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Two Unrecognised Ptolemaic Papyri

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

E. G. Turner
E. G. Turner
Affiliation:
University College London
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Extract

The well-known fragment of a musical score of a chorus from Euripides' Orestes, published in 1892 by K. Wessely was dated by its first editor to the first century after Christ. Wessely, who had no dated palaeographical material for comparison, based his dating on external factors. ‘The scrap was taken (presumably when unpacked in Vienna, though this is not specifically mentioned) from a layer of papyri which belong to the first century A.D. (the Hadrianic period at the latest), a judgement that I can confirm by means of the dates on some of the pieces should the letter forms not be thought sufficient indication.’ Allowing for a certain period of years to elapse before a literary work was set aside, Wessely concluded that ‘the evidence permits a date in the time of Augustus’. This conclusion seemed to gain force from a suggestion that the papyrus was contemporary with Dionysius of Halicarnassus' musical score of the Orestes (de comp. verb. 11), and has been generally accepted. Nevertheless, the dating is at least two centuries too late. The character of the hand is to a large extent concealed by the photograph (and subsequently apparently it has always been this reproduction that has been reproduced) which accompanied the editio princeps. Seen in the original, however, as I was privileged to see it in the summer of 1955, its unmistakable Ptolemaic character thrusts itself on the attention. The mere size of the letters, especially their width, the coarse cut of the writer's pen which can only make thick strokes, the unnecessary horizontal link-strokes found at the top of a vertical hasta (seen clearly in the μ of μέγας, l. 2) are among such unmistakable stylistic features. Moreover, some of the letters have a characteristic Ptolemaic shape—α, κ, λ, χ, and above all τ, which begins with a bold initial upstroke on the left, υ which has a long, shallow bowl and a leftward curve at the foot of its vertical; to which one is tempted to add the archaic square ε of the musical notation. Among examples of Ptolemaic calligraphy this hand must take a high place. I know of no precisely similar dated handwriting, for dated literary hands of this period are still rare. But a number of similarities can be seen in any one of the following non-literary texts: P. Cairo Zeno 59532 (epitaph) and 59533 (music), and P.S.I. 379 (letter of 249/8 B.C.), all from the Zenon archive and to be dated about 250 B.C.; P. Teb. 811, a smaller and rougher hand of 165 B.C.; P. London 44, a good documentary hand of 161 B.C. which I should judge later than the Orestes. 260 B.C. and 150 B.C. are the extreme limits between which I would assign the date of this papyrus, with a preference for about 200 B.C. On this revised view of its dating, the Orestes fragment is even on external grounds to be reckoned among the oldest surviving pieces of Greek music, only the Zenon scrap (P. Cairo Zenon 59533) being perhaps older.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 76 , November 1956 , pp. 95 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1956

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References

1 Mitteilungen aus d. Sammlung der Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer, V, pp. 65–73 (1892). Useful though not exhaustive bibliography of later discussions in Pack, R. A., The Greek and Latin Literary Texts from Greco-Roman Egypt, p. 24Google Scholar, No. 300, to which add Dale, A. M., Lyric Metres of Greek Drama, pp. 2–3, 194 ff.Google Scholar; Martin, E., Trois Documents de Musique Grecque, pp. 14–24Google Scholar; Winnington-Ingram, R. P., Symbolae Osloenses XXXI (1955), pp. 65 ff.Google Scholar The most reliable transcript is that of Mountford, J. F., New Chapters in Greek Literature, 2nd Series, p. 148.Google Scholar

