DOI Artikel:
Kenyon, Frederic George: Progress of Egyptology: graeco-roman Egypt
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12053#0079
Gkaeco-Eoman Egypt.
03
The non-literary sections of the two volumes, which are wholly their own,
contain nothing as masterly as the appendices to their Tebtunis volume,
but they are edited with their usual adequacy and accuracy. Vol. iii.
includes documents of the second century, while vol. iv., for want of space
to deal adequately with the third century, gives a miscellaneous assort-
ment, mainly of the second century, but including a group from tlie reign
of Augustus, on either side of the beginning of the Christian era. Official
documents and contracts form the greater part of the non-literary texts,
vol. iii. containing also several wills; but space will not allow a full de-
scription of them here, though they must on no account be neglected
by students of papyri. The indices and facsimiles are on the same scale
and of the same merit as usual.
The number and high interest of the Oxyrhynchus literary papyri give
them a clear right to the first place among the fruits of last year, but the
longest single text falls again to the portion of Berlin, in the shape
of the papyrus of Didynius' commentary on Demosthenes, edited by
Prof. Diels and Dr. Schubart.3 It consists of fifteen tall columns,
written in a small and unornamental hand, with abbreviations ; according to
its colophon it is the third roll of Didymus' commentary on the Philippics,
dealing with orations 9-12 of this series, i.e. our third and fourth Philippic
and the speeches on the letter of Philip and -rrepl avvru^e&j?. Contrary to
the general conception of Didymus' work, the commentary is almost wholly
historical, not grammatical ; it may be that we have only a selection, from
which grammatical notes were excluded, while the historical comments
were included in full. A notable feature is the long extracts from
Philochorus (some of them, however, already known to us from Dionysius),
which give a good idea of his annalistic style. The commentary
on the third Philippic is almost wholly lost. It is observable that the
speech on the letter of Philip is regarded as spurious, a cento of
Demosthenic passages ; and a current opinion is quoted that it was the
work of Anaximenes of Lampsacus, who incorporated it almost verbally
in the seventh book of his Philippica. The text is edited in two forms,
an exact transcript by Schubart and a restoration by Diels. The
preface gives full details as to the MS. and a discussion of the
character and arrangement of Didymus' commentary, but avoids any
enumeration of the new historical data derivable from it. The text has
already been reprinted in a handier and more readable form in the
Teubner series, by the same editors; and a complete photographic
facsimile of the papyrus has likewise been published. Altogether it is a
very noteworthy publication, and inaugurates well the new series of Berlin
03
The non-literary sections of the two volumes, which are wholly their own,
contain nothing as masterly as the appendices to their Tebtunis volume,
but they are edited with their usual adequacy and accuracy. Vol. iii.
includes documents of the second century, while vol. iv., for want of space
to deal adequately with the third century, gives a miscellaneous assort-
ment, mainly of the second century, but including a group from tlie reign
of Augustus, on either side of the beginning of the Christian era. Official
documents and contracts form the greater part of the non-literary texts,
vol. iii. containing also several wills; but space will not allow a full de-
scription of them here, though they must on no account be neglected
by students of papyri. The indices and facsimiles are on the same scale
and of the same merit as usual.
The number and high interest of the Oxyrhynchus literary papyri give
them a clear right to the first place among the fruits of last year, but the
longest single text falls again to the portion of Berlin, in the shape
of the papyrus of Didynius' commentary on Demosthenes, edited by
Prof. Diels and Dr. Schubart.3 It consists of fifteen tall columns,
written in a small and unornamental hand, with abbreviations ; according to
its colophon it is the third roll of Didymus' commentary on the Philippics,
dealing with orations 9-12 of this series, i.e. our third and fourth Philippic
and the speeches on the letter of Philip and -rrepl avvru^e&j?. Contrary to
the general conception of Didymus' work, the commentary is almost wholly
historical, not grammatical ; it may be that we have only a selection, from
which grammatical notes were excluded, while the historical comments
were included in full. A notable feature is the long extracts from
Philochorus (some of them, however, already known to us from Dionysius),
which give a good idea of his annalistic style. The commentary
on the third Philippic is almost wholly lost. It is observable that the
speech on the letter of Philip is regarded as spurious, a cento of
Demosthenic passages ; and a current opinion is quoted that it was the
work of Anaximenes of Lampsacus, who incorporated it almost verbally
in the seventh book of his Philippica. The text is edited in two forms,
an exact transcript by Schubart and a restoration by Diels. The
preface gives full details as to the MS. and a discussion of the
character and arrangement of Didymus' commentary, but avoids any
enumeration of the new historical data derivable from it. The text has
already been reprinted in a handier and more readable form in the
Teubner series, by the same editors; and a complete photographic
facsimile of the papyrus has likewise been published. Altogether it is a
very noteworthy publication, and inaugurates well the new series of Berlin