Letous Polis (meris of Herakleides)

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Documentation
Letous Polis is attested in 40 papyri (62 attestations) between 243 BC (P.Cairo Zen. III 59361) and the 8th century AD (P.Ross.-Georg. V 72, AD 700-799). The third and second centuries BC have yielded a lot of texts, while the period between AD 100 and AD 499 is less well documented than usual. On the whole the texts offer few details and our picture of the village remains sketchy.

Name
The village Letous Polis (Λητοῦς Πόλις) is named after the metropolis in the Letopolite nome in the southern Delta.
Between the 3rd century BC and the 2nd century AD the full name Letous Polis is used. From the 4th century AD onwards the abbreviated form Letous is found. Texts from the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD explicitely refer to Letous Polis as a kome. From the 6th onwards it is sometimes called chorion Letous and epoikion Letous.

Location
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Letous Polis no doubt belonged to the meris of Herakleides, though this is nowhere explicitly stated. According to the fragmentary P.Bad. IV 90 it belonged to the 7th and 8th toparchy. It is often mentioned with villages situated near the eastern border of the Fayum. This is particularly clear in a group of early Roman tax lists, where some land-owners pay taxes for land in several of these villages (CPR VIII 1-5, P.Vindob. Tandem 14-15). Letous kome is there linked with Andriantes, Metrodorou epoikion, Pharbaithos, Psenyris and Sebennytos. Once seed grain for Letous polis is delivered to the granary of Eukratous epoikion (P.Petrie III 90). The link with Arabon kome is especially close. According to Duttenhöfer 1993, p.258 Letous polis fell under the ergasterion of Boubastos.

Population
P.Tebt. III 850 lists several farmers from Letous Polis receiving seed grain in 170 BC. Tax documents from the 1st-2nd centuries AD list inhabitants of Letous Polis with possessions in their own village. Other land in the village is owned by inhabitants of the neighbouring villages (see above).

Land
In the mid-first century AD Mnesitheos, an inhabitant of the metropolis Arsinoe, owned a vineyard in Letous Polis. According to P.Oxy. XLVII 3332 (AD 53) is a declaration of property in which a 6-arouras vineyard belongs to Mnesitheos' wife Tamaron, whereas in P.Oxy. XLIX 3464 Mnesitheos himself seems to be the owner.
P.Gen. I 81 (AD 138-161) 19 arouras of land are worked by farmers of Letous. In the 6th and 7th centuries AD land taxes are paid for the village (Stud.Pal. III 261; Stud.Pal. VIII 844).

Economy
Tax lists of the 1st-2nd century AD attest the payment of symbolikon (P.Vindob.Tandem 15, l. 98) for property at Letous Polis and other villages.

Administration
In the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC the village has a granary, guarded by a thesaurophylax (P.Tebt. III 862). In 234 BC a certain Kallikrates is sitologos (SB XIV 11307) [cf. Clarysse 1973, pp.136-141], though in 170 BC seed grain for Letous Polis is stored in the thesauros of Arabon Kome (P.Tebt. III 850). In the late Byzantine or early Arabic period grain taxes are levied through the bishop of Arsinoe (Stud.Pal. III 218 and 235; archive of the bakers Elias and Paeitos).

Bibliography

I. Uytterhoeven, Jul 8 2003