THE JOURNAL OF
Egyptian Archaeology
VOLUME 101 2015
PUBLISHED BY
THE EGYPT EXPLORATION SOCIETY
3 DOUGHTY MEWS, LONDON WC1N 2PG
The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 101 (2015), Reviews, 507–537 ISSN 0307-5133
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The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, LXXIX (Nos. 5183-5218). Edited with Translations and Notes by W. B. Henry, P. J. Parsons and others. Graeco-Roman Memoirs 100. Pp. xii + 220, pls VIII. London, The Egypt Exploration Society, 2014. ISBN 978 0 85698 219 4. Price £85.
The London Olympic Games of 2012 were celebrated with an event hosted by the British Academy, entitled ‘Training, Cheating, Winning, Praising: Athletes and Shows in Papyri from Roman Egypt’.
The unpublished Oxyrhynchus papyri discussed at that occasion, and some more, are now presented in this volume, by the editors who themselves published the bulk of the literary and subliterary texts, W. B. Henry and P. J. Parsons, as well as by A. Benaissa, R.-L. Chang, D. Colomo, G. B. D’Alessio, M. de Kreij, M. Eager, N. Gonis, M. A. Harder, F. Maltomini, M. Mountford, D. Obbink, L. Prauscello and D. W. Rathbone, with smaller contributions from H. Amirav, W. S. Barrett, G. Bevan, J. D. Thomas and J. Yuan. P. Oxy. LXXIX includes twelve new and six known literary texts, five subliterary texts and thirteen documents, all related to the topic of games in antiquity. The papyri are presented according to the high standard set for this series, with ample discussion of their material aspects, with transliterations, transcriptions, translations, commentaries and many useful references to further literature.
I. The New Literary Texts include small fragments of tragedy (No. 5183 perhaps to be ascribed to Euripides, Alexandros) and Old and New Comedy. Three fragments are collected under the heading of
‘Mimes’: No. 5187 a monody with the lament of a woman being forced into a second marriage while she prefers to remain faithful to her first (deceased?) husband; No. 5188 and 5189 fragments of drama, in which the characters are designated by alphabetic numerals. No. 5189, interestingly, not only gives the text to be recited by the actors, but also describes the actions that are to take place on stage. Further in this section a group of twelve small fragments of hexameters (No. 5190), in which the organization of an athletic competition (perhaps at Iolkos, in honour of Pelias; Argonautica?) seems to be described;
and a third/fourth century ad lyric piece, No. 5191, perhaps an epinician poem in the tradition of Pindar (line 5 has the word Καπιτώλιος). The text was written in a rather cursive handwriting and may therefore be the autograph of the anonymous poet. No. 5192 consists of 49 fragments of an unknown prose-work listing victors or festivals and prizes. The two fragments forming No. 5193 were part of a History of Games, mentioning Kleisthenes and Periander and describing how ‘the horror’ ( τὸ δεινόν) spread out from the Isthmian games to the other games. The editors suggest that this papyrus might reflect a debate about amateurism and professionalism in sport. No. 5194 is the republication of an Encomion of the Logos,
1which may have been written and composed by a student for a competition at the festival (probably in honour of Hermes-Thoth) the poem refers to.
II. The Known Literary Texts are small fragments of Sophocles, Oedipus Coloneus 189–201, 204–11, 243–7; Aristophanes, Equites 716–26, Plutus 881–97; Menander, Misoumenos 123–54 Sandbach/523–54 Arnott, Misoumenos 352–65 Sandbach/753–66 Arnott,
2Perikeiromene 540–1 Sandbach. All fragments are meticulously annotated, and small as they are, they still in some cases confirm modern conjectures and emendations, while the Menander fragments add new details to the action and new lines to the texts as known thus far.
III. The first of the Subliterary Texts, No. 5201, contains parts of two columns of a first century bc/ad commentary on Pindar, Olympian 1, comparable with the mediaeval scholia. Each lemma consisted of a full quotation of Pindar’s text (this fragment has lines 19–39), followed by a paraphrase
1
First published by A. Šwiderek, ‘Encomium on the Word’, Eos 56 (1966) 83–6.
2
Remarkably, this small fragment was recognized by a participant in the ‘Ancient Lives’ project, where the general public is invited on a website to help transcribe unpublished Oxyrhynchite papyri: <http://www.
ancientlives.org>.
