The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume LXXXVIII

Graeco-Roman Memoirs Volume 109

This volume presents the first fruits of the research project Hexameters Beyond the Canon: New Poetry on Papyri from Roman and Byzantine Egypt, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The new texts illustrate the great variety and interest of hexameter composition in this period, with categories including fable, ethical instruction, mythological narrative, ethopoea, and magical hymn. Earlier periods are represented by new pieces of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women and Callimachus’ Hecale. The extant literary texts include discourses of Musonius Rufus, Dio Chrysostom, and Favorinus, three figures rarely encountered in the papyri. On the theological side, there are fragments of the Septuagint (Genesis and Exodus) and two new manuscripts of the sermon On Pascha by Melito of Sardis. The documentary section offers texts from a very wide chronological range, from the late Ptolemies to Maurice. Highlights include a petition to Cleopatra and Caesarion and a letter mentioning a prefectural decree on ‘days of purity’. There are two small thematic units: three leases of fishing rights, and a handful of documents relating to Heptanomia in the fourth century. The usual indexes and a selection of photographs are provided.