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READING P. YALE II 107
Between History, Law, and Literature[*]
CONTENT
Introduction 2
P. Yale II 107 3
The present investigation 4
P. Yale II 107 4
The content 4
Historical reading 5
The date 5
The people involved 5
The dispute 9
Historical contextualization 17
The small quarter19
The prefect’s jurisdiction on matters related to status23
Legal reading28
The form28
The content30
The letter33
From Gaius’ epistula to Flaccus’ edict35
Conclusions37
Select bibliography39
INTRODUCTION
In 1939 Anton von Premerstein published as P. Giss Univ. 46 a papyrus the University of Giessen had purchased on the Egyptian market some years before.[1] The same text was re-edited some decades later by Herbert Musurillo.[2] Twenty years later Musurillo, together with George Parassoglou, found that the fragment P. Yale inv. 1385, purchased on the market by the Beineke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale, complemented P. Giss Univ. 46.[3] Susan Stephens has edited in 1985 the two complementary texts as P. Yale II 107;[4] almost a decade later the same texts appeared in a new edition of the GiessenUniversity collection as P. Giss. Lit. 4.6.[5]
From the very beginning, all the editors classified the text among the so called Acta Alexandrinorum. The texts collected under this name are papyri, generally highly fragmentary and of uncertain provenience, which, in the majority of the cases, contain the accounts of trials of eminent Alexandrian citizens at the Roman imperial court; regularly the Alexandrian lose their cases and are condemned.[6]
In spite of the historicity of the people involved in these trials (the name of the emperors and of the defendants are known to history through other sources), no precise historical background can be determined for those papyri. This situation has left scholars and empty handed on the one side, but on the other hand they were free to frame different questions.
In the course of more than a century, scholars have debated on the historical or fictional nature of those texts. Chronology has provided much material for discussion; in fact, all the papyri are paleographically dated to the late 2nd / 3rd century C.E., and contain events dramatically dated much earlier. Motivations justifying this chronological gap have been found, according to he majority of scholars, in the emergence in Alexandria of a literary genre containing anti-Roman propaganda and exalting the patriotism of the Alexandrians.
The form of the texts supported the fiction-hypothesis. As a matter of fact, all the texts reports court disputes between the emperors and the defendant Alexandrians in a very informal language, with very fast exchanges of questions and answers, sometimes with offensive attributes thrown from one part to the other. Comparison with literary genres like Hellenistic comedy and especially theatrical mimes, infamously very common in Alexandrian in the Roman period, gave more validity to the fiction-hypothesis. Those who did not agree with a complete unhistorical reading of the papyri would consider the possibility that those texts were fictional re-elaboration of official trial reports—they would become known as Protokoll-Literatur.
P. Yale II 107
In spite of its very fragmentary conditions, P. Yale II 107 seems to contain all the ingredients for a fictional interpretation; within that frame it has so far been considered. The texts is paleographically dated between the second half of the second / beginning of the third century C.E.; for what it is possible to read, it contains an exchange of accusations before the Roman emperor Gaius. Interpretations of the content range from pale historical hypothesis to arguments on its highly fictional nature.[7]
The present investigation
In this paper I will try to juxtapose different readings of the text. Most of the following pages will be devoted to providing the papyrus with a historical as well as legal reading and contextualization of the content of the text. Against this background and in consideration of the chronological gap between the dramatic date of the content and the paleographical date of the text, I will then raise again the question of the historical / fictional nature of the text vis-à-vis the historicity of its content; now that the content of P. Yale II 107 has a recognizable historical background, is its text bound to be bound to it? Can the text be detached from its content and have an independent life? Is a rigorous and traditional historical reading of the content incompatible with other non-historical reading of the text? Can multiple interdisciplinary approaches (in this case historical, legal, and literary) cooperate for a more comprehensive understanding of the papyrus in its two basic components—its content and its text?
