BKT V.2, S. 123–128, Nr. XX A (P. 9772)

How to get an idea of what Greeks thought about marriage? Go to the anthologies! An anthology is a collection of selected literary passages by one or more authors. Greek papyri have provided us with several such collections, often bringing to light literature otherwise unknown. Among these is the papyrus presented here.

This papyrus, of which two fragments survive, was purchased on the Egyptian antiquities market by Otto Rubensohn for the Berlin Papyrus Collection in 1901, but we do not know where exactly it was found. On palaeographical basis, it can be dated to the 2nd century BCE.

The papyrus is very interesting from a material point of view. The recto side is a palimpsest: this means that it was first used to write a text, which was later washed away to write a new one. This is a not very common phenomenon in papyri, which usually underwent other types of reuse, such as writing on the side left blank. In our case, the previous text was washed away very roughly, so that it is still clearly visible although not completely readable. Of the new text, i.e. the anthology, remnants of two columns are preserved on the first fragment and four columns, three of which are intact, on the second. One more column is written on the verso of the second fragment, which also offers an example of how papyrus rolls were reinforced or repaired in antiquity: some strips from another papyrus were indeed attached to it with this purpose.

As for the content, the anthology includes passages from Greek comedy and tragedy, each introduced by the name of its author (Epicharmus, Menander, Euripides and so on). The selected texts are devoted to the blame and praise of women and are of gnomic type, that is, they contain moral precepts (such as not telling a woman a matter that you want to remain secret, because it would be like telling all the heralds in the assembly, or, on the other hand, that there is nothing better than a good woman). The general topic they refer to is marriage, which is the most represented in Greek gnomic literature.

Both the material aspect of the papyrus and the writing – a cursive very similar to that used in contemporary documents – make it unlikely that we are dealing with a product intended for the book trade. However, the precise purpose of the anthology escapes us: the passages could have been collected for the elaboration of an exercise on the subject “whether one should get married”, which was customary in schools of rhetoric, or more simply for personal use, to be read privately or in a sympotic context.

At any rate, the papyrus not only offers a fine example of how the topic of marriage was discussed in the Hellenistic age, but, most importantly, it has made an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of Greek literature, yielding some texts that were unknown before it was published.