10 10 Although Ath. Pol. 4.3 says that there was a council of 401, distinct from the Areopagus, under the legislation of Dracon in the archonship of Aristaichmos (621/0 BC).
11 11 See, however, Berent 1996, who argues that the polis was a “stateless society”—a position that is challenged in Hansen 2002.
12 12 Thomas and Conant 1999: 32–59; Morris 2000: 225–228; Mazarakis Ainian 2006.
13 13 On aristocratic culture, see Węcowski (Chapter 5) in this volume.
14 14 For critiques, see Hammer 2004; Kistler 2004; Irwin 2005: 58–62; Hall 2014: 200–203; van Wees and Fisher 2015: 25–27; Giangiulio 2015: 21–31.
15 15 This interpretation, detailed further in Hall 2014: 214–20, is influenced by Gallant 1982 and Rihll 1991. For alternative interpretations, see Murray 1993a: 189–94; Manville 1990: 124–56; Harris 1997; Foxhall 1997.
16 16 Forsdyke 2005: 53–55 compares the Solonian seisachtheia (“shaking-off of burdens”) to the palintokia, or return of interest paid on debts, that Plutarch (Mor. 295c–d) attests for sixth-century Megara.
17 17 The apologetic tone of Plutarch’s sources in Vit. Sol. 14–15 that Solon refused invitations to set himself up as tyrant surely implies a counternarrative.
18 18 Since Megara was famous for the export of woolen garments, these flocks, if the story is true, would have been an important source of elite wealth and power: Forsdyke 2005: 53. Figueira 1985: 144–145 notes that there is no river of any account in the Megarid and conjectures that the Aristotelian notice is loosely based on a sacrificial slaughter of victims for a festival named the Potamia.
19 19 Robinson 1997 collects the evidence for early experiments in popular government, though some caution needs to be exercised with regard to the interpretation of the sources: see Hansen 1999.
CHAPTER 7 Papyrology*
C. Michael Sampson
Introduction
The study of Greek lyric poetry has always been limited by the state of the extant corpus. Not only does it consist primarily of fragments, but apart from four books of Pindaric epinician and the elegies attributed to Theognis, it was until recently also transmitted indirectly, i.e., via quotations in sources such as Athenaeus, Stobaeus, or the scholia to other works (Phillips, this volume). But with the dawn of papyrology, which emerged as a discipline in its own right toward the end of the nineteenth century, a new era was ushered in. Although only a small number of the upwards of a million papyrus fragments recovered from the sands of Egypt preserve lyric poetry, and although many of those fragments are rather scanty, they nonetheless provide ancient witnesses to textual traditions that do not otherwise survive, frequently shedding light on the work of Alexandrian scholars. More often than not, they challenge received wisdom and long-held dogma: thanks to papyrology, the poetic output of Timotheus, Bacchylides, Alcman, Sappho, Stesichorus, Simonides, and Archilochus (to name a few) is understood more richly today than at any point since antiquity.
The corpus of Greek lyric remains meager and frustratingly incomplete, but papyri have added considerably to it, and because of the staggering amount of unpublished material, further additions may await discovery—especially in the largest institutional collections. Relatively few students and scholars of lyric will ever have to edit a papyrus, but even making use of these texts, fragmentary and riddled with specialized symbols, can be intimidating. This chapter therefore endeavors to provide a wide-ranging and demystifying introduction.
Using Papyrological Editions
On the printed page, papyrological editions look unusual: literary papyrology widely prefers the lunate sigma (ϲ, in place of σ/ς), and, in addition to the all-too-frequent gaps in the text that complicate its layout, a variety of symbols—including several varieties of brackets—can appear. Abbreviations and other conventions add to the potential for confusion.
Editorial Symbols
The standard editorial sigla, which are collectively known as the “Leiden conventions,” reflect a twofold imperative: to represent faithfully what appears on a papyrus and to indicate any interventions by the editor. For literary papyri, the two most common symbols are the sublinear dot and square brackets, but they are by no means the only ones:
αβγ letters read with confidence
α̣β̣γ. letters read with doubt
. . . ink observed, but letters uncertain (one for each dot)
[ ] gap or lacuna in the text (cf. vacat, which is used for space left intentionally blank)
[. . . .̣] gap or lacuna in the text; estimated number of missing letters (one for each dot)
[αβγ] letters supplied by editor to fill a gap/lacuna
⟨αβγ⟩ letters omitted by scribe and inserted by editor
{αβγ} letters read on the papyrus but deleted by editor
⟦αβγ⟧ letters on papyrus deleted by ancient scribe
⌊αβγ⌋ letters supplied or confirmed by a secondary witness
⸌αβγ⸍ letters inserted above the line by the scribe
†αβγ† letters read on papyrus that defy analysis (i.e., corrupt text)
(αβγ) resolution by editor of a symbol or abbreviation on papyrus (uncommon in literary papyri)
Because these symbols are not easily transferred to a translation, the study of Greek lyric is by necessity demanding, specialized work.
For the purposes of illustration, we might consider the first column of P.Fouad inv. 239 (Figure 7.1) both as first published by Lobel and Page (1952) and subsequently reedited by Eva-Maria Voigt. The former tentatively attributed the poem to Alcaeus, but since Treu (1976: 161–164) the case for Sappho has been endorsed by many editors, including most recently by Battezzato 2018. The appearance of an asterisk on the papyrus, however, renders the case for Sappho problematic (de Kreij 2022).
Figure 7.1 P.Fouad inv. 239: lyrics by Sappho or Alcaeus. An asterisk is visible in the left margin of the second column, opposite line 2. (© Institut français d&38217;archéologie orientale du Caire.)
| Lobel-Page 1952 | Sappho fr. 44a Voigt | |
| ]ϲανορεϲ̣ ̣ ̣[]μ̣αιτονετικτεκόω ̣[]ονιδαιμεγαλωνύμ ̣[]μεγανορκοναπωμοϲε]λαν · ά⟦ε⟧ϊπαρθενοϲεϲϲομαι] ̣ωνορέωνκορύφα̣ι̣ϲέπι]δ̣ενευϲονέμανχαριν·] ̣εθέωνμακαρωνπατηρ·]ολοναγροτέρανθέο̣ι] ̣ϲινεπωνύμιονμεγα·]εροϲουδάμαπίλναται·] ̣[ ̣] . . . .α̣φόβε[ ̣ ̣] ́ ̣ω· | 510 | ]ϲανορεϲ̣ ̣ ̣[[Φοίβωι χρυσοκό]μ̣αι τὸν ἔτικτε Κόω ̣[[μίγειϲ(α) Κρ]ονίδαι μεγαλωνύμω̣⟨ι⟩[Ἄρτεμιϲ δὲ θέων]
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