A Boeotian Poem in PSI X 1174: Some Considerations (original) (raw)
On the Michigan Ptolemaic Lyric Papyrus inv. 3498 + 3250b, 3250c, 3250a: New Readings and Remarks, 2019
This paper aims to present some new contributions to the reconstruction and interpretation of an important 'lyric' papyrus of the Ptolemaic age. Before discussing the single fragments, we offer here a brief status quaestionis. In 1925, in Cairo, the antiquities dealer M. Nahman acquired some papyri, which were then sold in two batches: from the fi rst, catalogued by H. I. Bell of the British Museum, one papyrus (P.Mich. inv. 3499, now 3498) came to the University of Michigan in October 1926; the second batch, which was initially bought by Columbia University and then came to the University of Michigan, contained the fragments of inv. 3250. The publication of inv. 3498, 3250a, 3250b and 3250c happened in different phases. The recto (a series of incipts of melic texts) of inv. 3498 was published by R. Merkelbach in 1973 2 ; the verso of the same fragment (a melic narrative text) was published a year later, in 1974, by D. Page 3. The fi rst progress towards the reconstruction of the roll was made in January 1999 by P. Heilporn, who joined inv. 3498 with 3250b. The fi rst complete edition of all these fragments, due to C. Borges and C. M. Sampson, was published in 2012 4 ; it included suggestions by several scholars (Battezzato, Cropp, Diggle, etc.). In 2014, two essays, including notes on the recto text, written by H. Bernsdorff and C. J. Geißler, were published 5 ; in 2016, G. B. D'Alessio offered an overview of the layout of the roll and especially of the verso fragments, as well as some textual proposals. There is writing on both sides of the papyrus; additionally, the recto is a palimpsest, as some traces of the scriptio inferior show. As for its format, the extant height of this papyrus does not exceed 8.8 cm 6. This must have been close to the original height of the roll at the time when the scriptio superior of the recto was written, since both upper and lower margins are preserved on this side of the papyrus. On the verso, however, it is more diffi cult to identify the upper margin: according to Borges and Sampson, the preserved 1 In this paper we will present the results of the cycle of seminars Produzione e trasmissione di testi lirici in età tolemaica. P.Mich. inv. 3498 + 3250a-c. Lettura e interpretazioni, held by Prof. G. B. D'Alessio at the Department of Studi Uma nistici of the University of Naples Federico II in November and December 2015. We would like to express our gratitude to our colleagues and professors who have taken active part in the seminar and to Prof. G. B. D'Alessio for having supervised and revised this work. We are also grateful to Prof. L. Battezzato for having provided us his new edition of the recto text, part of a forthcoming article (from now on cited as Battezzato°; his other suggestions, marked simply as 'Battezzato ap. Borges' and 'Battezzato ap. Sampson', are reported by Borges or Sampson in their edition) and his forthcoming article Cognitive Science, Conjectures and Papyri: Priming, Cloze Tests and Intuition, to Dr. M. McOsker for having revised our English text, to Prof. G. Messeri for her useful advice and to Prof. F. Schironi for having checked some diffi cult readings in the original. Our gratitude goes also to Prof. J. Hammerstaedt for his useful suggestions and remarks. Considering the diffi culties of the papyrus and the fact that we did not have the opportunity to work on the original, we do not aim to be exhaustive and our work does not intend to be a new edition. For this reason, we have decided to respect the numbering of the columns used by the editors. Nonetheless, for the sake of clarity, we have transcribed the whole text. We have decided not to mark in the apparatus differences from the editio princeps which only concern the presence/absence of underdots; our new readings are marked by an asterisk. This work has been conceived in close collaboration among the authors in all its sections; as for the single sections, however, the paper is organized as follows: inv. 3498 + 3250b verso coll. i and ii have been edited by Lucia C. Colella, inv. 3250c verso col. i by Antonia Di Tuccio, inv. 3250c verso col. ii + inv. 3250a verso col. i by Marzia D'Angelo, inv. 3250a verso col. ii by Federica Nicolardi, inv. 3498 + 3250b recto by Bianca Borrelli, inv. 3250c recto by Lucia C. Colella, inv. 3250a recto by Antonio Parisi. 2 Merkelbach 1973, p. 86; the same text, with some new readings, was published shortly afterwards by Page 1974a, pp. 96 f. (= SLG S286). 3 Page 1974b, pp. 105-109. 4 Borges / Sampson 2012. For details on the acquisition and publication of these fragments, cf. pp. 1-3. 5 Bernsdorff 2014; Geißler 2014. 6 Borges / Sampson 2012, p. 3: 8.7 cm for inv. 3498 + 3250b, 8.3 cm for inv. 3250a, 8.8 cm for inv. 3250c.
A New Hellenistic Poetry Book: P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309
Labored in Papyrus Leaves: Perspectives on an Epigram Collection Attributed to Posidippus, 2004
The earliest Greek poetry books come from the third century BCE, and surviving examples include Callimachus' Iambi and Aetia and Herodas' Mimiambi, known from papyrus, and a few manuscript possibilities, such as Callimachus' Hymns and portions ofTheocricus. Collections of epigrams were also among the earliest poetry books, and Meleager apparencly used these single-authored collections in compiling his Garland, which became the primary source for Hellenistic epigrams preserved in the later B yz antine anthologies. Up to chis point, however, direct evidence for epigram collections has been slight, consisting of a few papyrus scraps containing contiguous epigrams, ancient references to the Epi gr ammata of various poets, and a small sylloge of epigrams attributed to Theocritus chat descends in bucolic manu scripcs. 2 The new Posidippus papyrus now provides us with an epigram collection securely dated to the third century BCE. The editors point out, on the basis of the care given to the script and outlay of the text, chat chis papyrus was the product of a scriptorium, not a personal copy. They also recognize chat the arrangement of the poems was not just formal or convenient, but refi ned, aesthetically designed to appeal to a reading public. 3 One of the most surprising aspects of the papyrus is its division into sections, each with its own tide, placed within a column and centered. Nine such sections are clearly visible on the papyrus, and the editors believe chat a tench may be lurking in the scraps at the end of the surviving text. 4 The B yz antine anthologies are