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in Koine prose and sometimes some extra explanation. No. 5202 is a remarkable copy, on papyrus, of an inscription in honour of a certain Apion, son of Posidonius, for his victories in poetic contests.
3This Apion happens to be the well-known Apion of Josephus’ Contra Apionem, opponent of the Alexandrian Jews in the first half of the first century ad, who was also a member of the Alexandrian embassy sent to Gaius after the riots of 38 ad. Apion was already known from other sources to bear the title of πλειστονίκης ‘winner of many contests’ (among which a graffito he left on the Colossus of Memnon); thanks to this papyrus we know that this title refers to poetry contests. The papyrus also adds to our knowledge about games in the first century ad (such as in the theatre of Syracuse) and about the association of victors in Rome. No. 5203 is the republication
4of a list of songs of a χοραύλης, a flute player performing together with a chorus (first attestation of the term in a papyrus). No. 5204 is only the second papyrus ever found with instructions for fighting (e.g. Fr. 1, l. 8-9: ‘ - - - You, with your left (hand), with an underhook, force (him) round. You, poking ... You, sit up. You, having struck, drag him along. - - -’). Unfortunately, the text is very fragmentary, so that its main importance lies in some new technical terms. This chapter ends with an incomplete fourth/fifth century ad spell for a chariot race, No. 5205. Different gods, demons and angels are invoked to bring about the fall of the horses of the Blue circus faction. Five names, recurring in three places in different order, are interpreted as the names of the four horses of a quadriga and their charioteer. Curses of this kind are known, but were normally inscribed on lead tablets; this is the only one found so far that was written on papyrus.
IV. Also among the Documentary Texts some unique papyri are presented. The renowned boxer Plutarchus, known from the Heroicus of Philostratus (15.4–6), is actually found as the issuer of two third-century ad receipts, written in two columns on papyrus No. 5207. The receipts must have been related to Plutarchus’ offices as life-long xystarch and high-priest of the whole athletic community (of Egypt?), functions we only learn about from this papyrus, and which must have been granted to him after his retirement as a boxer. No. 5208 is a not less interesting part of an originally very long and beautifully written diploma of the Association of Dionysiac Artists, showing for the first time that women could also become members of this worldwide confederation. The lady in question functioned as its high-priestess (new word ἀρχιέρισσα). The document was drawn up in Antinoopolis at a time when the Great Antinoeia or Antinoopolite Games were held, and may have served to procure for this lady the privileges the successive emperors had granted to the members of the artists’ association.
The next document, No. 5209, is even more amazing: a contract of match fixing in antiquity! The contracting parties are the father of the young wrestler Nicantinous on the one side, and on the other the two representatives of a wrestler named Demetrius (represented by, probably, his trainers; one of whom may perhaps be identified as the then famous athlete Gaius Julius Theon, the other as a gymnasiarch of Oxyrhynchus). The editor assumes that the boys had to fight each other in the finals of the boys’ wrestling at the 138th Great Antinoeia of 267 ad. In the contract, clearly not written by an expert, Demetrius agrees to fall three times and lose the match in return for 3,800 drachmas. If he does not do so, he has to pay a fine of three talents (18,000 drachmas) to Nicantinous. No. 5210 is a copy of a petition, dating from 298/290 ad, in which, perhaps, the same Gaius Julius Theon as in No. 5209 asks the prefect of Egypt to confirm his exemption from liturgies on the grounds of being a sacred victor and because of his old age (the threshold seemingly recently lowered from seventy to sixty years). The last of the larger documents (No. 5211) is a contract of 27 February 303 ad, made out in twofold but for some unknown reason never cut in two, of a loan granted by a sacred victor to a village head. The remaining documents (Nos 5212–5218) are a group of small texts dating from the fifth and sixth centuries ad: orders to supply meat to mime-actors and athletes; a fragment mentioning the hitherto unknown street ‘of the cellar of the mime-actress’; and four circus programmes announcing performances that must have taken place in either the hippodrome or the theatre of Oxyrhynchus.
