The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part XVI

(1896); and he was dead in 579 (185; for the date see int. there). He was a patrician, and is addressed in the undated document 130 as dux commander/duke of the Thebaid. There is reasonably strong ground (P. Brit. Mus. 1708. 79, n.) for dating 130 in 548–9 and for believing that Apion’s second and last year in office as dux was 549. In 1915. 2 (about A.D. 560) he is addressed as “to the most magnificent consul ordinary Apion” (sic).

From A.D. 579 (185) to 587 (1898, 1987, &c.) we meet only with the heirs of Fl. Apion; but in 590 (1989) and 591 (1990) these heirs (or two of them) are named as Fl. Praejecta and Apion her son; and in 593 (201 = P. Brit. Mus. 779) Fl. Apion appears alone as “to the most all-praised and most magnificent ex-consul.”

We are now in a better position to determine the identity of the Fl. Strategius of 1829. Clearly his father was only recently dead, and he was at least one among the heirs. Apion I, even if he was alive in 497, as seems likely, can hardly be supposed to have lived very long into the sixth century; and thus, from about 515 to at least 577 there is no point at which 1829 can reasonably be fixed. The hand indicates a date not too far removed from the middle of the century; and accordingly the father there referred to, who was also a pagarch local administrative official, was probably Apion II. In 130, which is addressed to this Apion and may perhaps (see above) be dated in 548–9, his son Strategius is mentioned. Hence 1829 may with great probability be taken as addressed to the same Strategius, son of Apion II. Reference is here made to his brother (unnamed) and to his sister; and the second letter is obviously addressed to his wife. Since in l. 10 his orders concerning his “most illustrious sister” are mentioned and in ll. 19 sqq. the orders of his wife and the “most illustrious Cyra” concerning property to be divided between them and the “most illustrious Lady Theognosia,” it is reasonable to assume that the sister’s name was Theognosia; and Cyra may well have been the mother, widow of Apion II. Presumably, either by the terms of Apion’s will or by a subsequent agreement among the beneficiaries, the estates were left undivided and administered jointly for the benefit of all the heirs. (For the frequency of such arrangements in Egypt see Kreller, Erbrechtliche Untersuchungen Research on Inheritance Law, pp. 64 sqq.)

When a single head of the family again appears (mother and son together in 590 and 591, 1989, 1990, son alone in 593, P. Brit. Mus. 779) we find him named Apion, not Strategius, and possibly he is the brother mentioned in 1828, Strategius having died meanwhile; but this seems on the whole improbable. He continues to occur in papyri down to A.D. 619 (P. Iand. 49); his mother’s name is Praejecta, not Cyra; and from his association with her in the two earlier documents it may follow that he was not of age in 590 and 591, though if Strategius III (see below) was his son this is perhaps unlikely. Now Apion II was consul ordinarius, and can hardly therefore have been a quite young man, in 539 and dux perhaps in 548–9; hence, while not impossible, it is at least improbable, as Spohr points out, that Apion III was his son. The probability is, especially in view of the common Egyptian practice by which a son was given his grandfather’s name, that Strategius was the eldest son of Apion II (this might indeed be inferred from 130 alone), and father of Apion III. Strategius was, then, dead by 590; and since Praejecta and Apion III are named alone as heirs of Apion II it may be concluded that the brother mentioned in 1829 was dead also and that the family of Strategius II were now the sole heirs.

A difficulty is occasioned by a third Strategius (if he is not, as seems very unlikely, Strategius II) who occurs in A.D. 615 (B. G. U. 368, patrician, of Arsinoe), 616 (1991, consul, landowning also here, at Oxyrhynchus), and in two undated documents published by Wessely (P. Stud. Pal. x. 1, Fayûm, 7th cent., “of the holy Strategius”: probably a member of our family; P. Klein. Form. 1158, Fayûm, 6th–7th cent., “Strategius by the grace of God, ex-consul”). His latest appearance is probably in P. Stud. Pal. xx. 209 (= SB. 5270), a receipt addressed to Cosmas, steward (l. -nō) of the estate of Strategius the all-praised patrician from the city of the Arsinoites. This is dated only by the indiction (the 13th), but since it has the full religious formula with