At the centre of the Roman empire stood the emperor and the court surrounding him. The systematic investigation of this court in its own right, however, has been a relatively late development in the field of Roman history, and previous studies have focused on narrowly defined aspects or on particular periods of Roman history. This book makes a major contribution to understanding the history of the Roman imperial court. The first volume presents nineteen original essays covering all the major dimensions of the court from the age of Augustus to the threshold of Late Antiquity. The second volume is a collection of the ancient sources that are central to studying that court. The collection includes: translations of literary sources, inscriptions, and papyri; plans and computer visualizations of archaeological remains; and photographs of archaeologic sites and artworks depicting the emperor and his court.

This book examines the contribution that petitioning and litigation made to the maintenance of the social order in Roman Egypt between 30 BC and AD 284. Through the analysis of the many hundreds of documents surviving on papyrus, especially petitions, reports of court proceedings, and letters, Kelly focuses on how the legal system achieved its formal goals (that is, the resolution of disputes through judgments), and discusses in detail the contribution made by the litigation process to informal methods of social control. With particular emphasis on the roles that this process played in the transmission of political ideologies, such as the maintenance of family solidarity and the fostering of 'private' mechanisms of dispute resolution, the book argues that although the legal system was less than successful when judged by its formal aims, it did have a real social impact by indirectly contributing to some of the informal mechanisms that ensured order in this province of the Roman Empire. However, arguing that, on occasion, one can also see petitioning and litigation being abused for the pursuit of feud and vengeance, Kelly also recognizes that the social impacts of petitioning and litigation were multifaceted, and in some senses even contradictory.

At the centre of the Roman empire stood the emperor and the court surrounding him. The systematic investigation of this court in its own right, however, has been a relatively late development in the field of Roman history, and previous studies have focused on narrowly defined aspects or on particular periods of Roman history. This book makes a major contribution to understanding the history of the Roman imperial court. The first volume presents nineteen original essays covering all the major dimensions of the court from the age of Augustus to the threshold of Late Antiquity. The second volume is a collection of the ancient sources that are central to studying that court. The collection includes: translations of literary sources, inscriptions, and papyri; plans and computer visualizations of archaeological remains; and photographs of archaeologic sites and artworks depicting the emperor and his court.

At the centre of the Roman empire stood the emperor and the court surrounding him. The systematic investigation of this court in its own right, however, has been a relatively late development in the field of Roman history, and previous studies have focused on narrowly defined aspects or on particular periods of Roman history. This book makes a major contribution to understanding the history of the Roman imperial court. The first volume presents nineteen original essays covering all the major dimensions of the court from the age of Augustus to the threshold of Late Antiquity. The second volume is a collection of the ancient sources that are central to studying that court. The collection includes: translations of literary sources, inscriptions, and papyri; plans and computer visualizations of archaeological remains; and photographs of archaeologic sites and artworks depicting the emperor and his court.