The Leiden Papyrological Institute was established in 1935 by B. A. van Groningen, then professor of Greek at Leiden University, and the historians of law Christiaan van Oven and Martin David.[1] Soon came an important monograph series for the discipline of papyrology, Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava, whose fortieth volume is the book under review (P.Leid.Inst. II), as well as the Dutch predecessor (Papyrologisch Leerboek) to P. W. Pestman’s The New Papyrological Primer (now in a fifth, English edition), and the continuation (1950– ) of the indispensable Berichtigungsliste der griechischen Papyrusurkunden aus Ägypten.
The Institute also boasts a collection of papyri and related manuscripts. Some papyri in this volume were purchased in 1971 (no. 22), 1980 (1–2), and 2016 (3–21, 66). But the bulk of them, and of the collection, was purchased by van Groningen in Egypt in 1939. Nearly all the published manuscripts from this lot, where they indicate provenance internally, are from Lower or Middle Egypt, and nearly half are from the Oxyrhynchite. It would be regrettable if, as the editors write (ix), no information about van Groningen’s journey to Egypt survived. Perhaps relevant sources await discovery. In the meantime, at least one unpublished letter from van Groningen to the papyrologist H. I. Bell describes the purchase in Egypt of “some Greek papyri … simple and probably worthless fragments, but quite useful material for students,” noting that “Greek papyri were rather scarce,” and expensive: there was “one collection which was worth while, the archives of a κωμογραμματεύς somewhere in the Arsinoite nome, from the [secon]d century AD, about 100 texts nearly all of them remarkably well preserved. But Chawam [sic] Bros., the antiquarians, wished to sell them as a whole and asked £E. 2000–!”[2] Although van Groningen apparently did not purchase the village scribe’s archive from Khawam Brothers, the possibility that he had other dealings with the firm is worth exploring.[3]
The hope of pedagogical use continues to be borne out in the present volume. In nearly all the Greek texts, the work of students in BA, MA, and summer school courses has informed the present editions (xii), whether under their own names or as preliminary stages to editions under the names of others in the volume, the chief editors or the other contributors.
P.Warren, one of whose texts P.Leid.Inst. II supplements (32: no. 15), was the first volume devoted to papyri from the Institute, covering those acquired by the American art collector and author Edward Perry Warren (1860–1928) and donated by Harry Asa Thomas in 1935.[4] P.Leid.Inst. I followed, with 80 editions and 28 descriptions from the larger holdings of the Institute, and P.Leid.Inst. II represents a second installment with 66 full editions, each text published here for the first time. It is a true miscellany, in language, content, and date, with Demotic literary (in hieratic as well as demotic script), Demotic documentary, Greek documentary, and Coptic documentary texts, on papyri and ostraka, from Ptolemaic through Islamic Egypt. The editions, including introductions, text, apparatus, translation, and commentary, follow familiar principles with precedent in Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava.
The preface acknowledges a certain scrappiness of the collection (“small or fragmentary or both,” xi) but also points out the interest promised even by small things. In tenui labor, at tenuis non gloria.
The following is this reviewer’s selection of notabilia. Among the Demotic, there is a fragment of a magical formulary with an invocation to bring a divine assistant (1), another that joins a fragment in Marburg to yield another manuscript of the “First Tale of Setne” (2), closely related to the well-known Cairo manuscript (P.Cair. 30646), on which J. F. Quack offers an appendix in response to the 2018 monograph of S. Vinson. A group of documentary ostraka (3–21), two with added text in Greek (3, 7), includes receipts, accounts, and letters.
