P. FAY. 19, HADRIAN’S MEMOIRS, AND IMPERIAL EPISTOLARY AUTOBIOGRAPHY* During one of their expeditions in the Fayoum at the turn of this century the Oxford scholars Grenfell, Hunt and Hogarth discovered a few hun- dred papyri — most of them in bad condition — at Ûmm el cAtl, a small village in the northeast corner of the former Arsinoite nome. At first they thought little of their papyrological finds there, but in time the results proved to be very productive after all, both as to content and method- ologically1. One papyrus is of particular interest to us: the verso of a taxing-list contains, in a hand of the end of the second century A.D. at the latest, a text purporting to be a letter of the emperor Hadrian to a ‘Dear Antoni- nus’, who can hardly have been anyone else than Hadrian’s successor Antoninus Pius. The papyrus fragment — which is now in the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago — measures 22 by 10.3 cm. It is damaged on the left and right sides, so that the beginnings as well as the ends of lines are lost; the size of the lacunae at the beginning can be determined with a fair degree of certainty, whereas the amount of text lost at the end is much harder to estimate. The text consists of twenty lines in all — actu- ally fifteen lines, the first five being repeated at the bottom — and is written in two different hands: the first fifteen lines in a clear cursive, the final five in a large irregular uncial. [Aûtokrát]wr Ka⁄sar ¨Adrianòv Se[bastò]v ˆAn[t]wnínwç [ [….. t]¬ç teimiwtátwç xaírein. ÊO[ti o]∆te âw-[ [reì o∆t]e âlógwv o∆te oîktr¬v o∆te âp[rov]dokßtw[v] [o∆te ânoß]twv âpallássomai toÕ bío[u prò pantòv boú-] * Whereas nowadays the words ‘autobiography’ and ‘memoirs’ have different mean- ings, no such distinction was made in the Roman republican and imperial ages, simply because it did not exist; therefore, in this paper, both terms will be used as synonyms. 1 B.P. GRENFELL – A.S. HUNT – D.G. HOGARTH, Fayûm Towns and their Papyri, with a chapter by J.G. MILNE, London 1900 [hereinafter cited as P. Fay.]; see especially the introductory notes by Grenfell and Hunt, p. 1-26. Since October 1993 new systematic excavations of Bakchias are being done by a joint expedition of the universities of Bologna and Lecce; see S. PERNIGOTTI – M. CAPASSO, Bakchias. Una città del deserto egiziano che torna a vivere. La prima campagna di scavo della Missione archeologica delle Università degli Studi di Bologna e di Lecce nel Fayyum (Cultura. Collana di Studi “Dall’ Antico al Moderno”, 2), Napoli 1994. 280 J. BOLLANSÉE 5[lomaí se gn]¬nai, eî kaì paratuxónta moi nosj[leuoménwç] [kaì para]muqoúmenon kaì protréponta di[akartere⁄n] [sxedòn dózw â]dike⁄n Üv eœron. Kaì âpò toioú[twn oŒn örm¬-] [mai táde soi grá]cai oû mà De[í’] Üv f[o]rtikòn lógo[n texnáhwn par’] [âlß]q[e]ian, [âll’] aût¬n t¬n pragmátwn äpl±n [te kaì] 10 [âkrib]estátjn mnßmjn poioúmenov e[…..] [……] kaì ö mèn fúsei pat®r genómen[ov âsqen®v] [tessará]konta biÉsav ∂tj îdiÉtjv met[ßllazen] [¿ste t¬ç ™m]iolíwç pléon me bi¬nai toÕ patró[v, t±v] [dè mjtr]óv me sxedòn t®n aût®n ™lik[í]an [∂xein gegonuíav] 15 [ëzjkontoú]touv· ∂touv dè ∂tuxon ãrti deik[…..] 2nd hand [Aûtokr]átwr Ka⁄sar ¨Adrianòv Sebastò[v ˆAntw- [nínwç t]¬ç timiwtátwç xaírei[n.] ÊOti oû<te> âw[rì o∆te] [âlógwv] o∆te oîktr¬v o∆te âprosdokß[twv] [o∆te â]noßtwv âpallássome toÕ bíou pro[…..] 20 [….w]nai eî kè pa<ra>tuxónta moi nosjleuo[ménwç]2. 1. [Aûtokrát]wr and Se[bastò]v: cf. 16. 2. º[ti o]∆te: cf. 17. 3. âp[rov]dokßtw[v]: cf. 18. 4. o∆te ânoßtwv and bíou pro…: cf. 19. 4-5. F. BÜCHELER, loc. cit., p. 327, conjectures: pro[eilómjn soi] | [lógon did]ónai. 5. nosj[leuoménwç]: cf. 20; nosj[leúonta] is also possible. 6. W. CLARYSSE suggests di[akartere⁄n]; in all other edi- tions (see n. 2) di[anapaúesqai] is conjectured. 7-8. F. BÜCHELER, loc. cit., p. 327, conjectures: âpò toioú[twn soi] | [perì êmautoÕ grá]cai. 8. oû mà De[í’]: after ma there are some ink spots that may be accidental, but oumai dè Üv is equally possible. 12. [tessará]konta: cf. infra p. 3; îdiÉtjv: on the papyrus is written fldiwtjv. 15. the word before dè is apparently not eû[q]úv; perhaps ∂touv should be read; the line is completed by F. BÜCHELER, loc. cit., p. 327, as follows: deik[núsjÇv t±v üpátwn] | [ânagraf±v ëzjkos- toÕ trítou… 16-17. [ˆAntwnínwç]: cf. 1. 19. âpallássome: l. âpal- lássomai. 