Page:Municipal Administration in the Roman Empire (1926, Abbot and Johnson, municipaladminis00abbo).pdf/46

 of the emperor, and it was organized and exploited solely in the interest of the fiscus. Here the liturgy was developed in its most oppressive form, and here the peasant was first bound to the soil. The development of municipal government in the third century, which we have described elsewhere, was powerfully influenced by the methods of administration which prevailed in the village-communities in Egypt.