Adv. Humanit.
Bailey
12-26-29
20883
M to GRAD/ROHR
5-22-62

PREFACE

Like Parts XII and XIV, this is a non-literary volume. It consists of 257 texts of the late Byzantine period, out of which number only 1927, a liturgical fragment based on the Psalms, and 1928 verso, containing Psalm xc original: "Psalm 90" in the form of an amulet, have a claim to be classed as literary. The documents here published include the Oxyrhynchus papyri of this period which were retained by the Cairo Museum in 1897 and not edited in Part I (see the Table, p. xiii); those not at Cairo were obtained from the excavations of that and of later years. Among the various types, letters and accounts are strongly represented, many of these belonging to the papers of the well-known Apion family. Especial attention may be drawn to the legal section (1876 sqq.), where the judicial process per libellum by petition now finds illustration.

The texts of the papyri at Cairo, most of which we had copied in the winter of 1897–8, were revised by Dr. Grenfell in 1920, when he also transcribed some of the accounts for the first time. In the preparation of the commentary the remoteness of the originals has often been a stumbling-block, since a number of textual modifications suggested themselves (especially in the accounts) which could not be verified. As a general rule the transcriptions have been followed and conjectures confined to the notes; where alterations of the reading as reported have been admitted into the text, attention has been called to the fact.

Dr. Grenfell’s most regrettably continued absence has rendered the collaboration of Mr. Bell in this volume doubly welcome. We have to thank Professor Collinet for valuable suggestions on 1876–9, and Mr. Crum for occasional parallels from Coptic.

Of Part XVII the contents are not yet determined, but they will be, to some extent at any rate, of a literary character.

ARTHUR S. HUNT.

Queen's College, Oxford,
November, 1923.

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