20. eî kè: l. eî kaì. Imperator Caesar Hadrianus Augustus to his highly-esteemed Antoni- nus, greeting. Above all I would like you to know that I am being released from life neither untimely nor unreasonably, pitiably, unex- pectedly or with faculties impaired, though — as I have perceived— I 2 The papyrus was first edited by Grenfell and Hunt as P. Fay. 19 (p. 112-116). The present version of the text is basically that offered by P.J. ALEXANDER, Letters and Speeches of the Emperor Hadrian, HSPh 49 (1938), p. 170 n. 1, who mainly follows W. CROENERT, Litterarische Texte mit Ausschluß der christlichen, APF 2 (1903), p. 364. A different restoration was suggested by F. BÜCHELER, Coniectanea, RhM 56 (1901), p. 326-327; this was accepted by F. PREISIGKE, Berichtigungsliste der griechischen Papyrusurkunden aus Ägypten I, Berlin–Leipzig 1922, p. 128, and S. PERGINOTTI – M. CAPASSO, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 35-38. HADRIAN AND IMPERIAL EPISTOLARY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 281 thus may appear to do you wrong, you who sits at my bedside, never ceases to comfort me and urges me to hold on. Consequently I feel compelled to write you the following, not, by Zeus, to cunningly paint some vulgar picture stretching the truth, but to give a straightforward and accurate account of the facts themselves (…) My natural father was taken ill and died as a private citizen at forty, hence I have survived him by more than half his age; I have approxi- mately reached the same age as my mother, who lived to be sixty. I am presently in my [sixty-third] year … The informed reader is immediately struck by the correlation between the theme of the papyrus text and the contents of the famous little poem that Hadrian supposedly wrote on his deathbed: Animula vagula blandula hospes comesque corporis, quae nunc abibis in loca pallidula rigida nudula? nec ut soles dabis iocos!3 In these few lines the emperor put his final agony into perspective. This very same attitude towards death, though not the same irony, per- vades the papyrus text. Without necessarily associating the two texts closely with one another most scholars have so far opined that in the letter Hadrian was speaking solely of his imminent death: this, then, would be a unique confidential epistle from Antiquity in which an emperor expressed his innermost feelings4. 3 Scriptores Historiae Augustae (HA), Hadr. 25.9; see I. MARIOTTI, Animula vagula blandula, in Studia Florentina Alexandro Ronconi sexagenario oblata, Rome 1970, p. 233-249; J.-M. ANDRÉ, Hadrien littérateur et protecteur des lettres, in ANRW II 34.1, Berlin–New York 1993, p. 583-611, esp. 603 with n. 183 and 606-607 (with further bibliography). 4 See J.G. WINTER, Life and Letters in the Papyri (The Jerome Lectures), Ann Arbor 1933, p. 19; P.J. ALEXANDER, loc. cit., p. 170-172; H. BARDON, Les empereurs et les let- tres latines d’Auguste à Hadrien (Collection d’études anciennes), Paris 1940, p. 411; J. CARCOPINO, L’hérédité dynastique chez les Antonins, REA 51 (1949), p. 305 (= ID., Pas- sion et politique chez les Césars, Paris 1958, p. 199-200); J.-M. ANDRÉ, art. cit. (n. 3), p. 596; S. PERNIGOTTI – M. CAPASSO, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 37-38. In any event, P. Fay. 19 is not to be identified with the letter mentioned by Cassius Dio, LXIX 17, in which Hadrian allegedly hinted his grief at desiring to die yet not being able to do so, for the papyrus exudes resignation, even relief, with death finally approaching; see, however, F.G. MILLAR, A Study of Cassius Dio, Oxford 1964, p. 37 and 70. It is not exactly clear what J.-M. ANDRÉ, art. cit. (n. 3), p. 596 n. 123, means in this respect by saying «texte (i.e. P. Fay. 19) à rapprocher de Dion Cassius, Hist. rom. LXIX 17.2-3». 282 J. BOLLANSÉE This assumption, however, passes over the nonetheless explicit (and on the papyrus clearly legible) announcement aût¬n t¬n pragmátwn (…) mnßmjn poioúmenov (l. 9-10): it is obvious that in this context mnßmj must be taken to mean ‘memorial, record’5. No more than a few scholars have on this basis put forward the more plausible suggestion that the first lines were only intended as an introduction to the subject proper of the text: in their view Hadrian’s reflections on his imminent decease set the scene for an autobiographical account in which the emperor would describe his life that was drawing near its end6. This interpretation would imply that only a small part — the begin- ning — of an originally much more elaborate document has been pre- served. This is perfectly consistent with the text on the papyrus: it breaks off abruptly after fifteen lines, whereupon the first five lines are repeated.