The erosion of Demotic language in the century before the Roman conquest accelerated sharply at the beginning of the High Roman Empire, under the influence of Romanization. Romanization ousted demotic from the public sphere, and bilingual signs disappeared. In transactions between private individuals, the Romans began by obliging the declarant - if not also the beneficiary - to affix a detailed subscription in Greek setting out the terms of the contract, so that a demotic deed could be valid and registrable. They abolished local registration: Greek became the only solution.
The abolition of the laocrites, the Egyptian priest-judges, in the 1st century B.C. also meant the disappearance of the only body before which Demotic deeds could be produced, as justice was henceforth dispensed exclusively in Greek. Nevertheless, deeds continued to be drawn up according to Egyptian law, but in Greek, which explains the need, for notaries and judges alike, to have Greek translations of Demotic customary law at their disposal.
Under these conditions, the practice of demotic documentation continued to decline (after a slight upturn in the first half of the 1st century AD). Apart from Demotic subscriptions or summaries in Greek contracts (still found in the 3rdcentury ), transactions written in Demotic were reduced to sales, and disappeared during the 1st century AD. The only contractual documents known after 100 A.D. emanate from priestly circles.
