The Future Optative in Greek Documentary and Grammatical Papyri

Journal of Hellenic Studies 133 (2013) 93–111 doi:10.1017/S0075426913000062

THE FUTURE OPTATIVE IN GREEK DOCUMENTARY AND GRAMMATICAL PAPYRI

NEIL O’SULLIVAN University of Western Australia*

Abstract: The neglected area of later Greek syntax is explored here with reference to the future optative. This form of the verb first appeared early in the classical age but virtually disappeared during the Hellenistic era. Under the influence of Atticism it reappeared in later literary texts, and this paper is concerned largely with its revival in late legal and epistolary texts on papyrus from Egypt. It is used mainly in set legal phrases of remote future conditions, but we also see it in letters to express wishes (again, largely formulaic) for the future, both of which uses are foreign to Attic Greek. Finally, the future optative’s appearance in conjugations on grammatical papyri from Egypt is used to demonstrate the form’s presence in education even at the end of the classical world there, with the archive of Dioscorus of Aphrodito uniquely showing both this theoretical knowledge of it and examples of its application in legal documents.

Keywords: optative, Greek, papyri, grammar, Dioscorus

Our ignorance of the grammar – and especially the syntax – of the Greek language continues to hinder our understanding of the ancient world. The standard grammars1 have focused largely on the period of Greek literature up until the Hellenistic age, and again on the New Testament. Separate grammars have been published of Ptolemaic papyri,2 and of the phonology and morphology of later papyri;3 the grammar of inscriptions has also been studied, but again the syntax has been largely neglected.4 The following paper seeks to elucidate a largely ignored feature of later Greek – the demonstrated knowledge and expanded use of the future optative – as documented in papyri from the fourth to the seventh century AD. The phenomenon is not restricted to papyri, but is well attested (if also largely neglected by modern grammatical studies) in late literary texts as well.5 Documentary papyri, of course, have special advantages that no normally transmitted literary text can offer us in the study of the language: they allow us to see unchanged the language of the author, free of the ‘corrections’ and blunders of later scribes.6 This general fact is especially relevant to this study, for the presence of ‘unclassical’ future optatives in the transmission of Attic texts, for instance, has been remarked before, but they are usually

* [email protected]. I would like to express 5 For example Dickinson (1926) 35, 64, 120–21, my thanks to James Cowey, Marie-Eve Ritz and Graeme 123, 170; Hoey (1930) 86–87, 99–100, 122 (although Miles for their advice and help on papyrology, phonology Gregory of Nyssa presents very few instances); Fives and Sanskrit respectively. My thanks are also due to the (1937) 105 s.v. Future opt.; Henry (1943) 29, 54. Some helpful comments of the journal’s referees. later examples are mentioned in passing by Bǎnescu 1 Goodwin (1889); Kühner (1890–1892); (1915) 27–31 and Stone (2009) 133–35. On the other (1898–1904); Schwyzer (1950–1971); BDF. hand, Fassbänder’s study (1884) seems definitive for 2 Mayser (1906–1970). the classical language. 3 Gignac (1976–1981); the third volume, dealing 6 This is not to deny, of course, that scribes were with syntax, is still awaited. Of limited focus, but still involved in the production and correction of papyri, but unhelpful for the present study, is Mandilaras’ work the stages and processes involved cannot be compared (1973) on the verb in papyri. with those involving a text transmitted through 4 The inscriptions of Attica, because of their medieval copies: ‘in principle, a distinction must be number and importance, have naturally been the focus drawn between penmanship and composition ... of study. Threatte’s work (1980–1996) is superseding however, a dictated text which is read and approved by Meisterhans’ (1900), but so far only volumes on its author is comparable with an autograph copy’ phonology and morphology have appeared. (Luiselli (2010) 73). 94 O’SULLIVAN banished with no consequences for the standard view of the role this form of the verb played in the classical language.7 The appearance of these optatives even in late literary texts has also been blamed on corrupt transmission,8 but there is no possibility of this with the papyri under exami- nation here. My focus is almost entirely on papyri, less from a desire to preserve the conven- tional (and in this context hardly defensible) separation of the language of papyri from that of transmitted literature, than for reasons of time and space. Pleading convenience, then, and the need to make a start on at least one aspect of a larger issue, I move on to the subject of this paper. Greek inherited the optative mood as such from Proto-Indo-European but the future optative was a Hellenic innovation and first appears in Pindar and Aeschylus.9 As normally understood,10 it has just one function in the language of the classical era, which is to represent in secondary sequence an original future indicative. All examples are thus in indirect speech, real or virtual. It is never very widely used, even in the literature of the classical age,11 and is found perhaps once, if at all, in contemporary Attic inscriptions.12 Its subsequent neglect in the koine is shown by its absence from Ptolemaic papyri and the New Testament,13 although it is still occasionally found in Hellenistic literary texts (for example Polybius 4.15.4).14 However, its reappearance on papyri much later, in the twilight of the ancient world, is the focus of this investigation, for it is a reappearance which has hardly been noticed. Indeed, while the ‘decline of the optative’ generally is a truism of the study of later Greek, the mood is actually ‘by no means rare in the papyri of the Roman period, and becomes quite common in the Byzantine period’.15 Already by 1910 hundreds of examples had been unearthed, enough for K. Harsing to devote a whole disser- tation to the subject, and more recently B.G. Mandilaras devoted 17 pages to the mood, but without once mentioning the form to which this paper is dedicated. The most thorough studies of the optative in papyri have virtually nothing to say of its future. F.T. Gignac’s volume on morphology does mention its extreme rarity, citing just four examples,16 but, in the absence of his long-awaited third volume on syntax, our longest discussion of future optatives on papyri is unfortunately that of Harsing, who claims that the future optative occurs only once. The claim, however, is careless, and seems to have misled others into ignoring the future optative entirely.

7 So Fassbänder (1884) 2 and passim; Kühner deadness of the construction even in the Ptolemaic (1889–1904) 2.477; but cf. Keith (1912) 122–26. For period’. More than half a century later, in the syntax the standard view of the function of the future optative volume of this grammar (3.128), N. Turner quoted the in classical Greek, see below. same passage as ‘P.Tebt I’, admitting that ‘there is 8 For example Hoey (1930) 100; Fives (1937) 2, 25. nothing else before ii/A.D. fin.’. The papyrus is in fact 9 Chantraine (1961) §312. Vedic has no trace of a P.Tor. 1 (TM 3563), already before Turner republished future optative (Macdonell (1916) §122) and the (very as UPZ 2.162, where Wilcken at 2.32 read the alleged poorly attested) future optative possibly found in later future optative as χρηματισθῇ σοὶ τό. The reading Sanskrit epic (Oberlies (2003) 235–36) is presumably, matters for our understanding of the optative in the like its Greek equivalent, a later formation, not a relic. Ptolemaic era, as such ‘resuscitated elegance’ is not 10 For example Goodwin (1889) §§128–34; Stahl found until much later: ἵνα with a future optative seems (1907) 326; but see Keith (1912) (partly supported by to appear in literary texts first in the mid-third century Schwyzer (1950–1971) 2.337). Hulton (1957) 141, n.2 AD (see O’Sullivan (2008) 644). argues against Keith’s case for a (non-oblique) future 14 Polybius’ whole use of the optative is shown to optative with ἄν in Attic. be in accord with the classical language, if more 11 Fassbänder (1884) 58 has the statistics: he counts sparing, by Reik (1907). His two uses of the future 254 examples, 141 of which are from Xenophon. optative are entirely Attic (Reik (1907) 70, 87), in 12 Threatte (1980–1996) 2.469. indirect speech and not ‘future potential’ (thus Henry 13 Mayser (1906–1970) 2.1.295–96 (an analysis by (1943) 29, n.103). The chronological point is tense of optatives), BDF §65 (1) c. A ghost must here important: non-classical use of the future optative is an be laid to rest: J.H. Moulton in Moulton et al. Atticizing affectation and not found until long after (1908–1976) 1.197, in trying to show why the writers of Polybius. the New Testament did not attempt ‘to rival the littéra- 15 Gignac (1976–1981) 2.359. McKay (1993) 28 teurs in the use of this resuscitated elegance’ (i.e. the use argues that some uses of the optative in papyri of of the optative in purpose clauses) scornfully referred to Byzantine times show that the mood was still living and ‘TP 1 (ii/B.C.) ἠξίωσα ἵνα χρηματισθήσοιτο – future indeed ‘fully appreciated’ at the end of the sixth century. optative!’ Moulton thought that this demonstrated ‘the 16 Gignac (1976–1981) 2.359–61. THE FUTURE OPTATIVE 95

