The latest Oxyrhynchus volumes publish fine editions of 29 and 26 texts respectively. There are four theological texts, eight new and fifteen known literary texts, three subliterary texts and twenty-five documents. Some have already found their way into relevant disciplines (5073: an amulet containing Mark 1:1–2 without the words ‘the son of God’) and into the popular media (5105: a hexameter apotheosis, probably of Poppaea Sabina: see http://www.livescience.com/22650-ancient-poem-praises-nero-poppaea.html). Each volume has its centrepieces, which I will discuss together before treating the other texts.
5093 contains several rhetorical epidexeis or, rather, notes for them that have been developed to varying lengths and levels of rhetorical polish. ‘Scholastic abbreviations’ are employed and the orthography shows some traits of (inconsistently applied) Atticism. Four subjects are treated: (1) the difference between παιδιά and σπουδή, the first of which is argued to be innate because no physical stimulus produces seriousness in the way that tickling prompts laughter; (2) an encomium of order in nature and human activities; (3) a comparison of tragedy and comedy, in favour of the latter; (4) a discussion of attempts to recover wives from death through magic and other illicit means and then of σοφία as a consolation for bereavement.
The edition of 5093, its apparatus and its commentary fill 94 pages. The epidexeis are contextualised in Imperial or Second Sophistic declamation and, especially, that evident at Oxyrhynchus. The commentary admirably argues for various restorations and for larger hypotheses about the text without going beyond what is preserved on the papyrus. The notes cover subjects ranging from points of rhetoric and mythology, to theatrical swords and to the average number of letters per line in Menander's iambics. In the third topic, Euripides is portrayed as excising two lines from his Medea, which seem to have placed the violence on stage. A thorough examination of the questions arising from this exemplum is undertaken, including an analysis of the two trimetres and a discussion of whether they could be from an earlier Medea by Euripides or from a play that he ‘worked from’. The notes are stimulating and valuable and involve innumerable comparanda, for which, regrettably, there is no index locorum.
The theological highlights are a fragment of a non-canonical gospel from the second or third century (5072) and a first or second-century copy of some Septuagint psalms (5101), with intriguing textual characteristics. There are two other theological pieces: the first papyrus of Cyril of Alexandria's 28th Festal Letter (5074: late-six/early-seventh-century) and (5073) a typical amulet of the late-third/early-fourth century that contains Mark 1:1–2. The latter is the first piece of Mark to be found at Oxyrhynchus (one of only six papyrological witnesses), is roughly contemporary with the Great Uncial witnesses, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, and does not have υἱοῦ θεοῦ in verse 1, but, uniquely, includes τοῦ before Χριστοῦ.
5072 contains parts of 23 lines that report an exorcism performed by Jesus (→) and several of Jesus' sayings addressed to unspecified persons (↓), including his denial of those who deny him. The fragments show parallels with all three synoptic gospels, but not with any single episode. There are points of exclusive overlap with Matthew (especially in narrative style and the formulation of the sayings) and with Luke (especially in matters of language), but rarely with Mark (there are, perhaps, no exclusive verbal overlaps). The editor remarks (pp. 3–4) that it is hard to show that this text underlies any of the synoptics, that it has been influenced by one in particular, or that it is an independent narrative; rather, it seems to be a retelling in a synoptic style, with some unique features (e.g. γραμματικός [↓7], καταρήσσω [→2] and σοφ[ιστής [↓8] are not found in the New Testament, and the second of these is not found in the Septuagint). Jerusalem is named, but these distinctive items of vocabulary are considered as potential indications of a lack of interest in or knowledge of life in Judea in Jesus' time. The papyrus uses non-standard nomina sacra that are paralleled by the gospel fragments in P. Egerton 2. The editor (p. 6) discusses other similarities with P. Egerton 2, including the reference to Jesus as διδάσκαλος (↓3). However, it must be noted that the canonical gospels do the same (e.g. Matthew 19:16 // Mark 10:17 // Luke 18:18; John 1:38, 13:13).
5101 is probably the earliest extant copy of the Septuagint psalms. It employs the Tetragrammaton in Palaeo-Hebrew script where the Septuagint uses κύριος (and, once, for θεός, in Psalm 64:2). This, the absence of Christian abbreviations for nomina sacra and the roll rather than codex form may suggest a Jewish origin (p. 1). In some readings (often involving interchanges of singulars and plurals), the text is closer to the Masoretic Text than to the Septuagint. Some of these readings are unique, but others have affinities with Lucianic texts or the versions of Theodotion, Symmachus, Aquila and the Quinta in Origen's Hexapla. Further unique readings involve issues of word choice (C col. iii 20), tense and aspect (C col. iii 22), the choice of prepositions (C col. iii 16) and the ‘double augment’ of δύναμαι (D 17). The line-division sometimes reflects the ends of stichs and the end of a stich mid-line is marked with a dicolon.
New Hellenistic and Imperial hexameters dominate volume 77, reflecting the recent increase in interest in such poetry and, particularly, in that from the Roman era. 5102 receives 36 pages and consists of 62 fragments. The best preserved of these contains the middles of eighteen lines and indicates that the theme was erotic and involved Hermes. Verbal echoes of Homer, Callimachus and Apollonius Rhodius are noted, while the assessment of the poem's metrical practices demonstrates a resemblance with those of Callimachus and Nicander.
