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The Philinna Papyrus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

P. Maas
P. Maas
Affiliation:
Oxford
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Extract

1. P. Amh. 11 and P. Berol. 7504: History of the Problem of their Relationship.

‘Too small to have more than a palaeographical interest’: thus marked, the Amherst Papyrus 11 was published by Grenfell and Hunt in 1901; they assigned it to cent. I B.C. For all its smallness, however, Wilamowitz remembered this text when he found a similar one in the Berlin Papyrus 7504, which he edited in 1907, dating the hand ‘spätgriechisch.’ But in quoting from the Amherst Papyrus he relied too much on his memory; that, and some mistakes which he made in editing the Berlin Papyrus, prevented him from making full use of his discovery.

A considerable step forward was taken by Adam Abt in 1910. He supplemented convincingly ll. 8–12 and 17–18 of the Berlin Papyrus from the text of the Amherst Papyrus. He even envisaged, and for excellent reasons, the possibility that the two papyri were parts of the same roll, but eventually decided against it because he thought that ll. 13–16 of the Berlin Papyrus could not be made to fit on to the Amherst Papyrus. Here he was wrong, as will be shown presently.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 62 , November 1942 , pp. 33 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1942

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References

1 The Amherst Papyri, vol. 2, p. 2Google Scholar and Pl. II. The Amhers Papyri are now in the J. P. Morgan Library, New York.

2 Berliner Klassikertexte, vol. 5 (2), pp. 144 fGoogle Scholar.

3 ‘Erinnert sei an Pap. Amherst II, 11, der öfter κεϕαλή bietet und ἑπτὰ λύκοι—ἑπτὰ λέοντες ἒσβεσαν—; aber alles ist unverständlich.’ There are four misstatements in this quotation.

4 See infra, note 13.

5 Philologus 69 (1910), 150–52Google Scholar. Abt died in 1918 while preparing the new edition of the two large Berlin Magical Papyri which was completed by Preisendanz (P. Mag., vol. 1, 1928, nos. 1 and 2Google Scholar).

6 Papyri Graecae Magicae, vol. 2, no. 20. He altered the line-numbering. I keep that of Wilamowitz, as did Abt.

7 I cannot ascertain if he saw the papyrus; see infra, note 14.

8 I have not seen vol. 3 of his collection, which was printing in 1939 (cf. Preisendanz, , Neue griechische Zauber-papyri, in Forscnungen und Fortschritte 15, 1939, pp. 151 fGoogle Scholar.).

9 Greek Literary Papyri, vol. 1, no. 146.

10 He had discovered among the unpublished Oxyrhynchus papyri one containing a different version of col. II, ll. 8–12; see infra, p. 37.

11 Now in the Library of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

12 Grenfell and Hunt saw more letters on col. I of the recto than are visible on the plate. Therefore the edition of this column (infra, p. 36) is based mainly on their statements. But in l. 12]ωισατε (with ]σασθε in the next line) is no probable group of letters; I prefer ]ọισατε. In col. II, 14 f. (= ll. 8 f. of their numbering) they read τ[ instead of π[ and φευτοδυụ[ instead of φευγοδυṿ[; the first of these mistakes was corrected by Abt, the second has been fatal for the understanding of the whole until now.

13 Some of these statements I have had to reject:

(a) The date cannot be ‘spätgriechisch,’ i.e., A.D. V–VI, the Amherst fragment is I B.C.

(b) The papyrus cannot be a ‘Buch,’ i.e., a codex: Wilamowitz's own statement about the verso (see infra, note 18) proves that the columns do not correspond. Besides, the hand of the verso is different, as the Amherst fragment shows.

(c) The course of the left border of ll. 13–15 as given in edition Cannot be right; t: must have been determined by the supplements, the style of which, by the way, is poor, and which ignore the blank after l. 14 ]νον.

(d) Some letters must have been misread; see infra, p. 35, notes to ll. 2, 4, 8, 13.

Such an accumulation of misstatements (and those in his quotation from the Amherst fragment must be added) is rare in Wilamowitz. The enormous amount of work done by him simultaneously with the preparation of that volume of the Berl. Klass. Texte—witness the Wilamowitz-Bibliographie, 1928—would suffice to explain a temporary slackening of attention, but I think his aversion from magic was an accessory cause.

14 In l. 10 (= l. 12 of his numbering) Preisendanz gives ηγαγαν as the reading of the papyrus, instead of Wilamowitz's ἠράσαν[το]. Had Preisendanz revised Wilamowitz's collation of the papyrus without perceiving the identity of the hands and without correcting more than those two letters? Or is his ηγαγαν only a contamination of Abt's conjecture ἢγαγον (which stands in Preisendanz's text without being marked as a conjecture) with Wilamowitz's reading?

