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A New Fragment of the Acta Alexandrinorum
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
The batch of papyrus fragments which were numbered P. Mich. Inv. 4800 was discovered, according to an attached note, right at the site of Kôm Ushîm (or Karanis) during the campaign carried out so efficiently in the year 1926 by the University of Michigan. Of the pieces which concern us here, all written in the same hand and on the same roll, we have three large fragments (i, ii, and iii, measuring 13·9 by 14·7 cm., 14·4 by 10·9 cm., and 7·7 by 5·5 cm. respectively) and twelve small ones (fragments a to 1). It is difficult either on the basis of content or of fibre-alignment to unite any of these fragments very closely; it may be said, however, that it is just possible that frag, iii may belong to the bottom of frag, i (col. i) on the left side.
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- Copyright ©Herbert Musurillo 1957. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
1 The anonymous author of the note (perhaps Sir Harold Bell?) suggests that the fragments might contain ‘a discovery of some importance’. It is a pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to Professor H. C. Youtie of the University of Michigan, who invited me to edit the papyrus and gave me every facility for doing so; long discussions with him during my visit to the University in May, 1955, enabled me to get a clearer idea of the text and its content. Mr. C. H. Roberts has also made some extremely valuable suggestions.
2 See The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs (Oxford, 1954). P. 155Google Scholar. n. 3.
3 Or, as Roberts has privately suggested, 26 ff. may contain the ‘death speech’ (see The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs, 255) of an Alexandrian leader who was ambushed and killed by the Roman soldiery. There may, of course, have been more than one; but it would be interesting to speculate that the woman involved in our text is an Alexandrian widow. We may compare the treatment of the Roman matron in the so-called Laudatio Turiae who, in the absence of Octavian, pleaded with M. Lepidus on behalf of her exiled husband: ‘prostrata humi, n[on] modo non adlevata, sed tra[cta et servilem in] ∣ modum rapsata livori[bus c]orporis repleta,’ CIL VI, 1527, 14–5, on which see Durry, M., Éloge funèbre d'une matrone romaine (Paris, 1950), 17Google Scholar, § § 14 f., and add the new fragment published by Gordon, A. E. in AJA 54 (1950), 223–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 On the profitable financial ventures of M. Julius Alexander, son of Alexander the arabarch and brother of the prefect Tiberius Julius Alexander, see Turner, E. G., ‘Tiberius Julius Alexander,’ JRS 44 (1954), 54–64Google Scholar, especially p. 59, with the literature (in particular the work of A. Fuks) there cited.
5 cf. The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs VII (Acta Maximi), 153 ff.
6 cf. ibid., IX (Acta Pauli), 182 f.
7 For the explanation of 1–3, I am again indebted to Roberts; it is not likely that the words ἐ]κεῖ τ̣ὸ̣ν ̣θεὸν ἑω|[ρακ- refer to seeing the statue of a god (cf. e.g. The Acts, 100), even though κατασπάομαι can have a religious connotation: see LSJ, s.v. 1, 2, ‘fall into a trance’). The more likely explanation is that the woman went to Rome with the Alexandrians and was there treated with indignity in much the same way as the matron of the Laudatio Turiae. That the document also dealt with Alexandrian missions to Rome is also suggested by ἐ]κπλεο̣ν̣[τ- (frag, a, 3; and cf. frag, e, 1).
8 On the problem of Alexandrian political assemblies, see The Acts, 108 ff.
9 See LSJ, s.v. ὄνομα, IV, 2; perhaps here ‘for an inspection of the bodies’ (?).
10 In token perhaps of their peaceful intentions or, as Youtie would prefer, as a sign of mourning : see, in general, the article ‘Chlamys’, Daremberg-Saglio, , Dict. des antiquites grecques et romaines I, 1115–6Google Scholar.