Two of the other hexameter pieces are mythological. 5103 may provide eighteen lines from the Bassarica of Dionysius, a forerunner of Nonnus on Dionysus in India. The parallels with Nicander and Oppian in metrics, morphology and lexical collocations are noted. 5104 seems to deal with Aphrodite and a curse on the earth and human fertility. W.B. Henry restores δῖα Θ
[ωσα (line 11), but notes that none of the known bearers of this name seems relevant to the context. One thinks of δῖα Θεάνω (cf. Il. 5.70), but the same objection remains, or, since the capital theta is unnecessary, of the less specific δῖα ϑεάων (cf., e.g., Il. 5.381) or δῖα ϑέαινα (this collocation is not attested, but the noun seems to be a Nonnan favourite). However, the plate supports an omicron rather than an epsilon. Another possibility would be the patronymic Θọ[αντίς, namely Hypsipyle (although there might be other possibilities: e.g. a grand-daughter of Dionysus and Ariadne). This formation is not attested in Greek literature, but its existence is implied by the scholion for AR.1.637 and it is cited explicitly in that for AR.1.712 (another formation, Θοαντιάς, is the lemma in both places) and it is attested in Latin poetry (Statius, Theb. 5.650, 700; Anthologia Latina 52.1 SB [65.1 Riese]). Again, the context may not point to Hypsipyle (the note to line 7 includes her in its catalogue of individuals or groups who received Aphrodite's wrath but are dismissed as irrelevant) and the curse (lines 1–2) does seem far-reaching rather than personal. However, we may compare Cypria fr. 1 West, in which Zeus caused the somewhat localised Trojan War as a response to the whole earth being overpopulated.
5105 preserves 84 lines of a narrative dealing with an apotheosis, probably of Poppaea Sabina. Its metrical character is shown to be late Hellenistic or Imperial (and pre-Nonnan) and Nonnan parallels in style and vocabulary are noted. The supplement παρθέ]νος (line 20) is rejected on the basis that it would be inappropriate to describe Poppaea as a virgin when she married Nero. In its support, it could be noted that J. Chadwick, Lexicographica Graeca (1996), pp. 226–9, made a case for παρθένος as a social rather than a biological term: an unmarried woman of marriageable age still within her father's house. It might, then, be the case that her first husband, Otho, has been ‘airbrushed’ out. Since Poppaea seems to return to the divine abode from which she came directly to Nero, this description could be a fitting piece of flattery.
5106 is an exhortation in hexameters, which is plausibly, but not demonstrably, Christian. Its 35 extant lines are metrically ‘quite acceptable’ (p. 83) and feature new lexemes and forms.
5078–98 are fragments of Plato's dialogues, dated between the second and fourth centuries a.d. The Politicus is the best represented. Lectional signs, some misplaced, feature to varying degrees. Three fragments join with previously published papyri. One modern conjecture is corroborated (5082 col. ii 11) and there are several new readings (5078.11, involving prepositions; 5080.7, cases; two in 5085 col. ii 5, an ungrammatical and nonsensical passage in Euthydemus 286 E; 5090.3, word-formation; 5091 col. ii 9, verbal aspect, with a nonsensical reading in col. ii 11). 5092 perhaps has both an omission without parallel in the textual tradition and a new addition (of a definite article) as well as some inconsistently employed Atticistic spellings. These papyri line up with different branches of the stemma at different points. The early assessments of B.P. Grenfell and F.G. Kenyon (JHS 39 [1919], 34 and PBA 1 [1903–1904], 164–7) are well illustrated by these texts: medieval manuscripts, generally, do not differ radically from copies that circulated in the second century a.d. and corruptions are long-standing.
The remaining literary and subliterary pieces are lyric fragments (5076: an ideal world Old Comedy; 5075: a fourth-century b.c. tragedy or elevated comedy), an Epicurean letter (5077), a section of second/third-century a.d. mythography that mentions the Cypria and the genealogy of a Dymas (5094), and a commentary on Iliad 12 and 15 (5095). 5077 provides a window onto the circulation and collection of letters relating to a philosophical circle (the commentators make a comparison with the Pauline Epistles) as well as onto their ‘island-hopping’. There is an addendum lexicis μωροσοφία (fr. 2 col. ii 9) and an example of a singular imperative, despite a plurality of addressees (fr. 1 col. i 5, a situation comparable with the Pauline Philemon and 1 Timothy 6:20). 5095 is the latest known set of Homeric hypomnemata, but also the first known Homeric commentary in a codex. It is much closer in its wording and interests to the medieval scholia exegetica than to the Alexandrian materials. Comments are made on fewer lines than by the bT scholia, but they are fuller. No grammarians are named and no other texts are quoted.
The documents relate to several socio-economic topics and detailed commentaries and comparanda are provided (e.g. 5109, 5122 and 5124 on tax categories and interest rates; 5123 on wine making). 5100 attests a letter delivered by hand ‘by an Ethiopian’ in a case of the sender and recipient being in close proximity.
