Romans in Egypt before the Constitutio Antoniniana: When, Where, and Why?

Abstract

The Roman presence in Egypt is traced from before the Roman conquest by focusing on people with Roman names. The majority were to be found in Alexandria, and most were (the descendents of) Roman freedmen. A sizeable number owed their Roman names to service in the Roman army, but they are overrepresented in the evidence from the chora. By the time of the Constitutio Antoniniana there may have been 300,000 Romans in Egypt, two thirds of them in Alexandria.