PREFACE

As we announced in the preface of Part XI, which consisted of literary papyri, the present volume contains official and private documents. Most of these, including all those in the two most important sections (i Edicts and Circular Letters, and ii The Senate of Oxyrhynchus), illustrate the period from Septimius Severus to Constantine; the others belong to the earlier period of Roman domination in Egypt. With a few exceptions, the 189 texts were discovered in 1904-6. The decipherment and translation of them had in the main been effected by June, 1915: since then Prof. Hunt's military duties have generally kept him away from Oxford, and the commentary unfortunately lacks his accustomed share in its composition; but he has made many suggestions upon the proofs. These have also been read by Mr. J. G. Milne, to whom we are indebted for some valuable criticisms on points of numismatics.
2Dr. J. K. Fotheringham kindly undertook on our behalf some interesting astronomical calculations in connexion with the chronology of the Emperors from Decius to Diocletian, upon which obscure subject the new horoscopes throw considerable light; cf. pp. 229 sqq.

Part XIII, which is in preparation, will contain two sections (Contracts and Private Accounts) for which there was not space in this volume, but will consist largely of literary pieces, both theological and classical. Among these are parts of two lost dithyrambs of Pindar, and of two new speeches by Lysias and one by Lycurgus, besides considerable fragments of Pindar's Olympian Odes and Herodotus, Book III.

BERNARD P. GRENFELL.

Queen's College, Oxford,
August, 1916.