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WRITING, TEACHERS, AND STUDENTS IN
GRAECO-ROMAN EGYPT

THE
PAUL HAMLYN
LIBRARY

DONATED BY

THE PAUL HAMLYN

FOUNDATION

TOTHE

BRITISH MUSEUM

opened December 2000

 AMERICAN STUDIES IN
PAPYROLOGY

Series Editor
Ann Ellis Hanson

Number 36
WRITING, TEACHERS, AND STUDENTS IN
GRAECO-ROMAN EGYPT
by
Raffaella Cribiore
WRITING, TEACHERS, AND STUDENTS IN
GRAECO-ROMAN EGYPT

by
RAFFAELLA CRIBIORE

SCHOLARS PRESS
ATLANTA, GEORGIA

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 WRITING, TEACHERS, AND STUDENTS IN
GRAECO-ROMAN EGYPT

by
RAFFAELLA CRIBIORE

© 1996
The American Society of Papyrologists

The publication of this book was assisted by a grant from the

Stanwood Cockey Lodge Foundation
of Columbia University

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MUSEUM eM Gae Cf 1
THE PAUL HAMLYN LIBRARY

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Cribiore, Raffaella.
Writing, teachers, and students in Graeco-Roman Egypt / by
Raffaella Cribiore.
p. cm. — (American studies in papyrology ; no. 36)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 0-7885-0277-8 (cloth : alk. paper) .
1. Written communication—Study and teaching—Egypt. 2. Literacy—
Egypt—History. 3. Paleography—Egypt. I. Title. II. Series:
American studies in papyrology ; v. 36.
P211.3.E3C75 1996
302.2'244'07062—dc20 96-8012
CIP

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper
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Contents

List of Tables and Graphs

List of Plates
Abbreviations
Preface

Part One Introduction

1 Writing in Graeco-Roman Egypt

2 Evidence for Schools and Teachers
3 The School Exercises

Part Two Identifying School Exercises

4 Types of Textual Material
5 Writing Materials Used in Schools
6 Distinguishing Characteristics of School Exercises
7 Palaeography: Teachers’ and Students’ Hands

Part Three Writing in Graeco-Roman Schools 119

8 The Teachers’ Models Ae
9 Writing and Levels of Education 129
10 Learning to Write 139

Conclusion 153

Appendices
1 List of Teachers 161
2 List of Students 171

Catalogue
1 Introduction L738
2 Catalogue 175
3 Items Excluded from the Catalogue 285

Bibliography 289

Concordances 298

Index 313
Vili

List of Tables and Graphs

Tables

Table 1 aS
Table 2 i:
Table 3 74

Graphs

Fig. 1 130
Fig. 2 130
Fig. 3 132
Fig. 4 132
Fig. 5 134
Fig. 6 134
Fig. 7 136
 ix

List of Plates

Plate Exercises

|e |6 34 36
38 39
37 41 42 50 51 52
56 57 62
59 64 71 73
72 74 127
83
65 93 96
97
98 109 111
99 108 110 123
112 113 126
114 115 128
129 132 140
133
131 173
137 143 146
161 162 179 181 198
182 183 187
184 185 204 208 214
XXI 193 201 221
XXII 213 234
XXIII 235
XXIV 212 233 249
XXV 237 242
XXVI 241
XXVII 254
XXVIII 240 256 258
XXIX 262
XXX 259 270
XXXI 263
XXXII 261 Zi de215
XXXII 280 281 284
XXXIV 291 316
XXXV 292
XXXVI 293 294 296
XXXVI 297
XXXVIII 298
XXXIX 299
 XL 315
XLI 315
XLII 315
XLUI 315 317
XLIV 319
XLV 326
XLVI 326
XLVI 327
XLVIUI 329
XLIX 330
19 332 336
LI 333
JE 334 337
LUI 339 341
IN. 343
LV 343
LVI 344
LVI 347
LVUI 346 350
LIx 361
LX 363
Lx] 364
LX 366
LxXIIl 372
LXIV 372
EX. 374 378
LXVI 376
LXVII 380
LXVIUI 380
LXIX 380
LxXx 385
LXxI 385
LXxI 385
LXXxIUl 389
LXXIV 389
LXXV 403
LXXVI 403
LXXVII 404
LXxXVIUI 404 405
LXXIx 406
LXXX 410
 Al

Abbreviations

Abbreviations for editions of papyri, ostraca, and tablets follow J.F. Oates et al., Checklist of
Editions of Greek and Latin Papyri, Ostraca and Tablets, 4th ed. (BASP Suppl. 7, 1992).
Journals and standard works are abbreviated as in L’ Année Philologique and the American
Journal of Archaeology. Modern works cited more than once (and some cited only once)
appear in the Bibliography and are indicated everywhere else by author’s name and date of
publication; those cited only once are given in full.

In addition, the following will be used:

CA = Powell, Johannes U, Collectanea Alexandrina (Oxford 1925).

CGFP = Austin, Colin, Comicorum Graecorum Fragmenta in Papyris Reperta (Berlin 1973).
CO = Crum, Walter Ewig, Coptic Ostraca (London 1902).
CPF = Corpus dei papiri filosofici Greci e Latini vol. I (Firenze 1989); vol. II (1992).
D = Debut, Janine, "Les documents scolaires," ZPE 63 (1986) 251-78.
Kock = Kock, Theodor, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta (Leipzig 1880-88).
Nauck = Nauck, August, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (Leipzig 1889).
P2 = Pack, Roger A., The Greek and Latin Literary Texts from Greco-Roman Egypt (Ann
Arbor 1965).
PCG = Kassel, R., and C. Austin, Poetae Comici Graeci (Berlin and New York 1983-).
PGB = Schubart, Wilhelm, Papyri Graecae Berolinenses (Bonn 1911).
SH = Lloyd-Jones, Hugh, and Peter Parsons, Supplementum Hellenisticum (Berlin and
New York 1983).
SLG = Norsa, Medea, La scrittura letteraria greca dal sec. IV a.C. all’VIII d.C. (Florence,
1939).
TrGF = Kannicht, Richard, and Bruno Snell, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (Gottingen
1981); Radt, S.L., Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (Gottingen 1985).
Z = Zalateo, Giorgio, "Papiri scolastici," Aegyptus 41 (1961) 160-235.
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Preface

Years ago, when I was looking for a topic for my dissertation, Orsolina Montevecchi reminded
me of the interest in education and school exercises I had when I was an undergraduate in
Milan. I am grateful to her for this as well as for introducing me to the secrets of papyrology.
Dissertations, and books in general, have a way of taking a scholar by the hand and leading
him. This project started with a general interest in Homeric papyri and higher education, but
grew into different directions when I realized that basic work in this field still needed to be
done. Scrutinizing school work of ancient students, either directly or in photographs, gives one
the curious feeling of standing behind that student, praising or scolding him, and sometimes
holding his hand. Moreover, examining the direct writing of the ancients, how it was taught,
learned, and developed, gives a peculiar pleasure in an age of computerized skills, from which
this book certainly benefited.
The help of Roger Bagnall was determinant in defining and shaping this project. Roger’s
vision of papyrology as a tool for a deeper and more concrete understanding of ancient society,
his rigorous methodology and his enthusiasm at every stage of this project were fundamental
for its completion. Another scholar to whom I am deeply grateful is Dirk Obbink. I was
fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of his profound knowledge of ancient culture as
well as of his strenuous criticism and constant advice to aim higher. In the initial phase of this
project, when it became imperative to examine the school exercises directly, at least in
photograph, the photographic archive assembled by Paul Mertens and Odette Bouquiaux-Simon
at the Cedopal of the University of Li¢ge proved immensely useful. I thank Paul Mertens for
making my staying in Liége painless and fruitful as well as for responding to all my enquiries
with unfailing promptness. I also thank Guglielmo Cavallo, who, through his illuminating writ-
ings and advice, helped shape and direct the knowledge of palaeography that would prove fun-
damental to my project.
Putting together all the photographs of the school exercises that were either unpublished
or published very long ago was a project in itself. I thank all the Universities, institutions, and
scholars that made it possible. The list of the persons to whom I am indebted for information
and for other help concerning this book would be too long to supply here. I am very grateful to
all, especially to the following scholars and institutions for supplying photographs for free, or
for providing special assistance: Guido Bastianini of the Universita degli Studi di Milano,
Alain Blanchard of the Université de Paris-Sorbonne, Bernard Boyaval of the Université de
Lille, Adam Biilow-Jacobson of the Institut for Graesk og Latin in Copenhagen, Jean Gascou
of the Université de Strasbourg, M. Landfester of Justus Liebig Universitat Giessen, Anna
Lenzuni e Rosario Pintaudi of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Hermann Harrauer of the
Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Manfredo Manfredi and Giovanna Menci of the Istituto
Papirologico Vitelli, Klaus Maresch of the Institut fiir Altertumskunde der Universitat zu K6In,
Livia Migliardi Zingale of the Universita di Genova, Peter Parsons of Christ Church in
Oxford, G. Poethke of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, and the Musée de la Vieille Charité in
Marseille.
XIV

I am also extremely grateful to Columbia University, which I consider my true Alma

Mater, for supporting me during the years of graduate studies and for contributing financially
to the publication of this book through a subvention from the Lodge Fund. During all these
years Columbia’s excellent faculty provided marvellous instruction. I feel especially indebted
to Alan Cameron, William Harris, Leonardo Taran, and James Zetzel for being there when I
needed them.
The camera-ready copy of this book was prepared using Nota Bene 4.2 on a Hewlett-
Packard LaserJet SMP. In the last phase of preparation my sincere thanks go to Tim Renner
who read through the final draft and provided further advice, as well as to Lucia Parri who
helped me check the references. Finally I would like to express my gratitude to Ann Hanson
who provided invaluable and painstaking assistance and precious encouragement in all the
phases of this project. The remaining errors and omissions are all mine. S:AoT6vev.

Raffaella Cribiore
PART ONE

Introduction
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1 Writing in Graeco-Roman Egypt

I have long had an interest in the processes by which the ancients learned to write. This work
sets forth the result of several years spent in examining the papyri that document the teaching
and learning of writing in Graeco-Roman Egypt. Scholars who study literacy, and writing in
particular, have long recognized that concentrating on a specific society yields more secure
results than attempting to create grand theories about writing.! Such an approach securely
locates the results within the target society and limits the dangers of technological determinism.
Literacy and writing were not indispensable skills in the ancient Mediterranean world, and they
neither determined nor limited socio-economic success. Writing was rather a useful, enabling
technology that people cared to exhibit even when they possessed it only to a limited degree.
Greek and Roman men and women were proud to be numbered among the literates, but esteem
for writing was not enough to spread the skill itself to the mass of the population. Writing
depended on need, but those who lacked the skill could resort to various strategies to cope with
the demands that need imposed on them.
At the same time, case-studies often yield limited results because without some employ-
ment of comparative materials it is easy to focus on modes of literacy and usages, considering
them as typical of or even exclusive to a certain society and period. It is important to go
beyond the specific area of inquiry and ask questions about the commonness of certain habits
and modes of learning and teaching writing. Although my investigation targets the acquisition
of writing in Graeco-Roman Egypt, the pharaonic background must play some role, even
though during the latter period writing was the patrimony of exclusive groups within the
society. Further, the apparent changes in the literate mentality in late Byzantine and medieval
society also offer attractive comparanda.?
My study, then, focuses primarily on Egypt during Ptolemaic, Roman, and early Byzan-
tine times, from the introduction of Greek as the language of administration, education, and the
upper strata of society, as a result of the conquest by Alexander of Macedon, to the time of the
Arab conquest. The native Egyptian language continued to be spoken throughout all periods,
and its written literary form, Demotic, continued to be used by a specialized and confined
minority for several centuries. Greek, however, became the primary language of Egypt for
administrative and official purposes and spread among the upper levels of the population, for
knowledge of Greek was one of the keys to social and economic betterment. The conquest of
Egypt by the Romans did nothing to change this, although under Roman domination Demotic
virtually disappeared. The Coptic script gradually developed thereafter. A uniform Coptic
alphabet was created in the course of the third century AD to translate the Old and New Testa-
ments and other religious texts into the language of the Egyptian population. It used the Greek

IFor a survey of current views of literacy, see Thomas 1992, 15-28 and Bowman and Woolf 1994, 2-S.
2For a definition of literate mentality, see Clanchy 1993, 186. Using this term does not involve prejudging the
question of whether a literate mentality exists as a separate philosophical entity and whether literacy basically shapes
people’s ways of thinking.
a INTRODUCTION

letters with a number of additional signs imported from Demotic. But much before the official
invention of the Coptic script, and starting from at least the third century BC, proper names of
men and gods, epithets, and toponyms were transliterated using the Greek letters.? A further
stage in the formation of the Coptic alphabet is represented by those texts usually called “Old
Coptic,” which are written with the Greek letters and some Demotic signs used in a non-
systematic way. The Coptic script once again gave Egyptians the means to write their own lan-
guage. Through Coptic many Egyptians were able to express themselves in their own language
for the first time. Coptic, which was born in bilingual milieus, in its beginning stages was
probably taught in conjunction with Greek. Within a few generations after the Arab conquest
of Egypt, Greek disappeared as a spoken language and the process of Arabization began.
Bureaucracy already characterized the government of the Pharaohs, and governmental con-
trol relies heavily on the keeping of written records. The level of bureaucracy grew under the
Ptolemies, and after the Roman takeover the volume of writing increased still more. The
government documented all its activities, overseeing and controlling the daily lives of individu-
als and their communities. The random chances that determine which texts survive limit our
knowledge of the spread of the Greek language in certain areas, but do not obscure the sig-
nificance of the picture as a whole.* Under the Ptolemies, and even more so under the Romans,
Egyptian society was profoundly literate in the sense that most people were familiar with liter-
ate modes in some way. Written documents proved ownership of property, tax receipts guar-
anteed that a tax had been paid, petitions provided a means for redress of grievances, and the
sending of letters kept channels of communication open. Although literacy and writing pene-
trated to most circles, most of the population was still illiterate or semi-literate. Those who
lacked the skill had many options for coping with what was essentially a literate system.> The
pool of literates was extensive enough to help the illiterates respond to official demands for
Greek documents and for their everyday writing needs. Professional scribes with specialized
training were respected and important figures. Private networks were also relied upon: rela-
tives, friends, neighbors, the village school teacher® were trusted to write a short family letter,
a subscription to a document, or to append a signature to a contract. Illiterates were not con-
fined to dysfunctional, segregated circles, but engaged in the same activities and performed in
the company of the literates without prejudice.
It is not always easy to draw a sharp line between those who could read and write for
themselves and those who deputed others, and it is not always necessary to do so. When the
body of a letter is written in a different hand than the final greeting, we assume that the parties
directly interested asked someone else to perform for them.’ Those who had some ability to
write usually appended greetings, often revealing that writing was not a daily activity for them.
It is difficult to be sure whether these people were incapable of writing the whole of the letter.
The habit of adding greetings in one’s own hand was so widespread in the ancient world that it

3See Quaegebeur 1982 and Jan Quaegebeur, “The Study of Egyptian Proper Names in Greek Transcription
Problems and Perspectives,” Onoma 18, 3 (1974) 403-20.
4Cf. the observations of Thompson 1994, 67-83 especially for Ptolemaic Egypt. The paucity of papyri from
Alexandria and the region of the Nile Delta produces a conspicuous lacuna.
See Hanson 1991, 162 and Bowman 1991, 119-31.
©On teachers engaged in scribal activities, see below ]0) AUP),
70On the final greeting added to a letter, see Parsons 1980-81, 4.
 WRITING IN GRAECO-ROMAN EGYPT 5)

appears to have been a common epistolary courtesy, without any necessary relation to the
actual writing ability of the sender.’
There were many levels of writing and scripts, the choice of which was determined by the
function of the text. Graeco-Roman Egypt does not show the existence of segregated literacies
to the extent that pharaonic Egypt does. Different people engaged in different types of writing
not only according to their ability but also according to the task that the writing was intended
to fulfill. Professional scribes usually copied books, often using formal and highly stylized
scripts that were controlled by precise norms. At other times they used more ligatured hands at
higher speed. Literary texts are usually recognizable by the regular, legible, and impersonal
qualities of the hand that copied them. But sometimes literate people, the readers themselves,
copied their own books. Their hands display the same varying degrees of formality observed in
scribal writing. Scholars sometimes wrote notes and commentaries in blank spaces and margins
of their texts with small, clear, and regular hands. They tended to write more quickly than
book hands, but articulation of letters was still observed.
While no sharp distinction exists between the writing of books and documents for much of
Graeco-Roman antiquity, documents are written in more cursive and less formal hands that
tend not to form individual letters with a full articulation. Gradations appear as a result of the
speed with which the text is written and the care expended in its execution. Cursive writing is
often at its most swift in the writing of expected formulae, such as titulature of Ptolemies or
Roman emperors. When the writing is very fast, it is impossible to distinguish the characters
individually, but the letters appear as a series of symbols and acquire meaning from the overall
context. Documentary hands are not easy to read now and probably were not immediately
legible even in antiquity, for documents were not written to be read by the general public. Tax-
collectors and scribes in the government bureaus, trained to do this kind of writing and read-
ing, were the recipients of such texts. Document owners knew the message of the receipts and
contracts they preserved. They presented their documents on demand, saved and collected
them, sometimes reused them, but had no real need to read them.
In contrast, a high degree of legibility characterized the official documents that scribes
wrote in the chancery offices of imperial administration. The most formal examples display
elaborate letters, of conspicuous size, gracefully linked by few ligatures. The regular and
precise formulation of individual letters and the verticality of the letter-shapes confer on the
documents a peculiar elegance that also appears, if to a lesser degree, in the less stylized exam-
ples that scribes wrote outside of the main chancery offices of Alexandria. Prime character-
istics of chancery hands are uniformity and attractive clarity, and in these qualities they resem-
ble book hands.
Legibility is also a distinctive feature of many hands used for private letters, whether
penned by the senders or by scribes and slaves employed for the purpose. Letters aimed
primarily at communication, and although they used formulaic expressions and stock phrases,
their purpose was to transmit information, orders, and requests over a distance. Scholars have
remarked the presence of more gossipy details in Greek letters than in Demotic epistles.? More

8Thus the same letter closures in personal hands appear not only in Greek letters written in Egypt but also in
the Vindolanda Latin letters. See Bowman 1994, 122-25. This usage can be compared with the modern convention
of personally signing a letter typed by a secretary.
9See Ray 1994, 59-60. Coptic letters, however, are similar to Greek ones in gossipy details.
6 INTRODUCTION

often than Egyptian epistles, Greek letters ended up in the actual hands of the recipient and
aimed at being understood by him. Epistolary hands tend to exhibit relatively large characters
with fewer ligatures than documents. In addition, letters display greater variety in types of
hands, from the idiosyncratic and personal hand to the regular writing of the professional
writer. Not rarely do they show disjointed hands writing laborious and irregularly-formed
characters. Such hands never develop their complete potential; the lack of a regular rhythm is
conspicuous in their belabored characters that they copy from a model, or have painfully
learned by heart. These are the same types of hands seen in subscriptions and signatures on
documents, where the writer is labeled a “slow writer.”!° The “slow writers,” although proba-
bly often on the verge of illiteracy, were nevertheless proud of a skill they had probably
acquired in their youth and they preferred to exhibit their minimal degree of ability, rather than
be dismissed as illiterates, “those who do not know letters.”!!
All writers, both the professionals and those barely capable of tracing a few characters,
had once known a time of uncertainty in using pen or stylus. Whatever their final level of
achievement, they went through virtually identical writing exercises, progressing from the
copying of individual letters of the alphabet to more extensive passages, and they did so in a
setting I shall refer to as “school.” I do not intend “school” in a strict sense, but I do mean to
imply that learning to write requires a more authoritarian situation and a more rigid set of pro-
cedures than learning the spoken language.!? Children learn to talk with little or no formal
instruction, usually in a familial setting, and they do so a number of years before attempting to
learn writing. While I accept the concept of language acquisition that subsumes “vocal” writing
and “graphic” writing as subspecies of a single phenomenon,!? communication through graphic
writing is less critical to the human condition than speech, and nowhere is this more evident
than in the ancient Mediterranean world, with its masses of illiterates. Being able to write,
even to a limited extent, implies some degree of instruction. I therefore define “school” on the
basis of the activity carried on, rather than in terms of the identity of the person teaching, the
student-teacher relationship, or the premises where teaching takes place. The teacher could be a
friend, a parent, a priest, or someone hired to teach, and the classroom a room in a private
house, the shaded porch of a temple, or the dusty ground under a tree. Speaking of school
strictu sensu is often meaningless in the ancient world and prevents us from seeing the reality
of alternative systems of learning and communication that Were developed to overcome the
deficiencies of formal schooling. My study of the ways in which the skill of writing was
acquired traces the path ancient learners followed before becoming accomplished writers, or, in
the case of the less accomplished, before they abandoned their studies. Its aim is to identify the
elements that characterize each step along the way to the various levels of accomplishment
individuals attained.
Accomplished writers knew a variety of writing styles and knew when and where each
was appropriate. For example, in the third century AD Timaios, who worked in the central

iThey are called Bpadéws ypddwy and Boadéws ypadovoe in the documents.
Ayea&puparot, those who cannot even sign their names.
8° Goody 1987, 287.
ae speech would be understood as a form of writing in the nature of linguistic unity. For a general over-
view of Derrida’s idea of the primacy of writing, ; see Jonathan Culler, ; On Deconstruction:
ion: Th itici
after Structuralism (Ithaca 1982) 89-110. SA pie
 WRITING IN GRAECO-ROMAN EGYPT i

administrative office of a wealthy estate owner, writes a letter to Heroninos, manager of one of
these estates.!4 Timaios tells Heroninos that he needs to take care of a certain matter in a hurry
and to emphasize this, he writes in the margin two verses from the beginning of Iliad 2: “All
the other gods and men, lords of chariots, were sleeping the whole night through, but Zeus
could not have sweet sleep.” Although Timaios writes the body of his letter in a relatively fast
cursive, he employs well-separated, upright, and bilinear letters for the Homeric quotation. By
using a book hand for his Homer, in contrast to the rest of his letter, he signals his awareness
of the different kinds of scripts and their various function.
The same phenomenon can be seen in different types of exercises practiced in schools. As
a general rule, both teachers and students reserve more formal and stylized hands for the copy-
ing of literary texts. For example, Aurelius Papnouthis!> employs a semi-cursive hand in his
notebook for various exercises and an even more informal and individualized script to write
Out mathematical problems. When he is copying verses by the dramatist Menander from the
model his teacher supplies, he tries to imitate the teacher’s, knowing that such a hand is more
appropriate for literary material.!° The model was influenced by the chancery style and by a
strict set of conventions that aimed at regularity and pleasing appearance. In the high Middle
Ages scribes were exposed first to a kind of simplified script, of elementary type, after master-
ing which they learned more complicated scripts, either by copying models on their own or by
following directions from the teacher in the scriptorium.'’ Learning to write in the Graeco-
Roman world seems to have followed a somewhat similar path, with all people who learned to
write sharing a common, graphic substratum that did not vary according to the economic or
social class of the learner.
In what follows I shall trace the training teachers gave their students and distinguish the
ways in which they imparted the foundations of writing in teaching literary and cursive hands.
It is clear that formal hands of different types and styles, well known to readers of ancient
literary manuscripts, follow precise criteria to achieve symmetry, regularity, and impersonal
elegance. Much practice, together with innate ability, good coordination, and the desire to
excel, was needed to attain the highest levels of penmanship. I shall inquire whether learners
always went through a period of training to acquire a basic foundation, or whether they some-
times were taught calligraphic and formal writing right at the start. Documents and private let-
ters, moreover, reveal that, although people often dictated a text to a scribe or a slave, they
sometimes wrote themselves subscriptions and signatures at the bottom of documents, closing
greetings or, more rarely, even the whole body of letters. A fundamental task of schools was to
enable people to function among the literates in everyday life.
It is thus very important to take into account the precise details of palaeography and the
minutiae of students’ writing. Only the accumulation of small details will suffice to build a pic-
ture of how schools and teaching proceeded in antiquity. School hands have played a very