I. Future conditions Harsing’s sole instance17 is P.Grenf. 1.60 (TM 22623) 40, Grenfell’s text of which is:

εἰ δὲ [ἀσθενήσοιμι περὶ τὴν ἐκδίκη]σιν καὶ καθαροποίησιν ταύτης τῆς [πράσεως ...... ἑτοίμως] ἔχω ἐπιγνῶναι ὑμῖν τὰ τιμήματα

If I were to be incapable of the legal remedy and the completion of this contract, I am ready to accept the penalties

The document records a sale of land at Apollonopolis Magna (modern Edfu), in AD 581. The restored construction we find here is clearly unclassical. Although the future optative in a protasis is not rare in Attic Greek, it is found, like all uses of that tense of the mood, only in indirect speech, and it replaces εἰ with future indicatives of direct speech.18 The syntax of the apodosis also hints at its late origins: the invariable Attic pairing of an optative protasis with an apodosis in the same mood disappears almost entirely in later Greek, with an indicative apodosis replacing the optative with ἄν.19 Harsing printed the text without brackets and apparently failed to see that the relevant word is entirely a restoration, as is clear from Grenfell’s edition and is now evident from photographs of the papyrus.20 Later scholars noticed, however, and either suggested another supplement or simply dismissed the form outright as ‘a restoration which has no ground’.21 Grenfell, however, was one of the founding fathers of the discipline,22 and it would be surprising if he had been so rash as to conjecture the future optative here without justification. In fact, Harsing and others failed to notice that, two years before the publication of P.Grenf. 1, Grenfell had himself published several papyrus documents which already showed the future optative being used in a set phrase and which account for his restoration of it in the document published later.23 The paper24 published three papyri, also from Apollonopolis, all containing the same formula,25 slightly varied between singulars and plurals. In two of these the future optative is clear. No. 2 (pp. 277–79) 19–20 (TM 22584.32–33) is a property sale from about 610:

εἰ δὲ ἀσθενήσοιμεν περὶ τὴ[ν ἐ]κδίκησιν καὶ καθαροποίησιν ταύτης τῆ[ς] πράσεως, ἑτοίμως ἔχομεν παρασχεῖν ὑμῖν τὴν ἐγκειμένην τιμὴν ἐν διπλῷ

If we were to be incapable of the legal remedy and the completion of this contract, we are ready to pay you twice the relevant penalty

No. 3 (pp. 279–82) (TM 23154) 40–41, another property transaction, dates to the decade 630–640:

17 Harsing (1910) 55. is P.Hamb. 23 (TM 21044) 36 (see below), where he 18 Fassbänder (1884) 34–42, 58, counts 41 remarks that the tense is ‘curious’ (167). examples from Attic (with again Xenophon providing 22 See the brief biography by Bell (2004). over half the instances) and one from Herodotus. 23 I note in passing the difference between this sort 19 See Henry (1943) 46–47, 49–50 for statistics and of restoration of the future optative, based on a clear references to further studies. The standard pairing was formula, and that in, for example, SB 18.13974 (TM already extinct in LXX and the New Testament: see 14784) 23, which has no such justification. (Primavesi Moulton et al. (1908–1976) 3.127. (1986) 114 defends the mood, but not the tense, of his 20 http://tinyurl.com/pgf1-60. conjecture, which seems extraordinary: in his text is 21 Mandilaras (1973) 271, n.2. As a restoration ποιήσοι]ντο a misprint for ποιήσαι]ντο?) Horn (1926) 169 compared P.Monac. 4 (TM 15313) 33 24 Grenfell (1894). εἰ δὲ ἀσθενήσαιμι (classically correct but a unique 25 Segrè (1931) 140 gives parallels for the use of locution). His only other mention of the future optative καθαροποίησις in contracts from late Greek papyri. 96 O’SULLIVAN

εἰ δὲ ἀσθενήσοιμι περὶ τὴν ἐκδίκησιν καὶ καθαροποίη[σιν ταύτης τῆς] πράσεως, ἑτοίμως ἔχω παρασχεῖν σοι τὴν ἐγκει[μ]έ[ν]η[ν τιμὴν ἐν διπλῷ]

The first papyrus in the series is a house sale datable to 3 January 618 (No. 1 pp. 271–75 (TM 23153) 57–59:

εἰ δὲ ἀσθενήσειμεν περὶ τὴν ἐκδίκησιν καὶ καθαροποίησιν ταύτης τῆς πράσεως, ἑτοίμως ἔχομεν παρασχεῖν ὑμῖν τὴν ἐγκειμένην τιμὴν ἐν διπλῷ

Grenfell printed without comment the first verb here as ασθενειμεν, but Wilcken long ago noticed that the facsimile actually reads ασθενησειμεν,26 which has been taken as a misspelling for the regular form ἀσθενήσoιμεν.27 This is probably just a unique scribal slip: the confusion of -ει- with -οι- in the papyri does not seem common.28 These instances, then, show that there were already two clear examples of future optatives available to Harsing when he wrote; Grenfell had even referred to these earlier publications in justifying his supplements to P.Grenf. 1.60.29 Before moving on, we can reflect on the meaning conveyed by the formula in these examples, and whether any difference can be detected here between this and the usual Attic construction. The tone of the construction (future optative with present indicative) clearly has much in common with the so-called ‘remote future condition’ expressed with two optatives in Attic Greek which, as we have seen, largely disappears from later Greek.30 The similarity is understandable, for the formula is found in mutually agreed contracts which try to represent the non-compliance of one party as an imaginable but unlikely event. It is perhaps significant that the non-compliance is represented in the future optative mood, while the remedy appears in the much firmer present indicative. In addition to these clear instances, scholars since Harsing have had further examples to draw on, above all in the material from the Dioscorus archive, found at Aphrodito (modern Kom Ishgaw) over three years (1905–1907) and appearing in print from 1911 onwards.31 The dated documents involving this notary and part-time poet stretch from 543 to 585,32 but the archive contains earlier material as well, preserved from the owner’s father and grandfather. Aside from the examples discussed above, I have located some 12 clear and distinct instances of future optatives in documentary papyri, and eight of them are from this source. From one viewpoint, this is not reassuring: the Copt Dioscorus of Aphrodito and his family were not native Greek speakers, and his own literary productions have met with reactions which

