PREFACE

ALL the items in this volume are documentary. With the exception of one private letter (3094) the first large section (3088–3129) consists of official documents edited in the main by Dr. Rea. Three of these bear particularly on the consular fasti official lists of Roman consuls (3125, 3127–8), several contribute to the prosopography biographical study of people in antiquity of Roman prefects and procurators in Egypt (3092–3, 3103, 3108–13, 3117–18), and two groups throw light on aspects of the administration of the city of Oxyrhynchus, that is, on the gerusia city council of elders (3099–3102) and on the tribal cycles (3095–8). Items 3095 and 3096 are the work of Dr. J. Lidov and Dr. Ursula Buske, née born Schlag, respectively.

The items in the second section (3130–50) were studied at a seminar held in the Trinity Term of 1970 at the Istituto G. Vitelli G. Vitelli Institute of the University of Florence and directed by Professor M. Manfredi and Dr. Rea, who was in Florence as a British Academy–Wates Foundation Visiting Fellow. The members of the seminar, chiefly pre-laurea undergraduate/pre-degree students of Professor Manfredi, each undertook one text on which they commented during the sessions and of which they then produced an edition in Italian. Dr. G. Bastianini, at that time one of the pre-laurea undergraduate students, undertook two extra texts originally assigned to others but for various reasons not finished. Dr. Rea finished two more himself and turned the Italian editions into English. A few changes were necessary, chiefly to take account of later discoveries and to make the editions conform more closely to the practice of the Oxyrhynchus series, but the bulk of the work should be credited to the individual editors whose initials are given in the Table of Papyri against the items for which they are responsible, and whose names are listed in the key on pp. x–xi.

Dr. Rea compiled the index. He wishes to acknowledge his debt to the other General Editors and to Dr. Coles, and to thank the University Press, Oxford both for its expert technical work and for the help and good advice given by its readers.

P. J. PARSONS
J. R. REA
E. G. TURNER
General Editors of the
Graeco-Roman Memoirs

June 1974

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