P. YALE II 107
The content
This text is an account, of two embassies from Alexandria before the Roman emperors. Despite the numerous mutilations of the text, it is possible to discern three main parts: 1) a first embassy before Tiberius, col. i; 2) a second embassy before Gaius, cols. ii-iv; 3) a series of unplaced fragments.
Historical reading
The date
The determination of the dramatic date of this text is dependent upon the interpretation of internal evidence. While it is not possible to date the first embassy to Tiberius,[8] something more precise can be said about the second embassy to Gaius; in fact, at the beginning of col. ii we can read traces of an initial conversation between some of the ambassadors and Tiberius’ attendantsannouncing Tiberius’ death (col. ii, l. 8-10). Gaius is thereafter the only interlocutor to the ambassadors, addressed by them as the only emperor.[9] We are therefore in the first weeks or months of Gaius’ principate, in the spring / summer of 37 C.E.[10]
The people involved
The extensive fractures of the papyrus leave the reader with numerous unanswered questions about the subject of the text, but there seems to be at least some literary consistency; both the first and the second embassy rest on the same theme of the Alexandrians having to face ‘the accuser,’ an individual never otherwise named (col. i, l. 10; col. ii, ll. 21, 27; col. iii, ll. 11, 12, 19, 23, 24). The Alexandrians who appeared before Tiberius were envoys of the 173 members of the gerousia, the assembly of the elders (col. i, l. 3: épÚ rog gerÒ[ntv]n), and on behalf of the same body speak also the ambassadors appearing before Gaius (col. ii, l. 3: ]rog diå toÁw rog.)[11]
The investigation on the identity of the people involved cannot be separated from that of the content of the papyrus. Only two names are readable of the representative of the gerousia, Eulalos, the first to greet Gaius, and Areios, the main interlocutor of ‘the accuser’ (col. ii, ll. 3, 26; col. iii, ll. 2, 3, 8, 12).
Although ‘the accuser’ has no name, something more can be said about him. First of all, in accordance with the general rule which did not allow individuals but only groups to appeal before the emperor,[12] he may be there by himself, but he represents a group; actually Areios opens his address to Gaius saying that he is ready to utter a defense speech against the accusers (col. iii, ll. 4-5: katå t«n] / katagor«n ÉAlejandr°vn). Whom does ‘the accuser’ represent, then?
Basing their argument on Areios’ reiterated charges that ‘the accuser’ is a foreigner (col. iii, ll. 9, 21: jenikÒw), the editors have suggested that he was probably an Egyptian or a member of another non-citizens group who wanted to pass for an Alexandrian.[13] In the absence of any other alternative indication in the text, this is a legitimate suggestion, which must however be tested against the last readable lines of col. iii. This part reports, or better, due to the extensive mutilation of the papyrus, reported, the letter Gaius wrote at the end of the hearing, which contained his decision on the matter, after he had condemned ‘the accuser’ to be burnt. The last two lines, the only readable ones, have the following provision (col. iii, ll. 34-35):
ÉIsi-
d≈rou l°j[antow […..] . o[..]u[….]n mØ
§x°tvsan, m[Æt]e éret∞w st°fanon
as Isidoros said, ……………..let them not have, nor the crown of honor.
The emperor orders that a group, indicated by the plural negative imperative mØ §x°tvsan—let them not have— not be granted something lost in the lacuna, and a crown of honor. We do not know who these people are, but logically we have to assume that, as Gaius wrote the letter after the hearing was over and the sentence spelled out, the group in question cannot be anything else than the people ‘the accuser’ represented.