2 Plates of these two in Norsa, Scrittura Letteraria Greca Tav. 2 and 3.

3 Plate in Norsa, , Stritt. Doc. i, Tav. 5.Google Scholar

4 P. Teb. III, 1, pl. IV.

5 I p. 33, plate in Atlas I no. 19.

6 I was fortunate to be able to discuss the hand with Mlle Claire Préaux and to learn that she agrees with this dating.

7 Cf. Winnington-Ingram, R. P., Symbol. Osl., XXXI, p. 9.Google Scholar

8 I am indebted to Miss A. M. Dale for the following comment: ‘There is a small point here which cannot be pressed at all hard. When Euripides has a dochmiac dimeter he tends (in the great majority of cases, in fact) to use diaeresis; the cases where he does not do so usually take the form either of word-end before the final long of the first dochmiac ( 321) or the hang-over of one short syllable ( 344). Moreover, in the first of these cases the initial syllable included in the first dochmiac is usually some easily detachable prefix (ευ- 321, 322). Now the pair

is slightly better matched than

But as the quantitative responsion is so free anyhow, nothing can be made of this here.'

9 Philologus 52, 179. The argument is: (a) that it is hard to account for the position of κατολοφύρομαι in the papyrus unless it is either right, or mere mechanical failure; (b) that the outburst in an emotionally bracketed parenthesis is in any case more effective.

10 In that case, has the scribe got both words and musical notation in the wrong order, or have the words and music got out of phase?

11 There are four such transgressions in this text. See most recently Winnington-Ingram, R. P., Symbol. Osl. l.c. p. 65 and n. 3.Google Scholar I am indebted to him for criticism of the statement of my argument in this paragraph.

12 Griechische Papyri der Hamburger Staats und Universitäts bibliothek, Hamburg 1954. (O. Luschnat was able to see it for his new Teubner, Thukydides, vol. 1 (1954), p. 18.Google Scholar He dates it first century A.D., following the Hamburg edd. He is not always correct in recording its readings.)

13 P. Cairo 47993.

14 P. 666, publ, as Hamb. 124 in the same volume.

15 For a photograph of the Cairo papyrus I am grateful to Mr. T. G. H. James and to the Cairo Museum.

16 Between διανοίαι and μάλιστα, 1. 59 of ed. princeps.

17 For Egypt, cf. Mayser, , Grammatik I p. 305.Google Scholar

18 The authority for restoring αἰεὶ to the text of Thucydides is Marcellinus' Life, 52 and the usage of fifth-century in scriptions, not the manuscripts, as the Hamburg editors state.

19 It might be argued that with this order it is easier to couple the following βοιωτία with the participle. In any case our scribe seems to have construed Θετταλία, Βοιωτία and Πελοπόννησος as a triplet, cf. following note.

20 Possibly no weight should be put on a restored passage. But at least the termination -ος of Πελοπόννησος is clear.

21 The editors' restoration seems the only sensible one.

22 Pp. 165 and 805 Usener-Radermacher. Dionysius' text is probably not independent of M, and in any case he may be paraphrasing, cf. his οἰόμενοι for ἡγούμενοι just before.

23 Cf. I, 8, 2 ἀνέστησαν; 12, 3 Βοιωτοὶ ἀναστάντες 12, 4 ἀνισταμἐνη; II 14 ἡ ἀνάστασις ἐλήνετο.

24 There can be no doubt that ἀπα[γάγωσι] is correctly restored in ed. princeps l. 14, but in l. 8 the editors want to restore ἀπά[γωσι] and give a reading in both places that squares exactly with that of ABEFM. But an estimate of the numbers of letters lost on the left-hand side of this column (assumed to be 14 letters in l. 6, 13 in 7, 13 in 8, 12 in 9, 15 in 10, 14 in 11, 12 in 12) shows a variation between 12 and 15 that is not explained by the line of fracture of the papyrus, and does not allow us to prefer the shorter ἀπά[γωσι] to ἀπα[γάγωσι] as the restoration in l. 8.

25 In Schmidt-Stählin, , Gesch. d. gr. Lit. I, 5, p, 200.Google Scholar

26 Per La Storia del Testo di Tucidide, p. 67: ‘Insomma, la tradizione tucididea fu tradizione spontanea, e quindi varia, non tratennuta e incanalata per vie più ristrette da edizioni che in qualche modo s'imponessero nell' età successive’.

27 REG 61 (1948), pp. 104 ff.