From Arsinoe and Alexandria and beyond: Taxation and information in early Roman Egypt. A discussion of P.Bagnall 70

The practice of dispatching monthly reports sent by tax collectors to the strategos of the nome in the early Roman period is relatively well documented. While the following stage in the information collection process, that of forwarding of the information by the strategos to the provincial administration in Alexandria, has already been recorded, in particular in the context late third century Panopolis (P. Panop. Beatty 1 and 2, dated to 298 and 300 CE respectively), earlier evidence is relatively sparse. The addition of P. Bagnall 70 (232 CE, Arsinoites), sheds new light on the procedure and proves its deployment in the early third AD century.