14sc¢e P.Flor. Il 259. Many of Heroninos’ business papers survive, see Dominic Rathbone, Economic
Rationalism and Rural Society in Third-Century AD Egypt (Cambridge 1991) 12-13.
15Jn transliterating names, generally Latin names are latinized and Greek, Egyptian, and Semitic names are
transliterated from Greek. I will maintain the latinized forms for the honorific titles Flavius and Aurelius and for
names of literary authors, to respect traditional usage.
16See 396 and tablet MND 552L side A for the more formal copy of Menander. See also 383.
\7 See Petrucci 1995, 61-72.
8 INTRODUCTION

small role in the history of palaeography, and attention has invariably focused on the skillful
hands.!8 But the hands of beginners reveal much about how writing was taught. My purpose is
not only to refine the terminology for learners’ hands but also to establish a typology of school
hands that will be sensitive to the various degrees of attainment students achieved in their
efforts to master the technique of writing. I shall correlate types of hands and the different
levels of proficiency they reveal with what we know about the ancient curriculum from sec-
ondary sources and the Graeco-Roman anecdotal tradition. I hope, as well, to clarify the educa-
tional steps through which ancient students passed as they achieved the eye-hand coordination
sufficient to permit them to advance to more difficult tasks.
Palaeography is also an invaluable tool in distinguishing students’ writing from teachers’
writing within the school context. Teachers’ hands stand out for the fluid gracefulness of the
handwriting samples they produced for their students, although the content of teachers’ models
was likewise that of students’ exercises. I am the first to identify and exploit the distinction
between teachers’ hands and students’ hands, markedly different in their levels of ability, as
well as in format and layout. The distinction is a crucial one since it aids in separating the
activities of teachers and learners. It is also important to investigate whether it is possible to
recognize and define the common, unchanging characteristics of a “teacher’s hand” in all peri-
ods, although teachers’ hands followed contemporary notions of what was clear and elegant
writing and changed as fashion changed. Teachers’ models played a fundamental role in the
classroom. They were made of sturdy materials in order to withstand handling by students in
the informal circumstances of the ancient school. Sometimes the models were intended to facil-
itate reading and provide students with less complicated and clearer texts. In these examples
the ends of words or of syllables were marked. Other models functioned as exemplars for
copying, and from them students learned different scripts, producing their own books.
The Graeco-Roman sources discussing education place considerable emphasis on reading,
insisting on the completion of mandatory steps before a student advanced to a subsequent stage
and paying little attention to a student’s capacities. Success was strictly dependent on the
inflexible order of the sequence. Each step built on the previous one, with an apparent con-
comitant increase in difficulty from letters and syllables to words and sentences. Mastery of
monosyllabic words preceded the introduction to disyllabic ones, for, because they were
shorter, the teachers deemed them easier. The mechanical building up of syllables appears to
have been a fundamental precept among ancient teachers, who disregarded the difficulty many
monosyllabic words presented, even showing a predilection for obscure terms that most stu-
dents were not likely to encounter again.!? Content was of secondary importance, and new
words were even fabricated in order to exemplify all the syllabic combinations, with disregard
for the reality of the Greek language. In his Confessions St. Augustine recalls his first years of
learning and reflects on the antipathy he felt for school with a sense of guilt that brings a smile
to modern readers. While he never questions the merit of the didactic systems of the time, he
Sees his hatred of learning as part of his own sinfulness. With reflection, however, he charac-
terizes his earliest instructions as more valuable than what he learned later, because these pro-

187 call “school hands” only the hands of the students, and not the hands of their teachers.
See for instance the list of monosyllables of 379, lines 27-37. Even ancient grammarians were unsure about
the nature and meaning of some of them.
 WRITING IN GRAECO-ROMAN EGYPT 9

vided him with basic tools for all further study.2° In spite of plenty of memory and capacity
(memoria vel ingenium), learning for him was a painful experience.
Reading was no doubt difficult for many ancient students to master.2! First of all, most
students, at least in Egypt, Rome, and elsewhere in the empire, had to come to terms with
more than one language. According to Quintilian, it was better for Roman students to learn
Greek first in their schooling, since they were exposed to Latin at home.?? Some students even
concentrated all their efforts on the Greek language to the detriment of Latin, in which their
knowledge of grammar and authors was incomplete. Native speakers of the Egyptian language,
like many other provincials in the eastern Mediterranean who first learned to speak the lan-
guage indigenous to their region, had to learn Greek as a second language. Although it is diffi-
cult to assess the extent to which Egyptian was spoken in homes,?? it is likely to have been the
dominant language in the villages and in the countryside. Before the invention of the Coptic
script, many Egyptians were unable to read and write what was their native tongue. But com-
parative evidence strongly suggests that when in a particular society the written and oral
registers use different languages, the interaction between them becomes complex.24 Written-
oral diglossia continues to hamper students’ progress in reading in modern times and surely
posed difficulties for ancient learners in a far more rigid educational milieu. Reading in all
periods is a mental accomplishment, an intellectual process in which the eyes are driven for-
ward by the mind. Written Greek offered particular obstacles: elements of the text were seldom
distinguished and individual words were not separated by spaces—scriptio continua.*> This fea-
ture of ancient writing must have presented a formidable challenge to the beginner, although
with practice the mature reader learned to overcome the impediments it presented. The
systematic process that beginning readers had to go through was a practical approach to solve
the difficulties reading presented. The ancient sources show an awareness of the length of time
required to learn to read, since students were expected to know syllabic quantities and
accentuation of words before being able to read.26
I shall argue that learning to write in the ancient school was not governed by the same
rigid rules that regulated the process of learning to read and that a limited ability in writing
usually preceded extensive training in reading. The ancient sources devote much attention to
reading-acquisition, or they speak in general terms of an “education in letters,” paying scant
attention to the skill of writing in isolation. Nonetheless, the assumption that the two skills
were attained at the same time and according to the same pedagogical principles is
unwarranted, and more sophisticated studies of literacy now tend to distinguish between liter-
acy’s necessary components—reading and writing. Not only in the Middle Ages and in early
modern Europe but also in antiquity, the ability to read and the ability to write were not neces-
sarily interdependent.?’ To be sure, both skills belong in school contexts, yet only the priv-

20 Confess. 1 13, nam utique meliores, quia certiores, erant primae illae litterae.
21 About this, see below pp. 148-49.
22See Quintilian Inst.Or. 11 12.
23See Bagnall 1993, 240-41.
24Sce Goody 1987, 282.
25 About this see below, pp. 47-48 and 148-49.
26See, for instance, below on p. 149 how Dionysius of Halicarnassus regards the whole process.
27See the general observations of Lane Fox 1994, 128-30.
10 INTRODUCTION

ileged few progressed through all educational levels. Since the majority who had any education
at all attained only minimal ability from limited schooling, it is meaningful to know which con-
stituent of literacy they approached first, for their initial training had repercussions on how
they handled literacy as adults. As a term, literate mentality is ambiguous, but I use it to refer
to the cluster of attitudes literate or semiliterate people shared. There can be no doubt that
inhabitants of Graeco-Roman Egypt preferred to sign documents and letters in their clumsy,
belabored characters rather than be considered among illiterates. It was better to possess and
exhibit the skill in limited and imperfect degree, however difficult and unpleasant to the eye
their efforts were. By contrast, in medieval England people shared a general distrust toward
writing.28 Writing was a necessary activity, but, as a manual task, became increasingly special-
ized and was entrusted to a class of technicians. Even those in the upper classes, who read the
Scriptures extensively, did not write out their own signatures. I hope to account for some of
the differences among earlier literate mentalities.
Writing is a multifaceted activity, involving many levels of competence ranging from the
ability to trace a few characters or copy a text to the capacity to engage in literary composition.
Four definitions of writing are in common use:? (1) writing as handwriting, the physical act of
tracing characters or words; (2) writing as copying and taking dictation, the recording of
others’ words; (3) writing as crafting lexical, syntactical, and rhetorical units of discourse into
meaningful patterns; (4) writing as authoring, or producing an independent and original text
for a specific audience and purpose. Useful for the present purposes is to underscore the
dichotomy in the second definition, articulating the different levels of competence required, on
the one hand, for mere copying, and, on the other, for writing from dictation. In ancient Egyp-
tian and Mesopotamian schools, copying was an activity in its own right in which students
engaged for many years. I shall investigate whether copying was pursued only as a marginal
activity in the Graeco-Roman schools or whether students were supposed to dedicate much
effort to achieving good standards in it. Writing from dictation was more challenging in many
respects, because to reproduce a text from dictation with reasonable accuracy, a student needed
to have mastered the formation of syllables and words. In what follows I am concerned mainly
with writing as handwriting, copying, and taking dictation, that is, with the first two defini-
tions cited above. Occasionally, I will speak of the challenges students faced when composing
and of the mistakes revealing the personal effort involved in rewriting and paraphrasing.
Professional scribes also copied texts from exemplars and from dictation, and the two
kinds of activity already existed in pharaonic Egypt, at least for the writing of documents. It is
still debated whether in the Graeco-Roman world several scribes simultaneously copied a text
from an oral reading in order to produce books on a commercial scale.3° While multiplication
of copies was the regular work of scribes, drafting a text ex nihilo was a specialized task that
only a few could perform. The distinction between copying and composing is spelled out in a
contract of Roman Egypt for the hire of scribes to work in a government bureau for the pur-
pose of drafting population lists on the basis of records of preceding years.3! Those who

ed in Clanchy 1993, 185-318, the discussion of the whole question.

29See Janet Emig, “Writing, composition, and rhetoric,” in Mercer 1988, 210-23.
39See Skeat 1956, 179-208.
31See P.Mich. XI 603, especially lines 5-13 and note ad 7.
 WRITING IN GRAECO-ROMAN EGYPT 11

drafted new texts were paid at a higher rate than those who merely copied. Both kinds of
scribes were employed in the duplication of literary texts for the commercial market, and when
Cornelius Nepos describes the household of Atticus, he notes a large staff of copyists (plurimi
librarii) and a smaller number of specialists who had more advanced training (pueri litteratis-
simi).22 Because copying was easier than composing, it is inevitable that there were more
copiers. Even later in the Middle Ages, drafting a text remained the task of the better educated
in the scriptorium, while the less well educated were relegated to copying.3

32Cornelius Nepos, Alticus 13, 3.

33See the practice of Ekkehardus I in St. Gallus who quos ad literarum studia tardiores vidisset, ad
scribendum occupaverat et lineandum, Petrucci 1995, 99.
 /

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2 Evidence for Schools and Teachers

Modern histories of ancient education report that a full course of literary instruction was
divided into three levels, each supervised by a different teacher.! A student started learning let-
ters, grammata, under the care of an instructor who was called grammatodidaskalos, gramma-
tistes, or didaskalos (ypappatodidcoKxadoc, yoappatioTic, ddcoKadoc), and the curriculum
focused upon learning to read and write, as well as some arithmetic. The student later passed
under the supervision of a grammatikos (ypappatikdcs), who was in charge of teaching lan-
guage and literature, the study of Homer, the poets, and, beginning in the first century AD,
grammar. In the last stage the student pursued rhetoric and public speaking with a sophistes or
a rhetor (cod.otis, PFTwp).* This tiered system of education originated in the Hellenistic age
and was adopted by the Romans. Students entered the different levels of schooling at ages that
were not as uniform as in modern educational systems, because not calendar age but ability
was the criterion for promotion. In Rome schooling commenced at about age seven; the student
graduated to a grammarian at age twelve, while study in the schools of rhetoric—the ancient
equivalent of higher education—began when he was about fifteen, or even a bit younger.? I
shall be concerned for the most part with the levels of education supervised by elementary
teachers and grammarians. Yet, because it is difficult to draw sharp distinctions among the
three levels, I will at times consider advanced education.
The papyri contain few references to teachers,* and, like many other professionals in
antiquity, they usually appear engaged in everyday activities, rather than in pursuit of their
profession. That is, individuals designated “teachers” appear in documents as they pay taxes,
write petitions to high officials, or are buyers, sellers, borrowers, and lenders, but they are
seldom seen when they are teaching. Further, since the professions were never monitored,
either by the government or by their members, no standards existed for distinguishing the
skilled from the unskilled. Nonetheless, the very fact that “teacher” was recognized as a
professional title sets the men, and a lesser number of women,° apart from their fellows. The
term grammatistes, which was often used elsewhere in the empire for a primary school teacher,
and sometimes for the grammarian at a secondary level,® does not appear in the papyri.
Instead, papyri show grammatodidaskalos, or simply didaskalos. When didaskalos is used
without further specifications referring to different arts and occupations, it indicated a teacher
involved in formal education in letters. Another term, chamaididaskalos (xapoubidcaKados),
literally “a teacher sitting on the ground,” appears in only one papyrus of the seventh century
AD and occurs in copies of Diocletian’s Edict of Prices in the fourth century AD and in later

ISee Marrou 1975, 218, 241-42, 295; Bonner 1977, 48-49, 250-51.
2See Clarke 1971.
3See Kleijwegt 1991, 90 and 117-18.
4Sce Appendix 1 for a list of teachers of different levels appearing in papyri. All the references below with
numbers in parentheses relate to this list.
5Cf. below pp. 22-24.
®See in this respect Kaster 1988, 447-52, Appendix 2.
14 INTRODUCTION

writers.’ It was used to designate elementary school teachers, for it provides graphic evidence
that primary schoolmasters were not then endowed with the imposing chair that usually serves
to identify them.® Bilingual Latin-Greek glossaries equate chamaididaskalos with the Latin ludi
magister, “schoolmaster.”? In papyri teachers are also called kathegetai (xaOnynrai), a term
that seems to apply to private tutors who taught at different levels of education. Professors at a
higher stage of education, sophistai, are sometimes mentioned in papyri and in a private letter
an older student studying in Alexandria complains to his father back home about the shortage
of skilled professors.!° This letter employs not only the term philologos to designate the
scholar the student intends to employ as private tutor,!! but also refers to distinguished profes-
sors whose lectures he will attend (oi émuderxvipevor).
Although the educational system recognized a series of steps through which a student
must proceed and a hierarchy of instructors, the lack of centralized educational authority
worked against the creation of uniformity in curriculum or among the personnel. The picture
projected by various references is multifarious and incomplete at best. Recently scholars have
started to question whether the framework of primary and secondary education was really as
uniform as was believed in the past.!2 The two-track system, such as prevailed in Rome during
the first century AD, may have been operative in the large urban centers of Egypt, with some
elementary schools providing a basic, craft literacy to the lower classes, while “liberal
schools” addressed the privileged classes.!3 Privileged students probably learned the first ele-
ments at home or directly under the tutelage of a grammarian. A wooden tablet from Antinoe,
160 in the catalogue that follows, has been dated to the fifth century AD, and several of its fea-
tures tell us about the social level of a teacher. On one side a teacher, Flavius Kollouthos,
appends his signature to the maxim he writes as a model. His proficient penmanship marks him
as a teacher, and the name Flavius indicates that he is an adult of high station. This honorific
name distinguished those who had served in the imperial, military, and civil service from those
who were simply called Aurelii.'4 Although no elementary teacher is known to have possessed
this title, grammarians were sometimes so honored.!> And this suggests that Flavius Kol-

See Edict.Diocl. 7.66 ed. Lauffer pp. 124-25; anecdote 61 in the Philogelos ed. Thierfelder; Macarius
Sermones 20.3.6.1 and 23.125.29; Troilus, Proleg.Rhet. (Waltz, Rhetores, Graeci VI, III.23); Scholia in Eccles
ed. Diibner 809.2; Scholia in Demosth. ed. M.R. Dilts 18.228.1;
2 Salk Scholiain Nubes, , ed ed. Koster 770c al ha 2. :
also P.Sorb. II 69 p. 63 note 63. Sins Atte
8The identity of a teacher is usually indicated by the presence of a chair in vases from the fifth century BC and
later. See, e.g., the Douris vase, which portrays a typical school scene, Beck 1975, pl. 10, 53-54; ora cup of the
Soe eusee of Basel, Beck 1975, Ch. II note 7(m). See also Libanius, Progymn. VIII.
; See Goetz and Gundermann 1888, II 475.16. The term is preceded by yapadiaoriic pedaneus iudex
arbiter.
10 5 . s
See in Appendix 1 the reference to ka@nynrai (1-2-3-4). The word xpitixdc, which sometimes designated
grammarians or even more advanced teachers, is used in P.Bub. I 4.60.10, but the papyrus i
plate and the context is completely unclear. Ro ih Sumo laseen
PNSeeSac P.Oxy.sete2190. 7 and 25, Rea 1993, 80 note 7; the word ¢iAdA0vo
YoS was applied
i to the members of the

12See
1983 Booth
Kester ee 1979, ; 1-14 and “The Schooli
ooling in First-Century
of Slaves in Fi y R Rome,” i TAPA 109 (1979) 11-19; :

'3See Booth 1979, aL 19. OR Contra Harris 1989 , 307, note 106. The two-track system i
from riabout the great cities of the empire, see Kaster 1983, 241. i ary a aes
See James G. Keenan, , “The Names Flavius and Aurelius as Status Desi
esignati 1 1 »
ZPE 11 (1973) 33-63 and 13 (1974) 283-304. si Sila ge aka
1See Kaster 1988, 109-11, and cf. below, p. 22 and note 78.
 EVIDENCE FOR SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS 15

louthos was a grammarian who also taught some privileged children at the elementary level in
this provincial capital.
In the villages of the Egyptian countryside educational opportunities were more various
and haphazard. In some cases the first elements of reading and writing must have been taught
at home.!© Some fathers at Rome thought it was their personal responsibility to participate in
the teaching of their sons.!7 The papyri suggest that parents in Graeco-Roman Egypt, espe-
cially those who were themselves educated, were interested in their children’s education and
worried over their progress. In Oxyrhynchos a mother!® recorded among the expenses for her
children (bread, milk, a cake, and toys) money for wax and a stylus. Letters are particularly
revealing: one mother’s fragmentary letter reports, “Thank God also that the little one liked the
town. He attends school and he learns with enthusiasm.”!° Dios, a student away at school,
reassures his anxious father, “Do not worry, father, about my studies,”2° while another father
urges his son: “Pay attention only to your books, devoting yourself to learning, and they will
bring you profit.”2! A mother wants to know from her son’s tutor, kathegetes (9 in the list),
which book of Homer her son is reading, and she is distressed by the departure of an instructor
she trusted.
Parental participation in education is more difficult to document, but nonetheless home-
taught literacy did exist, when it attempted to compensate for the deficiencies of formal school-
ing. A Hellenistic terracotta shows a young girl sitting on a woman’s lap. The two are reading
together from a roll on the girl’s knee.22 The scene may portray a mother teaching her
daughter to read. Aurelia Charite, who lived in the town of Hermopolis in the early fourth
century AD, left several samples of her own writing among her papers.?3 Her writing is very
similar to that of her mother, Demetria, making it quite plausible that Demetria taught her
daugher to write. Many motives might induce a child to imitate a parent’s style of writing,
some psychological, others economic, and in the case of the imperial family, even political.
Suetonius tell us that Augustus taught his grandsons writing, swimming, and other elementary
notions, “taking special pains to train them to imitate his own handwriting.”?4 Instruction at
home by the parents was probably limited to the first elements.2° In the third century BC an old
man complains that his ungrateful son refuses to help him in his old age. He includes among

