Fifty-four further items, not all strictly ‘new’, have been meticulously edited: some are papyrus pieces that join papyrus rolls and codices already published; one gives a full edition of one of the early descripta (5317); one presents the back of a literary papyrus that was previously obscured (5293); one document (5340) is a copy (of P. Oxy. I 126); two amulets (5306–7) come from the same writer of personalised magical eulogiae as P. Oxy. VI 924.
There is a ‘theme’ (iatromagic: 13), as with the two previous volumes, and the familiar categories are represented: Theological Texts (2: more of the Philo Codex and more of Jannes and Jambres than is on P. Chester Beatty XVI), New (1) and Extant (9) Classical Texts, and Documentary Texts (27). A drawing remains ‘enigmatic’ (5343), and a Greek–Latin present active conjugation table in Greek script (5302) puzzles with its sequence of third person singular, second person singular, first person singular and, finally, third person plural (the latter pair with some futures too).
Attention is paid throughout to the folding and rolling of papyri in Antiquity (e.g. 5310, 5321 and 5342), the cautious use of inventory numbers to associate texts (e.g. 5291 and 5329–31) and to identify individuals (5324), the number of hands involved and their identification (e.g. the countersignature of 5334 and the bodies of 5335 and 5336), corrections and additions by the writer (e.g. 5302 and 5320.2) and by others (e.g. 5291), ancient repairs (5300, with a strip from a text of Iliad 13), and the presence of other (as yet unpublished) texts preserved on these papyri (e.g. 5296 and 5343).
The inclusion of black-and-white plates remains a concern. The coverage is generous: thirteen plates depict (parts of) thirty-four papyri. The balance of literary, sub-literary and documentary texts is welcome. Since high-resolution colour images, I presume, will soon be available online for examination, it is, perhaps, no longer necessary to include any black-and-white plates at all. The limitation is particularly obvious with the colour drawing that closes this volume: a figure (Δαν{α}ιήλ) with outstretched, diluted-red arms is flanked by lions with red tongues.
The second of two columns of Sophocles’ Tereus (5292) overlaps with fr. 583.10–12 and its speaker-indication (ii 8) enables the fragment to be located after the entrance of the Chorus. The papyrus is a further witness to the reading ἀήθη δώμαθ’ (B), against ἀληθῆ (SMA), at fr. 583.10, a place variously emended.
5293 is a re-edition of P. Turner 5: Menander, Kitharistes, fr. 1, copied, unusually, line-by-line (as the corruptions suggest) from a prose exemplar. In the editio princeps, the back was said to be blank. Traces of lines 20–1 are published here from the back, which had been obscured by mounting: … ατρ̣ … / Μ̣ε̣ν̣άνδρου [ ]. It is tempting to identify the name as the comedian's, but line 20, as the editor noted, remains difficult. The traces could be either the remnant of a title for the extract or, as P. Parsons suggested, the name of the student who copied it, with Μενάνδρου as the genitive of his father's name. In the latter case, one of the many names in -πατριος (or, perhaps, in -ματριος) would be plausible candidates for the student's name. The ending -ιος (or -ίου) would match the three traces that follow in number at least. A high-resolution colour image might narrow the options further.
This version of the fragment contains an additional line, which is unknown to the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. It begins κακοπαθία (instead of the regularly-formed κακοπάθεια) and, thus, if Menandrean, provides one of the earliest instances of that formation (earlier than those in IG II2 and the other documents cited by LSJ s.v.) and the only metrically guaranteed one. That is important for the orthography at Ep.Jac. 5.10, where the first hand of Codex Vaticanus wrote ΚΑΚΟΠΑΘΙΑΣ. That scribe seldom wrote <ι> for <ει> through iotacism (and, for many lexemes, regularly has ‘hypercorrect’ <ει> for long <ι>: see F. Blass, A. Debrunner, R.W. Funk, A Greek Grammar [1961], p. 13). That spelling was ‘corrected’ by the much-later re-inker to ΚΑΚΟΠΑΘεΙΆΣ (the expected spelling, as found in Codex Alexandrinus, among other witnesses), but which now has further authentication as a late-Classical by-form: see L.R. Palmer, The Greek Language (1980), p. 251.
Of the five (pairs of) fragments of Theocritus, none preserves a complete line. One is an additional piece of P. Oxy. L 3550, another of P. Oxy. XXX 2064, which with it was ‘glassed’, and P. Oxy. L 3548. 5294 shows a correction to the majority reading from that preferred by editors at 7.133. In 5295, μ]ε̣γ̣αλαι̣[ (18.29) reopens the debate about Eichstӓdt's conjecture μέγα λᾶιον (rejected by Gow, but supported by Gallavotti on the basis of P. Oxy. L 3550: μεγαλ̣αι̣[). The editor here rejects μ]ε̣γ̣άλᾱ{ι̣}[, as on P. Oxy. L 3550, as a ‘false assimilation’ to π̣ι̣[είρᾱι ] preceding. The presence or absence of iotas adscript in P. Oxy. LXXXII 5295 + L 3550 should be considered (cf. 5292 ii 4 νόμω μὲν [, but 5300.9 τ]ούτωι). It is more likely that ἐπὶ δα̣[ιδ]α̣λ̣[έ]ω̣ πυκ̣ι̣[ (18.33) involves an iotaless dative (as Gow, with ἐνί, the reading of the manuscript against ἐπί here, in
${\cal B}$
3, and in P. Oxy. L 3552) than a dialectal genitive in -ω (cf. 18.32) after ἐπί (a less suitable use here: cf. Herodotus 8.122). The papyrus is lacunose at 18.29 (ἀρ̣ο̣[ύρᾱι) and 18.30 (κ[ά̄πωι]), breaks off before ἱστῶι (18.33), and its portion of 14.43–56 contains no occasion for an iota adscript. The claim of ‘false assimilation’ is ill-founded, unless we can be sure that π̣ι̣[είρα μ] without an iota did not precede.
