{"id":24250,"date":"2026-11-13T12:45:56","date_gmt":"2026-11-13T17:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/?p=24250"},"modified":"2026-11-13T15:02:01","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T20:02:01","slug":"anoterites-marcus-the-physician-writes-a-letter-to-family-reporting-on-clashes-with-roman-soldiers-and-danger-for-travellers-ca-270-ce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/2026\/11\/anoterites-marcus-the-physician-writes-a-letter-to-family-reporting-on-clashes-with-roman-soldiers-and-danger-for-travellers-ca-270-ce\/","title":{"rendered":"Anoterites: Marcus the physician writes a letter to family reporting on clashes with Roman soldiers and danger for travellers (third century CE)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ancient author: <\/em><\/strong>Marcus the physician (third century CE), PRossGeorg<\/em> III 1 (link<\/a>) = papyri.info (link<\/a>) = TM 17951<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Comments:\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>This personal letter from a physician (perhaps offering services to the Roman military) to members of his family is fascinating for various reasons, including the fact that he asks his relative to regularly dust off his medical books while he is away on duty. But it is the brief report on the Anoterites that interests us here. This seems to refer to an otherwise unattested indigenous population somewhere in the south of Egypt (see Raj 2006, 149-153).<\/p>\n

As the report goes, this population had some significant skirmishes with Roman soldiers from the prefect’s bodyguard, resulting in casualities and making it difficult to safely travel in the area. Although Marcus expressly says very little about this people, and this piece of evidence certainly does not supply ethnographic riches, the overall impression that emerges is of a dangerous population (on which compare characterizations of the Trogodytes in the eastern desert \u2013 link<\/a>). Together with other military reports and inscriptions in this series, this further indicates how impressions<\/em> about specific indigenous peoples circulated at the local level, potentially being taken on by others and, in some cases, eventually feeding into more substantial literary ethnographic accounts. Strabo himself emphasizes the importance of oral reports from soldiers and other travellers for literary elites composing ethnographic accounts (link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Works consulted: E. Chepel, \u201cReflections on Six Private Letters: P.Ross.Georg. 3 1, 9\u201311, 15, and 18,\u201d Pylon<\/i>\u00a06 (2024) (link<\/a>); Marguerite Hirt Raj, M\u00e9decins et Malades de l\u2019Egypte romaine: \u00c9tude socio-l\u00e9gale de la profession m\u00e9dicale et de ses praticiens du Ier au IVe si\u00e8cle ap. J.-C.<\/i> (Brill, 2006), 148-156, 335-338 (with French translation).<\/p>\n

Part of a series on\u00a0military networks and the dissemination of information about peoples:<\/em><\/p>\n