Greek civilization was essentially urban. The city-state, or polis, was its highest governmental achievement. When, therefore, under Alexander and Ptolemy, Egypt was to be transferred wholly within the sphere of Greek culture, it was by means of a polis that this was to be effected.

The same was still more largely true for the other parts of Alexander’s empire. In Asia and Syria the “Successors” were busy founding, wherever convenient, cities diversely named. However, in these regions they were merely continuing, in a somewhat accelerated fashion, a practice begun long before. In Egypt, on the contrary, it was plain that a modification of that policy was necessary. There was, to be sure, an ancient Greek city at one of the western mouths of the Nile, the city of Naucratis. But that had been founded as an emporium, and due care was taken that it should be essentially nothing more, that it should acquire no supporting territory in Egypt. And however important and wealthy Naucratis became, it remained confined to its foreign trade for its subsistence.[101] Besides, it had considerably dwindled in 330 B.C.E., so that its claims could never have been seriously considered by Alexander, in comparison with his desire to 105found a new city and in comparison with the much superior location of Alexandria.

It is not likely that Alexander himself completed the plans for the organization of the city. That was left to Ptolemy, and it was accomplished with a modification of the Greek system that illustrates both the wariness and the foresight of this most astute of Alexander’s officers.

The essential part of the polis was its organization as a commonwealth, i.e. as a group of citizens, each of whom had a necessary function to perform in the state. From time immemorial the administration of affairs was assigned to a boulē, or senate, the actual executives being little more than committees of the boulē; but at all times an essential element of the constitution was the confirmation, real or constructive, of all acts of the boulē by the dēmos, or mass of citizens. The manner in which the boulē was selected, as well as the extent to which the check exercised by the dēmos was real, determined the measure of democracy each polis obtained. However, even in cities which, like Sparta, were in theory permanent camps, the same view was held of the necessity of these parts and of their respective functions, so that everywhere, in legal contemplation, sovereignty resided in the dēmos.[102]

It must not be supposed that all men who lived within the walls of the city were members of the dēmos. That is a conception of democracy wholly alien to ancient ideas. The participation of the individual in the state was a privilege, acquired in the first instance by birth. 106Side by side with the citizens was the slave, who was wholly devoid of legal rights, and the metic, or resident foreigner, who had, as a result of a direct compact with the state, acquired the right of residence and personal protection upon the payment of certain specified taxes.

The privilege of citizenship was a complex of rights, to which were attached certain very definite and sharply emphasized obligations. What those rights were depended upon the constitution of the given polis. Where they were fullest, as at Athens, they included voting in the public assembly, the holding of public office, service on the jury, and a claim for certain personal privileges, such as admission to the dramatic performances at the Dionysiac festivals. In other states they were not quite so extensive, but the obligations were everywhere the same, i.e. payment of taxes and military service. The state was in the habit of remitting from time to time certain or all of these taxes and other compulsory services, so that we may say that various grades of citizens and metics generally existed.

Now Naucratis was just such a polis as this. So were the various Apameas, Antiochias, Seleucias, Laodiceas, established in Asia and Syria. It is true that the boulē and dēmos of these cities were the merest shadows; and actually the despotism of the monarch was as undoubted as it had been in Persian times. But the shadows were at least a concession to the Hellenic spirit, and as such were immensely treasured; nor can it be denied that as long as they remained the remembrance of free institutions remained as well. At 107Pergamon, which the Attalids created, no public act was done except as the deliberate choice of senate and people.[103]

But when Ptolemy constituted Alexandria, he deliberately departed from this plan. As has been said, Naucratis had boulē and dēmos and all the other appurtenances of a well-regulated polis. So had Ptolemais somewhat later; and many years later, when the emperor Hadrian founded an Antinois in memory of his dead minion, he likewise made it a full and complete Greek city. In Alexandria, on the other hand, there is no trace, till late in Roman times, of a boulē; and of a dēmos as little. In the great mass of Greek papyri that have come from Egypt there is nowhere any indication that a senate ever met, or a people ever assembled, to parody the deliberations of the Athenian ecclesia. In other words Alexandria was much less a polis than it was a royal residence, i.e. the site of the king’s palace amidst a more densely gathered group of his subjects.[104]

In externals Alexandria was every inch a city. It had the high walls, which, as Alcaeus tells us, do not constitute a state. It had the tribe and deme, or district division, and it had its various grades of citizens, determined by the duties and imposts to which they were subjected.