A strip of twenty-five lines of Idyll 22 (5296) presents five new readings (22.181, 186, 188, 192 and 194). Those at 22.181 and 186 reflect variation in the texts of Theocritus’ Homeric models. Those at 22.181 and 22.184, it is argued, have been ousted by glosses in the rest of the tradition. The papyrus gives ‘Doric’ forms in an epic-Ionic idyll (22.191 and 192). However, the editor goes too far: αὖθις is non-Ionic, but not peculiarly ‘Doric’. See G.D. Miller, The Greek Dialects and Early Authors (2014), p. 176: ‘Ionic’ αὖτις appears in Cretan and even in the ‘Doric’ Idylls of Theocritus, for example at 1.112 and 9.6. 5298, its editor remarked, is only the second known papyrus of the epigrams of Theocritus. More than that, dated to the Augustan period, it is also one of the earliest papyri of Theocritus (cf. LDAB 3985, 3986 and 3987).
The other Extant Classical Texts are a ‘private’ production of Euclid's Elements (the propositions have diagrams, but no proofs), a tiny piece of a first-century Polybius, and a third-century abridgment of Plutarch's Alexander, which contains two unique readings and juxtaposes two thirsty kings in deserts (by omitting the end of 42.10 and 43.1–2).
The heart of the volume is the magical formularies (3), amulets (8), a charitesion and a list of recipes. The discussion is thorough, but there seems to be no systematic justification for the application of the term ‘Christian’ to all the amulets except two (5308 and 5310) nor any definition of that term (some distinguishing elements are noted in the commentaries: the name Jesus Christ in, e.g., 5313; Alpha and Omega in 5306; certain lexical items in 5311.3 and 7; and crosses in, e.g., 5311). The reference to T.S. de Bruyn and J.H.F. Dijkstra, ‘Greek Amulets and Formularies from Egypt Containing Christian Elements’, BASP 48 (2011), 163–215, and its nuanced terminology are helpful, since syncretism can operate in both directions: see de Bruyn and Dijkstra, pp. 170–1.
Two details call for comment. The collocation of ἅγιος with ἄγγελος/ἀρχάγγελος occurs at 5306.5 and 40 (translated ‘saint (arch)angel’). Biblical models for this collocation were not reported: cf. Jb. 5.1, To. 11.14 and 12.15, Ev.Marc. 8.38, Ev.Luc. 9.26, Act.Ap. 10.22 and Apoc. 14.10. The traditional translation ‘holy (arch)angels’ seems applicable to this papyrus also. The use of the form ἄξ̣[ον (5304 ii 7) as the aorist imperative of ἄγω is not discussed. It is attested chiefly in magical papyri (e.g. PGM IV 1591 with πρὸς ἐμέ, 1910 with μοι), but it was also used by some scholiasts to gloss πόρευσον (Euripides, Orestes 796) and ἄπαγε (Aristophanes, Clouds 32).
Seventeen of the twenty-seven documents date to the fifth century and concern various comites called Iohannes and the commercial interests of Oxyrhynchite nobles. These leases, orders to supply, a receipt, a petition and a protocol add an item to the archive of Claudia ‘Apia’ Isidora (5320) and mention the ‘forefather’ of the famous Apion family (5325). These texts are flanked by six documents from the second and third centuries and four sixth-century documents. The commentary is characteristically thorough.
In several documents, errors that involve the dative case may illustrate its obsolescence. We find an accusative (5327.13) and genitive (5330.7) in its place (cf. 5330.5 ἀρτοκόπω as a genitive). Gonis asserted (5340.18n.) that πρὸς τω for πρὸς τό is not the ‘ordinary’ ο > ω interchange, but an indication of confusion about cases. The antithesis is surely false; phonology is a factor in the confusion.
The inclusion of metronymics is noted (5318.5 and 19–20, 5319.3 and 5320.2, but not for 5317; cf. ‘lineage through the mother is the rule in magical texts’ 5304 ii 4–5n. and 5312.22–3), but there is no comment about the significance of such inclusions: see M. Depauw, ‘Do Mothers Matter? The Emergence of Metronymics in Early Roman Egypt,’ in T.V. Evans and D.D. Obbink (edd.), The Language of the Papyri (2010), pp. 120–39. The note on the use of the periphrasis ἔσεσθε εἰδότες (5341.4) contains an inexact parallel (ἔσῃ ἐπιστάμενος, e.g. P. Lond. IV 1332.12). It would be worthwhile to refer more precisely to K. Bentein, Verbal Periphrasis in Ancient Greek (2016), pp. 162, 170, 191 and 200–1, the source of that parallel, with its reservations about whether it functions as an imperative or as a future perfect. It is noteworthy that we meet a son, father and grandfather all with the same name (5316.5–7 and 5319.2–3: cf. the more familiar pattern in 5318.4).
A particular gem among the earlier documents is 5321, a business letter. Although the first eleven lines are damaged, the other thirty-six lines are reasonably intact. The writer consistently used <ει> for long <ι> (although, I presume, Φαρβαιθίτῃ in line 13 is an exception). Those interested in the visual features of documents will note the use of blank spaces as punctuation, cross-bars and oblique strokes to fill lines, and the continuation into the left-hand margin on the front, which is depicted on a plate, but they will miss the two instances of a ‘design’ in the address on the back, which does not feature in a plate.
