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Papyrus 40 ‘della Raccolta Milanese’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Extract

With considerable topicality A. Vogliano published in 1940 a scrap of papyrus describing an engagement between Romans and Ethiopians. Since his book is difficult to procure I reproduce his text and restorations:—

Vogliano jumps to the conclusion that π is a fragment of a literary work (to be fathered on to the historian Nicolaus of Damascus), from which it follows that it deals with the Ethiopian expedition under Augustus. He paraphrases its sense thus: ‘The Ethiopians are in line. The Romans advance, the infantry under command of a certain Rufus, cavalry under a certain Trogus. Other persons must have been named first.’

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © E. G. Turner 1950. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Papyrus 40 ‘della raccolta Milanese (Collezioni del Castello Sforzesco di Milano)’ published in Un papiro storico greco della raccolta Milanese e le campagne dei Romani in Etiopia (Hoepli, Milan, 1940). I know of no reviews of, or comments on, this publication. I shall hereafter refer to the papyrus as π.

2 V. gives two excellent photographs from which alone I know the papyrus.

3 οι is read by Vogliano from the original. From the photograph (reading from which imposes caution) I am inclined to read ὁ μεταπε [μϕθείσ (?), taking the supposed ι as an upward stroke beginning the μ, and the nominative singular as subject of the singular verb ἐπῆλ〈A〉εν

4 ἔπαρχοσ is the usual Greek term for praefectus alae. ἴππαρχοσ as a Roman military term is unknown to Index of ILS, or to Preisigke, Wörterbuch.

5 In the photograph I seem to see a curling upward stroke ligatured to the o which might more easily be read as part of δ than of σ.

6 λων at opening of 1. 2 may also be restored e.g. μετὰ πολ] λῶν or μετ' οủ πολ] λῶν instead of Vogliano's μετὰ ψι] λῶν.

7 Seneca, Nat. Qu. 6, 8, 3–4: ‘centuriones duos quos Nero Caesar. … ad investigandum caput Nili miserat’; Pliny, , HN 6, 181Google Scholar: ‘certe solitudines nuper renuntiavere principi Neroni missi ab eo milites praetoriani cum tribuno ad explorandum.’ See the cautious discussion of this evidence by Anderson, J. G. C., in CAH X, 778-9 and 880Google Scholar f.

8 See the interesting account of a battle between the Άνωτερίται and στρατιῶται described in a letter to his sister by a doctor, P. Ross-Georg. III, 1.