A book that provides a systematic analysis of the extent to which the Ptolemaic police penetrated society and how the system and the socio-economic and ethnic status of its members evolved over time has been much needed. B. acknowledges a somewhat less ambitious goal: ‘to detail the function of the Ptolemaic police and the institutions by which the Ptolemies exerted social control over the chora’ (p. 328). B. provides a thorough catalogue of all texts concerning the police defined as ‘a government body charged primarily with three main tasks: investigation, apprehension, and prosecutions' (pp. 4–5) according to a study on law enforcement in nineteenth-century Britain (D. Hay, F. Snyder [edd.], Policing and Prosecuting in Britain, 1750–1850 [1989]). For B. there was always a police officer to help any individual. His last chapter correctly presents the other side of the police's tasks, where it acts as ‘muscle’ for the collection of tax-arrears, which is the only function for which policemen and guards were ‘closely supervised’ by the central government. B. is impressed that ‘these officials coupled their government-mandated duties with a broad array of additional police tasks … and managed to do so quite successfully’ (p. 48). However, one could reach a more nuanced conclusion from reading the evidence: the Ptolemies cared above all about the state's economic and agricultural interests. Other police tasks were performed because the structure existed but they were achieved moderately well.

After a first chapter that presents the aim of the book and describes briefly law and order in different states of the Ancient Mediterranean in order to suggest that the Ptolemaic system was unique and most effective, Chapters 2 and 3 examine the hierarchy, administration and organisation of the two main groups of police officials according to B., respectively the phylakitai (police officers who could have agents) and the civil and military police. Their functions went beyond ‘police’ duties when they are conceived in a modern sense, for instance when phylakitai guarded shipments of grain on ships, collected tax and arrears, requisitioned items and acted as postmen. B. stresses that policing was organised locally but the main arguments on the archiphylakitai are developed in a separate article (‘Archiphylakitai in Ptolemaic Egypt: a Hierarchy of Equals?’, SyllClass 18 [2007], 181–211). There he sees variations in the administrative structure by nome and an absence of hierarchic levels among archiphylakitai. Chapter 3 shows that archiphylakitai were in fact subordinated to the epistatai of the same area, who received instructions from the strategos. B. shows how the civil administration often supervised police officers, especially officials with economic functions, while military men used as guards could reinforce the coercive power of the police. Yet it may be too optimistic to argue that ‘to grant a great deal of law enforcement autonomy to as great a number of officers as possible’ made the system efficient. Most Ptolemaic officials were involved in police work but B. has to concede that ‘coordination was not always easy, could be slow, and, at worst, was impossible’ (pp. 158–9). He suggests accurately, though, that so many officials were involved because the Ptolemies wanted to maintain their power and secure their revenues.

Chapter 4 reconstructs the steps behind petitioning and responding (why? how? who? where? what?), which makes it a useful source-book chapter but creates some repetitions with the previous chapters. In order to avoid the lack of responses from local officials, the best strategy was to appeal to several officials at the same time, which suggests to me that the system was not so effective. B. concludes that people knew to whom they should send petitions since they were forwarded where requested but he also gives counter-examples. He perceives the ‘Egyptian masses’ as self-empowered by petitioning but the chosen examples come mostly from the village's upper or middle strata. Response to petitions could be as fast as one day but could also take months, therefore efficiency should not be overstressed. Chapter 5's content derives, as B. acknowledges, from a previous article (‘Ptolemaic Prisons Reconsidered’, CB 83 [2007], 3–48). It describes the four steps in the processing of criminals (arrest, detention, investigation, resolution) and shows how trials took place as much as possible at the village level in front of police officials. Finally, Chapter 6 details the role of police officers and guards during the genematophylakia (annual guard of crops) and emphasises the coercive character of the institution.

B. suggests that ‘a sophisticated law enforcement system … processed criminals efficiently and effectively and provided protections and assurances to citizens …. Appeals were fast and well organized’ and even with lax supervision, rarely ‘led to chaos and confusion’ (p. 4). However, the examples chosen in the chapters do not well support this view and concern the ‘subjects’ of the Ptolemies, who were in fact not ‘citizens’, a misleading expression. As B. has often to acknowledge, there were mistakes and miscommunication (pp. 57, 70, 109, 226, 259), unresponsive officials (p. 195), abuses in tax collection (pp. 60, 322) or in lease agreement (p. 172), police raids that may have been abusive (p. 76), law enforcement breakdown at the local level (p. 104), refusal to obey superiors (p. 139), possible illegal confiscations by police (pp. 148, 151, 243) or detention (p. 251). Yet B. has engaged with these issues in a previous article and suggests a low level of corruption (‘The Strong Arm of the Law? Police Corruption in Ptolemaic Egypt’, CJ 103 [2007], 13–39). Even if this information comes from petitions, it seems illegitimate to me to consider them only as exceptional.

B. is right to emphasise that the ‘high degree of personal initiative’ required in ancient legal systems could actually work but it would have been interesting to investigate why self-help was as predominant in Ptolemaic Egypt as in most other ancient societies, even in those where there was, by contrast, no professional state police. Additionally, the description of the police's function and of law enforcement in Ptolemaic Egypt (p. 4) resembles an ideal type rather than the more complex reality visible in the sources. Sociological and comparative studies of the carceral system or of the judicial culture could have offered a sophisticated framework exemplified in B. Kelly's study on social control in Roman Egypt (Petitions, Litigation, and Social Control in Roman Egypt [2011]; only the dissertation [2003] is included in the bibliography). An approach which would contextualise the sources, take into consideration their chronology and the socio-economic and ethnic background of their protagonists could shed a different light. For instance, case studies could have been contrasted, such as the documents from the Zenon archive and the dossier of enteuxeis (petitions) from the third century b.c., with archives from the second century b.c. Indications of the number of police officers in tax lists (P. Count) could be discussed further. An essential question such as why the Ptolemies had a state police force (only mentioned in the conclusion) could have led to the investigation of the degree of continuity with Late period Egypt by engaging with Demotic sources on the police, which was already involved in collecting taxes.

A strange feature of the book is that B. includes many texts in their entirety, in Greek with translations, which is useful but makes the chapters resemble at times a sourcebook organised according to the different types of police forces. These sources account for about one-third of the book. The texts could have rather been compiled in an appendix with only citations of the essential passages in the analysis. In addition, a diagram of the different police officers and their interaction with the administration would have been handy.

This study offers a basis for further analyses of police and policing, an up-to-date collection of Greek sources on the police and a useful glossary. Some of the arguments may be challenged or nuanced, other interesting suggestions may be pursued further, for instance the role of trust in the police force (p. 48). The reader, in the end, has access to many sources and to a panorama of the functions of the police and its interaction with the administration, which was the aim of the author.