It was in the initial period of Ptolemaic rule that was drawn up the famous Cyrenean constitution most of whose clauses have been found inscribed on the stele to which allusion has already been made. The constitution has produced a very wide literature, nor have scholars reached a final decision on its date. But the opinion of the majority is that the inscription belongs to the rule of Ptolemy Lagos and not to the 3rd century, as some scholars originally thought.[297] Opinions still differ, however, on the exact time of the drafting, and whether this took place in 322,[298] 313[299], or 308.[300] Bengtson[301] has indeed remarked that there are few prospects of an authoritative decision.
The new regime described in Ptolemy’s constitution is timocratic i.e. the possession of citizen-rights is conditioned by the enjoyment of a minimal yearly income of 20 Alexandrian minae (2,000 drachmae). In harmony with these restrictions the law sets up a body (πολίτευμα) of 10,000 citizens (in place of the restricted body of a thousand which preceded it), within which framework operate moderately democratic arrangements, albeit Ptolemy takes care to retain certain powers for himself. Citizenship is open to adults of thirty years and over. The consultative bodies are two; the upper is the Gerousia, with a hundred and one members, to be elected by the entire electorate for life, although the first members are appointed by Ptolemy personally. The Council (βουλή), on the other hand, has 500 members elected by lot, half its members retiring annually or every second year. The number of its membership points to a division of the citizen-body into five or ten tribes (φυλαί). Capital cases are to be tried before the Gerousia and the Boule, whether sitting as a common court or each sitting separately; appeals are heard by a court of 1,500, elected from the entire citizen-body by lot; those condemned to death may appeal to Ptolemy during the first three years after the drafting of the constitution. The High Priest of Apollo heads the list of the city’s government, but the senior magistrates are the strategoi, that is, the five elected by the citizens, and Ptolemy himself. In case of war, the people decides whether or not new strategoi are to be elected, and it is clear from this clause[302] that the city retains the right to wage war both within the frontiers of the country and beyond them.[303] The law further sets up five nomophylakes (νομοφύλακες)[304] to serve chiefly as recorders of the laws; five ephors,[305] and five nomothetai (νομοθέται) who would have drafted the laws of the constitution.
If we ignore Ptolemy’s authority, the internal procedures of the above constitution are not undemocratic. But its degree of liberalism should not be exaggerated, since the annual income that is a condition of citizenship is far from low. In Athens at the end of the 5th century B.C. many workers and craftsmen supported themselves on an annual income of 180 drachmas,[306] and if prices rose in Greece in the 4th century, the same rise had not affected Cyrene,[307] hence 2,000 dr. is a fairly high income, certainly not enjoyed by the common people, craftsmen and small peasants, and restricted, we must suppose, to the well-to-do. The law’s attitude, indeed, does not particularly favour the wage-earner or the manual worker;[308] one of its clauses deprives physicians, teachers, heralds, instructors in archery, riding and the use of weapons, of the right to be elected to magistracies, and another,[309] much mutilated, reproduces a list of categories whose participation in government is restricted or prohibited; they include the manual labourer, the owner of a potter’s kiln, the vendor of wine, the porter (or trader? — the word is φορτήγος) and anyone joining Ptolemy’s new colonies (ἢ ἄλλοτε οἰκίας τὰς Πτολεμαϊκὰς ἐσέλθηι. But see p. 133).
The law generally reflects a situation of distress resulting from the struggle that had preceded its enactment. The new colony in the region of Thinis (Θῖνις) mentioned in the inscription,[310] shows that in this period the citizens of Cyrene had found need to seek lands at a distance, and the participation of Libyan tribes in the struggle against Thimbron may have encouraged unrest which had arisen amongst them due to the expansion of Greek settlement. The constitution, at any rate, elicits a desire to conciliate the Libyan population by granting citizen-rights to the sons of mixed marriages endowed with the necessary income, and a desire on the part of the Ptolemies to pose as Libyan sovereigns.[311]
2. Ptolemaic Rule
With the final consolidation of Ptolemaic control, Cyrene’s real independence came to an end, despite a maintenance of the external forms, and despite the city’s attempts to throw off royal control as late as the time of Ptolemy III and Ptolemy Euergetes II. The new regime was crystallized, as we have seen, in favour of the upper income groups. The Ptolemaic constitution bears traces of a situation of disorder and impoverishment,[312] of indebtedness, of the abandonment and destruction of estates,[313] of the flight and restoration of exiles. Some of the citizens are experiencing difficulties in obtaining the minimal capital required to maintain their civic rights.[314] Ptolemy’s garrison is stationed in the city,[315] and the danger exists of reprisals against returned political exiles.[316] The demagogic adventure of Ophelias suggests the need of diverting the resentment of the masses by an impressive project of expansion westward, while the participation of a number of Athenian emigres in the expedition and the readiness of as many as 10,000 inhabitants of Cyrene and elsewhere to join it, indicate their depressed economic situation at the time.
306
Tod has calculated (
307
This is clear from a comparison of the prices recorded by the Demiurgi Steles and those known in Greece and the islands in the same period; see
311
I refer to the close resemblance of the head of the goddess Libya on coins to that of the Ptolemaic queen; compare the well-known head of Berenice II, with a Libyan coiffure, from Alexandria (
313