystery, since judicial documents rarely survive outside the Roman archives. According to historians, it is possible that the trial will never reach its outcome due to the outbreak of the conflictwhich would have led the defendants to hide and carry that document with them.
Be that as it may, we are facing one of those findings that occur very occasionally, an extraordinary discovery that provides us with an unprecedented look at the administration of justice in the Roman provinces of Judea and Arabia and that gives us an idea, not Only of the legal mechanisms of the empire, but also of the political and social tensions that marked the time, especially in a region where resistance to Rome was constant.
Power, yesterday and today. If you want also, the writing says a lot about how the political elites of Rome worked, demonstrating how the empire regulated the economy and fought fraud even in their further territories, in addition to suggesting that the Romans saw with suspicion any illegal activity in contexts of political agitation, interpreting it as a potential threat to its domain.
Politics and power, after all, have not changed so much since then.
Image | Israel Authority Antiquities
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