The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part XVI

mention of the place, the omission of the regnal year must be due not to the nature of the document but to political causes: i.e., the Imperial authority was not then effective in Egypt. To place the receipt, as Preisigke does, in the Arab period, is to bring it down to a time improbably late, in the absence at least of other evidence for the continuance of the Apion family beyond the Byzantine period; hence a date during the Persian occupation seems preferable, which would be equivalent to 27 Feb., A.D. 625. This Strategius may have been a younger brother of Apion III; but more probably he was Apion's son, on whom his father settled part of his estates during his own lifetime. That Apion and Strategius were not identical (“Apion who is also Strategius”) is proved, if proof were needed, by the fact that Apion was represented, even as late as 619 (P. Iand. 49) by Menas (a name constantly associated with the Apion family), whereas the representative of Strategius, in 616 (1991), was Fl. Dorotheus. It may be added that in all cases, except that of Apion II, the title of consul was of course honorary only.

The earliest occurrence of the name Menas as that of major-domo of the Apion family is in 508 (?1984), the latest in 619. It is obvious that the same person is not indicated throughout. There were doubtless successive occupants of the position all called Menas, probably all members of the same family.

It will be useful to end this note with a genealogical tree, in which the successive heads of the family are numbered. As the fourth-century Strategius may be an ancestor, his name is included but, owing to the uncertainty, not given a number.

A genealogical tree diagram depicts the lineage of the Apion family, showing names, titles, and dates connected by vertical and horizontal lines to represent descent and familial relations.

[? Strategius, praeses of the Thebaid]
(c. A.D. 349)
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Apion I, apo hypatōn ex-consul
(probably alive in 497, possibly, but improbably, identical with the Apion of Anastasius' Persian expedition)
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Strategius I, stratēlātēs general, apo hypatōn ex-consul, and patricius patrician
(alive and com. dev. dom. count of the most loyal domestics, but not yet of consular rank, in 497; probably died between 535 and 539); perhaps comes sacr. largitionum count of the sacred largesses (1928. int.)
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Apion II, consul ordinarius ordinary consul, dux commander of the Thebaid, patricius patrician = Cyra (?) (survived her husband)
(consul in 539, died between 577 and 579)
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Strategius II = Fl. Praejecta (?) son, unnamed Theognosia (perhaps dead by 590)
(alive in 548-549 (?), probably dead by 590)
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Apion III, consul, patricius
(possibly aflix unknown title/official in 591, alive in 619)
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Strategius III, consul, patricius
(mentioned in 615, 616)