Introduction. The presentation of the self in everyday life -- Part I. The texture of the problem. Chapter 1. Ptolemaios complains ; Chapter 2. Violent Egypt ; Chapter 3. Violence, modern and ancient -- Part II. From the language of pain to the language of law. Chapter 4. Narrating injury ; Chapter 5. The work of law ; Chapter 6. Fission and fusion -- Conclusion. Nomos and its narratives -- Appendix A. The papyrus on the page -- Appendix B. Translations of petitions concerning violence -- List of papyri in checklist order
Summary
If ancient historians have frequently written about non-elite people as if they were undifferentiated and interchangeable, the author counters by drawing on one of our few sources of personal narratives from the Roman world: over a hundred papyrus petitions, submitted to local and imperial officials, in which individuals from the Egyptian countryside sought redress for acts of violence committed against them. By assembling these long-neglected materials (also translated as an appendix to the book) and putting them in conversation with contemporary perspectives from legal anthropology and social theory, the author shows how legal stories were used to work out relations of deference within local communities. -- Publisher's description