This kind of language is not new to the diplomatic vocabulary of antiquity, and the granting of honors to collective subjects, mainly to states, is very well attested epigraphically.[14] The same cannot be said for the expression éret∞w st°fanon—crown of honor, as the papyrus has it;[15] however, in defense of our papyrus, we should point out that its fragmentary conditions do not allow us a complete reading of the papyrus. We should therefore stick to the fact that, in our case, a crown of honors of some sort is denied to some group. We should at this point raise the question to which foreign group Gaius’ provisions can apply, whether to the Egyptians living in Alexandria, to whom the Roman administration allowed only the lowest possible collective and personal status, or to another ethnic group; could such groups be the subject of deprivation of an honor, a provision that clearly implies that they could potentially be granted one? To which other Alexandrian groups should we then turn to?
Alexandria had been a very cosmopolitan city from its foundation, and people from different ethnic groups and cultural backgrounds gathered together and maintained their own legal and religious traditions.[16] However, already the earliest Ptolemies worked on the juridical level to unify the legal system of the numerous Greek communities, to have eventually three legal jurisdictions in Egypt: the laws of the Greeks, the laws of the Egyptians and the laws of the Jews.[17] Ethnic groups remained, but only as private religious associations.[18]
Gaius’ mention of Isidorus in the letter (col. iii, ll. 33-34), the same Alexandrian enemy of the Jews we know from Philo (Fl., 22-23; passim), should at this point attract our attention. It is on the sole basis of this mention that Tcherikover and Fuks included P. Giss. Univ. 46 col. iii (now = P. Yale II 107, col. iii) in their Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum (CPJ II 155), in spite of the fact that, as they rightly point out, the text has no indication pointing to the Jews.[19] As a matter of fact Isidorus’ contribution in this case seems to be all but marginal, if actually Gaius accepts his suggestion to deny the crown of honor to the group ‘the accuser’ represents. Is Isidorus’ involvement in this case, in the light of his known enemity to the Jews, enough for us to assume by default that ‘the accuser’ is a Jew and represents the Jews living in Alexandria? Probably not, if this is taken as an isolated point—which it is probably not.
The Jews have been the only group whose organization had remained unique in the city; their politeuma, a semi-independent political and judicial enclosure very similar to a mini-state,[20] had enjoyed a good level of independence up to the Roman period and, although the Jews were only residents and not citizens in Alexandria, they had enjoyed a close relationship with the Roman rulers since the time of Julius Caesar. To go into more detailed observations, Philo calls the Jews §pit€moi –granted honors(Fl., 172), and the tima€ --honors, implied in this term were granted by the imperial authority. The collective granting / denial of honors to them would be in agreement with the ancient Greek diplomatic tradition of granting honors and privileges to states; to them a crown of honor could very well refer. Some observations about the main readable instances of the content of the text may help to substantiate this, which, for the moment, remains a plausible supposition.
The dispute
In a dramatic passage of the papyrus, the elder Areios and ‘the accuser’ arrive at the following exchange of accusations:[21]
P. Yale II 107, col. iii, ll. 14-16 (ed. Stephens 1985; Areios speaks):[22]
e]‰pen “sÁ t∞w patr€dow mou k[………..]
….] ‡svw kég∆ t∞w s∞w pa[tr€dow …..”
said: “you of my patris
in the same way also I of your patris;
the matter is actually quite clear, as it revolves around the patris.
Patr€w has the general meaning of homeland, and as such is employed in literature and documents alike; however, in the latter it is also used in a more technical sense. P. Hamb. II 168, a decree of the time of Ptolemy II or III, gives instruction on how one should register himself in public documents.[23] After the instructions given to people under military service, royal regulations come for the citizens and people of other status:
Ofl d¢ pol€tai (scil.épograf°syvsan) toÁw d¢ pat°ra[w ka‹ to]Áw dÆmouw ên d¢ ka‹ §n t«i strativtik«i Œsin [ka‹ tå t]ågmata ka‹ tåw §piforåw
The citizens (will style themselves with) name of the father and the deme, and if they are soldiers, the unit and the rank
Ofld’ êlloi (scil.épograf°syvsan) toÁw [pat°raw] ka‹ tåw patr€daw ka‹ §n œi íg g°nei Œsin.
