The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part 13

PREFACE

The present volume consists of literary texts, like Parts V and XI. The papyri of Lysias (1606), Hyperides (1607), Aeschines Socraticus (1608), and an oration on the cult of a Roman Emperor (1612) belong to the first of the three large literary finds of the 1905-6 season, which produced 841-4, etc., and has now been completely published; those of Ephorus (1610), a work on literary criticism (1611), and Herodotus (1619) belong to the second, which is not yet exhausted. Most of the other texts were found in the early part of the same season.

Prof. Hunt's continued absence from Oxford on military duties has prevented him from taking an active part in the decipherment and editing of this volume, but he has revised some of the papyri and the proofs. We are much indebted to Mr. E. Lobel, who has made numerous suggestions in the reconstruction and interpretation of the new classical texts, and to Dr. J. V. Bartlet for similar help in regard to the new theological texts. The assistance on various points afforded by Mr. T. W. Allen, Profs. J. Burnet, J. B. Bury, and A. E. Housman, Dr. C. Hude, Mr. H. Stuart Jones, Sir William M. Ramsay, Prof. M. Rostowzew, and Sir John E. Sandys is acknowledged in connection with the individual papyri.

The two sections consisting of Contracts and Private Accounts, which were omitted from Part XII owing to want of space, are held over for Part XIV, which will contain non-literary documents and is in active preparation. We hope to issue it in the course of 1919, and that Mr. J. de M. Johnson's edition of the valuable Theocritus papyrus discovered by him at Antinoë will be issued simultaneously.

Queen's College, Oxford,
September, 1918.