Aus: Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 187 (2013) 144–153
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ÁLVARO SÁNCHEZ-OSTIZ CICERO GRAECUS: NOTES ON CICERONIAN PAPYRI FROM EGYPT aus: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 187 (2013) 144–153 © Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, Bonn 144 CICERO GRAECUS: NOTES ON CICERONIAN PAPYRI FROM EGYPT 1. Cicero’s papyrological remains from Egypt comprise a small set of ten references, which have long been known to specialists.1 In fact, these records are repeatedly referred to in checklists and catalogues of Latin literary papyri, and only two have been published in recent decades.2 Most of them can be dated to the fourth or fi fth century. With the exception of P. Monts. Roca I 129–149, they do not provide a signifi cant basis for emendations of the Ciceronian text; all contain portions from orations also preserved in medieval manuscripts, and offer readings of minor value to editors.3 The interest in studying these ten papyri specifi cally as a group derives rather from the fact that they provide a focus on a particular aspect of literary bilingualism in the eastern Empire during Late Antiquity.4 If the papyri containing works of Cicero, as well as the papyri of other Latin authors, were used by Greek- speaking inhabitants of the Empire, it may be concluded that at least some of these citizens had a sym- pathetic (or at least non-disparaging) attitude towards Roman letters, irrespective of the form of practical interest, intellectual curiosity or aesthetic pleasure that may have prompted them to read authors that wrote in another language. Nevertheless, at least three clear objections would appear to argue against generalizing too far that Latin literary papyri in general, and Ciceronian papyri in particular, are proof of a genuine interest in Latin literature among Greek Easterners. First, some of the literary papyri could have belonged to Latin-speaking members of the Roman elite resident in Egypt. Therefore, it would be necessary to establish with certainty that the papyri of Latin authors were in Greek hands – and read by Greek eyes, it should be said – before drawing any conclusions regarding literary bilingualism in oriental regions of Empire. Secondly, several of the papyri of Cicero and Vergil were undoubtedly used in basic stages of Latin learning from the fourth to sixth centuries AD, when the Latin language was of interest (albeit of limited interest) in the East. The practical use of these books can be inferred both from the fact that their Latin texts are supplemented by a translation verbum pro verbo into Greek, and that they contain annotations helpful only for non-native speakers of Latin. Moreover, three of the Ciceronian papyri are bilingual word-lists that give non-literary Greek equivalents for the Latin lemmata and one is a standard text with diacritical marks and a long annotation in Greek about the Roman juridical term indicium. Therefore, only Greeks concerned with Roman law would have prepared and used these books so as to acquire a smattering of the language.5 However, it is tempting to extend by analogy these particular four cases to the list of Ciceronian records as a whole, and to infer that they reveal only that some of the Greek-speaking citizens were trying to reach a merely modest command of legal Latin. Thirdly, it must be borne in mind that the number of Latin literary texts preserved on papyrus, which is much lower than the number of Greek equivalents, is in any case the result of chance discoveries. These involve too many chronological and geographical discontinuities to be representative of literary trends in 1 This paper benefi ted from the previous work and fi nancial aid of the research group “Graecapta”, fi nanced by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (FFI2010-15402). I am very grateful to J. B. Torres for the inspiring idea, and to J. Chapa, B. Rochette and M. C. Scappaticcio for invaluable assistance with this work; special thanks also to Marie-Hélène Marganne, director of CEDOPAL, for her friendly help. Any remaining defi ciencies are mine alone. 2 Mertens–Pack³ (hereafter M–P³, digital update of R. A. Pack, Index of Greek and Latin Literary Texts from Greco- Roman Egypt, Ann Arbor 1965² accessible at CEDOPAL web page), no. 2920.1 and 2921.01. 3 However M–P³ 2919.1 (PSI I 20) has three relatively valuable readings: the fi rst line of the recto offers coepisse at Verr. II 1.60 (audimus alium non ab initio fecisse, sed ex tempore aliquo coepisse), which survives also in Ps.