Police in Ancient Egypt From Medjay to Centurion DOCUMENTARY

The topic of Ancient Egypt often conjures up iconic images of pharaohs, pyramids, and mummies. However, such glamorous topics often overshadow other fascinating details of the Egyptian civilization. One of these is their highly advanced police force, which outshone its contemporaries, and at its height, employed more than 10 times as many law enforcement officers per capita as the modern United States. Today, let us take a look at the incredible history of the police in Ancient Egypt from Medjai to Centurion. Egyptian civilization is incredibly old, With a huge population, immense wealth, and an abundance of commercial activity, there had always been a need for some form of policing to keep the lands of the Nile in order. Early on, this was done in a highly decentralized manner. The Old Kingdom, for instance, saw the elites hire personal guards, often ex-military, to look after their own affairs. Meanwhile, the local communities within the various gnomes of Egypt were left to handle their own security. However, by the end of the period, the role of the upper class guards was slowly expanded to include policing of the public places, like markets, temples, and parks. Interestingly enough, we even have depictions of these guards using dogs and baboons to carry out their duties. During the Middle Kingdom, greater centralization arose with the formation of a standing army. These troops took over policing activities, manning garrisons, patrolling roads, and keeping an eye on the important areas of the cities. Alongside them would be a new judicial system with revised courts, professional judges, and all manner of staff including bailiffs, scribes, and interrogators. During the late Middle Kingdom and the ensuing intermediate period, there would be a growing influence by the Nubians. Many of their elite Medjay warriors would find employ as mercenaries in Egyptian armies and would actually become a core part of the policing forces. By the New Kingdom era, Egypt had once again found its footing and rose to new heights. In this ensuing age, the policing and judicial systems became even more organized. These now handled a wide scope of activities with enforcement power over both state and local laws. At the head of this government apparatus would be the pharaoh. Below them, a vizier carried out most of the administrative duties, which included the appointment of the chief of police. This man was formally referred to as the chief of the Medjay, in reference to the use of these famous Nubian warriors some decades earlier. Below him would be a range of sub-chiefs with all kinds of roles and responsibilities. For instance, there were special temple guards, tomb guards, caravan guards, border guards, patrol guards, and more. This highly bureaucratic force would slowly begin to crumble as the New Kingdom gave way to the 400 years of the Third Intermediate Period, where power reverted back to the local level. During this time, Egypt struggled to retain its autonomy. For instance, the Persians would come to exert great influence on the affairs of the Nile, intermittently ruling Egypt over the course of the 6th to the 4th centuries BC, until the conquest of Alexander the Great. Following the Macedonian king's death, the lands of Egypt would be claimed by the successor Ptolemy, who founded the Ptolemaic dynasty. Its reign would see the return of a powerful, bureaucratic state with a reinvigorated police force that sought to reach the heights of the New Kingdom period. The government of Ptolemaic Egypt consisted of a new Hellenistic ruling class which was layered over an existing native hierarchy. At the very top were the Ptolemaic kings who styled themselves as pharaohs. Beneath them was the royal court, consisting of Hellenistic high officials. The strategos acted as the regional extension of the crown who sought the day-to-day governance of their gnome. Beneath them were the local officers, or archi-philakitai, and their village police, the philakitai. This lower rung of the system had a higher proportion of natives and was present across the country in a continuation of the system which had long permeated Egypt over the centuries, regardless of who was in charge. They dealt with petty crimes, protected property, escorted people, collected taxes, and carried out all manner of tasks that might be required of them by regional and royal authorities. When the Romans came to rule Egypt in the 1st century BC, they inherited quite the bureaucratic state with a vast policing network. Historians estimate this force at somewhere around 3% of the entire population. For perspective, the US only has around 0.3% of its population in law enforcement, with about another 0.5% in active military service. It's an astounding number that blows modern metrics out of the water. So what were all of these people doing? Well, they were integrated into basically all walks of life. This might involve the more stereotypical peacekeeping activities of patrolling, guarding, suppressing banditry, hunting fugitives, and dealing with minor crimes. They also enforced regulation, customs, and taxation, in addition to a wide range of bureaucratic tasks. Specific examples include registering cattle, inspecting infrastructure, overseeing audits, supervising linen production, pursuing deficits, supervising tree planting, inspecting royal villas, and rooting out corruption, and many more. It's an incredibly long list that speaks to the sheer magnitude of activity taking place across ancient Egypt. The police played an important part in keeping things running smoothly, but could certainly be cause for trouble themselves. We have frequent sources which speak of widespread corruption, which only got worse in troubled times. During civil wars, for instance, the police were as likely as any to abuse their power over commoners, and could often expect to have their indiscretions forgiven so long as they backed the victor of the power struggle. However, this was not something unique to Egypt. In fact, they seem to have actually been generally more fair and even-handed than most police of the era. In a similar manner to the Macedonian Conquest, the new Roman overlords slipped into the top layer of the administrative pyramid without changing too much of the underlying infrastructure, at least at first. This involved the imperial appointment of an equestrian governor to rule over the prefecture of Alexandria and Egypt. The other upper-level administrative ranks were filled with members of the equestrian class, or prominent members of the local Hellenic elite. At their back would be three full legions, auxiliaries, and a flotilla with which to