They list processions (of the horses and chariots) and races, as well as gymnasts, mimes, vocalists, character actors (ἠθολόγοι), and throw (βολή); some other words are new and their meanings unclear
3
To the overview of the rare instances of copies or drafts of inscriptions on papyrus one might add P. Cairo Zen. IV 59532 with two versions of an epitaph for Tauron, the hunting dog of Zenon (mid-third century bc).
4
First published by W. E. H. Cockle, ‘The Odes of Epagathus the Choral Flautist: Some Documentary
Evidence for Dramatic Representation in Roman Egypt’, Proceedings of the XIV International Congress of
Papyrologists (London, 1975) 59–65.
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(such as αβ̣λατον, γυροπασιο̣ι̣, ̣ ̣α̣γ̣ιζ̣ι̣ν[.
5The layout and handwriting suggest that the programmes were used for public display.
As a great asset to this papyrus publication comes the appendix: ‘Games, Competitors, and Performers in Roman Egypt’ by Sophie Remijsen (pp. 190–206). Starting with an overview of what is now known about the Greek games of Egypt (with table of all games attested in Egypt from the first to the third century ad), the article then zooms in on Oxyrhynchus itself, where even local Capitoline Games were founded in 273 ad. Remijsen revisits the wide range of new papyri published in this book, setting them in their wider context of the classical Greek games as organized all over the ancient world in the Roman period, until they were replaced by the Roman circus in the course of the fourth century ad.
The usual indexes and eight black-and-white plates of mainly literary texts conclude the book,
6while its dustcover is illustrated in style with the image of P. Oxy. XXVII 2470, a third-century ad coloured drawing on papyrus, showing a brown bear trying to reach the legs of an athlete swinging on a trapeze.
Most of the texts in this volume are damaged or incomplete, many are mere scraps and fragments of papyrus, but the editors, by their meticulous deciphering and thorough study of the papyri themselves and of their context, have succeeded in extracting an amazing amount of new, unique, and detailed information on the sportive aspects of life in a provincial town of the Roman Empire.
Francisca A. J. Hoogendijk
5
A reading μ̣α̣γ̣ιζ̣ι̣ν[ seems not excluded on the photograph, but is not an existing word.
6
Digital images of all papyri in this volume can be found in the Image Database of Oxyrhynchus Online at <http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy/>.
Coptic Documentary Texts from Kellis, Volume 2: P. Kellis VII. By Iain Gardner, Anthony Alcock, and Wolf-Peter Funk (eds). Dakhleh Oasis Project: Monograph 16. Pp. 366, 18 pls + CD. Oxbow Books. 2014. ISBN 978 1 78297 651 6. Price £75.
This volume, P. Kellis VII,
1is the second and final publication of the Coptic non-literary texts from the ancient site of Kellis, modern Ismant el-Kharab, in the Dakhla Oasis. Its publication marks the culmination of over 20 years of work, since the discovery of the first finds in the 1990–91 season at the site, under the direction of Colin Hope (Monash University). Seventy-five texts are published here (P. Kellis VII 57–131), most of which are written on papyrus, accompanied by descriptions of the remaining small fragments, of which too little survives to warrant complete editions. The texts are divided by location and, within location, by the personnel involved. Letters form the predominant text type (although see pp. 8–9 for the difficulty in identifying textual genres in the material), which deal with a range of daily life issues, among which textile production, trade, travel to the Nile valley, and illness are primary concerns.
The majority of these texts come from one location within Kellis, House 3, from which much of the other written material from the site derives (57–121). The remaining texts come from House 4 (122–126) and the enclosure of the Temple of Tutu (127–131); see pp. 7–8 for the breakdown of texts from each location. Many of the texts, especially those from House 3, are clearly Manichaean in nature, with overt references to the Teacher (ⲡⲥⲁϩ; 61.1) and prayers to the God of Truth (ⲡⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ ⲛ̅ⲧⲉ ⲧⲙⲏⲉ; 65.7–15, 71.4–9, 72.4–7), and have a tight chronological framework of 355–380+ ad (p. 6). This corpus is not, however, solely Manichaean, and texts that are certainly Christian are also represented among the material, e.g. 124 involves the sub-deacon Besas, and 126 is the reuse of a Latin official document (which is not edited) for the writing of Christian invocations.
Before discussing the important contributions made by this volume, a couple of small issues should be noted. There is no concerted bibliography at the end of the volume. In the introduction, references
1
