It is well known that the Romans established in Egypt a differentiated class-structure of the provincial population beginning with the Roman and Alexandrian citizens, stretching over the hellenized privileged groups of the indigenous society and ending up with the ordinary Egyptian peasant. The article deals with the mechanisms of controlling the access to the privileged status groups of the domestic Egyptian population during the period of the Roman principate (1st to 3rd century CE); in particular concerning the residents of the local district capitals (metropolitai) and the members of the gymnasial class (apo gymnasiou). The specific focus is notably on the administrative process of granting admission to these status groups (the so called epikrisis) and the use which was made of certain archival documents (like census- and epikrisis records, population registers or tax lists) which were suitable to prove the status claimed by the persons applying for admission of their male offspring to one or both of these status groups.