16}arris 1989, 307, admits such a possibility. He then adds that, “direct evidence for this is, however, quite
thin, and the extent of such teaching is largely a matter of guesswork.”
17On the Romans’ conviction that a father’s proper role was to supervise his children’s education, see Thomas
Wiedemann, Adults and Children in the Roman Empire (New Haven and London 1989) 87 and 143; Kaster 1988,
66-68.
18Se¢ P. Oxy. IV 736.16. Préaux 1929, 778 calls her a housewife, a ménagére.
19ps71 94: moooedpevter ic TX pabhpata. (not yap THY waOnory.
20P Oxy. X 1296.5-7.
21P Oxy. Il 531.10-12.
22Daremberg-Saglio, s.v. “Educatio,” 477, figure 2605.
23See P.Charite 8, 27, 36, 37, and probably 41, while text 38 represents her mother’s handwriting.
24Suetonius, Aug. 64.5, nepotes et litteras et natare aliaque rudimenta per se plerumque docuit, ac nihil ae-
que elaboravit quam ut imitarentur chirographum suum.
25Cf. Horsfall 1991, 63. Speaking of alternatives to orthodox schooling and particularly about learning at
home he says, “Neither teaching nor learning was necessarily a full-time activity, nor one carried on beyond the
bare minimum.”
16 INTRODUCTION

the benefits he gave his son the grammar he taught him—or, at the least, the grammar he had
his son taught, since the Greek verb “teach” can be used in a causative sense.26
Elementary instruction at home may have been given by the pedagogue (mabaywydc).
He is a prominent figure on the vases and in the literature of classical Greece, from which it
appears that his job consisted of accompanying students to school and monitoring their behav-
ior. In the absence of other teachers, the pedagogue may have been in charge of the children’s
elementary instruction in the home.?’ The lad Ptolemaios, child of a wealthy family and cur-
rently residing in Oxyrhynchos in order to pursue studies, was taught by an itinerant tutor,
kathegetes (9 in the list). Once this tutor departed, presumably to seek his fortune in Ale-
xandria, the slave Eros, who was also Ptolemaios’ paidagogos and clearly respected by the
boy’s mother, was put in charge of finding a new teacher. Ptolemaios was at a secondary level
of instruction, since he was reading Iliad 6 with his tutor, but his early education may have
taken place at home, with the very capable Eros shouldering that responsibility.
The kathegetes was in a number of instances an itinerant teacher, ever moving in
search of more advantageous positions in new households.?8 Didymos (kathegetes 4 in the list),
originally taught in the countryside, but he had higher ambitions and decided to compete with
the instructors in an urban setting, perhaps in Alexandria. According to the student Neilos,
Didymos was better suited to the “country bumpkins.” Neilos, however, could not find a better
teacher because only bad teachers were available, “trash, in whose hands most students have
taken the straight road to having their talent spoiled,” who also charged enormous and
unwarranted fees. To judge from other texts, however, the rates of pay of these teachers do not
seem at all exorbitant. Teachers’ salaries were paid at least partly in kind with pigeons and
other birds, grapes, oil or wine,?? since it was common for workers in many fields to receive
part of their compensation in kind. A grammatodidaskalos (6 in the list) received portions of
wheat and barley, and Libanius mentions an elementary teacher who was paid with two loaves
and other related foodstuffs.*° A letter from the early second century AD mentions leftovers
from the table that are to be sent to the kathegetes (7 in the list) of the young girl Heraidous to
encourage him to pay attention to her. Even at higher educational levels payment in kind was
frequent and the grammatikos Lollianos (3 in the list) complains that he received only cheap
wine and grain full of weevils. Despite compensation that seemed ever inadequate, the

26P Ent. 25.2: [Enod yap dijdcEavtog avrov Thy [...K]du THY youp[pariKHy] (sc. Téxvnv). The editor, as a
malenst fact, translates: je lui ai fait enseigner. Kaster 1988, 67, speaks of personal involvement of the father.
Although Marrou 1975, I 217-18 and II 65-66, insists on the moral quality of the teaching of the peda-
gogue, he cites an inscription (Dessau 4999) with an epitaph from a student to a man who had been his pedagogue
and kathegetes. For the pedagogue in charge of some instruction at home, see Schubart 1918, 382; Bonner 1977
39-40; and Booth 1979, 3. About classical terracottas presenting the figure of an old man leading a boy to school St
teaching him how to read and write, see Beck 1975, plate 12 fig. 65, 66, 67; Plate wicelin Vos plate 15 fig
81, 82, 83. eee .
soNisson 1955, 50 describes wandering teachers, especially grammarians and rhetors.
See kathegetai 6-7 and 8 in the list. Préaux 1929, 780 believes that these are gifts sent to win the favor of
the eaney but there is no indication of this.
me Libanius, Or. XLII 26.4-7, nv Tig ‘Onra&tog ypappatwv didc&oKadoc, So Kat Arkuvviw Tov Taida TadTE
edidaoKkev &TO Svoly MpToLW Kai TIS &AANSG TEOdHS H TobTOIS ovVEeLEVKTAL.
 EVIDENCE FOR SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS 7

Kathegetai were versatile instructors who taught at different levels of education, some tutoring
their charges in material associated with grammarians, or even rhetoricians.*!
The instructors considered up to this point—parents, pedagogues, private tutors—gen-
erally taught in the home. It is nonetheless appropriate to consider the lessons they gave as part
of the school setting, because of the formality inherent in the process of teaching and learn-
ing.32 On three occasions the papyri employ the word didaskaleion, “school,” to designate the
location where instruction took place: Tothes (didaskalos 11 in the list) had a school in
Memphis that the twin friends of Ptolemaios and Apollonios attended. Melankomas, gram-
matodidaskalos (3), taught in a grammatodidaskaleion in an unnamed town in the Arsinoite
nome,33 and in this school a much-needed geometry book could be found. The third mention of
a didaskaleion occurs in a text that purports to be the speech of an advocate, although the
speech may represent an assignment in composition for the classroom (P. Oxy. III 471). In the
papyrus a certain Maximus is accused, among other things, of maintaining an illicit relation-
ship with a seventeen-year-old boy, distracting the young man from his normal activities and
keeping him from going “to the schools and exercises proper for the young.” In such a context
“schools,” the didaskaleia, represent places where a young man ought to spend his day—
localities in a large town set aside specifically for educational purposes at a relatively high
level of education.34 The word scholion, which is used only once in the papyri in connection
with grammatodidaskalos (8), also refers to premises where teaching takes place. This
reference to the South School in Oxyrhynchos is particularly interesting because it shows that
there was at least another elementary school in the city from which this one had to be distin-
guished. The term schole, on the other hand, refers to the activity of learning, the instruction
imparted, and even to a group of students attending lectures.3° Thus, the young girl Heraidous
needs “material suitable for a school (schole), such as a reading book” (P.Giss. I 85), while
the grammarian Flavius Horapollon (10 in the list) has a schole in Alexandria, a group of
pupils who received an advanced education from him. Likewise, Didymos, kathegetes (4), has
a schole, that is, a group of rather advanced students following his lessons.®
A few Hellenistic terracottas of Alexandrian provenance represent young girls on their
way to school, carrying book rolls and tablets in their arms and wearing coats for walking out
of doors; one girl wears a hat.3” Once a teacher became available, a group of children appar-
ently congregated at someone’s home for lessons. A building or a room was seldom reserved

31 Kathegetai 6-7 in the list taught at elementary levels, but references 1-5 relate to tutors at higher levels.
The Colloquia of the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana (Goetz 1892, e.g., 225.16 and 226.44) and the colloquies
preserved in the fifteenth-century manuscript of Celtes (see Dionisotti 1982, 98 lines 12 and 19) refer to teachers or
assistant teachers at different levels of education.
32See above p. 6. Cf. also Maristella Pandolfini and Aldo L. Prosdocimi, Alfabetari e insegnamento della
scrittura nell’Italia antica (Firenze 1990) 158.
33The name of the town is not mentioned. Sarapion knew where the person carrying the letter was going and
it was enough to direct him to the “school of Melankomas.”
34Cf. Libanius, Or. I, e.g., R 52 F 119, where the rhetor repeatedly calls his rhetorical school a didaskaleion.
350nly in the school colloquies is schole used as a synonym for didaskaleion, a place of learning, see, e.g.,
Goetz 1892, 225.16, 226.44.
36The editor translates the expression oxoAny ExovTa “he has time to spare,” but I agree with Rea 1993, 83
note 21, that the term refers to a group of students. The phrase €xe.v oxod7jv with the meaning “to keep school” is
used e.g. in Arrianus, Epict.Diss. 3.21.11.
sae Pomeroy 1984, 60 and plate 7, and Anita Klein, Child Life in Greek Art (New York 1932) pl. XXX C.
18 INTRODUCTION

for educational purposes when pupils were at the lowest levels. To be sure, rich people’s
’s
houses accommodated many activities we would now regard as public: even the household
father did not leave his home to “go to the office,” but rather used the reception hall of the
family’s dwelling for receiving associates and clients.38 Some of these reception spaces in great
houses could have been used for teaching. A Ptolemaic papyrus refers to a school, perhaps a
school of medicine, in the house of a doctor, where Greek slaves were educated to write in
Demotic.3? Comparative evidence often points to schools kept in private houses.*° Nonetheless,
the private houses of all but the wealthy inhabitants of the villages and hamlets of the Egyptian
countryside during Ptolemaic and Roman times display narrow and badly lit rooms, which
were not ideal for reading and writing.4! “I lament for Diotimos who sits on stones repeating
Alpha and Beta to the children of Gargara,” says a Hellenistic epigram.*2 Many elementary
school teachers may have likewise set up school in the open air with a large tree providing the
necessary shade and children sitting amid dogs and goats. The vases of classical Athens, in
fact, use a tree to symbolize an open-air classroom.*? The British papyrologist J.G. Milne, on
finding a group of ostraca all discolored in an unusual way, imagined that a schoolmaster of
Thebes “had taught his classes in the open air near a rubbish heap, on which material for writ-
ing exercises might be obtained in plenty, to be thrown away again as soon as used.”#4
Although this image is fanciful, there can be no doubt that teaching was organized in a simple
way, as teachers and students sat on the ground holding their writing materials on their laps.
The term chamaididaskalos “a teacher sitting on the ground,” which only appears in late papy-
ri, seems an appropriate designation not only for the teachers of Graeco-Roman Egypt, but also
for those elsewhere in the Mediterranean world. In Pompeii the elementary teacher Sema
taught pupils in the portico of the Forum, and another teacher kept classes on the porch of the
Campus, both outdoor public areas.4> Dio Chrysostom not only noted that flutists and dancing
teachers instructed their students in the city at the street corners, but also described “the most
extreme case of all, for elementary teachers sit with the children in the streets and nothing
keeps them from teaching and learning in the midst of the crowd.”4° A similar scene was easy
to find in Rome,*’ and probably also in Alexandria.

38See Yvon Thébert, “Private and Public Spaces: The Componen va j j

Life vol I, Paul Veyne ed. (Cambridge, Mass. 1987) 353-81. : Se ee a
es 148. See R. Remondon, “Problémes du bilinguisme dans l’Egypte Lagide,” CdE 39 (1964) 126-46.
Several thousand years earlier, parents in Mesopotamia sent their children to a teacher who held classes in a
private house. The private character of their lesson is underscored by the fact that the teacher was called “father.”
or “big brother.” See Nissen, Damerow, and Englund 1993, 108. About cuneiform tablets containing school okt
that were found in domestic quarters, see Gadd 1956, 25-26. Millennia later, the children of the Jewish communit:
in pedeya) Cairo also took their lessons in the synagogue or in their teacher’s home. See Reif 1990, 152. :
vend ieee ee houses in Karanis, Elaine K. Gazda (ed.) Karanis: An Egyptian Town in Roman Times (Ann

42 ant.Pal. XI 437. Gargara, moreover, was at the edge of the world.

Wee e.g. Beck 1975, plate 16, 84.
sve GRAN
See ust
Milne 1908,POL 121.
CH BaSuch ae sityis notot strictly
supposition stri necessary, since
i i
the teacher may have provided his:

45See Della Corte 1959, 622-24.

. 46 See Dio, XX 9-10, ol yap TOY youppaTav diddoKado wEeTa TOY Tatdwy év Taic od0ic K&Ony i
ovdev avToig Eutoday EoTw Ev TooobTY TAHVEL TOD SidcoKew TE Ka pavOdvery. dae tee
47See Bonner 1977, 116-17.
 EVIDENCE FOR SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS 19

Most students received only a few years of formal schooling, and without continued
practice in writing, they soon forgot many essential points.48 Nonetheless, there is some evi-
dence of a strong bond between a student and a first teacher, maturing at times into a long-
lasting friendship. Korax went to the temple of Isis on the island of Philae along with his old
instructor Kabatas (didaskalos 13), and he wrote a dedication to the goddess on behalf of his
teacher, the son of his teacher, and his own son. The nostalgic letter that young Thonis wrote
to his father continues the same motif, for interspersed among complaints about his father’s
absence and about missing the doves he left at home come greetings for his old teachers
(didaskaloi 22-23). Thonis’ situation is unusual in that he had more than a single teacher to
supervise what was presumably his elementary education. Nonetheless, even small com-
munities did on occasion possess more than a single teacher.49
The primitive organization of the open-air school is unheard-of at the higher levels of
education. If the advanced teacher could afford it, he rented a room to hold his classes; other-
wise he used his home or any other accommodation. Libanius says that he held his classes in
the baths in Nicomedeia,*° but also instructed in his home the fifteen pupils he had brought to
Antioch from Constantinople.>! Eventually he thought it to his advantage to move to a room
near the square.** Later on, when his academic appointment became an official one, he trans-
ferred his class to the City Hall, arousing the envy of his competitors, some of whom met stu-
dents in temples or in the Museum. Libanius himself had so many students that he could not
get through them all before sunset.°? In Egypt Flavius Horapollon, grammarian (10), had a
school in the vicinity of the gymnasium or other sanctuaries.*4
Gymnasia were founded everywhere in the Hellenistic world and they existed in Egypt
not only in the Greek cities of Alexandria or Naucratis but wherever Greeks established com-
munities of sufficient size, including the larger villages.°° Although scholars in the past have
associated the Athenian ephebic schools of the classical period and the Hellenistic and Roman
gymnasia with education,*® it has become increasingly clear that no evidence supports the
notion that the Egyptian gymnasia were academic institutions.°’ Gymnasia did contain areas

7
48 About “slow writers,” see above p. 6 and below, pp. 150-52. Of course, some of them could have learned
in alternative ways. See Horsfall 1991, 63-64. But see the opinion of Youtie 1973, 642: “None stayed at school
long enough to develop firm habits of writing.” See also Youtie 1971b, 623.
49Sce references to didaskaloi (17), (27), (28), and (31), and Kaster 1983, 134. See also references to didas-
kaloi 4-5-6 and 7-8-9 that show three teachers in the villages of Tricomia and Lagis, even though it is possible in
this case that not all those designated as “teachers” were involved in education. About this, see below, p. 21.
50]ibanius I, 55 F 110.
51] ibanius I, 101 F 132.
52]ibanius I, 102 F 133.
53]ibanius I, 104 F 134.
+4The expression Flavius Horapollon uses saying that he had a school mepi rag éxe[toe] dkadnpiag is slightly
obscure.
S5For gymnasia in the Hellenistic period even in small villages as centers of Greek life, see Wilhelm Schubart,
Die Griechen in Agypten, Beih. zum Alten Orient 10 (1927) 19-20 and Jean Delorme, Gymnasion. Etude sur les
monuments consacrés @ l’éducation en Gréce (Paris 1960) 139, 199-201, 220.
S6Nilsson 1955, 1-29, rightly claimed that Athenian ephebes did not receive any public education but merely
military training. Regarding the Hellenistic gymnasion, however, and in particular the gymnasion in Egypt, he con-
cluded that it was academically a respectable institution.
57See Harris 1989, 134-35.
20 INTRODUCTION

social,
reserved for occasional conferences and lectures and they served as centers for the
their
athletic, and religious life of a Greek town; evidence for the presence of libraries within
perimeters, however, is lacking.*8 In the documents gymnasia per se do not appear, but the
gymnasiarchs, their leaders, are often mentioned in petitions and official documents.°? As in
the case of the teachers and other professionals, however, their title is given to identify them,
and almost nothing is known about the specific duties gymnasiarchs performed within the con-
text of the gymnasium.
It was the larger urban centers that offered the greater educational opportunities, and
the greater variety of specialized teachers. The typical progression, namely from the rudiments
taught by the grammatodidaskalos to the study of language and literature directed by the gram-
marian, might not always have been operative. Some privileged youngsters living in villages
were sent to urban centers to continue their studies, and ambitious (and wealthy) parents
packed off even their small offspring to the city so that they might join an older brother,
already studying there, or be watched over by a friend or relative. One family in Oxyrhynchos
not only sent an older brother to the rhetorical schools in Alexandria and a younger brother to
the classes of a grammarian,© but the brothers expected the arrival of a third brother who
would also begin his higher education under the tutelage of a grammarian.®! Back in the vil-
lages, the local didaskalos catered to a diverse clientele, from those who would attend classes
for only a year or two, or those who would complete the course but not pursue secondary
studies, to students who would some day study in the city and were eager to advance as far as
the schoolmaster could take them. In such a situation, it is unlikely that the levels of teaching
were sharply distinguished. Papyrus 379, Livre d’écolier, gives a graphic demonstration of the
encroachment of one level upon the next.®* The papyrus presents the first rudiments up to two
short passages of Euripides in which the words were divided into syllables and a passage from
the Odyssey that seems to function as a transitional item to more difficult material. The anthol-
ogy after that becomes demanding, especially two epigrams and a passage of Straton that
presuppose a sophisticated knowledge of the language. The passages, intricate and rich in
obscure glosses, would have suited the classes of a grammarian or the advanced pupils of a
grammatodidaskalos.®? That teachers in the larger villages did bring their pupils to rather high
levels of instruction is made clear by the school exercises containing grammar and Scholia
Minora to Homer® found in such villages as Karanis and Theadelphia. Since the presence of

Ba 58See what Nilsson 1955, 95 and, more recently, Kriger 1990, 153 say. See also Roberto Nicolai, “Le
biblioteche dei ginnasi,” Nuovi Annali della Scuola Speciale per Archivisti e Bibliotecari 1 (1987) 17-48, 22-23, 27
and M. Serena
a eae Funghi and Gabriella Messeri Savorelli, , “Lo scriba di Pindaro e le biblioteche d di Ossirinco,”
oteche di nines ‘ SCO

: aX recent assessment of such documents is contained in Wolfgang Orth, “Zum Gymnasium im

romerzeitlichen Agypten,” Festschrift H. Bengtson, Historia Einzelschriften Heft 40 (Wiesbaden 1983) 223-32. See
also Bagnall 1993, 100.
6 : . . .
. See references to kathegetai (1-2-3-4). Diogas is said to be learning literature, ypdupota pavOcvew. For
this expression’s reference to literature and not to letters of the alphabet, see Kaster 1988, 39 note 26 and 43, refer-
ring to Jean Bingen, “Note,”; CdE 45 (1970) 356 and P. eleJ. Sijpesteijn,jn, “S “Some Remarks,” » Cd =
See Rea 1993, 85-86 note 54-55. pr Soec cea
1 .
7Rea 1993, 75 thinks that the younger brother was coming up to university, but it seems unlikely
Speaking in general terms Marrou 1975 often describes this phenomenon, , se 450, Lj): |
©3See Maehler 1983, 200. : i elke
64 About the provenance of school papyri, see below pp. 57-58 and exercises 330, 345, 359, and 362.
 EVIDENCE FOR SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS 24

grammarians outside of cities like Alexandria, Oxyrhynchos, and Hermopolis® is extremely

unlikely, either the grammatodidaskaloi or the private tutors, kathegetai, were responsible for
the production of these exercises. A private letter provides further evidence for the existence of
elementary schools in which some advanced subjects were taught.®© In this letter Sarapion, an
advanced student studying geometry,®’ asks his old friend Ptolemaios to provide him with a
certain papyrus containing geometric explanations. The letter is addressed to the school of the
local grammatodidaskalos, which Ptolemaios is presumably still attending. Despite some evi-
dence for considerable proficiency, teachers, and particularly elementary teachers, were not
highly esteemed in the social hierarchy, as their relatively low pay®® and the open contempt
awarded them by their contemporaries suggest.°? In the last years of Ptolemy Philadelphos,
about 248 BC, the elementary teachers were exempt from the salt tax together with teachers of
gymnastics, priests of Dionysos, and victors in the public contests.’”? What these classes had in
common was their involvement with Greek institutions, and through this benefit the king was
manifesting his philhellenism. In my list of didaskaloi, nos. (4-6) and (7-9) received the king’s
benefit. In the village of Trikomia one among 110 adults was called “teacher,” while in Lagis
three out of 323 adults were identified as “teachers”—a woman and two men. The Ptolemaic
bureaucracy, however, probably extended exemption from the salt tax to all members of a
teacher’s family—wife, children, and slaves—and designated them as “teachers” in the tax
records.’! Thus there is no guarantee that all those called “teachers” in salt-tax records were
involved in education. Two teachers, a man and a woman, were exempted from the salt tax in
the village of Perhemer;” this village belonged to a larger area, probably a “toparchy,” with a
population of 10,876, 24 of whom, all labeled in the Demotic as “Greek teachers,”’> were
exempted from the same tax.’4 Fifteen of the 24 were males.7>
Although royal benefactions enhanced the prestige of schoolmasters, as a group they
belonged to a lower socio-economic category than grammarians. Diocletian’s Edict on Prices
underscores the distinction by fixing a grammarian’s fee at four times that of an elementary

