ABSTRACT
An empire like the Roman Empire is inconceivable without taxes. Just as is the case today, tax and revenues were among the core elements of exercising power; they were instruments of political rule, even in antiquity.2@FO@@open@fn id="fn4_2"@close@@open@label@close@@open@/label@close@@open@p@close@For a general introduction, see @open@xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4_28"@close@Monson and Scheidel (2015@open@/xref@close@, 229–257).@open@/p@close@@open@/fn@close@@FC@ The organisation and structures used to prevent tax evasion by its inhabitants were proxies of imperial rule that could be experienced (sometimes painfully) by each and every individual of the Roman Empire. This chapter explores what strategies of tax evasion can be identified in a particularly well-documented province of the Roman Empire, namely the province of Egypt. To this end, it first outlines some basic information about the Roman tax system, the general modes of taxing the provincial population and the peculiarities of Roman Egypt, before focusing on the actual source material that sheds light on tax evasion and tax fraud in this province, and how this was perceived and managed by public authorities.
