ABSTRACT
Strabo was selective in the areas of the city on which he comments but his descriptions of the Apis stalls, the Apis temple, the Hephaestion and the royal palaces are relevant to Petrie's work at the site. The leap from royal resident to imperial ruler must have decreased the revenues of the temples and priests, and Memphis, which had enjoyed a close relationship with the Ptolemaic royal house, perhaps felt the change more than other priesthoods. According to Petrie's notes however, the mask, Ptolemaic pottery and Roman lamps were found together. Petrie's excavations of the plateau where the Persian palace was housed were published in 1909 but revealed little from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. The abandonment of the royal palaces by the time of Strabo may have had an effect on the temples and their finances during the Roman period.