65“The search for grammarians in the empire leads one to regional centers,” Kaster 1988, 106. See also p.
20, and note 26 for the geographic distribution of grammarians in the earlier empire.
$6See ypapparodidcoKedos (3).
For geometry traditionally associated with secondary schooling, see Petron. Satyricon 58.7. This discipline
is associated with liberal studies (specifically the poets and especially Homer and the pivw ’AxiAjoc), while it is
distinguished from basic arithmetic. For geometry taught in secondary schools, see Marrou 1975, II 84-85 and
M.L. Clarke, Higher Education in the Ancient World, (London 1971) 45-52. The well-written subscription that
Sarapion adds at the bottom of the letter further identifies him as an advanced student.
68Cf. Kaster 1988, 99-134, chapter 3, “Social Status of Grammarians.” For the economic difficulties of
schoolmasters see Bonner 1977, 146-53.
69see Harris 1989, 237-38 and Alan D. Booth, “Some Suspect Schoolmasters,” Florilegium 3 (1981) 1-20.
70See the edict of the king (tpoore@ypa) in P.Hal. 1 260-265.
71Cf. the restoration [oixetouc], P.Hal. 1.265, Tony Reekmans, “Parerga papyrologica,” CdE 54 (1952) 406.
72See P.dem.Lille III 99, verso, col. ii.15.
73Dorothy Thompson (per litteras 10-19-1992) indicated that she was working on a piece (P.Sorb. inv. 212)
from the same Demotic roll where one of the five divisions appearing in P.dem.Lille III 99 verso is broken down in
Greek. Here, in col. 2.1, the word didaox a 6 appears. It is unclear if it designated female teachers or, more
likely, the wives of the teachers who were exempted from the tax.
74See col. iv.1-7. See Thompson 1992.
75Thompson 1992, 325, considers at least the 15 males real teachers. She sees reflected in the considerable
number of Greek instructors the policy of Ptolemy Philadelphus to promote Greek education to serve the needs of
the new Greek administration.
22 INTRODUCTION

Palladas,
teacher (7.66). Grammarians might own two or three slaves,’© while the grammarian
who complained bitterly about his poverty, nonetheless possessed at least one.’”7 Other gram-
matikoi were land-owners, and some enjoyed not only wealth, but also high rank and status. 78
At the same time the range of income and social status possessed by grammarians was
diverse.79 Even elementary teachers, who were in a less privileged position than grammarians,
sometimes owned a slave,®° houses and land,®! and a not uncommon source of income for them
stemmed from their ability to read and write. In the midst of a largely illiterate population,
some schoolmasters performed these tasks for others, acting as scribes and notaries.82 The
cycle of Demotic tales of Setne Khamwas, where the schoolteacher acts as scribe in drawing up
a deed, shows that helping out as scribes was a natural function of teachers not only in Greek-
speaking Egypt.83 At the other end of the Mediterranean, a Latin inscription on a funeral
monument has the teacher remembering how he in life wrote out wills for others, performing
the service for free when his clients could not afford to pay.84
The evidence suggests that in Egypt education was not exclusively in the hands of men.
Among the mummy portrait-heads of the Roman period found in the Arsinoite, the grammatike
Hermione stands out with her big, inquisitive eyes and fine and delicate features.8° We know
nothing of Hermione’s academic accomplishments, but more is known about several women
scholars who worked in Alexandria: under the Ptolemies Agallis, daughter of Agallias and
Hestiaea;8® and in late antiquity the philosopher and mathematician Hypatia, who followed in
the footsteps of her scholarly father.’ In comparison with women in the classical city-states of
mainland Greece, some women in the Hellenistic age participated more openly in community
affairs and tried to make a name for themselves in various professions.’ Nonetheless, women
who taught at high levels of education remained the exception. Women were accepted among
the ranks of the didaskaloi, although this fact has received little attention from scholars. For
example, a papyrus letter of Christian provenance of the fourth century AD®? mentions the

76Cf. Libanius, Or. 31.11 and grammatikos (2).

77Cf, Cameron 1965, 257-58.
78Sce grammatikoi (13), (6), (7), and (10). Cf. Kaster 1988, 109-11. Grammatikos (10) possessed in addition
to the Flaviate the title of clarissimus, NXaumpdtatoc, which belonged to persons of senatorial rank.
79Cf. the difficulties experienced by grammarian (3). ~

80Sce didaskalos (20).

81 See didaskaloi (10), (27), (28), and (31).
82S
ce didaskaloi (2), (18), (19), (26), and (29); see also grammatodidaskaloi (1) and (2) whom Maehler 1983
A eget Egyptian scribes tied to the temple. ,
See Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature Wl The Late Peri
London 1980) 133-36. Cf. Thompson 1989, 77-78. Sci ue
84 1demque testamenta scripsit cum fide, nec quoiquam pernegavit, see CIL X.3969, Dessau 7763. Cf. Bonner
1977, 150 and T.E. Kinsey, “A Poor Schoolmaster?” Mnemosyne 32 (1979) 381.
85Hermione is no. 1 in the list. W. M. Flinders Petrie, Roman Portraits and Memphis, (London 1911)
pl.2
Klaus Parlasca, Mumienportrdts und Verwandte Denkmdler, (Wiesbaden 1966) 81 and 101-103 with setention
and tafel 15. Turner 1980, 77 wonders whether ypappariKy meant “literary lady” rather than sicher of ee eS
but this is unlikely since the expression, with that meaning, would be odd. ,
86Sarah B. Pomeroy, Women in Hellenistic Egypt (New York 1984) 61.
870n Hypatia, see Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (New York 1946) vol.
II
1562, chapter XLVII; Alan Cameron, “Isidore of Miletus and Hypatia: On the Editing of Mathematical
Texts”
GRBS 31 (1990) 103-27; Alan Cameron and Jacqueline Long, Barbarians and Politics at the Court
of Arcadi
(Berkeley 1993) 39-62; Maria Dzielska, Hypathia of Alexandria (tr. F. Lyra, Cambridge, Mass. 1995)
ee
88Sarah B. Pomeroy, “Technikai kai Mousikai,” AJAH 2 (1977) 51-68. ;
8°See references to didcoKoAOL (29-30).
 EVIDENCE FOR SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS 23

teacher Kyria, greeting her as a “lady didaskalos” (rv d6c&oxadov). The first editor of the let-
ter concluded that the letter derived from a Christian milieu and that the title of didaskalos
referred to a woman entrusted with the teaching of the religious doctrine. Because the Church
did not admit women to the teaching of the Christian doctrine, the editor connected the letter
with a circle of Gnostics, even though he could point to no gnostic texts of the fourth century
awarding women the title of didaskalos. His refusal to see Kyria simply as a teacher of letters
stems, in large part, from what he considered the lack of evidence for the existence of women
teachers at lower levels of education.
A few papyri from the first to the sixth century AD do testify that women could and did
fill the position. Not all these women were called didaskalos, but rather deskale or deskalos:
the spelling of didaskalos modulated to dideskalos and then deskalos without reduplication.%
In time reduplication tended to be reduced, and even reduplicated substantives were reduced to
their thematic roots. Deskalos was still used at the beginning of this century in the Greek
spoken in the Pontus of Asia Minor;?! in modern Greek the word daskalos designates the
schoolmaster, and daskala the schoolmistress. Thus, in a letter Apollonous writes to her hus-
band Terentianos, who is a soldier in service, and tells him, “Do not worry about the children;
they are well and attend classes with a teacher.”?* Although the editor of this text recognized
that deskale was used instead of didaskalos in the sense of “teacher,” he failed to ask whether
the deskale was a woman—a suggestion that becomes very likely indeed through an investiga-
tion of the other occurrences of deskalos and deskale, for every one refers to a woman. First
there is Sarapias deskalos whose very name guarantees that she is a woman.?? The same is true
for Athenais deskalos, mentioned in a mother’s affectionate letter to her children.%4 A third let-
ter from Horigenes closes with his greetings for family members and friends, including a des-
kalos, apparently his teacher in the primary years who has remained in contact with the fam-
ily.2° A late Christian letter of the fifth-sixth century AD provides a more ambiguous example,
for instead of deskalos the letter says dekale, and although this individual is twice addressed
with words of affection, no gendered article accompanies the designation to put the matter
beyond doubt.?°
It would seem, therefore, that a male teacher in the Roman and early Byzantine periods
was still designated with the full word didaskalos, the word that had been used for “teacher”

MASa&oKadoc became 6:d€oxaXoc, and then dgoxadog. About this common phenomenon, see A.N. Jannaris,
An Historical Greek Grammar, Chiefly of the Attic Dialect, (London 1897) 737.
9lSee Stylianos G. Kapsomenakis, Voruntersuchungen zu einer Grammatik der Papyri der nachchristlichen
Zeit (Munchen 1938) 121-22.
92See SudcéoKadoc (15). Apollonous’ words, eic SeoxeAnv mapedpevovor recall the expression tpocedpedver ic
T& pabypara “attends classes” of another letter, PSI 1 94, in which a woman describes the enthusiasm of her son
for school. Cf. above pp. 22-23.
93Sece didaskalos (14) in the list.
94See didaskalos (16). Athenais, who was the village teacher or a slave teacher, is mentioned among the
people who greet Sarapias’ children, together with “EpyavodBic tpoddc, perhaps the woman who had raised
them.
95See didaskalos (21), where the editor translates 5¢oxadoc “the governess.”
96The expression appearing in the letter (didaskalos 35) is dpi pov dex&An. The term dexc&dAn shows the drop-
ping of sigma, a not uncommon phenomenon even in the middle of a word, for which see Stylianos G. Kap-
somenakis, “P.land. VI 101,8,” Athena 73-74 (1973) 571. The final alpha of xvpia may have dropped out, as it is
sometimes elided in nominal forms, see Gignac 1976, 317 and 1981, 4; see also P. Mich. V 331.4 and P.Mich. XIII
666.30.
4 INTRODUCTION

Although
over the centuries, but the noun deskalos (deskale) was reserved for female teachers.
male
theirs was neither a prestigious position nor one monetarily rewarding, the teachers, both
and female, often gained the trust and affection of their young charges and their families. A
woman teacher may have seemed especially appropriate as an instructor to young girls,?’ and
since women were the most easily available teachers for their own small children, the expan-
sion of the role to embrace other young students may have seemed a natural one.78
The methods that prevailed in the schools throughout antiquity were less than gentle.
Using the strap, or “caning,” seems to have been routine among schoolmasters, and references
in literature to corporal punishment are not infrequent in Greek and Roman authors of all peri-
ods.99 St. Augustine recalls all the supplications he made to God not to be beaten in school
when he was a small child and wonders at the cruelty of that system, about which his parents
used to laugh. “Racks, claws and such varieties of torments...we schoolboys suffered from our
masters.” !°0 Were these punishments right, he wonders—for he is quick to admit that play got
in the way of his learning—or was the harsh discipline maintained only because it was com-
mended by the ancestors? The school colloquies, presumably contemporary in origin with
Augustine, note that if someone reads well he is praised, but if he does not he is whipped.!°!
The younger a pupil was, the more likely he would become a victim of the wrathful school-
master, a magister iracundissimus as Seneca dubs him.!°2 Grammarians were reputed to be
milder than the didaskalos, more violent than the rhetor.!°3 At times children became impatient
with the severity, for during the famine in Cappadocia, according to St. Basilius, the children
happily left their tablets in school and flocked to the church to join in the prayers, glad to be
free from their burdensome teacher.!4 Libanius presents a superb portrait of a didaskalos (this
time surely a grammarian or a rhetor). He is developing into a more elaborate composition the
saying “Isocrates said that the roots of education are bitter, but the fruits are sweet.” To
demonstrate how bitter are the methods used in education, he has the teacher sitting on a high
chair and venting all his anger on his trembling pupils. If they do not perform well, they
receive “anger and insults, beating and threats. “105
Corporal punishment characterized the educational system of pharaonic Egypt,!° as
well as persisted into later times. A school exercise from Graeco-Roman times (134) required a

aac pedagogue (3), a woman who was in charge of a young slave girl.
Cf. p. 23. Indeed, one wonders if the terracotta described on note 25, which has traditionally been inter-
prea es a mother teaching her daughter, might not instead depict a female teacher.
See, e.g., Aristophanes, Clouds 972; Herodas, Mim. III; Plautus, Bacchides 434: Quintilian, Inst.Or. I
3.14-17. j Ne
100 Confess. I IX, eculeos et ungulas atque huiuscemodi varia tormenta...quibus pueri a magistris afflige-
bamur. :
101 see Dionisotti 1982, 101 line 39 (emended version), ef 71g KaAGS dvnyopevoev, EmavetTar, EX TLC KAKO
b€peTa.
pean Ep. 94.9.
ny See Horace, Epist. 2.1.70-71 (but Orbilius plagosus, a grammarian, was Horace’s teacher from
th
beginning) and Luxorius, Epigr. 8. %
Hogeasus, Hom.Famis Sicc. 64 C Migne PG 309: rig émaxOeiac Tod matdevTOd.
Libanius, PRICE ed. Foerster, VIII, pp. 84-85. Other references to punishment in education are col-
lected by Alan D. Booth, “Punishment, Discipline, and Riot in the Schools in Antiquity,” EMC 17 (1973) 107-14
and wae Image of the Professor in Ancient Society,” EMC 20 (1976) 1-10.
Cf. Papyrus Anastasi V 3.9 (“The ears of a youth are on his back: he listens when he is beaten”) and
IV
8.7, translated by Adolf Erman, ‘ Die Literatur der Aegypter (Leipzi
pzig 1923) 243 and 267, Eng.
man, The Ancient Egyptians (London 1927). lire
 EVIDENCE FOR SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS 2

beginner to copy four times a teacher’s model with a fearful warning: “Work hard, boy, lest
you be thrashed.” In another exercise, 257, a more advanced student writes about the same
subject: “He who is not thrashed cannot be educated.”!°7 A Byzantine letter is also concerned
with “the physical side of education.”!8 In the letter a father writes to someone, presumably!
a teacher, announcing his intention to withdraw his son Anastasios from his class, he says:!1°
You have written to me about little Anastasios, and since I owe you money,
be sure you will be paid in full. Nothing of what has been told you is true
except that he is stupid and a child and foolish. He wrote me a letter himself
quite in keeping with his appearance and his empty wits. And since he is a
child and stupid then I will bring him home. I am keeping his letter to show
you when I come. Chastise him, for ever since he left his father he has had
no other beatings, and he wants to get a few, his back has got accustomed to
them and needs its daily dose.
However young and immature Anastasios was, he was able to write a letter that his father con-
sidered a masterpiece of stupidity. The father mercilessly makes fun of his son, but showing the letter
to the teacher seems a veiled gesture of reproach for the schoolmaster, since in all ages parents have
held teachers responsible for their children’s failure. The letter apparently demonstrated that the boy
did not learn anything. The father alludes to some money he owes the teacher, probably the tuition.
He assures the instructor that, although he intends to withdraw the child, he will be paid in full. The
teacher was probably apprehensive about this, since teachers did not always receive their due pay-
ment. An inscription from Pompeii exhibits similar unease, for an elementary teacher wrote on the
porch of the Campus, “May the person who pays me receive what he wishes for from the gods.”!!!
Some parents withdrew their children from school prematurely to avoid paying what they had prom-
ised. The grammarian Palladas knew of pupils who changed schools after eleven months without
making the year’s payment.!!? Anastasios, we understand, was regularly beaten at home, and his
father gives the teacher official permission to continue beating the boy in his stead; the images of
teacher and disciplinarian father blend.!!3 Doubts about the efficacy of corporal punishment in the
schools became more common in the late Roman period, as milder forms of discipline gained ground

107°9 pn dapeig &vOpwmoc ov TadeveTar, Cf. Monost. 573 and Menander, Dyskolos 699-700.
108See SB V 7655: C.H. Roberts, “Two Letters of the Byzantine Period,” JEA 21 (1935) 52. The hand is
dated to VI AD.
109Cjaire Préaux, reviewing Roberts’ article in CdE 11 (1936) 565-66, thinks Anastasios was apprenticed to a
trade. His father, who owed someone money, had offered the boy as a compensation. Roberts himself, however,
had entertained this possibility, concluding that it was more likely that Anastasios was studying with someone. I
believe that he was right.
110A translation of the same lines is published by W. Schubart, Die Papyri als Zeugen antiker Kultur (Berlin
1925) 80.
M1 9yj mihi docendi dederit mercedem (h)abeat quod petit a superis, see Della Corte 1959, 62.
1124P IX 174.9-12, see Cameron 1965, 257.
113 For the many ways the two roles were blending, see Kaster 1988, 67-69. For cruel teachers being the sub-
stitutes for fathers in all ages see Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, “Le chiavi fiorentine di Barbablu: l’apprendimento
della lettura a Firenze nel XV secolo,” Quaderni Storici 57 (1984) 773-74. At Macerata (Italy) in 1391 a teacher
was supposed to instruct children, but also to punish them, like a father: et ipsos instruere, docere, monere, cor-
rigere et castigare scolastice et paterne. See L. Colini Baldeschi, “L’insegnamento pubblico a Macerata nel Tre-
cento e Quattrocento,” Rivista delle Biblioteche e degli Archivi 11 (1900) 23.
26 INTRODUCTION

in the home as well.!!4 In the seventh century the physician and medical writer Paulus Aegineta
thought it best if boys and girls from the age of seven were entrusted to nice, gentle teachers who
would teach them with joy.!!>
Evidence from the papyri on teachers and schools has been useful in creating this general pic-
ture of the people and places devoted to educating children. The private letters and the anecdotal
tradition offer some specific examples, and afford a glimpse into people’s mentality, habits, and
assumptions with regard to education. Usually anecdotal evidence can clarify generalizations and it is
especially welcome when the data are unverifiable. But this is not the case with education in Graeco-
Roman Egypt, where the school exercises themselves reveal the content of ancient lessons and the
pedagogical methods used to impart instruction, documenting the reality of ancient education.

114S¢e Marrou 1975, II 72. See also Pierre Riché, Ecole et enseignement dans le Haut Moyen Age (Paris
1979) 208-10 with examples of gentler methods of teaching used in the Middle Ages.
115paulus Aegineta, Corpus Medicorum Graecorum 911.14: yeappatioraig mapadibdvar mpaéou. Kai
prravOpemoic’ ovToL yap pETa AVEDEWS Kai Kapa SidcoKoVOL.
3 The School Exercises

The school exercises of Graeco-Roman Egypt have attracted limited attention and have never
been thoroughly examined in their own right. Modern scholars researching ancient education
regard the exercises as a source of illustrative material confirming information from the ancient
authors about education.! They consider the actual testimonies of the school work of teachers
and students not only to be an endless repetition of certain patterns but also to be straightfor-
ward evidence that does not deserve to be closely investigated.2 School exercises do not often
attract unreserved attention, even by papyrologists, and so remain in the gray area that lies
between literary and documentary papyrology: documentary papyrologists consider the exer-
cises to belong to areas of interest and capacity beyond their own, while scholars who study
literary papyri look at school work with some suspicion and disdain.3 The lack of attention
school exercises have attracted also derives from the difficulty of gaining access to them, since
they have often appeared, especially in the past, in obscure journals, reviews, and Fest-
Schriften. Although a complete and reliable catalogue of exercises, listed by educational
typologies, would be a necessary tool for researchers of ancient education, all of the few exist-
ing lists of school exercises present notable shortcomings.
Paul Collart was the first to compile a catalogue of exercises, which is less objec-
tionable than those published later on.+ A quarter-century later, Giorgio Zalateo attempted to
complete Collart’s list, cataloguing not only the school exercises but also the school texts—that
is, texts produced for the use of students.*> The resulting list is a haphazard collection of
material, some of which does not offer any guarantee of having been used in a school context.®
More recently Janine Debut updated Zalateo’s catalogue, but her list is the most problematic of
all: texts and exercises are classified according to levels of difficulty and by genre; the material

ISee, e.g., Beudel 1911.

