Change and continuity in the administration of Ptolemaic Lycia: A note on P. Tebt. I8

P.Tebt. I 8 preserves summaries of four letters by the dioiketes in Alexandria on the financial affairs of Lycia. Most historians believe that all of these letters were directed to Nikostratos, a Ptolemaic officer cited in line 15. Careful analysis of the text, however, together with some previously neglected epigraphic evidence suggests that only three letters were sent to Nikostratos and one to another chief financial official of Lycia. This reading prompts consideration of the role that continuity and change played in Lycian history, and has implications for our understanding of the patterns of administrative organization in the Ptolemaic territories.