26 Wilcken (1901) 165. location (Syene) to this one. 27 As in the online DDbDP; the author of the 29 Grenfell (1896) 96, 101. emendation is not given. 30 It should be noted, however, that the mixed 28 The rarity of this confusion has led to the view construction (present or aorist optative in the protasis that, at least in early Byzantine times, ει (=/i/) and οι with a present indicative in the apodosis) is also found (=/y/) retained distinct pronunciations, and that some of in the classical language (Smyth (1956) 535). the apparent exceptions are due to bilingual interference 31 For a general introduction to Dioscorus, see through Coptic, which lacks the /y/ vowel (Gignac MacCoull (1989); still entertaining and useful is the (1976–1981) 1.267–73; Horrocks (2010) 167–69). On rather different take by Bell (1944). The centenary of the other hand, ει is not easily read as αι (=/e/ at this the discovery of this important archive was celebrated stage) either, although this confusion does happen with a conference in Strasbourg, the wide-ranging (Gignac (1976–1981) 1.260–62; Horrocks (2010) papers of which have now been published by Fournet 167–68). The date and place of this text in relation to and Magdelaine (2008). A number of the documents the others in the series argue for a reading of cited from the archive were written in Antinoopolis, the ασθενησειμεν as a future optative, but the scribe may provincial capital of the Lower Thebaid, where his have intended the aorist ἀσθενήσαιμεν, like the unique father had dealings and where Dioscorus lived and εἰ δὲ ἀσθενήσαιμι found in P.Monac. 4 (TM 15313) 33 worked for some time. (cited above, n.21), a text of proximate date (581) and 32 For an overview, see MacCoull (1989) 10–14. THE FUTURE OPTATIVE 97 are, to say the least, negative: ‘the worst poet of antiquity’ in one view,33 and (more relevant here) his first editor wrote of ‘la construction grammaticale souvent insaisissable’, while another opined: ‘at no moment has he any real control of thought, diction, grammar, metre, or meaning’.34 But, for all that, the future optatives in Dioscorus are not instances of an erroneous idiolect: as we have already seen, non-classical use of the verb form is found amongst other documentary papyri, separated by up to half a century or more and hundreds of kilometres of river from Dioscorus’ activity, and this is to say nothing of the contemporary literary evidence for its use. All eight instances of future optative in the Dioscorus archive are of the same sort of non- classical use that we have already seen – that is, they are in the protases of conditional clauses and seem to present the condition as a remote possibility. Again, the corresponding apodosis is usually in the indicative. P.Cair.Masp. 2.67151 (TM 18905), a well-preserved will of over 300 lines and dated to 545–546,35 actually presents two examples of this tense of the optative, both of the same verb.36 At 195:

καὶ εἰ ἀμελήσοι ὄψεται πρὸς τὸν Θεόν

And if he were to neglect this, he will be answerable to God and at 252–54:

εἰ ἀμελήσοι δέ, ὅπερ ἀπείη, τῆς τούτων δ.[ιοι]κ. ή.[σ]εως., ε[ἴ]η. [ὑπεύθυνος] τῷ φρικτῷ Θ(εο)ῦ βήματι, τὰς ἀπολογίας [παρέ]χων τῷ πα[ντοκράτορι] Θ(ε)ῷ

If he were (which God forbid) to neglect the arrangement of these things, let him37 be answerable to the awful tribunal of God, making his excuses before God the Almighty

Although this paper’s focus is on the linguistic evidence from papyri, one of the few occurrences of the future optative of this particular verb in the literary record seems especially relevant to understanding its use in this document. In the Byzantine law code (compiled from earlier sources in the second half of the ninth century)38 known as the Basilics, we find the following at 25.7.15:

οὐδὲ γὰρ ὀφείλει ζημιοῦσθαι, εἰ καὶ ἀμελήσοι

Nor is he subject to punishment, even if he were to be negligent

The shared legalese connects the Greek of provincial Egypt with the later formal codification in Constantinople and argues against the attribution of non-classical usages found in the Egyptian documents to difficulties of the natives with a foreign tongue. The point holds more generally, of course, given the use of the future optative in literary texts, but this coincidence seems a particularly telling one.

33 Baldwin (1984) 327. manque de maîtrise du grec’ (81). 34 The views are reported by MacCoull (1989) xvi 35 See now BL 9.44. who, on the contrary, detects charm (19, n.23): 36 There exists also a draft of the first 213 lines of ‘Dioscorus’s prose, however, is not to be dismissed as this will (P.Cair.Masp. 2.67152 = TM 18906). the bumblings of a babu who had never properly learned 37 Taking ε[ἴ]η̣ as a wish, like ἀπείη. It is interesting to think in or to employ the language of the high to note that Atticizing literary writers seem to have been culture’. More recently, however, Papaconstantinou much fonder of the (unAttic) ‘pure’ potential (i.e. (2008), basing her view on work published since without the particle ἄν) than were the writers of the MacCoull, has said quite bluntly that the obscurity of papyri and New Testament (Henry (1943) 25–26). his poetry, like the poetry itself, is ‘le résultat d’un 38 ODB s.v. Basilika. 98 O’SULLIVAN

There is further evidence of the tendency of these optatives to crop up in set phrases. In three published papyri a phrase like εἰ πρὸς ἀπαίτησιν ἁρμόσοι is used just after a legal entitlement, should the other party breach the rules of the agreement, has been specified: the verb seems to have its technical sense of ‘to be legally in force, to be due to someone’,39 and the phrase thus means ‘if there were to be an entitlement to the claim’.40 One of these three instances is P.Mich. 13.659 (TM 21374), another long and well-preserved document from Dioscorus’ archive, dated 527–547.41 Its publication provides a telling illus- tration of how preconceptions about the syntax of later Greek can skew an editor’s judgement. 276–81 read:

ὑπέθεντο δὲ ἀλλήλοις εἰς ἅπαντα τὰ προγεγραμμένα καὶ εἰς τὴν ἀπαίτησιν τοῦ προκειμένου προστίμου εἴπερ ἁρμόσοι εἰς ἀπαίτησιν πάντα τὰ ὄντα καὶ ἐσόμενα αὐτοῖς πράγματα κινητά τε καὶ ἀκίνητα καὶ αὐτοκίνητα δικαίῳ ὑποθήκης καὶ λόγῳ ἐνεχύρου

And for all that is written above and for the claim to the afore-mentioned penalty, if there were to be an entitlement to the claim, they have submitted to each other all their possessions, present and future, movable, immovable and live-stock as a pledge and with the force of a mortgage

The text’s editor, Sijpesteijn, denies ad loc. the apparently obvious fact that the verb of interest to us is a future optative:

ἁρμόσοι: it is unlikely that we are dealing here with the optative futuri, already seldom used in classical Greek. We must assume an interchange of σ and ζ … and take ἁρμόσοι / ἁρμόζοι as optative praesentis