Much of prosopographic and onomastic value has been gleaned for the commentaries. Attempts to identify and associate particular individuals are made in relation to all four personal letters (5099–100, 5112–13). 5116 presents the earliest Egyptian reference to the emperor Salonius. There are new vocalisms of Egyptian names (5108 col. ii 2, 9) and a hybrid name Tsenartema, ‘daughter of Artemas’ (5116.5 n.). The Semitic name Ἰσσῆς, borne by a resident of Eleutheropolis in Palaestina Prima, makes its appearance for the first time in Egypt (5119.3–4 nn.). The inclusion of a person's metronym alongside their patronym, which is exemplified by 5107 (a mid-second-century contract involving a substitute in a liturgy) and contrasts with 5108 (a second/third-century list of liturgists listing names with patronyms), could be discussed in relation to 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.
Points of lexical, phonological, morphological and syntactic interest receive attention, but some invite further comment. Several new words are attested in these documents and 5126 includes several loanwords from Latin. An example of ἀμφότεροι (5109.3) referring to three people (cf. line 5) is noted, but the reference to ‘WB s.v. I’ should be replaced by one to a more recent study of this point. In particular, M. Leiwo (‘Both and All Together: the Meaning of ἀμφότεροι’, Arctos 37 [2003], 81–99) has analysed Egyptian evidence. The omission of final sigma in 5109.5, 27 and 36 is related to F.T. Gignac (1976), 124 and so to the weakened articulation evident in Greek in Egypt. The editor consistently corrects τεσσερ- to τεσσαρ- in 5122.15, 16, 17 and 19 (a mid-sixth-century loan), but these corrections seem needless, since by the second century a.d. the spelling with a second epsilon had become widespread in the papyri (see F.T. Gignac [1976], 278 and [1981], 191). 5099.3 employs a singular second person pronoun, although there are two addresses (cf. on 5077 above). The forms ὀ
ηλάτη and ὀνηγάτης (5121.10, 16) occur for the genitive ὀνηλάτου. The editor notes these aberrations and explains the latter as a conflation with ὀνηγός (admitted to be rare in Egyptian texts). Instead, the first may be an instance of a genitive singular formed by the omission of the final sigma of the nominative (cf. τοῦ στρατιότη sic in P. Abinn. 32.6, as well as the discussion in H. Ljungvik [1932], 92 and F.T. Gignac [1981], 12–14, 16–22 and 43–4). The second may be an erroneous nominative for a genitive. The masculine (or neuter) participles employed instead of feminines in 5109.29–31 are corrected in the apparatus, but not discussed further. Bibliography is supplied for noteworthy constructions (5110.6 ϑέμα, 5112.10–11 διά with an indicative).
5113, a third-century letter, deserves further attention from a stylistic point of view. The commentary describes its writer as ‘a man of letters’ and notes the use of a relatively rare opening formula (lines 1–2), literary features (lines 6–8, a reminiscence of [Demosthenes] 59.1), an Ionic form (line 9, ἀτρεμεῖ) and a collocation first found in Plato's Laws (line 12). The example of consecutive ὥστε with an infinitive – ‘considerably more rare’ in the Roman period than in the Ptolemaic – contrasts with the example of ὥστε to introduce a purpose clause in 5100.6 (a second-century letter). Some features are, in fact, specifically Attic: π[ρ]
ειν (lines 11–12, 14) and 
ατὰ νοῦν (line 11, an old-fashioned expression, which is common, as the editor notes, in the Zenon archive, and shows Attic contraction). The phrase χάριν 
χω (lines 4–5), rather than εὐχαριστέω or χάριν εἰδέναι (cf. Phrynichus, Eclogae 10), calls for further investigation.
The provision of plates is generous (sixteen and twelve respectively, including images for ten of the documentary texts). The palaeographic notes and the commentaries are diligent and thorough. These volumes are complex texts and have been produced to a very high standard. Yet, some curious typographic errors occur (e.g. 5073: p. 21 read ‘719’ for ‘791’ in ‘PSI VI 791’ [cf. p. 20]; 5076: p. 35 read ‘171.67<–>8’; 5093: p. 119 ‘Hyppolitus’ appears alongside ‘Hippolytus’, p. 122 ‘u{p}topianism’). The very occasional mistakes in the transcriptions (e.g. the brackets in 5089 col. ii 6) or other pieces of Greek (5085: p. 66 a smooth breathing stands for an acute accent; 5093: the line-division in the second paragraph of p. 134 puzzles; 5100: Hymenaeus should be proparoxytone as a personal name, but properispomenon as an adjective) may, sadly, undermine one's confidence.
Both volumes demonstrate the collaborative nature of papyrology and the amicitia papyrologorum. Twenty-four and fifteen editors respectively are credited and numerous others, such as M.L. West, have contributed suggestions. Parts of some transcriptions originated with E.G. Turner (5075) or E. Lobel (5094 fr. 1.2, 5104.12 and 5105.19). My comments here are made in the same spirit, and I hope that these well-edited texts will support further research in the sizeable range of subjects to which they relate.
