The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part VI

PREFACE

Of the papyri included in this volume, the two long classical texts containing the Hypsipyle of Euripides (852) and the new commentary on Thucydides II (853) formed part of the large find of literary MSS. which was made on Jan. 13, 1906, in the circumstances described in the Times of May 24, 1906, and the Archaeological Report of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1905-6, p. 10. The other literary papyri were chiefly discovered during the same season, but some were found in 1897 or 1902. The non-literary documents, which largely belong to the third and fourth centuries, come, with a few exceptions, from the finds of 1897.

In editing the new classical texts we have for the first time been without the support of the late Professor F. Blass, to whom our previous publications have owed so much; but for 852 and 853 we have been fortunate in obtaining the generous aid of Professors U. von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff and J. B. Bury, who have very materially furthered the reconstruction of those texts, while Mr. Gilbert Murray has also contributed many most valuable suggestions and criticisms upon 852. To these three scholars in particular, and to some others whose occasional assistance is acknowledged in connexion with the individual papyri, we here offer our sincerest thanks. Lastly, we would express our obligations to the accomplished Proof-reader of the University Press, whose care, in this book as in its predecessors, has removed many small blemishes from our pages.

The next volume of the Graeco-Roman Branch will be Part VII of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, to be issued, we hope, in the course of 1909. We expect to include in it a detailed description of the site and excavations with a plan, and a résumé of the topographical information which the papyri have so far yielded concerning Oxyrhynchus and the Oxyrhynchite nome.

BERNARD P. GRENFELL.
ARTHUR S. HUNT.

Qᴜᴇᴇɴ'ꜱ Cᴏʟʟᴇɢᴇ, Oₓꜰᴏʀᴅ,
Sᴇᴘᴛᴇᴍʙᴇʀ, 1908.