2See for instance Harvey 1978, 64: “Very little will be said about the papyrological and epigraphic evidence,
which is comparatively straightforward.”
3School exercises are generally dismissed as being unable to provide reliable information about the state and
tradition of a certain text.
4Collart 1937 only included the exercises in his list, not the school texts, listing them according to general
typologies corresponding to the growing difficulty of educational levels. Before him, Ziebarth 1913 made a valuable
selection of exercises.
SSee Zalateo 1961.
SAccording to Zalateo, students at every level used a remarkable number of texts and dictionaries. Judging
from the list and the related notes, one has the impression that this scholar considered schools in antiquity in terms
of the same standard applied to schools in nineteenth and twentieth-century Italy. This list is definitely too inclusive,
as noted by Turner 1980, 190, note 42. See in “Items Excluded from the Catalogue,” pp. 285-88, a detailed
explanation of the items excluded with reasons for the exclusion.
28 INTRODUCTION

is not well distributed in the different categories;’ identical items appear several times;® and
there is a large number of mistakes and inconsistencies throughout the work.?
The various and not completely successful attempts of scholars to classify both school
texts and school exercises make it necessary to formulate a clear distinction between texts and
exercises. While exercises represent both the work that students did for and in school as well
as the models that teachers prepared for their pupils, school texts are books professionally pro-
duced to circulate in class and be used by students. Since it is problematic to identify sufficient
and objective marks distinguishing texts used in schools from texts circulating among the gen-
eral public, it is difficult to be sure about the school provenance of texts, aside from a few that
are manuals presenting very elementary material.!° I decided to concentrate my attention on the
exercises, both because my primary interest is to investigate the acquisition of the skill of writ-
ing, and because elementary students did not use many texts, but relied heavily on copies, dic-
tations, and teachers’ models.
As a tule I have not taken into consideration the products of higher education—that is,
the exercises that originated in rhetorical schools—even though it is not always feasible to draw
a sharp line between educational levels. In general, I have considered exercises whose content
appears to be typically rhetorical when the hand of the student seems still to be a “school
hand”—that is, not completely developed. In addition, I include the few rhetorical exercises
that exhibit specific features that are common to other less advanced exercises, since these can
be useful to outline and identify the essential distinguishing characteristics of an exercise. I
also do not study bilingual glossaries, because they are written by well-developed and some-
times completely professional hands. It is doubtful that any of them were produced in schools,
nor it is certain that they were produced for learners rather than as specialized reference works
for the proficient.!! Since my principal aim is to investigate the acquisition of writing by
beginners, I will not specifically treat the activity of scribes. It is generally assumed that
scribes needed technical training in scribal schools to acquire professional ability in one or
more scripts and to master the complex vocabulary and syntax of legal and bureaucratic writ-
ing.!2 Nonetheless, the modalities and timing of a specialized scribal education are unclear: it
is difficult to know for certain whether technical training started after the completion of a few
years of regular schooling or during those years of general education. I decided to take into

7See Debut 1986: the section Les Textes includes many exercises (e.g. Debut 231 and 308), and conversely
many texts are classified as exercises in the relevant section (e.g., Debut 325 and 329). Equally, the section dedi-
cated to the learning of handwriting, where one could expect to find the poorly written exercises, lists many per-
fectly wenn textss(Secre-g-5 Debuts SOs oilimlioa al6>)
. See, for instance, 379, which appears up to 11 times; in addition, simpler exercises, and not only notebooks
are listed many times when they contain exercises of different kinds and levels. The splitting of the Ercicises
reaches paradoxical proportions in the syllabaries and the lists of words, which are further divided according to the
number of syllables. r
"Descriptions of the different items often do not correspond (see e.g., Debut 131, 133); some items are
impossible to find, probably because they are listed incorrectly (see e.g., Debut 138, 162, 198, 279 281); and som
are listed twice by mistake (see e.g., Debut 120 and 121 bis). ‘i
1These are included in the Catalogue, see 81, 84, 97, 120.
For bili : a tek ee. aE,
nen or bilingual glossaries, see Johannes Kramer, Glossaria Bilinguia in Papyris et Membranis Reperta (Bonn

12Se¢e Ulrich Wilcken, : Urkunden der Pt olemderzeit

i it (dltere
(i Funde). I, Papyri aus Unteré i
Leipzig 1927) 474-75 and Thompson 1994, 76-77. PONS eae eae
 THE SCHOOL EXERCISES 29

consideration elementary scribal exercises such as the writing of letters, alphabets, and simple
repeated words, since they probably represent the work of apprentice scribes and have in com-
mon the learning of the script. Even though in these exercises the characters are not always
completely skilled, they do not resemble real beginners’ letters and are elaborately executed.!3
I consider more advanced scribal exercises that presuppose specific notarial training or display
professional book hands to be outside my area of inquiry.!4
I also include in my consideration the elementary Greek and Coptic school exercises,
when they cover letters of the alphabet, alphabets, and syllabaries—that is, the learning of the
Coptic script and alphabet, and not the Coptic language—and when they were produced in or
before the eighth century AD.!° Maintaining the strict traditional division between Greek and
Coptic material, with exclusion of any item containing Coptic letters, involved deep conceptual
problems. Coptic developed in bilingual milieus and its ties not only with the Greek script but
also with the Greek language are multiple, involving the importation of Greek religious terms
as well as a permeation of the Greek vocabulary of everyday life and Greek constructions and
methods of word-formation.!© Much is unclear about the teaching of the Greek and Coptic
alphabets, their relationship in centuries before the eighth, and the structure and organization
of Coptic education. It is essential to distinguish between Coptic language and Coptic script,
since not everything is clear about the correspondence of written and spoken Coptic. Exercises
at the first elementary level traditionally considered as Coptic!” do not yet involve the Coptic
language itself but only the Coptic alphabet. They show four types of occurrences: (1) series of
letters of the alphabet that do not display the specific Coptic signs imported from Demotic; (2)
Coptic alphabets where the special Coptic signs are separated from the Greek letters and are
listed in a distinct section of the exercise; (3) exercises displaying Greek and Coptic letters
together; (4) exercises containing Coptic proper names, where students practiced their own
names or wrote lists of names. When the exercises do not appear to have been written after the
eighth century AD and only evidence a knowledge of the letters of the Coptic alphabet, it is
problematic to draw a sharp line between Greek and Coptic education.!8
For methodological reasons I did not classify and study Latin and mathematical texts
and exercises, because the relative expertise of the script in the majority of them makes it diffi-
cult to identify those specifically deriving from a school.!9 Latin texts that were used to learn
the Latin language appear similar to those employed in Greek education: alphabets, writing

13] call scribal exercises presenting these characteristics scribes’ trials.

147 did not include in my study scribal exercises containing formulas, dates, beginnings of epistles, or whole
documents. In this respect, I do not share with the editors of MPER NS XV their idea of school, which seems too
inclusive. For the same reason I did not consider proficient scribal exercises in book hand or in chancery style, such
as P.Ryl. 159 or P.Hawara 24. I also excluded the tachygraphic commentaries and exercises, which seemed to
address a specific area of specialization.
I5This is the likely date of the disappearance of Greek as a spoken language in Egypt, see above p. 4.
16See Ray 1994, 60.
17For Coptic school exercises, see Hasitzka 1990.
18] did not cover the bilingual Greek-Coptic lists of words that Hasitzka 1990 includes in section VIlIc since,
as far as I could check plates and originals, they appear to be written by professional or advanced hands, and it is
doubtful whether they were school exercises. See, e.g., no. 256, written by Dioscoros of Aphrodito.
199Only Zalateo listed both Latin and mathematical texts, while Collart included a category for mathematical
exercises only.
30 INTRODUCTION

exercises, glossaries, fables, maxims, passages of authors,2° and grammatical treatises.

Although traditionally scholars regarded these texts as always originating from ancient
schools,2! they are all written by experienced hands and show that students at an advanced
level studied Latin as a second or third language. It is difficult, moreover, to exclude the pos-
sibility that many of these texts might have served adults who needed to learn the Latin lan-
guage for business reasons.”3 The majority of tablets, papyri, and ostraca containing mathe-
ratical material are also written in expert hands. Although some texts certainly were used for
instruction,24 the purpose of other texts, such as multiplication tables and tables of fractions,
cannot be determined exactly, since some of them might have been employed in a lawyer's,
businessman’s, or bureaucrat’s office as an aid to reckoning.?°
An essential prerequisite to making a catalogue of school exercises is sifting all the
material to ascertain its provenance and place in a school context on the base of clear and
trustworthy criteria.26 Although the criteria that I adopted in identifying school material will be
treated in more detail in the course of the work,’ it is important to state them at the beginning
in unequivocal terms. They are the following: (1) types of textual material contained, (2) writ-
ing materials and their use, (3) special distinguishing characteristics of an exercise, (4) mis-
takes, and (5) evaluation of the hand. While sometimes the application of one criterion is suffi-
cient to determine that a given text is a school exercise, more often it is necessary to combine
different criteria. The content of an exercise is in direct relation to the educational level of the
student especially at an initial stage, but when one confronts the copying or dictation of pas-
sages of prose and verses, diverse criteria must come into play. In devising the different
categories, and especially for the first seven levels,?8 I have kept in mind above all the amount
of writing they required and have considered a traditional student’s progress from easiest to
most difficult. In the Catalogue, exercises are grouped according to the categories below. I will
show in later chapters, however, that at least in Roman and Byzantine times levels 5 and 6 fol-
lowed after level 2 when a student was learning how to write. After a basic exposure to the
alphabet, students had to copy a limited amount of writing letter by letter, without yet being
able to read, merely to strengthen their hand. I chose to maintain in the Catalogue the tradi-
tional order of educational levels that the ancient literary sources hand down29 for several

20Only the passages that are translated into Greek or contain Greek explanations and glosses can safely be
neparded as addressing the needs of someone wanting to learn Latin.
nong others
See among ot Clifford H. Moore, ; “Latin Exercises from a Greek Schoolroom,”; CP 19 1924 -
oe Dionisotti 1982, 91. bar oes
William Brashear, “A Greek-Latin Vocabulary,” Proceed.XVI Congr. (Chico 1981) 34, says, “Soon after
the battle of Actium someone very eager to learn the language of the new rulers set out to study Latin even before
he cou properly read it. The economic and social advantages it would bring him were strong incentives.”
See, e.g., SB 11527, MPER NS XV 143, 147, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 179, Pap.Flor. XVIII 71-78
P.IFAO 88, P.Michael. 62, P.Akhmim 5, P.Harr. 50. |
°
“La distinction i scolaire et une copipie professionnelle
entre un exercice fessi est loin
in d’étre
d’é j
toujours j
aisée,”
Bernard Boyaval, Tablettes mathématiques du Musée du Louvre,” RA 2 (1973) 243. Cf. also he doubts sti
by Eras Egleston Robbins, “A Greco-Egyptian Mathematical Papyrus,” CP 18 (1923) 329-30.
A difficulty that one encounters when using the three existing lists of exercises and texts is that the author
did ne een explain the criteria for selection that they followed. ;
ae description of the items of the Catalogue will often reiterate the relevant criteria for inclusion
See below, p. 31. ;
29Sece below p. 139.
 THE SCHOOL EXERCISES 31

reasons, but chiefly because this was certainly the order followed in teaching reading and was
perhaps the order followed in teaching writing in the Classical and Ptolemaic periods.?°
The different educational levels and categories used in studying the exercises are:
. Letters of the Alphabet
. Alphabets
. Syllabaries
. Lists of Words
. Writing Exercises
. Short Passages: Maxims, Sayings, and Limited Amount of Verses
. Longer Passages: Copies or Dictations
. Scholia Minora
WO
WN. Compositions, Paraphrases, Summaries
mOoOANNN

10. Grammatical Exercises

11. Notebooks
While the first category comprises the writing of single letters of the alphabet practiced
several times, and letters that are joined without following an alphabetical order, the second
level includes complete and incomplete alphabets. Syllabaries and lists of words are placed in
the third and fourth categories, without being further distinguished according to number of let-
ters or syllables, solely to avoid too many distinctions and to leave all the material in
chronological order. The next level, Writing Exercises, comprises the types of exercises that
focus on the acquisition of better writing skills, that is, exercises copied from teachers’ models
and words or short passages repeated several times.3! This level somewhat overlaps with level
6, which generally includes texts not longer than eight lines. Level 7 includes passages of vari-
able length and degree of difficulty, generally longer than eight lines. Scholia Minora, those
Homeric commentaries where the Homeric text is divided into lemmata and is accompanied by
the corresponding glosses, occupy level 8. I have considered only exercises containing Scholia
Minora that appear to be written by students or that display hands which can be designated as
“teachers’ hands.” Level 9 comprises paraphrases, compositions on a given subject, summaries
of Homeric episodes or of whole books, and dialogues, while Grammatical Exercises make up
category 10.3 I considered it necessary to include grammatical material in a special category,
although most texts were probably copied and could be regarded as Longer Passages; this is an
area in which it is preferable to make a useful and operating distinction in the mass of the
Longer Passages. Finally, I have decided to include in a category by themselves what I call
Notebooks—that is, collections of exercises of multifarious content that sometimes were com-
piled by more than one student.

30] realize that my choice could be somewhat controversial, but, because of the lack of evidence for teaching
writing in the Classical and Ptolemaic periods, I prefer to respect the traditional order of stages in a general
Catalogue of exercises that were used to teach both reading and writing.
3lIn this category appear also a few single words, written only once, simply because it was hard to find a
more suitable placement for them.
32The order followed for levels 8-10 is not dictated by any particular reason, since all the exercises in ques-
tion were practiced in the class of the grammarian.
32 INTRODUCTION

The process of selection and identification of school exercises must take into account
I
the different writing materials on which the exercises appear and their usage in schools.*?
shall try to ascertain when and under what conditions a particular writing material is per se a
sufficient guarantee that something was written in a school context. The particular ways in
which students and teachers used and selected the most appropriate writing materials for their
needs are worth noticing, since an investigation of the conditions of writing will contribute to a
more realistic idea of the modalities of teaching and learning in ancient classrooms. Setting out
the distinguishing features of exercises is also of fundamental relevance.34 Since the exercises
as a group have never before been examined from this point of view, this promises interesting
results. Some of the distinguishing characteristics concern the layout of an exercise and are
mostly motivated by the desire to display it in an attractive and efficient manner. Other charac-
teristics, such as the presence and types of dates included in some exercises, or punctuation
and lectional signs, are related more to the content. I hope that the consideration of special fea-
tures, such as the division of words into syllables or the separation of words from one another
to facilitate reading, will elucidate how students worked and learned, and how their instructors
taught reading and writing. Mistakes in writing down a particular text are also of crucial
importance for the identification of an exercise. Since most of the exercises I consider are
copies or dictations, mistakes are most frequently orthographic, while morphological and syn-
tactical errors are more unusual.
A direct evaluation of the hands of teachers and students must be at the base of the
process of selecting the material.3> Palaeographical criteria and our standards for the beauty or
ugliness of a hand change with time, above all because of the discovery of new texts. Thus, for
instance, what was considered in the past the ungainly hand of a student may appear to be the
informal hand of a scribe on a more balanced view. In addition, the palaeographical descrip-
tions of the hands of exercises are often quite superficial and can lead to gross mistakes. One
example will suffice. Exercise 284 preserves the short story of King Adrastus and his daugh-
ters, which was always considered a composition and thus listed by the different cataloguers.36
But a direct examination of the writing unmistakably reveals the work of a beginner with a
quivering, uncertain hand throughout the whole text. The story of Adrastus was not the prod-
uct of the student’s creativity, but was either copied or written from dictation, as the total lack
of mistakes pointing to a composition and the simple and elementary content confirm.37
Although I will discuss in a later chapter all the palaeographical characteristics of the hands of

33Sece pp. 57-72.

34See pp. 75-96.
SThe previous cataloguers refrained from such procedure, trusting the subjective opinions of the various
editors. In Pack? 1965, the exercises are assembled in a separate section, School Exercises and Writing Exercises
and in addition some exercises, which are listed under the different authors, are marked as sch.ex. Pack all but fol-
lowed the opinion of the editors, with the consequence, for instance, that Scholia Minora published in the past
when it was automatically believed that they were compiled by students, are distinguished as school exercises, ane
those published more recently do not appear as such. The new catalogue, Mertens-Pack3 boaaroe
will follow the same method. ae s-Pack”, which is in preparation,
See Zalateo no. 188 = Debut no. 376.
Works such as M.-H. Ibrahim, 'H €AAnvopwpaixy madeia év Atyomrw (Athens 1972, 13 Suppl. Athena)
who followed the previous lists in order to study ancient education, inevitably reflect the
mistakes of the
cataloguers. Thus this scholar considered the story of Adrastus the composition of a student under the guidance
of a
grammarian, even though he had previously said that at this stage students wrote in a much better way (p. 93)
 THE SCHOOL EXERCISES 33

students and teachers,38 it is essential to call attention right now to the types of students’ hands
that emerge from the data, in order to establish a conventional way to identify them and to be
able to use this terminology throughout the work. School hands can be classified into four dif-
ferent types on the basis of the maturity and ability of the student.3? Hand 1, “the zero-grade
hand,” represents the handwriting of the absolute beginner with lack of coordination and
insufficient knowledge of the letter shapes; Hand 2, “the alphabetic hand,” is characterized by
an identical clumsiness, but shows that the student has learned the basic shapes of the letters;
Hand 3, “the evolving hand,” still exhibits many irregular and clumsy features, but is moder-
ately fluent and does not shy away from writing; Hand 4, “the rapid hand,” is completely
fluent, even if not always tidy and even. Since the process of learning writing is a dynamic
one, it is unrealistic to keep on speaking in general terms of a “school hand” as if of a frozen
state and condition of writing. Palaeography is also a decisive factor pointing to a teacher’s
model, and the main aim of a study of teachers’ hands*° will be to establish the principal char-
acteristics they share in order to identify more teachers’ models.
I have spoken above*! of the teacher Flavius Kollouthos son of Isakios, apparently a
grammarian, who inscribed on tablet 160 the model of a maxim for his pupil:
apxn pEeyloTn Tov Ppovety TH YOaMWATaA
“Letters are the greatest beginning of understanding”
The student painfully copied the maxim over and over again down the tablet. He tried
to write two distinct columns, perhaps imitating the mise en page of a real book, brutally
dividing the words whenever he started a new line. Since this student does not seem to have
been able to read, one can only hope that he knew the meaning of the words he was writing or
that he learned it later on, when letters brought him understanding. I hope this study of writ-
ing, of how students learned their letters, and how teachers inscribed models with beautiful,
exemplary grammata, will lead to a deeper understanding of how schools in antiquity worked
and how the letters learned in school affected adult writing.

38Sce pp. 97-118.

39] will sketch them quickly, but see below, pp. 111-12, for a more accurate description of each hand.
49Sce below pp. 97-102.
41 See pp. 14-15.
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PART TWO

Identifying School Exercises

—

~~ -

~~

: =

he,
=
—
4 Types of Textual Material

In the fourth century AD the grammarian Troilus reflected on a commonly recognized aspect of
ancient education: teachers continued to impart the same knowledge without ever deviating
from the usual course.! The general scope of education was rather limited even for the
privileged few who pursued a secondary instruction: writing, reading, some formal instruction
in the Greek language, and the study of the works of a few writers, almost exclusively poets.
The content of education remained unchanged for many centuries, and very little was left to the
creativity of teachers. The school exercises of Graeco-Roman Egypt confirm that education
consisted of a set of notions and concepts verified and proved by tradition and imparted
according to gradual stages of difficulty. The changes that occurred over the centuries in the
content and methods of education were few and of limited range, but I hope to show that they
were still significant.? Definite types of textual material emerge from an inspection of the work
of students and teachers. I will start from what Quintilian calls sua etiam studiis infantia, the
infancy of learning, the first moment in which a student ventured to form the outline of a letter
of the alphabet. To justify the significance of this moment it is not necessary to pretend with
Quintilian that it is the child Alexander of Macedon who held the reed pen or the stylus.? It
was a momentous occasion for any student in Graeco-Roman Egypt who was fortunate enough
to receive some education.

