| Table of contents |
|
2 Greece |
The division of Ancient Egypt into nomes can be traced back to the Predynastic Period (before 3100 BC).
It was these nomes, previously existing as autonomous city-states, that were first brought together as a united kingdom under Pharaoh Menes of the First Dynasty.
For a system that remained in place for more than three millennia, the order and area of the individual nomes remained remarkably stable.
Under the division system that prevailed for most of pharaonic Egypt's history, the country was divided into 42 nomes.
Lower Egypt, from the Old Kingdom capital Memphis to the Mediterranean Sea, comprised 20 nomes. The first was based around Memphis, Saqqara, and Giza, in the area now occupied by modern-day Cairo.
The numbering system then spread out in a more or less ordered fashion through the Nile delta, first covering the territory on the west before continuing with the higher numbers to the east.
Thus, Alexandria was in the Third Nome, Bubastis in the Eighteenth.
Upper Egypt was divided into 22 nomes.
The first of these was centered around Elephantine and Egypt's border with Nubia at the First Cataract – the area of modern-day Aswan.
From there the numbering progressed downriver in an orderly fashion through the narrow fertile strip of land that was the Nile valley. Waset (ancient Thebes or contemporary Luxor) was in the Fourth Nome, Amarna in the Fourteenth, and Meidum in the Twenty-First.
At the head of each nome stood its nomarch.
The position of the nomarch was at times hereditary, while at others they were appointed by the pharaoh.
Generally, when the national government was stronger, nomarchs were the king's appointed governors.
But when the central government was weaker, at times of foreign invasion or civil war, individual nomes would assert themselves and establish hereditary lines of succession.
Conflicts between these different hereditary nomarchies were common during, for example, the First Intermediate Period –
a time that saw a breakdown in central authority lasting from the sixth and eleventh dynasties, until one of the local rulers was able once again to asset control over the entire country as pharaoh.
Modern Greece, under its 1975 Constitution, is divided into 51 nomoi (singular: nomos).
These are most commonly translated into English as prefectures.
Each one is headed by a prefect (nomarch), who is elected by direct popular vote.Egypt
The Nomarch
Greece