15 The letter P characterises a Berlin papyrus as bought, not obtained by excavation (prefatory notice of the editors).

16 By ἒκθεσις I mean projection to the left by about two letters as opposed to indentation; there seems to exist no generally received English technical term. ἒκθεσις and εἲσθεσις in this sense are technical terms in metrical scholia. For ἒκθεσις marking the beginning of a paragraph in papyri and inscriptions cf. Schubart, W., Pap. Grace. Berol. (1911)Google Scholar,Tsf. 9b (127 B.C.), the Monumentum Ancyranum, Maas, , Epidaur. Hymn. (1933), p. 1581Google Scholar.

17 AS on the verso, see infra presently. Similar strokes appear in an Anthology of II B.C., Berl. Klass. Texte, 5, 2, P. 129.

18 ‘Auf dem Verso sind nur geringe Reste von Zeilenschlüssen und Zeilenanfängen sichtbar, vor denen Paragraphos und schräge Striche stehen’ Wil. ‘On the verso are the ends of nine lines in a cursive hand apparently of the early first century A.D.’ G.–H.; this is confirmed by the photograph. Obviously the lines the ends of which appear on the Amherst fragment are those which begin on the Berlin fragment.

19 Abbreviations: Heim, = Incantamenta magica graeca latina, collegit disposuit edidit Heim, R., Jahrbücher für Class. Phil., Suppl. 19 (1892–1993)Google Scholar.—Hippiatr. = Corp. Hippiatr. graec. ed. Oder, et Hoppe, , 2 voll., 1924, 1927Google Scholar.—Marc. Emp. = Marcelli de medicamentis liber, rec. Niedermann, 1916.

20 IG. 42. 1 (1929), no. 130, Maas, , Epidaur. Hymn. (1933), pp. 130 ff.Google Scholar; in my opinion the most probable date is III B.C., but others assign it to A.D. II.

21 Transmitted by Marc. Emp. 29. 23 and two inscriptions on Roman rings, cf. Drexler, W., Philologus 58 (1899), 608.Google Scholar

22 Cf. Heim, p. 495, de Boor, H. in Reallexikon der Deutschen Litteraturgeschichte, vol. 3 (1928–1929)Google Scholar s.v. Zauberspruch, Ohrt, F. in Handwörterbuch des Deutschen Aberglaubens, vol. 7 (1935–1936)Google Scholar, s.v. Segen and his other articles there quoted, to which must be added his monograph Die ältesten Segen über Christi Taufe und Christi Tod, K. Danske Vid. Sel., hist.-filol. Medd. 25 (1938)Google Scholar.

23 Cf. Theocr. 2. 15 f., where Perimede (= Agamede in Horn. Il. 11. 741) makes the group of three complete.

24 Cf. Cod. Bernensis A 62 (A.D. X) ap. Heim no. 111, Stulta femina super fontem sedebat (where the last line seems to have been originally a versus leoninus: siccant vel venae quae sunt de sanguine plenae) and the end of the Old German ‘Strassburger Blut-Segen’ (A.D. XI) Tumbo sat in berke (Braune, W., Althochdeutsches Lesebuch9, 1928, pp. 89, 202Google Scholar; Ohrt, F. in Handwörterbuch des Deutschen Aberglaubens s.v. Tumbo, vol. 8, 1936–1937)Google Scholar.

25 I know of no seven maidens quenching a fire in Greek mythology. Neither Pleiades nor Hyades carry water. The pyre of Alcmene is extinguished by two Clouds (Robert, C., Archaeolog. Hermeneutik, 1919, pp. 49, 277)Google Scholar, that of Herakles by two or three well-nymphs. For the evidence cf. Cook, A. B., Zeus, vol. 3 (1940), PP. 506–24Google Scholar.

26 Cf. Heim, nos. 69–74, Weinreich (see supra, p. 37), pp. 170–99. The writings by Wünsch and by Fehrle, (Zauber und Segen, 1926)Google Scholar quoted by Weinreich, pp. 175, 178, are inaccessible to me.

27 Ed. f.i. by Wünsch, , Rhein. Mus. 55 (1900), pp. 73 ff.Google Scholar; cf. Inscr. Cret. 2 (1939), p. 223Google Scholar. I shall treat this tablet in one of the next numbers of Hesperia; in its last line I read .