Letters, Alphabets, and Exercises on the Alphabet

The ancient authors describe different methods used to expose beginners to learning letters: let-
ters were permanently incised in a wooden tablet, and the student had to follow the outlines;
the master made the outlines, and the pupil filled them in; the teacher guided the pupil’s fin-
gers through the letter shapes; ivory and wooden letters were given to children, and perhaps
even cakes in the shape of letters.4 The school exercises testify only to the existence of models
of alphabets inscribed by the teachers and show that about two-thirds of the alphabets
preserved as individual items are models for copying. The data show that teachers did not
write down examples of letters in random order for their students and that the models

ISce Troilus, HpoAeyopeva Tho pnTopikc (C. Waltz, Rhetores Graeci, vol. 6, Ill 23), rapd&bevypa 6€ atic
6 YPALPATLOTHAS Hror 6 XapardiddoKxadoc’ cel yap THY ddaokadiay woreirou wndév meTATPET UY TOY EiBLopEevur.
2Beudel 1911, 5-6, strongly believed that there had been no development in educational methods and thus did
not make any distinction between the different periods: optime intellegitur rationem docendi semper eandem fere
juisse.
3Quintilian, Inst.Or. 1 1, 21-24. Quintilian reflects on the fact that Philip of Macedon had entrusted the early
education of his son to Aristotle for good reasons, and that the best philosopher of those times had accepted because
he was aware that the rudiments, those studiorum initia, were fundamental. Thus, as Quintilian describes the first
years of learning, he pretends to have on his lap young Alexander, fingamus igitur Alexandrum dari nobis
impositum gremio, dignum tanta cura infantem.
4 About all these methods see Harvey 1978. See also below, pp. 143-44.
38 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

of
reproduced only whole alphabets.> However, exercises done by students include examples
or
individual letters of the alphabet written in random order® as well as examples of partial
whole alphabets,’ and I have considered these two as separate and sequential stages in the
learning of the alphabet. Although one might object that the two stages could be com-
plementary, since students who were in the process of learning the alphabet and who knew
how to write letters in alphabetical order might need to practice individual letters, two con-
siderations make the separation of the two stages desirable. First of all, the texts in which mere
beginners write letters not in alphabetical order show more untrained hands than the texts
where entire or partial alphabets are written; secondly, examples that exhibit individual letters
written by beginners belong exclusively to the Byzantine period.? Even though, as always, the
random nature of the texts that have survived may be partially responsible for the finding that
in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods students did not practice letters outside of the alphabetical
sequence, another explanation needs at least to be taken into consideration. Practicing individ-
ual letters appears to have been a favorite scribal exercise, and about half of the examples of
exercises in this category were written by more or less proficient and advanced scribes.!° One
can venture to say that this scribal trial, which has something in common with the practicing of
scales by a musician, influenced the process of teaching letters in Byzantine schools, where
teachers required students to practice the letters they had just learned or that gave them some
trouble. Examination of the various hands is of crucial importance in distinguishing exercises
in which scribes practiced letters from those of beginner students, since the relative proficiency
and the elaborate traits of a scribal hand are usually evident.!! It appears that scribes did not
practice whole rows of alphabets, one after the other, as students did.!* Conversely,!? when
students were able to write letters without assistance, they did not persist in the practice of
whole rows of identical letters in turn, since they were not required to strive toward that
fluency and perfection in writing that was the evident goal of a scribe.14
A student had to acquire real familiarity not only with the name, the sound, and the
appearance of the letters of the alphabet but also with their place in the alphabetic sequence and
out of the regular sequence, since this enabled him to recognize the letters when part of words.

*Exercises 5 and 38 are only apparent exceptions, since the look of the script, and the repeating of the
pee by the more proficient hand, makes more likely a scenario of students’ cooperation and work on the same

®See nos. 1 to 40 in the Catalogue.

7See nos. 41 to 77.
sAbout this, see p. 131.
. The fragmentary exercises 1, 2, and 3, which belong to the Ptolemaic period, are too ambiguous to be taken
into account, since the letters seem to be followed by faint traces of other letters and could thus be the initial letters
of a list of words.
< Many more examples, not included in the Catalogue, testify to this scribal practice: sometimes scribes prac-
10 . * .

ticing writing in scribal schools interrupted what they were writing, ; for instance formul as or d
identical letters in rows. Sn Sana
Debut 1986, 25 1 complains of the tremendous difficulty in distinguishing students’ and scribal hands, but
i] . . . . .

her problems derived mainly from a lack of direct examination of the hands.
12¢¢, e.g., 160.
i| .
According to Bonner 1977, ) 168, , students practiced this kind of exercise, , b but then the exampl
in note 19 are all written by scribes. ATE al
“An exception is 404, where it is unclear whether the student of tablet 5 was imitating a typical scribal
14 . . . .

exercise OF was an apprentice scribe at the very beginning.

 TYPES OF TEXTUAL MATERIAL 39

The most common exercise concerning the alphabet that a student was required to practice was
the writing of letters in horizontal rows in reversed order,!5 an exercise in which mistakes and
erasures testify to pupils’ struggle to remember the correct sequence. A more difficult exercise
consisted of pairing the letters, the first with the last, the second with the last but one, and so
on, an exercise that supposedly forced students to recall the exact order of a letter in the
sequence. At times some cheating came into play, as ostracon 44 shows: the student had to
write down two alphabets, one in regular and one in reversed order, coupling the letters and
setting them side by side in vertical columns. But an examination of the letters and of the ink
reveals that, instead of writing alpha next to omega at the start, continuing to pair the letters in
this fashion down the column, he wrote the first alphabet in its entirety and then wrote the sec-
ond starting from the bottom of the column up, proceeding therefore again in regular, ascend-
ing order. Students were not asked to write down more difficult exercises, which consisted of
regularly skipping a fixed number of letters, as in writing alpha, epsilon, iota, and so on to the
end of the alphabet, and then going back to beta, zeta and continuing in this fashion.!© These
exercises only appear in teachers’ models, sometimes in conjunction with syllabaries: the let-
ters were supposed to be recognized and perhaps pronounced aloud by the pupils. Quintilian
alludes to this kind of exercise when he says that the instructors should write letters in various
orders so that the students can learn to recognize them by their appearance and not by their
place in the alphabet (varia permutatione turbent donec litteras qui instituuntur facie norint,
non ordine).'"
Another exercise used in the Greek and Roman schools to reinforce knowledge of the
alphabet consisted of the so-called chalinoi (xadvot).!8 These were alphabets in scrambled
order which joined together sequences of letters that were difficult to pronounce. In spite of the
ancients’ attempts to attribute some meaning to these strings of letters, they did not form real
words. The chalinos most popular in papyri is kvaé¢Brx, OumTNs, PAeypo, dow, which was
also used in the training of scribes!9 and appears twice in the school exercises.2? Clement of
Alexandria testifies to the existence of two more chalinoi used in schools and calls them
“models of copying for children.”2! According to Clement, Apollodorus of Corcyra referred to
a magical usage of these alphabetical formulas: children and the common people sang them
together to heal Miletus from the plague.”* Clement quotes in addition the fourth Jamb of Cal-
limachus, who knew of the same usage of this formula.?? Parts of the formula also appear in a
fragment attributed to Thespis, the description of a sacrifice to Pan consisting of milk, cheese,

ISsee, e.g., 43 and 83.

16Sce, e.g., 60 (verso).
17See Inst.Or. 11, 25.
18Se¢ Quintilian, Jnst.Or. 11, 37.
19See P.Kéln IV 175, where an accomplished scribe also practices parts of Psalms and tachygraphy, and the
exercise repeated on the back of a Coptic letter: F. Wisse, “Language Mysticism in the Nag Hammadi Texts and in
Early Coptic Monasticism,” Enchoria 9 (1979) 110 no. 9.
20See 60 and 79.
21Sce Clement, Strom. V 8 48.4-9; 49.1; 359.1-9; 360.3 Stahlin-Friichtel: broypappot mardikol.
22Clement, in Strom. 8 48.8-9 and 359-360, also gives a Christian explanation of the various “words” of our
chalinos. According to Cornelia Romer, P.Koln. IV 175, Porphyry had explained the words in a different way, as
reported by Richard Bentley, Epistula ad Millium (Introduction by G.P. Goold, Toronto 1962) 301-304 (the frag-
ment has not yet been published).
23See Callimachus fr. 194, 28-31, Pfeiffer I 179.
40 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

y
and wine, in which the different “words” are glossed with made-up meanings apparentl
intended to make fun of school practices.”4 It is bizarre that from here they found their way to
Hesychius’ Lexicon, acquiring the status of real words.25 In traditional education scribes and
students used these formulas as writing exercises. Quintilian also remarks that all these difficult
sounds together helped students to improve their pronunciation, and tablet 60 testifies to that,
since both exercises of this teacher’s model were supposed to be read aloud. It is interesting
that xvwé, a word glossed by Hesychius as “white milk” (ya&Aa Aevxdv), already appears in the
early Ptolemaic 379 (line 36) as part of a list of words that contains several rare terms, which
were probably all chosen because of their challenging sound combinations. It is likely that
Quintilian, who describes chalinoi as “words and verses of studied difficulty, formed of many
syllables that go badly together and are harsh and rugged in sound,”?® also classifies under this
term those pseudo-epic hexameters containing all the letters of the alphabet, which were part of
traditional scribes’ training.2”? Verses such as “he kindled the altar for the gods, and the fire
flame gushed forth very strongly” (Gwpdv 6 y’ HWE Oeoic Sapevt) 6& TUpdG KEXUTO PAGE) were
used as writing and pronunciation exercises and appear in both teachers’ models and students’
work.?8 They continued to be popular in medieval times, as evidenced by their presence in var-
ious manuscripts,2? and correspond to analogous Latin verses containing all the letters of the
alphabet that were used in education until the Middle Ages.?°
Even though it is never mentioned by modern histories of ancient education, the evi-
dence from Roman and Byzantine school exercises proves that the most immediate goal of a
student learning the letters of the alphabet was to be able to inscribe his own name. I shall con-
sider this question in a later chapter,?! but for now it will suffice to say that exercises showing
individual letters and alphabets exhibit at times the name of the student who wrote them.
Apakire, for instance, the student of 40, had clearly just learned to hold a reed pen when he
traces his name on a tiny piece of papyrus, adding beneath it a few more letters that are barely
recognizable. We can only hope that his education continued beyond this first attempt.

Syllabaries
One of the elementary stages of education was combining the letters of the alphabet into syll-
ables and mastering a syllabary. The school exercises show that syllabaries could come in dif-
ferent forms.3? Usually they exhibit the series of vowels written vertically in a column, with
the consonants running horizontally, combining with the vowels in turn, and with the different

55 TrGF 833 fr. 4, Snell 1 F 4.66. The fragment was probably falsely attributed to Thespis.
oe Reinhold Merkelbach, “Weisse KNAXZBI-Milch,” ZPE 61 (1985) 293-96.
See Inst.Or. 11, 37: nomina quaedam versusque adfectatae difficultatis ex pluribus et asperrime coéuntibu
inter se syllabis catenatos et velut confragosos quam citatissime volvant. :
27See PSI XII 1293.
28See 48, 61, 66, 287. Particularly interesting is exercise 253, which preserves several examples of ver
starting and ending with the same letter as well as verses that could also be read starting from the a
(kay : ae
Unfortunately the section with the verses containing all the letters of the alphabet is extremely fragmentar te
29See Dieter Hagedorn, “Zwei Spielverse,” ZPE 2 (1968) 65-69. = s
30Bischoff 1966, 79-86 discusses several examples of this kind of verse.
31See pp. 146-48.
32See nos. 78 to 97 in the Catalogue.
 TYPES OF TEXTUAL MATERIAL 41

sets separated by vertical and horizontal lines.33 At times, however, the consonants were writ-
ten in a vertical series (82), and the various sets ran horizontally without much separation
between them (93). Although generally syllabaries started with a consonant followed by the
various vowels in turn, sometimes vowels came first.34 In triliteral series the same consonant
or a different one followed the changing vowel, while two consonants preceded the vowel and
one followed it in quadriliteral sets.35 Especially in quadriliteral series the combinations of
sounds were sometimes harsh and unusual, and this is probably why some teachers’ models
occasionally skip a series, a mistake done quite on purpose.3© Mistakes of various kinds
abound in syllabaries written by students,3” which are approximately half of the syllabaries
considered. Since this kind of exercise generated a great deal of boredom, after the first sets
the student started to tire and lose concentration. The syllabary of Apollonios, 78, provides a
good example. Even though Apollonios starts by writing tiny and careful capitals that
deteriorate and become more cursive as he goes along, nonetheless the general appearance of
his exercise is neat enough. An examination of the content, however, reveals mistakes, omis-
sions, whole series skipped, and some series reintroduced on second thought. Among the mis-
takes committed by students, three are interesting in so far as they show that students at this
level often could not distinguish vowels and consonants: iota and omicron were treated both as
vowels and consonants and combined with all the vowels in turn.38 The result was that bizarre
sets were produced, which consist of two or three iota’s or omicron’s side by side.3?
In addition to seven teachers’ models, three schoolbooks containing syllabaries are
included in the Catalogue.4? They are pages of codices with page numbers and are made of fine
papyrus. In each case the hand writes fluently in the so-called “Alexandrian majuscule” style.4!
Although these schoolbooks were professionally produced, the type of elementary exercise they
contain undoubtedly points to a school product. Syllabaries were fundamental in teaching read-
ing, and books of this kind continued to be produced in the Middle Ages to help children
acquire a rapid command of this skill.42
Quintilian stresses that all the syllables had to be learned, there were no shortcuts, and a
pupil had to gain command of the most difficult and unusual combinations.43 According to

33Se¢, e.g., 78 and 83.

34S ce, e.g., 86 and 96.
35See 79, 80, 91, 379.
36See, e.g., 379 lines 9-20, p. 4.
37§ee the various mistakes in 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 96.
38Sce iota treated as a consonant in 83 and 96, and omicron also combined with all the vowels in turn in 82,
line 9.
3°Thus, for instance, in 83 after the theta series (0a0-9¢6-0n6-0:0 and so on) the iota series begins: va-vet-uni-
ult.
40Sce 81, 84, 97.
41 This is a style already attested in the second century AD, but it reached its peak in the fifth-sixth centuries.
Starting from the ninth century, it was used exclusively for Coptic texts. See Guglielmo Cavallo, “Grammata
Alexandrina,” JOBG 24 (1975) 23-54 and Antonietta Porro, “Manoscritti in maiuscola alessandrina di contenuto
profano. Aspetti grafici, codicologici, filologici,” Scrittura e Civiltd 9 (1985) 169-215.
42See the examples from the fifteenth century cited by Bischoff 1966, 75 note 12. The introduction of one of
these syllabaries, called tabula coniunctionum litterarum (Cotton Titus D. XVIII foll. 5-6), stresses that the aim of
the exercise was to help children to learn to read quickly, tabula alphabeti quae multum valet ad instruendum
pueros ut citissime bene ubique legant.
43Sce Inst.Or. 11, 30: syllabis nullum compendium est; perdiscendae omnes nec, ut fit plerumque, difficillima
quaeque earum differenda.
42 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

the
Plato, children were exposed to the easiest syllables first and learned with time to recognize
their stu-
most complicated by comparison.*4 Teachers needed to keep syllabaries handy for
dents and most of the time wrote them on models that provided the basis for the recitation
aloud of the different combinations. Athenaeus relates that in the fifth century BC the Athenian
poet Callias had composed a play, an “Alphabet Show” (yeappaTiKh Oewpica), in which the 24
women of the chorus, who represented the letters of the alphabet, were paired and came on the
stage singing the different sets.45 On one of the models, 92, a teacher writes out only the initial
and final columns of a syllabary. The sets in between are left blank after the first two combina-
tions so that the students had to make them up themselves, either writing them down or pro-
nouncing them aloud. It was one of those “hateful songs,” odiosa cantio, frequently used in
elementary education in antiquity.*°

Lists of Words
According to the ancient Greek and Roman festimonia, after the syllabaries students were
exposed to words (6v6ua7Ta).47 The school exercises present a considerable number of lists of
words of various content, length, and accuracy, and organized according to various princi-
ples.48 But long before entering into Greek and Roman education, lists of words were an
integral part of ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian education. In Mesopotamia, where such
lists were continuously copied throughout the third millennium, the entries formed semantic
groups: trees, animals, toponyms, titles and professions, and so on.4? Didactic texts, termed
Onomastica and entitled “Teachings,” were also a fundamental part of the school syllabus of
ancient Egypt, where their scope was to present and organize everything in creation.°° These
lists were supposed to be learned by heart and copied, as passages from them written by stu-
dents on writing boards and ostraca show. Like the Mesopotamian lists, the Egyptian lists cov-
ered the most various and extensive material: gods and their shrines, parts of the human body,
features of nature and of everyday life. The aim of these lists was to learn the graphic signs of
the writing system, achieve an elementary vocabulary, and categorize the surrounding world,
helping archaic societies understand themselves.
A similar aim was claimed for the lists of words used in Graeco-Roman schools: stu-
dents were supposed to learn them by heart, receiving from them a good general education.5!
But although memory played a great role in ancient education, and Quintilian regarded it as a
sign of intelligence in young learners, to be carefully cultivated,52 none of the ancient sources

44Sece Polit. 278 B.

7Athenacus X 453 d-f. See Svenbro 1993, 183-86.
St. Augustine, , Conf. I 13, , applies the words to songs used to learn number additions,
iti
two and so on, and declares his total dislike for them. sai sa
bares e.g., the account of Gregory of Nyssa, De beneficentia IX 12-13.
See nos. 98 to 128 in the Catalogue.
so Nissen, Damerow, and Englund 1993, 105-106.
Eee H. Brunner, Altagyptische Erziehung (Wiesbaden 1957) 93-98 and Eyre-Baines, 1989, 94-95
ee Janine aaa “De l’usage des listes de mots comme fondement de la pédagogie dans |’antiquité,”
REA
hee -74; J. Debut, “La didacti
actique du grec aprés: la conquéte
é de l’Egypte
F par Alexandre,” » IL 37 (1985)

_ 52Ist.Or.
Ist. Or. 1 3,
» 1:Ls ingenii si
Ingenu signum in parvis praecipuum memoria est. Memory should be trained
papill se to lose precious time, Inst.Or. I 1, 19: non ergo perdamus primus statim tempus maa
ba i
quod initia litterarum
eatioly Hae esola memoria constant. For the importance
p of traini ing children’s
hil ‘ memory see also Plutarch,
 TYPES OF TEXTUAL MATERIAL 43

speaks of such use of lists of words,°? while they regard the introduction of whole words as a
mandatory step in teaching reading and writing. Undoubtedly this was how most of the lists in
the exercises were used. About three-fourths of the lists present either words divided into syll-
ables or words arranged in groups according to the number of syllables—that is, lists of bisyll-
ables, trisyllables, and so on. Starting from the Roman period most of these lists follow an
alphabetical order or are organized in sets starting with an identical letter. While about half of
the lists were copied by students, the other examples appear in teachers’ models, mostly on
tablets, which were passed around in class or used to teach reading individually.*4 Some of
these lists seem a curious and extreme application of the principles that governed syllabaries.
On model 124, for instance, where a teacher inscribed names from history, geography, and the
Bible with many spelling mistakes, in the columns of words starting with a consonant, the con-
sonant is followed by each of the vowels in turn, in the same order as in the syllabaries. One
cannot but suspect that, when the teacher could not produce a suitable word but still wanted to
follow the correct vowel sequence, he simply made one up.>°> The same scenario applies to
exercise 100, in which many of the common nouns copied by a student appear to have been
totally fabricated for the occasion. Since this rather immature student was probably incapable
of devising independently such an organized list, one must conclude that a teacher made up this
bizarre hodge-podge with total disregard for the reality of the Greek language.>*®
The remainder fourth of the lists, which were organized by subject and consisted of
names from history and mythology, names of gods, proper names, and months and days of the
week, were not used specifically to teach reading. These lists, particularly those that were of
limited extension and presented items of general knowledge, might have been drawn up by stu-
dents as an aid to memory.°’ Finally, it is likely that a few longer lists were compiled by
teachers as an aid to teaching. Thus the long list of the papyrus codex 390 was probably writ-
ten by a teacher who wanted to jot down the words that he intended to use.*8 Likewise, in
ostracon 113, which was originally quite large, appear three incomplete lists of names, which
were inscribed by a hand fluent but not completely even because of the irregular surface. It is
likely that a teacher inscribed the big sherd and kept it at hand to draw from it the names that
he intended to dictate to his class: the ostracon functioned as a reference book.