He does not notice the other occurrences of εἰ ἁρμόσοι in papyri,42 nor the similar constructions with other verbs, in none of which (for example ἀμελήσοι) the postulated confusion between σ and ζ can play a role. Interestingly, we see that Sijpesteijn appears unwilling to credit the Egyptians with knowledge of the verb form and that, even when faced with apparently clear evidence of syntactical change, he prefers to explain non-classical usages as due to changes in other parts of the language’s grammar. We will see further that there are others who share these prejudices. The same phrase occurs elsewhere both within the Dioscorus archive and outside it. From the former category, P.Mich.Aphrod. (TM 22120) 90, produced within the same time-frame as the previous document,43 has εἴ ποτε πρὸς ἀπαίτησιν ἁρμόσοι, which is interestingly the scribe’s own alteration of what he originally wrote, the classically correct aorist ἁρμόσαι.44

39 LSJ Rev. Suppl. s.v. ἁρμόζω 6, citing from the 42 But Gagos and van Minnen (1994) 114 do, and so contemporary Codex Justinianus and taking the verb as defend the text here. equivalent to Latin competo. 43 Justinian was on the throne (79) and Dioscorus’ 40 That is, the claim to the penalty for the breach: in father Apollos represents one side in the dispute. two cases the ἀπαίτησις picks up an earlier formulaic 44 Possibly the scribe’s original tense was influenced ἀπαιτούμενα, used of the penalty. Translations of the by the start of the long and complicated sentence in which phrase offered by editors are either unsuited to the the phrase occurs (see below) and there is the added context (‘if it suits to claim it’ Sijpesteijn (1977) 25) or complication that the phrase is embedded in an indirect else semantically tendentious (‘if anyone ever sets out to statement: ὁμολογῶ … εἴ ποτε πρὸς ἀπαίτησιν ἁρμόσοι, make a demand’ Gagos and van Minnen (1994) 59 – ἀρραγῆ καὶ ἀσάλευτον εἶναι ταύτην τὴν διαλυτικὴν although their commentary 114 has the equally unprece- ὁμολογίαν. Furthermore, this scribe elsewhere confuses dented ‘“befalls” vel. sim.’; ‘sollte er … zur the forms: in 59 he wrote, and did not correct, ἁρμόσοι Rückforderung … schreiten’ Zilliacus (1940) 102). instead of ἁρμόσαι for the aorist active infinitive of the 41 See Sijpesteijn (1977) 2, but note that the death verb. The mistake is not likely to have been phonetic: of Dioscorus’ father has been redated: see Gagos and Gignac (1976–1981) 1.275 cites only one example of van Minnen (1994) 19. confusion between αι and οι elsewhere in papyri. THE FUTURE OPTATIVE 99

From outside the Dioscorus archive we have another long and complex legal document with the same phrase. The papyrus is from the mid-seventh century in Edfu – so a century and hundreds of kilometres away from Dioscorus. But the same legal terminology is in use (SB 6.8988 (TM 17841) 90–92):

καὶ μετὰ τὴν τοῦ τοιούτου προστίμου καταβολὴν εἰ πρὸς ἀπαίτησιν ἁρμόσοι, ἐρρῶσθαι διὰ παντὸς τὴν παροῦσαν Ἀκυλιανὴν διάλυσιν

And after the payment of such a fine if there were to be an entitlement to a claim, (it is agreed) that the present Aquilian contract45 be valid in all respects

So far, the uses of the future optative we have observed have tended to the formulaic, and have all been used of particular future conditions which cover the contingency of one party failing to fulfil the contract. The tone is that of a remote future protasis, and in two examples the future optatives stand in parallel to classically used aorist optatives to describe similarly remote actions which would also be breaking the contract. So, in TM 21374, we have at 261–66:

εἰ δέ τις ἐξ αὐτῶν τολμήσειεν παραβῆναι καὶ ὑπεναντίον ταύτης τῆς διαλύσεως διαπράξασθαί τι ὁμολογεῖ τὸ παραβαῖνον μέρος διδόναι τῷ ἐμμένοντι μέρει λόγῳ προστίμου ὑπὲρ μόνης τῆς παραβασίας χρυσοῦ ν.ο.μίσματα ἑκατὸν εὔσταθμα

And if anyone of them should dare to transgress it or to do something contrary to this settlement, the transgressing party agrees to give to the party which abides by it as a penalty on account of the transgression alone a hundred gold coins of good weight followed eventually at 277–78 by:

καὶ εἰς τὴν ἀπαίτησιν τοῦ προκειμένου προστίμου εἴπερ ἁρμόσοι εἰς ἀπαίτησιν

and for the claim to the afore-mentioned penalty, if there were to be an entitlement to the claim

While the future optative (ἁρμόσοι) stands in parallel to the aorist (τολμήσειεν), it would actually take place after it, as an entitlement would only occur after a transgression, and it is conceivable that the future optative was seen as indicating an ‘extra-remote’ future possibility, an event contingent on an event thought of, and sometimes expressed, as a classical εἰ with the aorist optative. The use in TM 22120 is essentially the same. At 82–86 we find:

εἰ δέ ποτε καιρῷ ἢ χρόνῳ τολμήσαιμι παραβῆναι πάντα τὰ διομολογηθέντα παρʼ ἐμοῦ ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ διαλυτικῇ ὁμολογίᾳ καὶ βουληθείην ὑπεναντίον τι χωρεῖν, ὁμολογῶ παρασχεῖν ὑμῖν λόγῳ προστίμου ἐπὶ μόνου τοῦ ἐπιχειρήματος τῆς παραβάσεως χρυσοῦ νομισμάτια εἰκοσιτέσσαρα

And if at any opportunity or time I should dare to transgress everything agreed by me in this agreement of settlement, and if I should ever want to proceed contrary to it in any way, I agree to give you as a penalty for the mere attempt at transgression 24 small gold coins followed at 89–90:

45 For a bibliography on the ‘Aquilian contract’, see Zilliacus (1940) 94–95. 100 O’SULLIVAN

οὐδὲν δὲ <ἧττον> καὶ πρὸ τοῦ προστίμου καὶ μετὰ τὴν τοῦ προστίμου καταβολήν, εἴ ποτε πρὸς ἀπαίτησιν ἁρμόσοι

Nonetheless, both before and after the payment of the penalty, if there were to be an entitlement to the claim

Two further examples of the future optative in the context of a penalty for breaking a contract survive from the Dioscorus archive, although neither seems formulaic. Both documents hail from Antinoopolis in 569. P.Hamb. 1.23 (TM 21044) is the lease of a vineyard (35–37):

καὶ οὐ δ.υνατὸν [ἡ]μῖν ἀποστῆναι τῆς τούτου ἐργασίας πρὸ περαιώσεως. τοῦ. χρόνου ὡς ἂν εἰ νόμων βοηθείας ὑπερειδομένοι<ς>, καὶ εἰ τοῦτο ποιήσοιμεν, παρέξομεν [pap. -ωμεν] λόγῳ προστίμ.ου χ.ρ.υσ. ί.ου νομίσμα<τα> δώδ[ε]κα ἀναμφι.λόγως

And it [will] not be possible for us to refrain from working this before the expiration of the time, as if depending on the help of the laws, and if we were to do this, we will provide without argument by way of fine 12 gold coins

P.Cair.Masp. 2.67163 (TM 18919) is a loan contract (31–32):

[εἰ] δὲ ἐνάξοιμι περὶ το(ύ)του, παρέξω σοι χρυσ[οῦ] νομισμάτιον ἓν παρὰ κ(εράτια) ἕξ

If I were to bring an accusation about this, I will provide to you one small gold coin, equivalent to six carats

