alabarches
Halabarches, Halobarcheset
Arabarches. Voces Græcæ, quæ Rufino in Hist. Eccl. Euseb. sonant
Salis præfectum, cui concinit Calepinus. Turneb. lib. 27. cap. 25. opinatur, fuisse Alexandriæ præfectum, qui Judæis præerat Alexandrinis. Cujacius lib. 8. obs. cap. 37. vult,
Vectigal Alabarchiæ esse id, quod pro transductione pecorum infertur.Hæc Cujacius : plura vide apud Martinium in voce Halabarches.Ἀλάβα est scriptura sive atramentum, quo scribimus, ut Phavorinus ait. Sic vectigaliorum ratio scriptura dicta est, et vectigalibus præpositus, Magister scripturæ sive Alabarches.
ALABARCHESa Roman official stationed at Alexandria under the Empire. Josephus applies the title (Ant. 18.6, 3; 19.5, 1; 20.5, 2) to Alexander Lysimachus, the brother of the famous Philo. It has been conjectured that he was a subordinate of the Jewish ethnarch (Franz, Corp. Inscr. Gr. 3.2, 291 a); and others have suggested that he collected certain taxes, deriving the name from ἀλάβη, ink, and translating it scripturae magister. This suggestion receives some support from the mention of vectigal Alabarchiae per Aegyptum atque Augustaneam constitutum in Cod. Just. 4.61, 9; but the reading there is doubtful. An epigram of Palladas of Alexandria (Anth. Pal. 2. p. 430) commiserates an ass, because ἐξ ἀλαβαρχείης γραμματικοῦ γέγονεν --i. e. because he has come from a rich house into a poor one. Some scholars regard the word as a corruption of ARABARCHESbut this word denotes an entirely different office (cf. Marquardt, Röm. Staatsverw. 1.289, note 1). [ARABARCHES] The title is also found in Lycia (C. I. G. 4867).
[A.S.W]