Writing Exercises
The aim of writing exercises was improvement of the handwriting: beginners practiced letter
shapes imitating teachers’ hands in the models, while older students attempted to acquire more
fluent hands or to learn more elaborate styles, going beyond the basic kind of script that they

S3janine Debut, “L’apprentissage du grec en Egypte ou le changement dans la continuité,” STCI 25 (1987) 12
admits that this is a difficulty, but ignores it in her other articles (cited in note 52). In elementary education memory
was trained by learning maxims, sayings, and chosen passages from the poets, see Quintilian, Inst.Or. 1 1, 36 and
Seneca, Ep. 33, 7.
541m addition to the models containing lists that appear in the section Lists of Words, other models presenting
lists are 308, 379, 380, 390, 395, 400, 411.
55See, e.g., in col II line 2, the strange word (?) deAedavTa.
S6This is the opinion of Jean Bingen, “L’exercice scolaire PUG II 53,” CdE 113 (1982) 107-10.
57See 108, 110, 117, 118, 119, 122, 150. See also the more specialized lists of birds in 116 and 123.
58The fluent hand influenced by the chancery style, the professional look of the decorative paragraphoi, and
the remarkable lack of mistakes point to writing done by a teacher. See also 99, 380.
44 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

had practiced in the first years. Writing exercises consist either of the repetition of an identical
example or of the imitation of a teacher’s model inscribed on the same papyrus or tablet or on
a different tablet of the same notebook.» It is in this category of exercises that the most homo-
geneous group of teachers’ models can be found: about half of the writing exercises were
penned by teachers on models together with the student’s copy. A consistent group of trials
of scribes, which exhibit the repetition of very simple patterns, generally conjunctions or iso-
lated words, are also included.®!
About half of the writing exercises consist of maxims, mostly taken from the poets: the
practice of “making a selection from the leading poets of the maxims into which they have put
their best thought” was very widespread.®? The gnome (yvapn, sententia) was a basic part of
students’ education from the first to the later years.°? While Seneca relates that young adults
continued to memorize them even later, to the detriment of a more complete education, he
approves of an early use of maxims in elementary instruction, “for single maxims sink in more
easily when they are marked off and bounded like a line of verse...they can be comprehended
by the young mind that cannot as yet hold more.” It was only necessary to enter a school to
see maxims of important philosophers inscribed on teachers’ models.® Quintilian too speaks of
verses set for practice in writing and advocates the use of maxims of moral value, which could
convey some useful exhortations.°° Children were supposed to learn maxims by heart, for they
could form their character and would be remembered till old age. “This is why,” says Aes-
chines “we memorize as children the maxims of the poets, so that we can make use of them
when we are adults.”®” Elementary schoolmasters were known to indulge in the use of maxims.
Galen relates that Chrysippus filled his treatises with quotations from famous poets, from
whom gnomai were drawn to illustrate every point, and that he was criticized for being guilty
of “the garrulity of an old woman, or perhaps of a school master who wishes to list as many
verses as possible under the same thought.” In later years, under the tutelage of the gram-
marian and the rhetorician, students were still supposed to collect maxims to study and develop
in compositions.©

59As was explained above on p. 31, note 31, a few exercises that do not follow these patterns are included in
this category. See 131, 140, 143, 173.
60But notice 139. In this case the pupil’s copy was probably lost.
2 Twelve exercises are likely to have been penned by apprentice scribes.
See Isocrates, Ad Nic. 44: ei Tig exhékeve TOY TpoEeX6vTwY TonTOY TAS KAAOVLEVACG yYo"ac, ed’ aic
EKElVOL UA@ALOT’ EoTOvSaoaY.
°°For the use of maxims in education and compilations known as gnomologia, see John Barns, “A new
sae with some remarks on gnomic anthologies,” CQ 44 (1950) 126-37 and CQ NS 1 (1951) 1-19.
See Seneca, Ep. 33.6: facilius enim singula insidunt circumscripta et carminis modo inclusa...quia com-
plecti ies puerilis animus potest, qui plus adhuc non capit.
©5See Seneca Ep. 94.9: si ludum litterarium intraveris scies ista, quae ingenti supercilio philosophi iactant, in
puerili esse praescripto.
6 . oqe Baie
See Quintilian, inscOr lelees>: ii quoque versus, qui . ad imitationem
. . . .
scribendi proponentur, non otiosas
velim SemLEnEGS habeant, sed honestum aliquid monentes.
‘ Ctesiph. 135: bud TOUTO Yap oipar motidacg GyTAS Nua Tas TOY TonTaY yydpac éexwavOdvery,
iv’ &vdpec
OVTEG pees xeGpeba. For the use of maxims in early education, see also Lucian, Anach. 21
Alte See Galen,
i D € placitis
iti Hippocratis
] ] et Platonis,
j CMG V 4,1,2 281 p. 196 De Lacy:: rauri nuns
pév dhoovor
cdoheoxiay Eivau ypawdn, Tuxdv b€ Kai ypappatwv ddaoxedov BovdAopévov oTixoug 67 TAEioTOUS
UTS Td AUTO
Ovavonwa THE dL.
*For the use of maxims in more advanced education, see Plato, Prot. 338 E and Xenophon, Memor. I 2.56:
42.1; 6.14. , avg ut
 TYPES OF TEXTUAL MATERIAL 45

Maxims are often found among exercises of the following category, which covers the
writing of short passages in prose and poetry: the two categories often overlap, since they
represent two complementary aspects of the same stage. Through maxims teachers tried to
inculcate in their students basic values: be modest, love and respect your parents, stay away
from women, benefit your friends, give to poor people. Filial piety was a favorite,’ and when
Apion echoes such sentiments in a famous letter he wrote to his father,’! one wonders whether
he had been at least a little “inspired” by the many gnomai copied in school.’2 Not all of the
maxims contained in the exercises belong to the transmitted sententiae, since it is in the max-
ims that teachers could take some initiative and manifest some originality: they could make
them up, adapting conventional themes, or they could modify the traditional maxims when they
wanted to develop a particular theme.’ Menander’s sententiae in Greek and in Coptic transla-
tion are preserved by two texts that may have been used in schools.’4 Several of these maxims
do not appear among the Monostichoi: while some are variations following the same basic
themes, others have been composed around the subject of learning grammata, probably by a
teacher, who had some trouble in working with iambic trimeters. None of the latter gnomai, in
fact, is metrically correct, although just a few changes are sufficient to emend them. These
maxims hardly stand out for their originality: they promise that he who learns letters has
brains, good hopes, a good beginning in life, a life, a sure understanding, a gift of the gods.
They also say that without a good beating nobody learns letters,’ and that no stick awaits him
who learns them.7°
Writing exercises often display names written over and over.’’ In most cases these are
likely to have been the personal names of the students, which they had to learn to write profi-
ciently. Names often appear in conjunction with letters of the alphabet and alphabets,7® and it
is significant that they again show up in writing exercises that the student had to practice
immediately after learning his letters.7°

10See e.g., 255 and 257.

71BGU II 423, (Il century AD), moooxvyjow Thy x€pav, 67 we ETaidevoas KaAaC.
72Préaux 1929, 793, does not doubt that his icelings are sincere. I merely suggest that Apion had probably
Piaciees a lot on the topic of love and respect towards one’s parents.
73This is the opinion of Peter Parsons regarding No. 195. At least the first 7 lines of the collection of gnomai
cexcip the theme of filial love. Of 14 lines only 3 correspond to Menander’s Monostichoi.
4See Dieter Hagedorn and M. Weber, “Die griechisch-koptische Rezension der Menandersentenzen,” ZPE 3
(1968) 15-45. I did not include them in the Catalogue, since they are proficiently written and are likely to have been
professionally produced books (which may have been used in schools, but not necessarily). The ne is a page of a
codex, P.Lond. VIII 1a and 3b, which was assigned to V-VI AD. The second is no. 1583 in Pack?. It consists of
eight leaves from a papyrus codex, which was dated to VI-VII AD. It was published by O. Marucchi, JJ Museo
Egizio Vaticano descritto ed illustrato (Rome 1899) 296-303 and by E. Sarti and V. Puntoni, Gnomologii acrostichi
fragmentum Graece una cum metaphrasi Copto-Sahidica (Pisa 1883). Both codices were reedited in MPER NS
XVIII 269.
75See P.Lond. VIII 1a.8-9 and fol. 1b.25-26: &vev 6€ TANYHo odeic pavOdvEr TA YoappaTa.
76See fol. VIII b.200-201 of the codex: pomadog 5é ovdeic (for P6TAAOY OVdEY) TOIG wAOodar Ta YoeupaTa.
77§ee 109, 137, 147, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 172, 174.
78Sce above p. 40. The question of the importance of learning to write one’s name will be discussed below,
pp. 146-48.
79 About this, see below, p. 137.
46 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

Short Passages: Maxims, Sayings, and Limited Amounts of Verses

According to Plato, after learning their grammata students were exposed to the works of good
poets that offered teachings of moral value.80 Besides writing and memorizing carefully se-
lected sententiae, students were assigned passages of poetry to learn and copy. Short passages
in verse are the most represented among the exercises at this stage and show that Homer was
the favorite author. Although the first books of the Iliad are represented most of the time,
other exercises also testify to the basic role Homer played in education. The latter include short
epigrams about this poet’s place of birth’! or that maxim painfully copied by an “alphabetic”
hand: “Not a man, but a god was Homer.”8? Euripides and Menander were the next most
valued authors.
About a third of the exercises at this level consists of maxims and sayings of famous
men, those dicta clarorum virorum that Quintilian thought children could learn with profit,
together with excerpts from poetry, electos ex poetis maxime locos.®? Seneca already had con-
sidered the study of sayings appropriate for this level: ideo pueris et sententias ediscendas
damus et has quas Graeci Chrias vocant.*4 The chria (xpeicx) consisted of a short prose maxim
accompanied by an anecdote such as: “Diogenes, seeing a woman learning her letters, said,
‘She sharpens herself like a sword.’”85 The sayings were often misogynistic, with an evident
derivation from Euripidean thought. Diogenes the Cynic was a favorite author of such sayings,
and Diogenes Laertius notes that this philosopher used his own writings in teaching the sons of
Xeniades: “The children used to learn by heart many passages from poets, historians, and the
writings of Diogenes himself.”8° Like maxims, sayings accompanied a student through his edu-
cation:8’ with the grammarian he learned the declension of a chria by passing the subject of the
sentence through all the numbers and cases, adapting the grammar of the rest,88 and in rhetori-
cal schools he used and developed sayings in compositions.®?
Sayings were not the only exercises exposing students to prose, as the presemce of
riddles,*° short passages from educational works such as Isocrates’ Ad Demonicum,?! and
fables testifies. In the early Byzantine period a favorite was the story of the son who runs to
the desert after murdering his father, and is then killed by a snake on the tree that he climbs to
escape from a lion.”” Aesop related two different versions of this story, which are less
gruesome, introduce more animals, and curiously have more of an Egyptian flavor than the

80Sce Prot. 325 e.

81See 177, 198.
82Sce 200. Other exercises concerning Homer are 175, 183, 191, 216.
83See Inst.Or. I ee36: ,
84 Seneca, Ee 38 ile
See JS93,vi.2: Quintilian, Inst.Or. 19, 4, recognizes three main types of sayings.
Diogenes Laertius VI 31: xareixov 5€ of maideg ToAXd TonTav Kai ovyypadéwy Kol Tov adTod
Avoyévous.
92Quintilian, Inst.Or. 19, speaks of the different ways grammarians used maxims and sayings in their classes.
See the rules of a xpeiag xXioig set out in 385 and 388 (5b). An actual chria about the phil h
prybagoras advising his pupils to abstain from red meat is declined in 364. sail ae
8°See, e.g., Hermogenes, Prog. 3 or Theon, Prog. 5.
See 176, 187, and 205.
*ISee 204, 229.
See 230, 231, 232, 314, 323, 409, 412.
 TYPES OF TEXTUAL MATERIAL 47

fable appearing in the exercises.?3 Although one would suppose that the details of the river
Nile and the presence of crocodiles originally dictated the use of this specific fable in Egyptian
schoolrooms, in the exercises they were eliminated and the background of the story became
less localized, perhaps more Greek.%4

Longer Passages: Copies and Dictations

As a Student progressed, he was asked to write down and learn longer passages of poetry and
prose. This category of exercises is the most problematic for many reasons. First of all, it
includes relatively short texts together with long ones, since a minimum amount of eight lines
of writing was considered the essential prerequisite for belonging to the level of the longer pas-
sages.°> Also included at this level are texts that appear relatively short, sometimes shorter
than eight lines, only because of their fragmentary state. Very frequently, moreover, the use
and function of these passages of literature cannot be determined with a reasonable degree of
certainty.°© Although sometimes there is a clue to the instructional function of a certain pas-
sage—as, for instance, when the presence of mistakes showing that the student lost the sense of
the passage points to a dictation?’—-generally one is left to guesswork.%8 Since it is at this level
that the two classes of students, those of the grammatodidaskalos and those of the grammarian,
meet, this category displays a variety of hands, some of which already appear advanced.
The teachers’ models included at this level constitute only a little over one-tenth of all
the exercises in this category. Models were still very much needed at this stage, but distin-
guishing them with reasonable certainty is often problematic. Advanced students of gram-
marians were not only able to take dictations but were also capable of using models written
rapidly and with fewer special characteristics. Nonetheless, when a student was still uncertain
about reading and-writing, models with syllabic separation or word separation were essential
tools of learning. Although lists of words often appear in models with the syllables separated,
only in one case are the words of a short passage divided into syllables, because short passages
were copied when students had not been yet exposed to a knowledge of syllables.9? After stu-
dents had learned and practiced syllabaries, they were ready for systematic reading and writ-
ing, and yet they still needed specially prepared texts. Even though the effort of children in
antiquity to learn their syllables can easily be confused with the modern process of teaching
syllabic combinations to children learning to read and write a language based on phonetic prin-
ciples, one must recognize the tremendous effort required of a beginner in ancient times to dis-

93 See Aesop 32 I-II Hausrath. The Aesopic fable is not about a parricide, but concerns a man who murders
another man.
94 About the traditional character of education in Egypt and the limited influence of a popular culture, see Raf-
faella Cribiore, "Gli esercizi scolastici dell’Egitto greco-romano: cultura letteraria e cultura popolare nella scuola,"
in La letteratura di consumo nel mondo greco-latino. Atti del convegno internazionale (Cassino 1994) forthcoming.
954 maximum length of eight lines suits most of the short passages placed in the previous level and covers
most of the maxims and sayings. Of course, length of line could make a difference, and I generally refer to lines
that correspond roughly to hexameters.
96Cf. the hesitations expressed by Collart 1937, 70.
97See more on this problem on pp. 92-93.
98] refrained from making distinctions inside this group because they seemed unwarranted. Zalateo 1961, had
to rely constantly on question marks to indicate his doubts.
29See 229. Cf. below, pp. 133 and 137.
48 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

n,
tinguish words written in continuous blocks (scriptio continua).!°9 According to Quintilia
try
people usually advised the beginner to keep looking to the right when starting to read, to
was
see what was coming after, but that was easier said than done, and a lot of practice
needed.!°! A passage illuminating the process of starting to read is found in The Shepherd of
Hermas.'°2 After the second vision, Hermas sees the old lady who represented the Church
coming to him and reading aloud from a little book. When she asks him to take the message of
the book to men, Hermas replies that he will need to copy the book. In order to do that, he
takes the book, withdraws into the fields, and starts transcribing each word letter by letter,
since he could not find the syllables (EXaBov éya, kai etc Tv TOTOV Tod Gypod AVAXKWONTACS
LETEYPAVGpNV TAVTA TPIS YPappa’ ovX niproxov yap TAC ovAAaBac). The editor’s explana-
tion is only partly correct: Hermas’ words meant that the book was written in scriptio con-
tinua.'°3 He was like a child in front of an unknown piece of writing, full of letters that needed
to be combined into syllables. The syllable was the recognizable entity in a series of letters that
did not make any sense.
Once a student had practiced enough with words divided into syllables, in theory he was
ready for more serious and challenging reading. The continuous blocks of writing, however,
made word divisions necessary as a further aid for the pupil.!° Later on in his education
accents would offer such aid, but at this point he was not yet ready for them, and they would
have complicated an already cumbersome process.!° Although in Latin word division appears
regularly until the end of the first century AD,!° it is rarely present in Greek texts other than
exercises. Sometimes in magical texts crucial and obscure magical terms are separated by
dots,!97 and in a few literary papyri spaces mark off groups of words or individual words. !%

100The description of the learning process in the ancient sources is extensive enough to give an impression of
the effort and time involved. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De Comp.Verb XXV says that the forms of the words are
finally implanted firmly in the children’s minds after the lapse of a considerable time (xpdvog d&&6X0yoc).
: 1°) Quintilian, Inst.Or. 1 1, 34. The Romans, who had originally divided words by spaces or by a dot, as
inscriptions show, began adopting scriptio continua in the imperial period, see Rawson 1985, 124-25. Roman chil-
dren of a certain class, moreover, were often bilingual.
pee Kirsopp Lake, The Apostolic Fathers. The Shepherd of Hermas (Cambridge 1976), Vision 2, 4.
See below p. 149. Gardthausen 1913, 395, cites the passage as a demonstration that the words were writ-
ten in continuous blocks. e
104Frederic G. Kenyon, Books and Readers in Ancient Greece and Rome, 2nd ed. (Oxford 1951) 69, claims
that “with a little practice it is not so difficult to read an undivided text as might be supposed,” but he is fecnn to
the literate adult. When a beginner faced every other kind of obstacle as well, the undivided words asisunied a
serious problem, and the models with their words separated were a necessity.
105 About accents see p. 85.
106Interpunction was exclusively a Latin practice. For examples of Latin texts in which words are separated
by dots see the Gallus fragment, R.D. Anderson, P.J. Parsons and R.G. Nisbet, “Elegiacs by Gallus from Qasr
Ibrim” JRS 69 (1979) 125-55, especially 131 and note 43; cf. the poem De Bello Actiaco, Richard Seid
Paldographie der Lateinischen Papyri, \1,1 (Stuttgart 1978) 35-36, Nr. 4 (where each verse is awe marked ne
sign of distinctio) and generally in Seider Nr.1-14, texts in prose and poetry where words are separated b tbe!
See also Parkes 1993, 10 and plate 57; Desbordes 1990, 228; E. Otha Wingo, Latin Punctuation in the thas : 1
Age (The Hague 1972). Seneca, Ep. 40.11 regards interpunctio as the norm in his time, in contrast to Greek ae
tice. But there were exceptions. The Vindolanda tablets, which date from the beginning of the second c ee
reflect a transitional stage: a few tablets show interpunct and word division by space. are
107See Schubart 1921, 80.
108See Turner 1987, 7 and note 28. Further on p. 144 (plate 86) this scholar discusses texts in which obli
strokes mark clause endings, as, for example, dramatic texts, in which the strokes were used as a hel to deli me
and Biblical texts, where they facilitated the preacher’s reading. In documentary papyri, as in literar - Bocas
is usually intended to facilitate understanding. : a
 TYPES OF TEXTUAL MATERIAL 49

When the words or word groups (article and noun, preposition and noun, enclitics together
with nearby words, for instance) in a well written text are consistently separated, usually by
oblique dashes, it is very likely that the text in question was a book used in school for read-
ing.10° Among the exercises, only two display words divided into syllables and separated from
each other at the same time: usually only one kind of division occurs in the same text.!!°
Exercises that display word divisions are mostly teachers’ models,!!! while only two exercises
of this kind have been compiled by students.
!!2
According to Plato, as soon as students were able to understand the written word in
addition to the spoken, they were provided with works of good poets to read as they sat in
class: they found in these verses admonitions, descriptions, and praises and eulogies of good
men of the past.!!3 The content of most passages included at this level displays a limited num-
ber of authors. As at the previous level, the authority of Homer as educator par excellence was
not challenged, because since classical times Homer had always had a primary role in Greek
paideia.'!4 But not all of Homer’s poetry had the same impact: the Jliad, and particularly its
first books, was definitely privileged by comparison with the Odyssey.!!5 It is likely that stu-
dents in their first years of serious reading and writing—what Quintilian calls discere serio!!®—
were exposed to selections from the first, second, and sixth books of the liad, but later on
their range of reading increased. Besides Homer, only a few authors were studied. Among the
tragedians Euripides was much more popular than Sophocles and Aeschylus,!!7 and of his
plays the Phoenissae was the most read, since teachers’ choices of authors mirrored the tastes
of the general public.!!8 Among authors of prose, Isocrates seems to have had considerable
importance in the classroom, and two of his works, Ad Demonicum and To Nicocles, were
preferred for their moralistic content.!!9 Only rarely was the auctoritas of the classical authors
challenged: very few exercises demonstrate the influence of that Egyptian world and its litera-
ture, which were generally ignored in schools.
!2°

109Thus, in addition to the texts cited by Turner 1987, 7 note 28, MPER NS III 3, which preserved Iliad
20.205-15 and 234-43 with words divided by oblique dashes, was a codex probably used in school. Unfortunately,
since its whereabouts are unknown, it is impossible to check on the hand. Three more Homeric texts with word
divisions have been published by Herwig Maehler, “Fragmente antiker Homer-Handschriften,” Festschrift zum 150
Jahrigen Bestehen des Berliner Agyptischen Museums. Mitteilungen aus des Agyptischen Sammlung, VIII (1974)
Nr.7, 23, 26, all fragments of codices of the sixth century AD.
110g¢¢ 229 and 292, both teachers’ models.
111gce 286, 292, 296, 313, 321, 342 (probably student and teacher).
112Se¢ 276 and 310.
113See Plato, Prot. 325 e: kai émeday ad yoappata paOwow Kai wéAkwow ovvjoew Te YEVOAP EVE
bomep ToTE THY uray, TapaTWEaa avTOIG Emi THY BabpwY avayLyVaoKELY ToOLNTOY ayAbaY ToijpaTa Kal
ExpavOavery avayKavovow, ev oig moAAai pév vovOeTHoe.c Everow, ToAAaL Sé Si€EOSOL Kat Erauvor Kal EyKGpLE
Taraayv avepav wyabav, iva o Taig (nrOv pipHror Kai opéynro ToodToG yeveobar.
114g¢¢ Robb 1994, especially 159-82.
1S About reading Homer in schools, the passages selected, and the reasons behind them, see Cribiore 1994.
116See Inst.Or. 12, 1.
117§ophocles appears only in 219, Aeschylus in 244, 250, and 277.
118g¢¢ J.M. Bremer, “The Popularity of Euripides’ Phoenissae in Late Antiquity,” Actes VII Congr.
ugar 1983) 281-88. ;, te bd ; es
19scee Paola Pruneti, “L’Ad Demonicum nella scuola antica: esempi di utilizzazione,” Munus Amicitiae:
Scritti in memoria di A. Ronconi (Firenze 1986) 211-19.
120S¢e e.g., the Hymn to the Nile in 394.
50 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

