Praesides und Correctores der Augustamnica

In the course of the 4th century AD the arrangement of the provinces in Egypt underwent several changes. As early as the period between 297 and 341 three different models (division into two, three and four provinces) followed one another in quick succession. For recreating the circumstances in the 2nd half of the 4th century the province of Augustamnica, which was created in 341, is of central importance. This province initially included that part of the Delta which lays east of the Phatnite arm of the Nile, as well as the Heptanomia in middle Egypt. A praeses headed its provincial organization. In 374 it ceded the Heptanomia and portions of the Delta to the province Aegyptus (the western part of the Delta surrounding Alexandria). The new boundaries of the province of Aegyptus increased the standing of its prefect. A sign of the importance of this new prefecture is the fact that it was taken over by Eutolmius Tatianus, who had already held offices of higher rank. This province of Augustamnica, confined to the eastern portion of the Delta, is the basis of the description given of it by Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestac XXII, 16,1-6, a passage of which scholars until now have been unjustly suspicious. As a result of the confinement of the province of Augustamnica to the eastern part of the Delta, it disappeared from papyrological documentation, although it continued to exist into the 7th century. When Egypt became a diocese in 381 and was headed by a praefectus Augustalis, the province of Aegyptus was reduced to its old boundaries and presided over by a praeses, so that the new praefectus Augustalis did not inherit a potential rival. The province of Augustamnica regained portions of the Delta as well as the Heptanomia and thus again had its original boundaries. At this point the rank of its governor was upgraded from praeses to corrector. Around 397 the province of Augustamnica lost the Heptanomia for good. The Heptanomia in turn was organised as the province of Arcadia, of which the capital was Oxyrhynchos. From this time onwards the province of Augustamnica was confined to the portion of the Delta which lays east of the Phatnite arm of the Nile. The arrangement of the provinces in lower and middle Egypt thus assumed the form which was to remain standard into the 6th century.