-Asconius and is better than confecisse transmitted by the medieval tradition. Besides lines 6 (Lampsaceni) and 9 (Graecorum) of the verso confi rm that both words at Verr. II 1.63, attested by later manuscripts (homines autem ipsi Lampsaceni cum summe in omnes cives Romanos offi ciosi, tum praeterea maxime sedati et quieti, prope praeter ceteros ad summum Graecorum otium potius quam ad ullam vim aut tumultum accommodati), are not interpolations. 4 Daris 2000: 170–171; Buzi 2005; Warmoeskerken 2007. 5 Cribiore 1996: 29–30; 1997: 53; 2007: esp. 59–63; McNamee 2007: 5; Rochette 2007: 54–56. Cicero Graecus: Notes on Ciceronian Papyri from Egypt 145 any place or at any time. In other words, the sparse material does not disclose signifi cant statistics on the knowledge of Latin authors in the Greek-speaking Roman Empire. At best, the specifi c cases may only verify or contradict assumptions based on other kinds of evidence. Preeminent among such evidence is the school education provided in the Greco-Roman world, which focused on a limited canon of authors. In Latin-speaking areas, and especially in Late Antiquity, the privi- leged writers were the so-called quadriga Messii,6 Virgil and Terence in verse, and Cicero and Sallust in prose, which were also more frequently recorded on papyrus than others. In fact, only Virgil is preserved in more fragments than Cicero, with almost thirty papyri.7 Seven records of Sallust and two of Terence have survived to this day.8 However, a number of non-curricular authors that were popular in the Latin West during the fourth and fi fth centuries9 have also survived in a few book fragments from Egypt: Livy in three,10 and Lucan, Seneca and Juvenal in one each, respectively.11 It is noteworthy that the records of both Seneca and Juvenal have marginalia written in Greek, similar to the annotated papyri of Cicero and Terence. Although such evidence is even more scarce than that for Virgil, Cicero and Sallust, and do not enable profound conclusions, they may hint at the fact that the selection of Latin authors in the East was due not only to school habits, but also to what was commonly being read throughout the Empire. So, the trend among Greek speakers interested in the Latin language seems to have been to assure only a “minimal cultural package”,12 which began with Virgil, and could be continued (or not) with another of the ‘horses’ in Messius’ Quadriga, or with other authors in vogue elsewhere. It is not clear whether this relative prominence of Virgil is a cause or consequence of his literary pres- ence in the works of some post-classical Greek poets.13 The allusions to the Aeneis possibly made by Greek epic poets such as Quintus Smyrnaeus, Tryphiodorus and Nonnus of Panopolis, as well as Oppian’s refer- ences to the Georgics, and the echoes of the Eclogues in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe, have attracted the attention of scholars in recent decades.14 As might be expected because of differences in genre, there are no cases of imitation of Cicero in Greek authors of the Imperial Age. Nevertheless, as a rhetor, he was com- pared to Demosthenes by Ps.-Longinus15 and by Caecilius of Caleacte,16 and used as a source of Roman history by Plutarch, Appian and Cassius Dio.17 Thus, Cicero seems to have been known and valued in liter- ary terms in the Greek world. This fact suggests a specifi c analysis of the ten papyri containing works of Cicero, in order to illustrate the particularities of his literary reception in the East. The discussion should proceed by discerning what type of texts the fragments are, how many are marked by the traces of Greek speakers, and how these books have been used. 6 Cassiod. Inst. 1.15.7 (Regulas igitur elocutionum Latinorum, id est quadrigam Messii …) refers to the work Exempla elocutionum of Arusianus Messius (GL 7,449–514), which was based on excerpts from Virgil, Sallust, Terence and Cicero. 7 See in particular Baldwin 1976 and Scappaticcio 2010. M–P³ 2935, 2935.1, 2936, 2937, 2938, 2939, 2939.1, 2940, 2941, 2942, 2943, 2943.1, 2944, 2944.1, 2945, 2946, 2947, 2948, 2948.01, 2949, 2950, 2951, 2951.001, 2951.02, 2951.1, 2952. 8 M–P³ 2929, 2930, 2930.1, 2931, 2932, 2932.1, 2933 (Sallust; see also Funari 2008); 2933.1, 2934 (Terence). 9 See Cameron 2011: 410–420, 498–516. 10 M–P³ 2926, 2926.01, 2927. See also the edition by Funari 2011. 11 M–P³ 2933.01 (Seneca); 2928 (Lucan); 2925 (Juvenal). 12 To use the felicitous expression Cribiore applies to the abridged Greek literary culture usually learned in Egypt: Cri- biore 2001: 178–180. 13 According to the laws of the poetic imitatio to which the postclassical Greek literature adheres rigorously, it is not easy to fi nd in it an allusion from a non-classical Greek author, nor, needless to say, from a Latin author: see Hose 2007. 14 See Rochette 1997a: 269–279; Gärtner 2005; Torres 2007 with previous bibliography. 15 Longin.