Another example of the future optative from the archive, while not exactly a reference to the breaking of the contract, is similar in tone, as it refers to the mutually agreed dissolution of the partnership which the contract is establishing. Such an event can only be imagined as the remotest of possibilities! This contract from 568 (P.Cair.Mas. 2.67158 (TM 18914) 20–21) reads:

ο[ὐ]δὲν ἧττον, εἰ ἐθελήσοιμεν ἀποστῆ[ν]αι τῆς κοινῆς μετ’ ἀλλήλων ἐργασίας, [ἑτοίμως ἔχειν τ]ὰ δάνεια το(ῦ) ὄπιθεν χρόνο(υ), [τ]ὰ γενάμενα ἡμῖν κοινῶς πραγματευομένοις ἐπιγνῶναι κατὰ τὸ αὐτὸ ἥμισυ μέρος

No less, if we should wish to withdraw from the enterprise shared with each other [we agree] to be willing to recognize on the basis of the same half share the profits from the earlier time which accrued to us working in partnership

A final example from the archive uses the same verb in an exceptional way. There is no longer even a hint of the contract being broken. Rather, the future optative seems here to express an elaborate politeness, or perhaps the generosity of the terms being offered. P.Michael. 41 (TM 21416), dated to 539 or 554, records the surrender of some church land (40–44):

ὡς οἱ νόμοι δίδουσιν τοῖς αὐτοτελέσι δεσπόταις, ἀμέμπτως καὶ {ακαι} ἀκαταγνώστως, πρὸς τὸ δύνασθαί σε πᾶσαν βελτίωσιν καὶ καλλιεργείαν ἐνδείξασθαι ὡς εἰς δύναμιν σήν, καὶ εἰ ἐθελήσοις, ἐκμισθώσασθαι καὶ φορολογεῖν καὶ ἐκποιεῖν καὶ μεταποιεῖν ἁπαξαπλῶς παντὶ δοκοῦντί σοι τρόπῳ

as the laws allow to those who are absolute owners, without blame or condemnation, so that you can produce every improvement and development in your power, and, if you should desire, lease them and draw rent from them and alienate or transfer them in simply any way you may please (tr. Crawford (1955), expressing considerable reservations) THE FUTURE OPTATIVE 101

II. Wishes for the future The wish for the future was seen as the most characteristic function of the optative at the time when it was formally named (optatiuus = εὐκτική),46 and this perception perhaps goes back to a time before the notion of verbal mood was even distinguished.47 This function remained in use throughout antiquity, even as the other uses dwindled; thus we find it throughout the papyri, Ptolemaic and later, and also fairly commonly (38 instances) in the New Testament, with the classical alternatives of aorist or present optative remaining open.48 Three published papyri appear to show the future optative with this meaning, although only in one has the editor refrained from ‘correcting’ it to an aorist subjunctive. That text is P.Berl.Sarisch. 17 (TM 39331), a fragmentary private letter of unknown provenance but dated to the seventh century, which breaks off with the pious hope:

ὁ κύριος ἐν ὑγιείᾳ ὑμᾶς διαφυλάξοι

May the Lord preserve you in health

SB 6.9107 (TM 36196), again of unknown origin and of a similar date (sixth to seventh century), is a short letter accompanying a wedding gift, and the closing uses a similar formula:

ὁ θεὸς ὁ πάντων δεσπότης φυλάξοι αὐτὴν καὶ πολ{λ}υετῆσαι αὐτὴν μετὰ τῆς [ὑμετέρας] νύμφης καὶ πολλατεκν{ε}ίαν χαρίσηται αὐτῇ

May God the Lord of all preserve you49 and grant you long life, along with your bride, and may He bless you with many children

SB 6.9397 (TM 36836) is another private letter from the same period, and was unearthed in the Fayûm (7f):

Ὁ κύρι[ο]ς Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς [δ]ιασώσῃ καὶ διαφυλάξοι τὴν σὴν θεοφιλίαν ἐπὶ μήκιστον χρόνον

May the Lord Jesus Christ protect and preserve your holiness for a very long time

The editors of the second and third texts (H.I. Bell and H. Gerstinger respectively) thought that we should take the form (δια)φυλαξοι as a miswriting of (δια)φυλάξῃ, i.e. the aorist subjunctive, matching the aorist subjunctives with which the verbs are (explicitly or implicitly) joined,50 and A. Jannaris seems to have gone so far as to regard all such apparent future optatives for wish, whether attested in the literary tradition or epigraphically, as mere misspellings of the aorist subjunctive.51 This (non-classical)52 use of the subjunctive for positive commands in the third person is found rarely in Ptolemaic papyri but becomes more common later, with this particular

46 Jannaris (1897) 563. ἀξιώσῃ had preceded’. 47 See O’Sullivan (2011) 82–87. 51 Jannaris (1897) 565, cf. 564 for a similar 48 But while the New Testament strongly favours judgment on apparent future optatives with ἄν. This is aorists, the papyri seem to prefer presents: see Mayser curious, because in the case of some subordinate clauses (1906–1970) 2.1.289f.; BDF §384; Mandilaras (1973) (452, 456) he regards the non-classical use of the future §627–37; Harsing (1910) 56. optative by later authors as ‘blundering’, and does not 49 The writer’s courtly style does not address the attempt to save the standard syntax by pleading recipient directly, and the feminine pronoun stands for misspelling. the latter’s μεγαλόπρεπης προστασία. 52 Goodwin (1889) §258; Mayser (1906–1970) 50 Bell (1950) 253 comments on πολ{λ}υετῆσαι 2.1.229. (taken as an aorist infinitive, as the accent shows): ‘as if 102 O’SULLIVAN sort of phrase becoming formulaic.53 Jannaris assumes that the basis of these misspellings was homophony, but supporting evidence in the papyri (comparatively few of which were available to him in 1897) is not strong: -οι- is only occasionally confused with -η/ῃ-.54 Moreover, with this particular verb at least, it appears that Jannaris’ attempt to reduce the variants to one underlying reality is misguided. A study devoted to the different forms of this greeting has shown that the verb also occurs in optative and future indicative versions in both documentary papyri and in the textual tradition of literary texts, with the future optative form, such as we find in these three papyri, well represented in the sample of the textual transmission examined.55 A certain amount of flexibility in actual usage must be conceded, then, even if one believes with I. Gelzer that the aorist optative was the original form, and that the variants are later developments, to be explained by the declining role of the optative in later Greek.56 Such an explanation, however, is difficult to square with the evidence we have seen for an expansion of the role of the future optative into areas where it did not belong in classical, let alone in Hellenistic Greek. But at this point another objection is raised: διαφυλάξοι might not be a misspelled subjunctive, and variety was indeed possible in the expression of this wish, but it did not go so far as to allow this verb to be interpreted as a future optative, despite its appearance. Rather, Gelzer’s view was that this form is not a future optative violating the rules of classical Greek, but rather a hybrid, to be understood as a secondary form of the aorist optative, using the present endings on the aorist stem.57 Again, we see the lengths that scholars will go to in order to argue for continuity of Greek syntax, on the assumption that morphology was much more unstable. The case that these late (apparent) future optatives are actually aorists has not been made at any length, and seems only to have been made at all to preserve this perceived continuity in Greek syntactical practice. The claim is most often supported by reference to a single footnote, which extrapolates from the use of the present infinitive endings on aorist stems in later Greek.58 Morphologically, this may have been possible, as there are further parallels in indicative verb paradigms in later Greek,59 but the citation of examples in the footnote really begs the question. For it assumes that apparent future optatives functioning as classical aorist optatives must be witnessing to new types of aorist optatives rather than to new syntactical constructions involving the future optative.60

