While the phylakitai were a real and important presence in Ptolemaic Egypt, the game's presentation of them is highly inaccurate. Far from bounty hunters, they actually filled a role more similar to a village police officer. In our surviving records from villages it seems that many were Egyptians who lived and served in their village. There is also no evidence that they were active in the Greek poleis although the game chooses to first introduce them in Alexandria for some reason.

As part of their regular duties they answered petitions from villagers, arrested people suspected of committing crimes, collected taxes and assisted in keeping the peace. Phylakitai also intervened in public disturbances ranging from drunken disorder to civil unrest and riots. They protected public and private property, as well as state shipments of grain and other goods. At the local level they acted as the arm of the Ptolemaic state and carried out tasks like the collection of goods, guard duties, and some administrative tasks.

We know that even the lowest strata of Ptolemaic society could and did appeal to the phylakitai if they were wronged. Petitions come from Greeks and Egyptians, landowners and subsistence tenant-farmers, men and women, old and young. Even the illiterate could send written petitions to officials through local scribes. These claims included allegations of theft, assault, disorderly conduct and murder. Investigations were carried out through the questioning of witnesses, the assessment of evidence and sometimes confiscations or the sealing of homes and buildings was required. Rather than hunting criminals down with ruthless brutality, most often they handed them over to jailors so that they could be imprisoned while awaiting sentencing. Sometimes during these investigations and arrests suspects and criminals were beaten or interrogated.

In addition to claims being made by purported victims in the village, notices by regional officials might be made by higher authorities in the area to alert them to the presence of criminals and runaway slaves who were trying to evade justice. These sometimes included such necessary details as their crime, a brief physical description, their name and whether they were in hiding. In general the vast majority of their "targets" were people who had not paid their debts, either to the state or to private individuals. These debtors were usually incarcerated until their debts could be paid or they were fined.

In terms of their hierarchy, village officials were largely self-sufficient in carrying out their duties. A very minimal amount of day-to-day oversight was needed in this system phylakitai were able to operate locally with a good degree of independence. Higher up in the hierarchy of official were the archiphylakitai who are usually equated with police captains, and the epistatai phylakiton who are usually equated with police commissioners. These higher officials had greater jurisdiction and were petitioned both by civilians and by officials of lower rank to deal with various. Petitions to archiphylakitai and epistatai phylakiton accusing phylakitai of misconduct or abuse (like theft, extortion, wrongful imprisonment, incompetence and assault) are known from the archives. That said, allegations of corruption even further up the chain are well attested so even they were not infallible and issues with the law enforcement in Ptolemaic Egypt had many flaws. Ultimately all of the village and regional officials answered to the strategos, who governed a nome (one of about 40 provinces in Egypt). The strategos in turn answered to the crown and at times the Ptolemaic monarchs issued royal decrees and edicts addressing the duties and conduct of the phylakitai.

If their theoretical duties sound an awful lot like the Medjay's job in Assassins Creed: Origins, that is because it was in all likelihood the template for characters like Bayek of Siwa's role in Egypt. By the Ptolemaic period the order of the Medjay was long gone, and the Medjay are really only attested in the Middle and New Kingdom.

I can not make claims about the training or professionalism of the phylakitai, but they were far from any kind of elite, royal force. It is true that they were a force to be reckoned with, and held a monopoly on violence as they both defused incidents of violence in the civilian population and committed acts of violence in their line of duty (or outside of it).