The others (will style themselves with) the name of the father, the patris and the class to which they belong.[24]
While for the citizens it suffices to indicate the patronymic and the deme in which they are registered, all the others, who as non-citizens are not registered in any deme, must write, after the patronymic, their patr€w, the homeland, and their class. While the topographical aspect of the deme is well attested throughout antiquity,[25] the technical meaning of patris has to be clarified.
Very few documents are extant which can show how the Ptolemaic rule was applied by Alexandrian citizens and not, but they are significant. For example, in P. Eleph. 3 of 285-4 B.C.E, which was probably written before the issuing of the royal decree, the declarant styles himself simply as Athenagora Alexandrian (ÉAyhnãgoraw ÉAlejandreÊw), and it is difficult to understand what Alexandrian stands for, whether as an ethnic or a topographical indication. But in P. Rein. 9 of 112 B.C.E., well after the publication of the decree, a witness of a contract calls himself Heroides son of Herakleides Alexandrian (ÑHr≈idhw ÑHrakle€dou ÉAlejandreÊw), while another witness styles himself as Arimmas son of Diunysios of the deme of Chariste (ÉAr€mmawDionus€ou XaristÆriow). If we have to interpret the status of these two people according to the decree, Heroides, who does not mention a deme, is a non-citizen living in Alexandria, while Arimmas is an Alexandrian citizen, and correctly declares the deme.[26] Contrary to any logical expectation, therefore, ‘Alexandrian’denotes the patris,and indicates the topographical designation of a non-citizen.[27]
Very concerned about his patris was Helenos, the Jew resident in Alexandria who in 5/4 B.C.E. petitioned the Roman prefect Gaius Turranius (BGU IV1140 = CPJ II 151). In this document, probably written not by the petitioner himself but by a scribe,[28] Helenos writes that (ll. 5-7):
[…] kinduneÊv oÈ mÒnon t∞w patr€dow sterhy∞-
nai, éllå ka‹, ktl.
I fear not only to be deprived of my patris, but also, etc.
At this point the papyrus is very badly preserved and the continuation of Helenos’ claims are obscure, but on two occasions the word laographia,the poll-tax connected to the status of all the inhabitants of Egypt, which only the citizens with full francisewere exempted from paying, is still clearly legible (ll. 17, 22). [29] Helenos’ concerns about his patris are then somehow linked to the payment of the laographia, i.e. to a change of status. And his fears are not illusory. In fact, he introduces himself by the formula ‘from Helenos son of Tryphon Alexandrian,’ with name, patronimic and patris, place of residence, precisely as the Ptolemaic decreerequired.[30] Later, ‘Alexandrian,’ his patris, is crossed over by somebody, probably a clerk in the Alexandria chancellery, and substituted by ‘a Jew of those from Alexandria,’ the ethnic connotation. It is worth noticing that the patris of Helenos’ father, who also is said to be Alexandreus (l. 3), is left untouched, suggesting that a change overcame in the meantime according to which Helenos was no longer allowed to style himself in the same way his father used to do. Helenos may no longer officially indicate Alexandria as his homeland, and may not call himself Alexandrian; his residential designation is now substituted by his ethnic connotation—ethnicity seems to have become pre-eminent over topography.[31] This is not just a matter of terminology, but, as we perceive from this papyrus, issues of civic status related to topographical residence are signified by a name—Alexandrian.[32]
If this document can give any elucidation to the meaning of the patris-dispute in P. Yale II 107, from which we actually started our discussion, it is that it is not completely deprived of any foundation to see it as an issue involving the citizens and the Jews living in Alexandria. A person with the same problems Helenos had to face could easily step into ‘the accuser’s’ shoes. The two disputants of P. Yale II 107 are fighting over their reciprocal civic definition within the city, an issue ultimately linked to matters of status and residence in it.
All this is not unconnected with the second readable dispute in the papyrus (col. iii, ll. 21-23):[33]