53 On Ptolemaic and later papyri, see Mayser 192, n.1 and Schwyzer (1950–1971) 1.796; more (1906–1970) 2.1.230; Mandilaras (1973) §§ 554–61. recently the same claim appears in Evans (2001) 177, Examples of (δια)φυλάξῃ with ὁ θεός aut sim. as n.7, followed by Langslow’s notes on Wackernagel subject: P.Abinn. 8 (TM 10065) 29; 19 (TM 32666) 35; (2009) 283, n.33. P.Cair.Masp. 1.67005 (TM 18980) 27; 3.67294 (TM 58 Hatzidakis (1892) 192, n.1 (cf. now Horrocks 36279) 19; P.Lond. 6.1924 (TM 32657) 12; PSI 13.1345 (2010) 296, who interestingly places this change to (TM 38683) 17; SB 22.15482 (TM 79057) 27. infinitives in ‘the later middle ages’, thus long after the 54 Jannaris (1897) 564–65; cf. Gignac (1976–1981) optative texts we have been examining). 1.265–67, 183; above n.28 on /i/ (= ι, ει, η, ῃ) as 59 Sigmatic aorist inflectional endings were influ- pronounced differently from /y/ (= υ, υι, οι) in early enced by thematic endings in late antiquity and the Byzantine times, with exceptions often to be explained middle ages (see Horrocks (2010) 144, 318) and in by bilingual interference. Since Jannaris wrote we have poetic diction such hybrids can be found even as early acquired much more evidence about changes in pronun- as Homer (Chantraine (1958–1963) 1, §199). ciation, and current views hold that spoken Greek 60 Hatzidakis (1892) 192, n.1 cites three inscrip- continued to make distinctions between the phonemes tions and five literary texts (most of the latter with the /i/ and /y/ until the ninth or tenth century (Gignac formulaic (δια)φυλάξοι). No examples on papyri had (1976–1981) 1.267; Horrocks (2010) 169). yet been published when he was writing. Keydell 55 Gelzer (1939) 168; his study is focused on the (1959) 47*, in citing Hatzidakis to explain some of formula as it appears in the correspondence preserved in these optatives in Nonnus, could not have been clearer writings of Athanasius, Eusebius and other early histo- about their assumptions: the use of these apparent rians of Christianity. futures in sentences where classical syntax did not allow 56 Gelzer (1939) 172–73. them must mean that they were not really future 57 Gelzer (1939) 169, following Hatzidakis (1892) optatives at all. THE FUTURE OPTATIVE 103

The syntactical practice of later Greek, however, was simply not the same as in the classical age, especially when it came to the optative. As has recently been argued,61 the virtual extinction of the optative in the vernacular language before the rise of Atticism and indeed before the emergence of formal grammar meant that its imitative reintroduction was bound to result in different usages. The sequence of moods, for instance, was not observed by Atticizing writers imitating classical Greek, nor do we find any theoretical understanding of this vital feature of the classical language ever expressed by any student of the language until 1745.62 On the other hand, anyone who has looked at the way the Greek language was studied in antiquity will be aware of just how focused this study is on traditional vocabulary and morphology, and how little interest it shows in classical syntax.63 Prima facie, then, it is a more economical hypothesis to explain these non-classical uses as due to syntactic rather than morphological innovation. But can we move beyond these general considerations? While the examples occurring in papyri can all be looked on as hybrid aorists or as genuine future optatives, literary texts have examples of future optatives in unclassical constructions which morphologically cannot be regarded as hybrid aorists.64 But now I turn to the next part of this paper, which I believe may be relevant to the correct understanding of these optative verbs in papyrus documents.

III. The future optative in grammatical papyri The Canones of Theodosius of Alexandria show that in late antiquity even such a comparatively rare feature of the classical language as the future optative was clearly recognized for what it was by some scholars.65 However, the mere survival of these is no evidence of how widespread such knowledge was in the ancient world, especially in the milieu which produced those usages of the future optative which the earlier parts of this study examine. The purpose of this section is to present the evidence for this explicit knowledge in those texts containing conjugations of verbs, written out by students or their teachers, which survive directly from the ancient world rather than through a medieval transmission.66 The first relevant document (British Library Add. MS 37516 (TM 62680)) is not actually on papyrus, but on a wooden board (which explains the excellent preservation of its text), perhaps used for classroom display.67 Its provenance and date are unfortunately both vague,68 but it is important as the first published text of this nature showing the future optative. The board shows conjugated forms of the optative and the participles of νικάω,69 and they are presented in a very full way: we find conjugated, for instance, the future active, the future middle and even the future passive optative. The presence of dual forms, extinct in the vernacular centuries earlier,70 in the

61 See O’Sullivan (2011) especially 77–82, 89–92. complete list of published conjugations on papyri at 62 Dawes (1745) 82–85, and even then his expla- 175–76, 219–20 (but cf. below on MPER 15.139, which nation, announced with more than a little fanfare (‘nos is no. 17 in this second group but now regarded as primi monemus …’, etc.) was so simplistic as to be only belonging with those of the first group to Dioscorus’ half right, as one of his editors was to point out (Burgess archive). (1781) 501–02). 67 Thus Kenyon (1909) 29. 63 See O’Sullivan (2011) 82. 68 The origin is given only as Egyptian. Kenyon 64 O’Sullivan (2008) 643, n.34 cites (1909) 29 supposes it to be of the third century, but ἀναγκασθησοίμεθα and ἁλώσοιτο, both in purpose others think the fourth (see Sedley (1998) 167, n.1). clauses. 69 This is unique as a model verb: otherwise the 65 For a discussion of the Canones, available in grammatical tradition, as seen in the papyri and volume 4 of GG, see Robins (1993) chapter 6. elsewhere (see Fournet (1999) 219–21), uses βοάω to Theodosius names and conjugates future optatives at, demonstrate α- contracts. for example, 4.1.69. 70 BDF §§2, 65. Even in this artificial context, the 66 See the discussions in Weems (1981) 211–14; presence of first person dual forms in this text and Cribiore (1996) 263–64, 268–69; Wouters (1988) others seems extraordinary. On this form, see the 30–35; and above all Fournet (1999) 175–237, with a discussion by Wackernagel (2009) 113–14. 104 O’SULLIVAN paradigms shows us what sort of company these optatives are keeping, and reminds us of the essentially antiquarian nature of grammar as studied by the ancients, based as it was on the expli- cation and imitation of a linguistically fossilized corpus.71 However, the previous sections of this paper demonstrate that this disappearance of the optative from spoken Greek did not entail its disappearance from documentary papyri, even if the usages examined tend to the formulaic. The survival of the grammatical conjugations from later antiquity gives us an indication of the theoria behind this praxis, and a closer study of them may contribute to an understanding of how the future optative is used in documents. In particular, these grammatical records may indicate just what understanding of the optative the writers of the documents had. In this context I draw attention to the fact that a number of these texts conjugating the future optative explicitly name the mood and tense. The opening column of this first example, for instance, runs like this:

ευκτικα νικοιμι νικοις νικοι παρακ- νενικηκοιμι νενικηκοις νενικηκοι αο- νικησαιμι νικησαις νικησαι μελ- νικησοιμι νικησοις νικησοι