The 44 Greek documents include several of relatively early date, Ptolemaic (22–26) and early Roman. A census return for the census of 33/4 CE (28) leads its editor to assign another from Oxyrhynchus to the same date (P.Oxy. II 254: 19/20 CE according to the first editors). As often in Greek papyrology, the later Roman and late ancient periods are better represented, whose contributions here touch many aspects of Egypt. Administration by the state is represented by official rolls concerned with taxation (32–33); a list of payments for a special, low-tax land category (the ἡμιτεταρταρταβία μαχίμων) from tenants on the estate of a woman landowner (Claudia Ammo[nia?], 44); and a leaf from a documentary codex with a list (βρέουιον) of tax in kind (annona civica) from the Kynopolite and Oxyrhynchite nomes delivered to Alexandria, prepared in the praesidium of the eparchy of Arcadia at Oxyrhynchus (56). One of the payers in both nomes is a collective of the city council (τὸ κοινὸν τοῦ βουλευτηρίου), and others include the Oxyrhynchite Limenios family, which is also mentioned in a smaller fragment of a list of payments (57), as is the council-collective. The Oxyrhynchite council (βουλή) also figures in a fifth-century letter sent by it, in one of its latest appearances, to three exactores (58). The law-courts and the military are reflected in a fragment of legal proceedings concerning a theft “in the bathhouse of the praetorium” (47),[5] and a list of names preceded by θ (50), which the editor argues is the theta nigrum marking dead soldiers.
The writer of one letter requests that a correspondent send the same letter back with a reply written on the back, if the editor’s interpretation of the unparalleled ἀντίγραψέ μοι τὴν ἴσην ἐπιστολήν (49) is right; if so, the instruction was not followed, as the back of the papyrus is blank. In a fifth-century Christian letter the senders may style themselves as the “most pious” (θεοσεβέστατοι) grandsons of the addressee, among other unusual elements of formulary, amid complaints of “idiotic and imbecilic” (μῶρος καὶ σαλός) and other bad behavior (59).[6]
Private economic arrangements are reflected in a contract for substitution in compulsory public service, in which an Alexandrian unusually takes over the liturgy from a provincial (41);[7] the shipment (45) and sale (61) of locally produced wine; accounts of a donkey-hire scheme (35); and details from the management of an estate, probably including a poultry farm (38–39), with a gratuity paid in hens and eggs to visiting officials.
Most ancient people remain no more than names, but these do not lack interest. There is a rare theophoric of the stellar deity Sopdu (Sothis), Νεκσαφθης (44 ii 10), and a new Τιθοναρχης (for Τιθοναρχη . [ (genitive), read perhaps Τιθοναρχητ̣[ος). A rare Ἑψάτης might be read with the editor in a name-list (43 recto ii 1), but the commentary’s proposed correction to P.Oxy. LXV 4493.19, where ἑψατής is a common noun, is more difficult to accept in view of the cogent arguments made in that edition. If Ἑψάτης is a name, might the forms of ἰδιώτης (ibid. 7 and 12), otherwise the sole items in the list that are not proper names, also be identified as such?[8] In 46, the Παντ̣ωνειος that is considered in the commentary seems preferable to Πανν̣ωνειος, which is printed in the text: the editor considers an Egyptian style of patronymic (“the (son) of Antonius”), but perhaps it is rather the genitive of a personal name *Παντων(ε)ις, originally formed on the same pattern, as reference to a kinsman Antonius (not necessarily a father).
A sidelight on the wider history of the East is a private letter from the late third century on business affairs (48) mentioning a “Palmyrene” (Παλμυρηνός) who is to help collect a debt. The Palmyrene occupation of Egypt is a tempting context in which to understand his role: I would give more credence than the editor to the possibility of identifying the “year 5” mentioned in the text as a regnal year of Wahballath (271/2 CE). If it predates the 270s, however, the letter could also refer to a visiting trader from Palmyra or its territory (cf. I.Portes du désert 103 and the discussions summarized in SEG XLIX 2117 and L 1603), who had an interest in the money owed.
There is only one document fully in Coptic, an ostrakon with a receipt for poll-tax (66), which belongs to the eighth-century dossier of receipts copied by the scribe Psate son of Pisrael.[9] A sixth-century tax-account (63) also records some Egyptian names in Greek transcription using the additional Coptic letters (e.g. iii 15, with houri, Σ̣αλαϩοτ).
