Die Fiskalverkäufe von Land im kaiserzeitlichen Ägypten und ihre Dokumentation

Abstract

The article deals with the bureaucratic procedures by means of which the Roman administration of Egypt used to sell arable land placed at the disposal of the state by way e.g. of confiscation. The land was sold at a fixed price and under the condition that the buyer was granted a period of tax exemption after the acquisition. One of the most important categories of land sold in this way was the "land of reduced revenue" (hypologos) because it had not been cultivated for some time. By establishing the procedure described above the government aimed at attracting potential buyers by reducing their investment costs for the recultivation of the land in order to resume the collecting of the taxes. Besides the analysis of the bureaucratic procedures which were necessary on the various level of the administration for the execution of such sales the contribution also investigates the problems connected to the fixing of the purchase price of the land in question.