Antonia Sarri Material Aspects of Letter Writing in the Graeco-Roman World Materiale Textkulturen Schriftenreihe des Sonderforschungsbereichs 933 Herausgegeben von Ludger Lieb Wissenschaftlicher Beirat: Jan Christian Gertz, Markus Hilgert, Hanna Liss, Bernd Schneidmüller, Melanie Trede und Christian Witschel Band 12 Antonia Sarri Material Aspects of Letter Writing in the Graeco-Roman World 500 BC – AD 300 This volume emerged from the Heidelberg Collaborative Research Center 933 “Material Text Cultures. Materiality and Presence of Writing in Non-Typographic Societies”. The CRC 933 is financed by the German Research Foundation (DFG). ISBN 978-3-11-042694-6 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-042695-3 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-042348-8 ISSN 2198-6932 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2018 Antonia Sarri, published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston The book is published with open access at www.degruyter.com. Cover image: P.Bad. IV 48, Letter from Dionysia to Theon, 127 BC (detail) © Institut für Papyrologie, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg Typesetting: Sonderforschungsbereich 933 (Jessica Dreschert) Printing and binding: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Acknowledgements This book arises from my postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Heidelberg’s Sonderforschungsbereich 933 “Materiale Textkulturen” in the project A02 “Antike Briefe als Kommunikationsmedium” between March 2012 and June 2015. My deepest gratitude is owed to the leader of the project, Dr R. Ast, for entrusting me to write this book and for his tireless help and support during this work. Both Dr R. Ast and Dr J. Lougovaya-Ast have read drafts and provided constructive criticism and suggestions for improvements in every part. My research was carried out in the Institute for Papy- rology of the University of Heidelberg, and for this I am most thankful to the director, Professor A. Jördens, for offering invaluable advice and support during my stay there. I also thank very much the directors of the Sonderforschungsbereich, Professor M. Hilgert and Professor L. Lieb, for approving the necessary funding for presentations of parts of this book in conferences and for its publication expenses. I am academically indebted to many professionals who spared no effort and time to help me. Most of all, I am indebted to Dr J. Cowey and Ms C. Lanz for their help in the collection and organisation of all the surviving letters in an easily searchable and expandable database based on the papyrological databases Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichnis der griechischen Papyrusurkunden Ägyptens (HGV) and Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri (DDbDP), which facilitated my work on the very large number of letters that formed the basis for the writing of this book. I am also deeply grateful to Professor M. Depauw for giving me a large file of all the archives of letters in Trismegistos, which I combined with HGV and DDbDP in my database to generate a list of the letters that belong to archives. I am also very thankful to Dr V. Salesioti, Forensic Document Examiner, who provided invaluable information on Forensic Handwriting Analysis, which helped my research and the development of a method and principles for the identification of changes of hands in ancient letters. I also thank Professor W. Clarysse, Professor A. Papathomas and Professor C. Witschel, who offered much constructive criticism on earlier drafts of parts of this book. Many thanks are also owed to my research assistants, Mr A. Illius and Ms H. Enders, for helping me collect images of letters in a digital archive. I thank especially Ms H. Enders for her substantial help in the collection of information about the finding circumstances and contents of archives of letters, which have been included in Appendix II, and for help in the construction of the indices. Many thanks are also owed to academics and curators of collections, who have helped me access images of letters. I thank especially Mr F. Aurora of the University of Oslo Library, Professor C. Balconi of the Università Cattolica of Milan, Professor G. Bastianini of the Istituto Papirologico “G. Vitelli”, Professor A. K. Bowman and Dr C. Crowther of the University of Oxford, Professor A. Bülow-Jacobsen for providing information about photos of the International Papyrus Archive (AIP), Dr R. Candace of the Nicholson Museum, Ms A. Dondertman of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library of Toronto, Dr T. Elsmann of the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek of Bremen, Mr 10.1515/9783110426953-203, © 2018 Antonia Sarri, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License. VI Acknowledgements C. Graves of the Egypt Exploration Society, Professor M. El Halwagy