Minor typos and wrong accents, even in the edited text (e.g., 29.17 read Διδ]ύ̣μ̣ο̣υ not Διδ]υ̣μ̣ο̣ῦ; 53 recto 10 τῆς not τής), are not infrequent. But the book is otherwise elegantly printed and the good-quality photographs are conveniently placed alongside each edition to allow collation. They give rise to a few suggestions: in 31.3, as the editor considers that the woman may have a double name, the photograph does not contradict Φα̣[β]ο̣ύ̣λλη̣ς, the resulting Πατρωνία Φάβουλλα emulating a Roman nomenclature; in 33.4, the name of the quarter is perhaps Ἑλένης τῆς καὶ Διονυσίας (Ελ̣ . ι̣η̣σ̣τη̣ς καὶ Διον[υσ- in the edition); 43 recto ii 9 Πορει( ) is acknowledged as an “uncertain reading” in the commentary, and from the photo Πουσι may be preferred, a form of a common Egyptian name; 45 ii 14 ἐμβολ(ῆς) ὠσπ̣( ), for which the editor considers an irregular spelling of ὀσπρίου, might be ἐμβολ(ῆς) ὠν̣η̣μ̣(ένου), sc. οἴνου, cf. ii 11 ἐμβολ(ῆς) οἴνου ὠνημ(ένου); 48.13 ἔτη (the τ is not entirely clear) is understood as an error for ἔστη, but the latter, according to the editor, is not attested in documentary papyri: perhaps rather for ἔτι with λέγων μοι, “still he is saying to me”; 48.15 [[δ]] is keyed to “δ pap.” in the apparatus, presumably intended to show the precise form of the correction, which has however fallen out: the photo shows steep oblique strike-throughs; 54.1, alongside Μ̣αρίωνος, Ὡ̣ρίωνος also seems possible, and for Πέ[τ]ρ̣ος in 6, as the letter before ο appears to connect to it, perhaps rather Πε[σ]σ̣ός (as CPR XV 43.8); 59.11, an apostrophe (δωσις’ pap.) should be added to the apparatus; 65 fr. I.10, γραμάτιον not γραμμάτιον (with “having been asked I have agreed in response to the formal question” the editor seems to translate ἐπερωτηθέντες twice: “in response to the formal question” suffices).
Notes
[1] See K. A. Worp, A History of Papyrology in Holland (1830–2015) (Florence 2020) 20–21.
[2] 22 February 1939: British Library, Add. MS 59511, fol. 148.
[3] For their shops in Cairo, see F. Hagen and K. Ryholt, The Antiquities Trade in Egypt, 1880–1930 (Copenhagen 2016) 79, 81–82, 228–229.
[4] On Warren, Thomas, and the donation, see K. A. Worp, “Notes on Papyri: P.Warren,” BASP 47 (2010) 238–240.
[5] “We ask to share in your goodness” hardly captures ἀξιοῦμεν εὐεργασίας τυχεῖν in line 13: the petitioners seek a concrete instance of “benefaction” from the official whom they address.
[6] In this context εὔχομαι is “pray” not “wish” (verso 3); the enigmatic ἐφ̣ω̣ρεύετο (recto 17) might relate to theft or its discovery (cf. φώρ, φωρᾶν) as well as “proceeding” (πορεύεσθαι).
[7] πρὸς τὸ τὸν Θέων̣[α ca. 5–8 ἀπαρενόχηλτο]ν καὶ ἀν̣[εί]σπρακτον̣ (19–20) is rendered “to Theon [undisturbed] and free of exaction,” ignoring τό, which suggests an articular infinitive; the lost verb would not be παρέξεσθαι or παρέξειν as suggested by the editor, but a verb expressing a state of being, “so that Theon is” undisturbed (cf. the Oxyrhynchite substitution contracts PSI IX 1037.22–23 and P.Oxy. XLIII 3095.16–18).
[8] Ἰδιώτης is on record outside Egypt: LGPN II s.v.
[9] In the apparatus to 66.7 πέμπτης should have been either πέμπτος (following the principle by which ⲡⲣⲱⲧⲏ is referred to πρῶτος) or πέμπτη.