The tense names given72 are abbreviated but are exactly those we know from the established grammatical tradition: παρακείμενα (perfects), ἀόριστα (aorists) and μέλλοντα (futures).73 Along with the other evidence discussed below, the document demonstrates that a knowledge of the form of the future optative, explicitly acknowledged as a classical future optative and not some sort of hybrid aorist, was a part of the education system in late Graeco-Roman Egypt.74 The future optative of a number of verbs is attested in one of the longest conjugation paradigms, P.Chester.Beatty Ac. 1499 (TM 61873). One of the celebrated Bodmer papyri unearthed at Dishna, it is dated to the fifth century. It contains the optative future middle conjugation of βοάω (372–81) and the optative future passive and middle forms of ποιέω (131-50), χρυσόω (659–78) and πλέκω (945–64). In all cases the futurity of the forms is explicitly noticed (μελλοντος) and dual forms are included. Here is the first of the future optatives, unexpectedly introduced, without an indication of the change of mood, after the future passive indicative:75

71 As in the opening definition of the grammar 73 D.T. Ars 53. attributed to Dionysius Thrax: γραμματική ἐστιν 74 I emphasize that we are talking about the form ἐμπειρία τῶν παρὰ ποιηταῖς τε καὶ συγγραφεῦσιν ὡς ἐπὶ and its correct naming: the evidence presented in the τὸ πολὺ λεγομένων (GG 1.1.5). For a recent bibliog- earlier part of the paper strongly suggests in itself that raphy on this work’s disputed authenticity, see Dickey instruction in the classical use of the relevant syntax was (2007) 79. not provided, and it appears unlikely that it was 72 The present tense is not named here. On the non- available anywhere at this time. classical present optative inflection of the α- contract 75 The other verbs in the table have their optatives verb, see Fournet (1999) 231. introduced with the tag ευκτικως (82, 620, 909). THE FUTURE OPTATIVE 105

μεσου μελλοντος βοησοιμην βοησοιο βοησοιτο βοησοιμεθον βοησοισθον βοησοισθο.ν βοησοιμεθα βοησοισθε βοησοιντο

The papyrus immediately continues (382):

υποτακτικως ϊνα βοωμαι etc.

The subjunctive is thus presented with the conjunction ἵνα in this table, while the optative appears simply as a verb. The next two examples, however, show that there was also sometimes a syntactic expectation of the latter mood. These texts are in a much worse state of preservation and hence much shorter than the very extensive Chester Beatty papyrus. Indeed, in neither of them do we have a complete survival of any form of the future optative. P.Rain.Unterricht 15.138 (TM 64939) dates to the fourth or fifth century and is of unknown provenance. It is actually eight double-sided fragments of a codex, two of which had been published before, and the original order of which can no longer be determined. But it is clear that this section of the text contained conjugations of two verbs we have seen in the previous codex, βοάω and χρυσόω. Fragment f recto seems to contain amongst other forms:

ει χρυσωσο.[ ει χρυσωσο.ι.[

The final letters are missing and the crucial ones unclear: the codex did name the tenses (for example Fragment a recto: μεσου μελλο[ντος), but nothing survives at the top of this column. Despite the uncertainty, the initial εἰ indicates that we are dealing with optatives here, as will be clear from further examples below, although the voice of the verbs must remain unknown.76 We can be more confident about the presence of future optatives in col. ii of P.Ryl. 3.534 (TM 64319), a grammatical paradigm of πλέω dating from the fourth century. The column starts with the middle future optative and preserves, with varying degrees of legibility, all its forms, including the duals:

[μεσου μελλοντος] [ει πλευ]σ. οι.μ. [η]ν. [ει πλευ]σ. οιο ει π. [λε]υ.σ. οι.το and so on.77 76 Fragment g recto has remains consistent with a and the text were read differently by Weems (1981) 180, future passive optative, but equally consistent with an 186–87, who makes of the remains Ἀ[ττικ(οῦ)] aorist passive. μέλλ(οντος), followed by the conjugation of the future 77 The next tense in the column was reconstructed perfect optative. On the term and its alternative μετ’ by the original editor as the future passive optative, ὀλίγον μέλλοντος, see Wouters (1994), who supports labelled as αο.[ρ]ισ(του) μελλ(οντος), but the heading Weems’ correction at 116. 106 O’SULLIVAN

Apart from these and the final group of papyri presented below, other grammatical fragments have been reconstructed as conjugations of the future optative, but none with certainty.78 To this point in our survey of the future optative in grammatical papyri, the argument has been made that its demonstrable presence in educational contexts in late Graeco-Roman Egypt should be connected with its use in surviving documents from that milieu. In other words, whatever non-classical uses were found for the form, its identification and the consciousness of writers using it should not seem open to doubt. But the argument becomes much stronger – indeed, I believe, irresistible – when we consider the last group of grammatical papyri. Most examples of the future optative in documentary papyri, as we have seen above, are found in the Dioscorus archive. But, by an extraordinary coincidence, a number of the grammatical papyri featuring these verbs in conjugated form are also from that source. In what follows I, like all students of Dioscorus, am very much in debt to J.-L. Fournet’s magisterial edition of the poetic and grammatical fragments of the archive.79 What is the relationship between these conjugations and Dioscorus himself? Fournet80 points out some facts which any solution must account for: (1) with one exception, the conjugations appear on the back (or the reused front) of documents which Dioscorus himself had written; (2) they were kept in Dioscorus’ papers, even after the need for the legal documents had passed (as is shown by the recycling of the latter); and (3) the conjugations themselves are not in his hand. Fournet’s own suggestion, perhaps a touch romantic, is that Dioscorus may have taught the pupils who wrote out these conjugations as exercises. At the very least though, we have to say that these conjugations, and the knowledge and ignorance of classical Greek that they display, are linked to something we must vaguely call the ‘circle of Dioscorus’. In the conjugations from the Dioscorus archive, Fournet identifies three separate documents containing forms of the future optative. In a tour de force, he reconstructed one codex from three separately published and one previously known but unpublished papyri.81 Since that recon- struction, he has indicated that another previously published scrap of papyrus (MPER 15.139) is also a part of this codex, which he calls P.Aphrod.Lit. III 1 (TM 59707), of which there still exist unpublished fragments.82 As reconstructed so far, this codex contained the following future optatives: active of ποιέω (Fo 2 ↓132–42), active (Fo 6 79–89), passive (Fo 6 136–47) and middle (Fo 6 148–59) of βοάω, and active of χρυσόω (MPER 15.139 58–68). The second of these instances shows the characteristic features of the presentation in this codex:

μελλοντος ει βοησοιμι ει βοησοις ει βοησοι δ------ει βοησοιτον ει βοησοιτην

78 For instance, the recto of P.Rein. 2.81 (TM documentary papyri of the archive, nor – in keeping 59694), a fourth-century scrap of the conjugation of with the title of this paper – have I discussed Dioscorus’ τύπτω, was originally reconstructed as containing the literary works, but the presence of future optatives in future middle optatives of τύπτω, but Oguse (1957) 83 both corpora, as well as in the paradigms, suggests that rightly points out that the remains are just as consistent they have light to shed on each other.) with aorists. 80 Fournet (1999) 236. 79 It is surprising, however, that Fournet himself 81 Fournet (1999) 181–87 links together does not draw on the evidence of these conjugations in P.Cair.Masp. 2.67176, 2.67275 and 3.67351 with the his discussion of the future optatives in Dioscorus’ previously unpublished P.Alex.inv. 689. poetry 1.348 and 355–56. (Fournet does not edit the 82 Fournet (1999) 191; (2008) 309, 341. THE FUTURE OPTATIVE 107