Of its tribe and district division we know some details. There were probably five tribes, each of which consisted of twelve demes, or districts, which in turn had twelve phratries, or wards. The tribes were known by the first five letters of the Greek alphabet. In the 108absence of even formal political rights, this division can have been made simply in the interests of the census and the police. The obligations to pay taxes and perform military service were very real ones, and their proper enforcement necessitated some such organization of the city.[105]

Different classes of citizenship were at once created by the establishment of special taxes and special exemptions. The peculiar Greek fiscal arrangement known as the liturgy, which made the performance of certain services to the state a means of compounding for taxes, was also in vogue. We have records of certain of these classes of citizens, or inhabitants, and it is at least probable that there were other classes of which we know nothing.

First of all, there were the Macedones, or Macedonians. These form a specially privileged group, whose residence was probably by no means confined to Alexandria. Just what their privileges were we do not know, but that they lay chiefly in fiscal exemptions of one sort or another, is almost certain.

Then there were the Alexandreis, or Alexandrians. We know that there were at least two groups—those that were enrolled in a given tribe, or deme, and those not so enrolled. We can only conjecture the purpose of this division, and one conjecture will be mentioned later.

Besides these, there were other men whose legal right to residence was unquestioned. They were variously designated. We find Persians, Jews, and other nationalities, qualified with the phrase τ?? ?πιγον??, which means 109literally “of the descent,” but the exact force of which is unknown. This classification procured for those so termed certain very much valued exemptions. Native Egyptians also were present, paying a special poll-tax, and no doubt a very large number of metics and transient foreigners. Greek publicists regarded the presence of a large number of metics and foreign merchants as a sign of great prosperity.[106] We may be sure that no burdensome restrictions made the settling of these classes difficult at Alexandria.

Were the Jews in Alexandria citizens? A great many heated controversies have been fought on this subject, some of which would surely not have been entered into if a clearer analysis had been available of what constituted Alexandrian “citizenship.” As we have seen, the question can only be framed thus: Did the Jews of that city appear on the census books as “Alexandreis,” with or without the deme and tribe adjective after them, or were they classified as Jews, and did they form a distinct fiscal class by themselves?

The denial of their citizenship is principally based upon distrust of Josephus, who asserts it. But distrust of Josephus may be carried to an extravagant degree. Modern writers with pronounced bias may, of course, be disregarded, but saner investigators have equally allowed themselves to be guided by disinclination to credit Josephus, and have come to the conclusion that the Jews were not citizens of Alexandria.

There were of course very many Jews in Alexandria who were not legally Alexandrians. Josephus’ assertion 110did not and could not mean that every Jew in the city was, by the very fact of his residence, an Alexandrian. Nowhere in the ancient world could citizenship be acquired except by birth or by special decree. Jews who emigrated from Palestine to Alexandria, and were permitted to remain there, were metics, and became Alexandrians only if they were specially awarded that designation. But that was just as true for a foreign Greek or a foreign Macedonian, since at Alexandria “Macedonian” was a class of citizenship, not an ethnic term. Those who assisted in the founding of the city were undoubtedly classified either as “Macedones” or “Alexandreis,” and the tradition that Jews were among them is based upon other authority than Josephus. It is not enough, therefore, if one desires to refute Josephus, to show that there were Jews in Egypt who were not “Alexandreis.” Undoubtedly there were thousands of them. But if, in the papyri, we do find Jews among the “Macedones” and others among the “Alexandreis,” the statements of Josephus on the subject are strikingly confirmed, for he says no more than that there were Jews in both these categories.[107]

Of the two classes of Alexandrians, those enrolled in demes and those not so enrolled, it is likely that the Jewish “Alexandreis” belonged to the latter class. The former either paid a special district tax, or, more............