φρομαλαροとprm'nδ'r --トハーリスターンとソグドにおける在地役人の比較研究--

Abstract

By grace of new information from the Bactrian documents which were deciphered and edited by N. Sims-Williams, we can now research several new subjects on the history, geography and society of Tukhāristān. In this article, we consider φρομαλαρο, which was one of the local officials in the region. Although we have newdocuments, these are not enough to allowus to investigate the title in detail. Therefore, we also deal with a Sogdian title prm'nδ'r mentioned in the Mugh documents, whose etymology is the same as φρομαλαρο, and then compare the functions of these two officials. By examining the Bactrian documents which mention φρομαλαρο, we find that the person who bore this title carried out or conveyed an order given by the local ruler and collected tax. Moreover, we can point out the possibility that φρομαλαρο might have made work a person being in a lower rank and there might have been several φρομαλαροs at the same time in several provinces called by þαρο/þαυρο in the Bactrian documents. We can also find that Sogdian prm'nδ'r played much the same role as Bactrian φρομαλαρο in the local society with the exception of tax collection. Along with the exception, prm'nδ'r had a function which Bactrian φρομαλαρο did not have, that is collection and distribution of commodities or livestock, such as grain, wine, sheep, etc. However, considering the fact that we completely lack knowledge about the tax system in Sogd, we could regard the above-mentioned function of prm'nδ'r as a kind of tax collection. If so, we could say that the roles of two officials were almost identical.