secure the lands of the Nile that remained mostly populated by rural communities of natives. Soon, however, the Romans began updating Egypt's police system to meet their own standards. This involved restructuring its architecture around two core pillars. One, Roman military stations, and two, Egyptian village guards. The first pillar was very much in keeping with standard Roman practice across the rest of the empire. Legions would be stationed in a province and headquartered at major economic and strategic hubs. They would be used at a high level by the governor to combat any large threats such as invasion or revolt. Otherwise, these legions and their auxiliaries would be broken out into smaller detachments and dispersed across the lands. Within the province, this often meant posting them in key ports, cities, or villages, while along the borders they would be set up in watch towers and forts. This was of vital importance to Egypt, whose civilization was essentially a long, narrow strip of fertile land surrounded by vast stretches of inhospitable no-man's land. These were often dangerous areas where deserts could kill just as easily as the roving bandits who hid in the countryside. The Roman military stations helped combat both threats by establishing highways for fast travel and providing places to shelter, resupply, drink from wells, or request an escort along the way. As a result, much of the Egyptian hinterlands were now unlocked for travelers. This was a great boon to the lucrative trade routes which connected the Nile to places like the Red Sea and the mystical lands of the Far East. Securing these networks with military force also allowed Rome to tightly control trade and extract their own profits from the expanding mercantile activity. With the competition kept at bay, they now reaped the benefits of a monopoly. For example, when goods made their way from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, they would be stored in Alexandrian warehouses. Along the way, customs officers would meticulously track shipments. This, in turn, would be used to levy a 25% tax on the value of every cargo, in addition to export taxes and other fees. The resulting income added significantly to the coffers of the Roman Empire. For instance, we have papyrus records of the custom revenue from just one set of cargo out of several hundred, which amounted to well over 2 million sesterces. Some researchers have used this and other figures to estimate that the customs income from Alexandria alone could have been enough to pay for about one-third of the entire Roman army's salary at its height. And that's just the fees. On top of this, Egypt output an incredible amount of natural wealth in the form of gold, emeralds, ivory skins, and grain. It's no wonder Rome held the province as a jewel of the empire and devoted significant military resources to secure it. This now gets us back to the second pillar of Rome's policing strategy, the use of village guards. Its adoption was a result of the fact that the legion simply couldn't be everywhere at once. In addition, the sheer practicality of Egypt's long-standing tradition of local police was too much to pass up. But of course, the Romans had to put their own spin on things. For example, the guardsmen continued to be led by local chiefs or inspectors. However, new changes mandated that these officers worked on a rotational basis for short periods of time, further away from areas where they might have conflicts of interest. The men beneath them, on the other hand, would continue to be locals. They were generally organized professionals who were paid in exchange for their service. However, not all were there voluntarily. Local governments were not shy about levying men to serve in these roles, and an enormous proportion of surviving summons for involuntary labor are for these policing duties. As for what they did, the Romans greatly expanded their role. Surviving texts speak of field guards, sluice guards, guards of the threshing floor, crop guards, prison guards, day and night guards, watchtower guards, harbor guards, estate guards, river guards, guardians of the peace, bandit catchers, and more. It seems even minor villages had some of these police units in their midst. One record mentions how a small community had 10 night watchmen, each of which was assigned a specific beat of about 127 houses apiece. Until budget cuts in the late 4th century AD, there was a rather robust system for lawbreakers involving both guards and arresting officers. If accusations arose against a person, a summons would be issued. Though these were not quite arrest warrants, they compelled the accused to attend a hearing. The experience, however, was essentially the same. If the person attempted to resist, he would be beaten and brought in by force. If he attempted to hide, then his associates would be beaten until they gave him up. If it was suspected that an officer had allowed the accused to escape, the officer himself might be issued with a summons. These summons allowed officers to take a more proactive role in policing, allowing them to cross into jurisdiction of another town to arrest their man, which was not necessarily a possibility otherwise. This level of policing may seem overblown, but was absolutely necessary in one of the oldest and most densely populated territories of the empire. It's also important to note that Egypt itself was a restive land that lay at the crossroads of many cultural groups. The Egyptians and the Greeks usually got along decently, but others like the Greeks and the Jews had frequent flare-ups between them. Alexandria itself was the center of many of these riots, and one rare surviving papyrus is actually a letter directly from Claudius to the city addressing these issues. One of these long-simmering tensions eventually boiled over during Trajan's Parthian War and forced the emperor to retreat from his conquests in Mesopotamia to Egypt. Alexandria itself had been burned, and the rebels had won several victories against local Roman garrisons in his absence. This was later known as the Kitos War, and once again highlighted how large a part the security of Egypt played in the stability of the wider empire. As we've shown, this same principle extended to everything from tax revenue to trade, food production, supply lines, and more. It's no wonder, therefore, that the lands of the I hope you've appreciated this deep dive into daily life in the Roman Empire and Egypt. A huge thanks is owed to our patrons and to the many talented researchers, writers, and artists who made this video possible. Be sure to like and subscribe for more content, and check out these related videos. See you in the next one!