EDICT OF SEMPRONIUS ON EGYPTIAN DISORDERS
   
( August 29, AD 154 )
 
 
( Johnson, Coleman-Norton & Bourne, Ancient Roman Statutes, Austin, 1961, p. 214, n. 258 ).
 
 
      There had been some disturbances in Egypt as a result of which the prefect had been slain. Although the revolt had been suppressed, the country was still in disorder and this edict by pronouncing a general amnesty sought to restore conditions to normalcy.
      The papyrus containing this edict was reported in 1898.
 
 
ENGLISH TRANSLATION.
 
 
      Marcus Sempronius Liberalis, prefect of Egypt, proclaims :
      I learn that, because of the recent unpleasantness, some persons have abandoned their homes and provided for themselves a living elsewhere, and that others, avoiding their compulsory public duties because of their impoverishment at the time, are still living away from home through fear of the proscriptions made at that time. Accordingly, I urge all persons to return to their homes, to reap the first and greatest fruit of prosperity and of the care which our lord the emperor displays to all men, and not to wander without hearth or home in an alien land. That they may do so with greater zeal and pleasure, they shall know that anyone who is still held back for these reasons will experience the good will and generosity of our greatest emperor in permitting no inquiry against them nor even against others who were proscribed by the strategi for any cause whatsoever. For these persons also are urged to return to their home . . .
      . . . those persons who voluntarily unite with fugitives who have chosen a life of criminal brigandage. That they may realize that I exhort not only these persons but also others to return and that I am taking steps to this effect, they shall know that I have issued orders to the most excellent epistrategi, to the strategi, and also to the troops sent by me for the security and the peace of the countryside, to check their raids at their inception by taking the aggressive with careful planning, to pursue at once the raiders ; and the criminals caught in the act need no further examination beyond their participation in the raid, but they are not to trouble those persons who were once proscribed but who are living quietly and attending to their own farming. Accordingly, all persons shall return without fear, and the time limit shall be within three months of the posting of this edict in each nome. If anyone after this great manifestation of my clemency is found wandering away from home he shall be arrested and shall be sent to me no longer as a suspect, but as an acknowledged criminal.
      Year 18 of our Lord Antoninus, Thoth 1.