of the Egyptian Museum of Cairo, Professor J. Hammerstädt of the Universität zu Köln, Dr T. Hickey of the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Ms S. Hodecek of the Öster- reichische Nationalbibliothek, Professor B. McGing of the Trinity College Dublin, Dr R. Jackson of the British Museum, Dr A. Jamieson of the University of Melbourne, Dr U. Kästner of the Berlin Museum, Dr R. Mazza of the University of Manchester, Profes- sor T. J. Moore of the Washington University in St. Louis, Ms A. Poulou of the Museum of Peiraeus, Professor F. Reiter and Dr M. Gerhardt of the Ägyptisches Museum of Berlin, Dr O. Schneider of the Universitätsbibliothek of Giessen, Dr A. Sirogianni of the Agora Museum of Athens, Professor A. Verhoogt of the University of Michigan. Special thanks are owed to Professor N. Gonis of the University College London, who made available to me not only images of papyri of the collection of the Greek and Latin Department of the University College London but also access to its rich pho- tographic archive, where I found unpublished images of many papyri. I am equally thankful to E. Fuchs, who has provided me with images of papyri of the Institute for Papyrology of the University of Heidelberg and helped me to access its photographic archive, where I found many unpublished images, too. I am very thankful to many more academics and friends, who have offered invalu- able support on various aspects at different stages. My endless gratitude is owed to Professor E. Stavrianopoulou for her wise advice and our long discussions on cultural changes in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds, Professor M. Choat for our discussions on the authentication of letters, Professor J.-L. Fournet for his advice on handwrit- ing in the letters, Professor E. Giele for our discussions of similarities and differences between Graeco-Roman and Chinese letters, Professor D. Panagiotopoulos for his advice on Mycenean seals, Professor J. F. Quack for useful information about Demotic papyri, Dr C. Tsouparopoulou and all my colleagues in the Institute for Papyrology for their friendship and support. For the editing of the book I thank Ms J. Dreschert, Ms C. Kreutzer and Mr C. Vater. Last, my deepest gratitude is owed to my family and especially to my husband for helping me overcome any difficulties that appeared along the way. Now that I am sub- mitting this book for publication, I am conscious that there is still room for improve- ments and additions, but time has come to let it go to print. I hope that readers will benefit from my efforts. Contents Acknowledgements V Preface 1 1 The Development of the Ancient Letter 5 1.1 The Use of Letters in Official Life 6 1.2 Greek Terminology of Letters 16 1.2.1 Ἐπιστολή, ἐπιστολογράφος, ἐπιστολαφόρος 16 1.2.2 Ἐπιστόλιον 19 1.2.3 Γράμμα–γράμματα 22 1.3 Literary and Non-Literary Letters 24 1.3.1 Private Letters 27 1.4 The Linguistic Style of Letters 40 1.4.1 Archaic and Classical Times 40 1.4.2 Hellenistic Times 42 1.4.3 Roman Times 44 2 Evidence 53 2.1 Chronological and Geographical Distribution 53 2.1.1 Archaic and Classical Times 53 2.1.2 Hellenistic and Roman Times 56 2.1.3 Egypt 58 2.1.3.1 Provenance 59 2.1.4 Preservation Patterns 60 2.1.4.1 Papyri 60 2.1.4.2 Ostraca 64 2.1.5 Types of Letters 65 2.1.6 Outside Egypt 70 2.2 Materials of Letters 72 2.2.1 Lead 72 2.2.2 Papyrus 74 2.2.3 Ostraca 77 2.2.4 Wood 79 2.2.5 Leather – Parchment 84 3 Format and Layout 87 3.1 The Development of the Format of Letters 87 3.1.1 Archaic and Classical Times 87 3.1.2 Hellenistic Times 91 3.1.2.1 Transversa charta Format 91 VIII Contents 3.1.2.2 Demotic Style Format 95 3.1.2.3 Pagina Format 97 3.1.2.4 From the transversa charta to the pagina Format 105 3.1.3 Roman Times 107 3.2 The Layout of the Main Parts of a Letter 114 3.2.1 Opening Address 114 3.2.2 Farewell Greeting 120 3.2.3 Dating 121 3.2.4 External Address 122 4 Authentication 125 4.1 Identification of the Writers of Letters 126 4.1.1 Reference to the Writer in the Letter 128 4.1.2 Recognition of a Hand in an Archive of Letters 129 4.1.3 Recognition of Change of Hand in the Farewell Greeting 140 4.2 Changes of Hands in the Farewell Greetings 146 4.2.1 Handshifts 147 4.2.2 Criteria for the Recognition of Changes of Hands 151 4.2.3 Archaic and Classical Times 165 4.2.4 Hellenistic Times 167 4.2.5 Roman Times 169 4.2.6 Official Letters 170 4.2.7 Private Letters 176 4.2.8 Double Farewell Greetings 184 4.2.9 The Position of Farewell Greetings 188 4.2.10 Elaborated Farewell Greetings 189 4.3 Closing Remarks 191 Appendices 193 Appendix I: Letters in Archives 195 Appendix II: Dimensions of Letters 337 Appendix III: Letters with Handshifts 347 Bibliography 367 Index 385 Preface Letter writing was widespread in the Graeco-Roman world, as indicated by the large number of surviving letters and their extensive coverage of all social categories.