πλ̣ ------̣ ει̣ βοησοιμεν ει̣ ̣β.οησοιτε ει βοησοιεν

Typically, the tense is given, and the non-singular numbers are announced in abbreviated form: δ(υϊκά) and πλ(ηθυντικά). The use of the particle εἰ before every form of the optative occurs in some other papyri, as we have seen, but not in all of them (nor in Theodosius). Likewise, the subjunctives in this papyrus are preceded by ἐάν; that is found elsewhere, as is ἵνα.83 What is distinctive about εἰ with the future optative, of course, is its presentation of a combination which is unclassical in its syntax. It will not be coincidence that the only use of the future optative in the documentary parts of the Dioscorus archive is in conditional clauses. P.Hamb. 2.166 (TM 59712), now called P.Aphrod.Lit. III 2, was published by Snell in 1954 and discussed but not re-edited by Fournet.84 The extensive fragment contains conjugations of ποιέω, and its third column contains the future active and future passive of the verb’s optative: the future middle of the verb is missing ‘sûrement par erreur’.85 Of the two forms present, the passive future is the better preserved:

μελλοντος ει ποιηθησοιμην ει ποιηθησοιο ει ποιηθησοιτο δ------ει ποιηθησο<ι>μεθον ει ποιηθησοισθον ει ποιηθησοισθην πλ------ει ποιηθησοιμεθα ει ποιηθησοισθε ει ποιηθησοιντο

Once more, we find the tense explicitly named, and the particle εἰ before this tense as before all forms of the optative. Interestingly, the mistakes found elsewhere on this papyrus do not betray, at least in Fournet’s view, ‘une réelle ignorance de la morphologie verbale’,86 but merely carelessness. As we keep seeing, the knowledge of even this fairly recondite element of classical morphology is surprisingly well attested in late antique Egypt, but, as the earlier parts of this paper demonstrate, it was not matched by a corresponding knowledge of classical Greek’s syntactical application of the form. The last record of the future optative in the grammatical papyri of the Dioscorus archive we will examine, and the last for this paper, is much more exiguous. P.Cair.Masp. 3.67350c verso, published for the first time by Fournet as part of P.Aphrod.Lit. III 4 (TM 65017), contains only a few unambiguous letters in its conjugation of ποιέω, but enough survives to make out the plural forms of the future passive optative in the second column:

π. [λ]------ε.ι. π. ο.ι.η.θ.ησοι.μ. εθα. ει ποιηθησο. ισ. θ.ε ε.ι. π. ο. ιηθ.ησ.[οιν]τ.ο.

83 Fournet (1999) 227. 85 Fournet (1999) 204. 84 Fournet (1999) 204–07. 86 Fournet (1999) 206. 108 O’SULLIVAN

The title of this block of the paradigm is gone, but the traces of titles elsewhere suggest that it would have followed the other examples in the Dioscorus archive, not only by its unfailing use of εἰ with all forms of the optative, but also in its identification of this form as a future. We may, then, sum up what our survey of grammatical papyri can add to our consideration of the linguistic phenomena discussed in the first two parts of this study. In the first place, it is undeniable that Egyptians literate in Greek knew about the future optative even in late antiquity. The assumption found in the modern literature, that the rarity of the future optative meant that it was not known to them, is clearly wrong. Second, they knew what it was called. In most cases the name of the tense is quite explicit, and this level of explicitness seems to me to hold the key to how we should identify those verbal forms in late antiquity which some have been inclined to see as hybrids, combining present endings with aorist stems. The evidence provided here, however, suggests that those using these forms would have given the correct morphological identification of them as future optatives. But if the conjugations show that Dioscorus and other Egyptians knew about and correctly formed the future optative, and that they distinguished it from other forms of the mood, the papyri also show what they did not know about it. In most surviving paradigms, all forms of the optative are preceded by εἰ, including the future form with which it is not combined in classical Greek.87 There is obviously a link between this and the fact that most instances of the future optative in the documents of late antiquity appear as the protases of conditional clauses.88 The simplest explanation for this new licence is that the syntax of the Greek language had changed, despite the earnest attempts of the educated villagers on the banks of the Nile to imitate the language of the men of Athens almost a millennium earlier. Amongst his own writings, so cruelly described by modern scholars, Dioscorus preserved a life of Isocrates.89 This knowledge of the form of the future optative, combined with ignorance about its classical use, arguably confirms something about the ancient study of grammar which has long been noticed: its overwhelming interest in morphology and its lack of curiosity about syntax.90 With only this tradition on which to draw, it was likely that Dioscorus and his contemporaries would fail to obtain the competence in the language to which they aspired. The proper function of the future optative in classical Greek was not, it seems, to be discovered until more than a millennium after the end of the classical world in Egypt.91 What, then, can we learn about the history of the language from this study? It has been argued that the evidence shows a previously ignored expansion of the syntax of the future optative. Central to the claim has been the link between the theory and practice of the future optative in late Greek, especially in relation to its recognized morphology. The exact nature of this link, however, cannot be determined within the framework this paper has set itself. There are many more examples of the revival of the future optative attested in later literary Greek than in the papyrus documents we have looked at in this study, and the whole story – a much bigger one than I have room for here – could only be told by examining all the evidence for the use of the language available. Let us give a concrete example of the limitations of this work for a larger history of the language. All the papyrus documents containing future optatives examined in it date from the sixth century or later, and in most cases the verb appears in a protasis. εἴ with the future optative

87 Except, as noted, in oblique constructions (see this archive affords us: ‘we are thus in the unique above, n.18). position of knowing how he learned the poetic craft that 88 This link is a further testament to the unique he applied so earnestly, if imperfectly’ (Schwendner importance of the Dioscorus archive in preserving for us (2008) 55). both the propaedeutic and the finished material from the 89 P.Cair.Masp. 2.67175 (TM 65005). On same source in antiquity. Schwendner’s (2008) paper Dioscorus’ use of Isocrates, see van Minnen (1992). on the connection between Dioscorus’ study of Homeric 90 See O’Sullivan (2011) 82. glosses and his poetry is another example of the insights 91 See Dawes (1745) 103; Wackernagel (2009) 247. THE FUTURE OPTATIVE 109 is attested in grammatical paradigms as early as the fourth century.92 Is it possible, then, that the revival of the form in documents93 was actually made possible by this form of classroom instruction, which indiscriminately prefixed εἴ to all forms of the optative? This is the sort of question for which the evidence of the literary language is indispensable, and so not one which I can address here. The revival of the future optative, and expansion into non-classical areas, was certainly happening already in the third century, and it was commonly in use in conditional clauses in the fourth century, at just the time when these papyrus paradigms began to appear.94 Even without taking into account the hazards of survival, particularly of ephemeral material like school notes, the picture looks much more complicated when it is expanded to include the literature surviving from late antiquity. But if the story the documentary and grammatical papyri can tell us about this small corner of the history of the Greek language is only a partial one, and not capable of answering all the questions we would like to ask, I submit that it still opens the door to a new approach to the language used in the literary texts, and should encourage us to think again about ways we can address our ignorance of the syntax of later Greek.

Bibliography and abbreviations Papyri are abbreviated according to the checklist at http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/clist.html

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