Scholia Minora
lem-
This term applies to those Homeric commentaries where the Homeric text is divided into
mata and is accompanied by the corresponding glosses, a very ancient form of Homeric
exegesis that can be traced back to at least the fifth century Bc.!21 The glosses, which usually
appear in a column parallel to that of the lemmata and only occasionally in a continuous suc-
cession, provide a kind of translation of single Homeric words or short expressions into an
easier and more current form of Greek. Scholia Minora are considerably more numerous for
the Iliad than for the Odyssey. Iliad 1, where the glosses sometimes cover even the whole Ho-
meric text in a kind of paraphrase, is the book most frequently represented.!2* Although the
close relationship between the Scholia Minora and the so-called Scholia D, a Byzantine com-
pilation, has often been noticed,!?3 no papyrus fragment shows exactly the same text as the
Scholia D. The papyri preserve the ancient precursors of those Scholia, and each papyrus and
Byzantine compilation represents a particular version of the commentary and a single phase of
its transmission. !24
Even though in the past Scholia Minora were automatically considered school compila-
tions written by students, it is clear that such commentaries do not always originate in the
schoolroom. As the Homeric text became more difficult to understand with the passing of time,
it was not only students who needed help in reading it. During the imperial age this stream of
Homeric scholarship enjoyed some autonomy and was widespread at several different levels.
Some of the texts that are written quickly on the backs of rolls in informal hands are private
copies,!25 while others, which are more luxurious products and are inscribed in formal capi-
tals, were professionally produced books. !76
Only 19 tablets and papyri preserving Scholia Minora, dated from the first to the fifth
century AD, are included in the Catalogue. They are the only texts containing Scholia Minora
that appear to have been compiled by students, to judge either on the basis of the quality of the
hand, from mistakes, or from the material employed. Undoubtedly many more papyri contain-
ing Scholia Minora were used in schools or were inscribed directly by students, but there is no
sure way to distinguish them from the rest.!27 Among the exercises 339 is especially interest-

121 see Montanari 1979; 1984, 125-38. Texts containing Scholia minora have been labeled, especially in the
past but even nowadays, with the most various and confusing terminology, such as “glossary,” “school prepara-
tion, Gs paraphrasis.” In studying Scholia minora | did not attempt to assess their tradition.
. See Raffaelli 1984, 146-47 and 160-61. Calderini 1921, 314 says the phenomenon results from the fact
that in school Homer was read starting from the beginning. At first every word was explained, then the commentary
became more sparse. Albert Henrichs, “Scholia Minora zu Homer,” I ZPE 7 (1971) 104-105, notices that it is also
a general tendency of scholia to start commenting on an author in a very detailed way, thinning out the explanations
as the a goes on. ‘
1 *Hartmut Erbse’s edition of the Scholia vetera to the Iliad, Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (Berlin 1969)
does not include the corpus of the Scholia D that are the most widespread scholia in Byzantine manuscripts No
cee ise edition has so far been produced, but Franco Montanari is working on one. .
For Calderini 1921, 326, therefore, each text represents the commentary as it forms itself, il commento nel
suo lento divenire. :
; 125 They belonged to educated :
adults, who occasionally left some annotations, see Kathleen McNamee
au Papyni of Homer,” Papiri Letterari Greci e Latini, Papirologica Lupiensia (Lecce 1992) 15-51
meeeFor instance, P.Freib. I lc w as not t writtenwri by a student, and the same should be true for P.Schub. 2 or
127 CHM) Ci .
Let us remember that when Calderini in 1921 studied these texts, there were only 11. In 1971, when Hen-
richs examined them, they amounted to 42. In the Repertorio of Raffaelli (1984) 69 texts appear.
 TYPES OF TEXTUAL MATERIAL 51

ing, because it demonstrates that, even after reaching the level of the Scholia Minora, a pupil
could still see words not as existing by themselves, but as essentially made of syllables. Thus
on this papyrus, after copying the Jemmata, the student started copying the glosses to the first
five words syllable by syllable, writing only the first syllable of each and then interrupting his
work. Sometimes the exercises preserve the text of the Scholia Minora of a certain Homeric
book together with the hypothesis—that is, the summary—of that book.!28 This arrangement is
particularly interesting because of the tight connection of scholia and hypotheseis in the
Byzantine Scholia D. In exercise 333 the Homeric text and the related Scholia Minora are in-
scribed on the same tablet together with a paraphrase of a previous passage of Iliad 4. This
kind of paraphrase, where each verse is paraphrased in a single and separated line of prose, !29
is different from the paraphrase appearing in a notebook of tablets, 388, which present an elab-
orate rhetorical retelling of J/iad 1.1-21. Quintilian himself draws the distinction between the
two different kinds of paraphrase, calling the close version interpretatio, and the rhetorical
retelling certamen atque aemulatio.'3°

Compositions, Paraphrases, and Summaries

This category includes paraphrases, compositions on a given subject, summaries of Homeric

episodes or of whole books, and dialogues. I tried to be very selective and I included at this
level only 14 exercises, with, in addition, a summary of the causes of the Trojan War that
appears in a notebook, 406.!3! At this stage the usual difficulty in discriminating exercises
compiled by students from professional copies is compounded by the problem of distinguishing
composition exercises from others that were copied. When they are present, general uneven-
ness, mistakes in morphology and syntax, and clumsy turns of phrase are determinants pointing
to work where the student had some freedom to express himself.!32 A Ptolemaic exercise, 345,
which contains a mixture of verses from /liad 18 that alternate with brief prose summaries of
short episodes, was included in this category after careful consideration. Although the hand
inscribing the papyrus is capable of writing fluent and serifed letters, it is nevertheless a
“rapid” school hand. The papyrus has been considered an example of a category of homerica,
Homeric anthologies, in which some problematic fragments could be classified.!33 I am con-
vinced, however, that the whole theory of the existence of Homeric anthologies is unsupported
by facts. Exercise 382 was considered an example of this kind of text, but it was later better

128See 335 and 336. Papyri show either this arrangement or collections of hypotheseis, or, more rarely, iso-
lated hypotheseis. An exercise appearing in the next level, 352, presents the hypothesis of Iliad 1, an original retell-
ing of the summary of that book.
129For this kind of paraphrase see the introduction to PSI XII 1276, a text of Iliad 2 with an interlinear ver-
sion.
130 See Quintilian, Inst.Or. X 5, 5: neque ego paraphrasin esse interpretationem tantum volo, sed circa eos-
dem sensus certamen atque aemulationem.
131
At this level the classification of Debut 1986 is extremely confusing, since it includes professional para-
phrases and collections of hypothesis, and elementary exercises that were only copied.
132Where some doubts remain, that is indicated in the Catalogue, while uncertain cases were included among
exercises copied or dictated.
133g¢¢ Montanari 1984, 128-29, who welcomes the category in which alcuni frammenti rimasti in precedenza
piuttosto misteriosi can be included, and the editio princeps. The existence of Homeric anthologies was postulated
by Georges Nachtergael in “Fragments d’anthologies homériques,” CdE 46 (1971) 344-51.
52 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

interpreted by Sijpesteijn and Worp as an excerpt from Homer followed by mathematical prob-
lems. The other two texts on which the theory rests, P.Stras.inv. 2374 and P.Hamb. II 136,
both Ptolemaic, are written quickly by experienced and informal hands and could represent
exercises written by teachers for their class.
Another exercise included in this level, 355, is a rhetorical exercise of ethopoiia
(AMoro1ix) consisting of five very mediocre epigrams, each introduced by a line of prose, that
present imaginary conversations of various mythological figures. This kind of exercise was
part of the progymnasmata (mpoyupvdopata), exercises taught by grammarians or rhetors. !34
The characteristics of the hand of 355, an “evolving” hand that shows unevenness and
immaturity, together with the presence of lines of separation, recommend a consideration of the
piece, even though other exercises of the same kind are not included.

Grammar

The learning of grammar, which became a separate branch of study in the Roman period, was
characteristic of a particular educational level and was done under the tutelage of the gram-
marian. In the Hellenistic period especially, and probably even later, the study of grammar was
done in conjunction with the reading and interpretation of literary texts. The exercises have
transmitted examples of several grammatical manuals, technai grammatikai (téxvou ypappa-
tiki), which treated the classification and definition of the various parts of speech.!35 In the
exercises there also appear morphological paradigms: declensions and conjugations. Although
there is evidence of the use and influence of technai on school education from the first century
AD onward, the exercises show that no individual, standard manual was adopted in schools. !36
Only later, in the fifth century, is there clear evidence of the adoption of the Techne (Téxvn
Tpapparixn) of Dionysius Thrax.!3’ The question of the authenticity of this grammatical
manual—allegedly written by a disciple of Aristarchus in the second-first century BC—was
already debated in antiquity.
138
In the third-fourth century AD appeared four Supplements to this Techne whose aim was
to establish elementary grammatical rules for the purpose of instruction.!39 At the end of the
fourth century the Canons (Kavévec) of the famous grammarian Theodosius, a collection of
rules for the declension of nouns and the conjugation of verbs, were also written. Morphologi-
cal paradigms, however, appear in the exercises starting from the first-second century AD.
Morphological tables were adopted by teachers to supplement the technai, and the school
exercises show a prevalence of verb paradigms—contract verbs of the three classes and con-

134For this kind of exercise, see José-Antonio Fernandez Delgado, “Hexametrische-Ethopoiiai auf Papyrus
und anderen Materialien,” Proceed.XX Int.Congr. (Copenhagen 1992) 299-305; see also Jean-Luc Fournet, “Une
éthopée de Cain dans le Codex des Visions de la Fondation Bodmer,” ZPE 92 (1992) 253-66.
135 About these, see especially Wouters 1979, 33-212.
on grammatical school exercises, see Weems 1981.
i este or
See 405, PSI ae g gives p part of the supplemen
I 18, which pplement [epii Iloday
0 and the beginning
inni of the Techne of

'38Di Benedetto 1958; 1959; 1973; and, “At the origins of Greek grammar,” Glotta 68 (1990) 19-39
recently argued that the techne was compiled in the third-fourth century AD, but the question is still open. For a nts
tory of the discussion see A. Kemp, “The emergence of autonomous Greek grammar,” in Peter Schmitter (ed.)
Geschichte der Sprachtheorie, vol. 2 of Sprachtheorie der abendlindischen Antike (Tubingen 1991) 302-333 7
139See Di Benedetto 1959, 117-18. ,
 TYPES OF TEXTUAL MATERIAL 53

sonant stems—with no evidence of a preferred usage of the verb ria7w, which was employed
in the Canons. An interesting feature of the declensions and conjugations in some of the
exercises!4° is that teachers looked at completeness and regularity rather than at the living lan-
guage, conjugating, for instance, tenses of the optative according to theoretical models. They
seem to have completely disregarded the evolution of the Greek language, so that students were
asked to practice forms that they had never heard or encountered even in literature. The gram-
marians’ desire for correct usage of Greek led them to the use of artificial, archaizing forma-
tions and sometimes to bizarre constructions and a proliferation of nonexistent forms. !4!
The selection of the exercises—that is, grammatical texts written by students or
teachers—was made on the basis of the confused treatment of parts of the treatises, lack of
symmetry and homogeneity, mistakes, clumsy erasures, and palaeographical features. In some
cases an examination of the hand was the determinant. For example, although the grammatical
manual of 358 was in the past considered to have been written by a schoolteacher and, more
recently, by a scribe more at home at writing documents,!4? a comparison with other school
hands in this category, the very poor orthography, and the presence of a large blank space at
the end, show that the copyist was a student.

Notebooks

I have decided to include in a category by themselves what I call “notebooks”—that is, collec-
tions of exercises of multifarious content that were sometimes compiled by more than one stu-
dent. At times, their composite and heterogeneous nature is particularly evident, as, for
instance, in the Livre d’écolier, which addressed the needs of a student as he was growing up,
covering the different educational levels from elementary to more advanced.!*3 At other times,
however, notebooks are more restricted in content. Some of them display only one type of
exercise repeated or a passage so long that it had to be written on more than one tablet or leaf
of papyrus.!44 Others present a maximum of two types of exercise that usually are character-
istic of similar educational levels.!45 I resolved not to mix the different exercises contained in a
notebook with the rest, because I found this way of organizing the material quite confusing. !4°
Another consideration that led me to group the notebooks together is that by far the majority of
them are written on distinctive materials, especially waxed and wooden tablets with several
leaves. I believe that it is better to have a comprehensive view of the notebooks and the ways
in which they were used. !47
The types of exercises present in notebooks are all found in use at the educational levels
previously discussed. I would like to examine more thoroughly, however, the question-and-

140Sce 361, 364, 372.

141Qne can also regard in this way the declension in the dual and plural of the two proper names, Priam and
Hecabe, in 372.
142See Wouters 1979, 47-48.
143966 379 and 393. Notebooks with different kinds of exercises are also 395, 396, 400, 404, 406, 409.
144These refer to only one level of learning. See, e.g., 381, 387, 399, and 411.
145See, e.g., 322, 323, 342.
146The consultation of Collart 1937 and Debut 1986 is cumbersome because of this way of organizing the
material.
147}¢ goes without saying that, when it was necesary, I separately considered the different kinds of exercise or
the different hands of a single notebook.
54 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

answer form of a few exercises that appear almost exclusively in notebooks. A single rhetorical
question that leads to an etymological explanation of the term grammata was formulated in a
grammatical papyrus of the second century AD, 362, which was included at the previous
level.!48 Although modern scholars usually regard the systematic use of the question-and-
answer form, especially in grammatical manuals (€owramdkpiowc, per interrogationem et
responsionem), as a late development, since it is evident in many treatises of Late Antiquity
and the Middle Ages,!49 a thorough study of this literary form is still a desideratum.'°° It is
likely that this format represented an adaptation of grammatical, gnomological, and mytholo-
gical material to school use. In a notebook of the third century!>! are found gnomic questions
and answers that look like an adaptation of corresponding maxims that were learned by heart,
while, in a different tablet, the procedure is used for grammatical conjunctions.!** Two
Byzantine notebooks present catechismal questions and answers on the Trojan War, asking for
instance about the names of kings, heralds, captains, and seers of the Greeks and the
Trojans.!53 The formulation of questions and answers must have originated in schools: it was a
very effective didactic procedure that from teachers passed to textbooks in different versions
and which, under the influence of Christian literature, was used in the medieval period. In the
second century AD Arrian in the Epicteti Dissertationes evokes a typical picture of school life
in which the questions that a grammarian asks about the names of Hector’s father, mother, and
brothers!54 are very similar to those appearing in the exercises.
One intriguing problem presented by some of the notebooks made of tablets is the ques-
tion of their ownership. In most of the notebooks one or two hands are distinguishable: the
main hand, which belongs to the student, is joined at times by another, the teacher’s. Although
sometimes previous activity of a student could be responsible for the remains of an exercise at
a lower level,!55 more often it is certain that different individuals must have worked on a
notebook much at the same time. In 385, 396, and 407 at least two students used the notebook
for different kinds of activity, and in 388, 400, and 408 many hands are found at work, often
even on the same tablet.!°° Although it seems likely that such notebooks were not the property
of a single pupil, a scenario of joint ownership seems a little unrealistic (unless of course one
is referring to children of the same family). I believe that notebooks made of tablets were most

148See P.Oslo Il 13 lines 45-47.

149Sce A. Pertusi, “Epwrjpara. Per la storia e le fonti delle prime grammatiche greche a stampa,” Italia
Medioevale e Umanistica 5 (1962) 321-51. ;
150On the question-and-answer form, see H. Doerrie and H. Doerries, “Erotapokriseis,” Reallexicon fir
Antike und Christentum 6 (1966) cols. 342-370.
151 gee 385, side H.
152Sce 385 side 0.
. '?See 405 and 406. Very similar questions appear in the Prolegomena of a tenth century codex, together
with a Vita Homeri and the hypothesis and Scholia minora of Iliad 1. See cod.Rom.Bibl.Naz.GR. 6 (C), Montanari
1979, 43-64. oe
154g ¢¢ Arian, Epict.Diss. Il 19.6-7: du& rodr0 obbév biadépw Tod ypappariKod. -Tig jv 6 Tod "Exropoc
manip; Upicepos.- -Tivec added ooi;- : AdeEardpoc kal AnipoBog.-
-Mirnp 8’ adr&y tic;- -“Ex&By. IlapeiAnda
i ee toropiay.- -[lap& tivog;- -Ilap’‘Opjpov.-
See for instance No. 394, where the remains of an alphabet are visible on the wooden border. The student
who wee the poem perhaps traced the letters himself, when learning to write.
See for instance side 39 of 400 and 56 of 408, where different students seem to have used part of a tablet
for their activities.
 TYPES OF TEXTUAL MATERIAL 55

often the property of a teacher or of a school,!57 and perhaps the ownership of tablets was one
of the prerequisites for a teacher to set up school. Thus the tablets were passed around in class
and different students were able to use them. The testimony of St. Basil of Caesarea, so far
unnoticed, is helpful in this respect. Basil admonishes men not to imitate the behavior of chil-
dren who, when reproached by their teacher, break his tablets in anger (uy moter Ta Tov
avontwv Taidwy ot, Tapa didaoxadov émiTinbEévTes, Tao bé&ATOUG ExEivov KaTAppTYyVo-
ovot).!58 The scene unmistakably refers to teachers owning the tablets on which students did
their work. Breaking the teacher’s tablets meant taking away the instruments of his trade,
preventing him from teaching. Basil’s paradigm shows how customary it was for teachers to
own the tablets upon which their pupils practiced and upon which they vented their anger.

157 although Weems 1981, 218, already raised this question, observing that two of the notebooks she studied
had been worked by more than one hand, she did not examine all the school exercises and did not find any literary
sero in support of this hypothesis.
138Sce Hom. Famis Sicc. 67 C, Migne PG p. 317.
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5 Writing Materials Used in Schools

A thorough examination of the writing materials used for school exercises is necessary for
many reasons. In handbooks of palaeography and papyrology the question is handled as an
extension of the general topic of the use of writing materials in antiquity: it does not earn
enough specific attention and it is not carefully researched.! Modern histories of ancient educa-
tion, which do not base their study on a direct analysis of the whole corpus of exercises, suffer
from the same clichés and abstractions. Imprecisions and generalizations also characterize the
cursory discussion of the question in introductions to lists of school exercises, where one finds
categoric statements about texts written on the backs of papyrus, ostraca, and tablets having an
a priori probability of coming from a school environment.? A more precise knowledge of the
materials used by teachers and students not only will contribute a great deal to the problem of
the identification of school exercises but will clarify the testimony of the literary and anecdotal
tradition, while precious insights into the functioning of the ancient classroom will be gained.

Papyrus

Papyrus was the material most frequently used by students and teachers in schools. In spite of
common assertions that ostraca and tablets generally contained the exercises compiled by
pupils, and that papyrus was used primarily for school textbooks,? in fact papyrus was the
single most common writing material for exercises. Almost 50 percent of the school exercises
were inscribed on this material.4 This figure includes single papyrus sheets, rolls, and sheets
written on both sides, whether or not they belong to codices. The Ptolemaic exercises represent
less than 10 percent of the exercises on papyrus, with the rest being divided between the
Roman and the early Byzantine age.*> The data reflect the general figures for survival of
Ptolemaic papyri.
We know with a reasonable degree of certainty the provenance of about 30 percent of
the papyri containing school exercises. As usually happens with literary and documentary
papyri, the discoveries of school papyri were not spread uniformly throughout the country, but
rather were concentrated in particular areas. Thus only a small minority of them are said to
have come from Upper Egypt, although this region was plentiful in ostraca.® The rest of school
papyri come from Middle Egypt: about half of them from the relatively small area of the

ISee, e.g., Gardthausen 1913, 45-162; Montevecchi 1988, 11-29.

2See Collart 1937, 70 note 2. Zalateo 1961, quoted and implicitly approved Collart’s argument. Although he
never expanded on the subject, it seems that quite often some texts were included in his list exclusively because they
appeared on papyrus versos.
See, e.g., Montevecchi 1988, 395.
4See Table 1.
5From Table 1 it appears that the number of Byzantine papyri is slightly larger.
6The percentage of school texts on papyrus from Upper Egypt is not much higher than the percentage of
literary texts on this material from the same region. See Mertens 1975-76, 404.
58 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

Arsinoite—from this region in general or from specific villages’—and the remaining papyri
from Memphis, Hibeh, the Heracleopolite, Hermopolis and the Hermopolite nome, Oxyrhyn-
chos, and Antinoopolis. Although the majority of texts come from nome capitals, where it can
be expected that schools of different levels existed, about 40 percent of them come from vil-
lages. The majority of school exercises found in villages belong to the Roman period, but the
Ptolemaic and the Byzantine periods are also represented. In the past the existence of schools
in villages was considered a given,® but it has recently been argued that no school papyrus of
Ptolemaic date came from a village.? The same pessimistic view has been upheld with regard to
schools in the Roman and Byzantine periods: they were supposed to exist almost exclusively in
large towns. It is not surprising that education of an elementary level was available in these vil-
lages, and the majority of the papyri do refer to such a level. There are, however, exceptions:
one must admit the presence of a grammarian or a private tutor teaching at a comparable level
in villages such as Karanis (in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods) and Theadelphia (in the sec-
ond century AD).!°

Exterior Appearance, Quality, and Characteristics of School Papyri

A student did not have much chance of getting his hands on good-quality papyrus. Editors have
often remarked on the coarse look of school papyri, their roughness, their mediocre, if not
definitely poor, quality.!! School papyri described as thick, rough, and allowing a ready dis-
tinction between recto and verso seem to belong especially to the Byzantine age and testify,
therefore, to the more general problem of the rapid deterioration of papyrus quality after the
third century AD.!* But low-quality papyrus was used often enough even in the Roman peri-
od.!3 Sometimes a strip of fibers is missing from one or both surfaces, and this appears to be a
blemish of production, a mark of poor quality.!4 More often missing fiber sections, and in gen-
eral defects of the surface, are evidence of previous wear and damage and testify that a papyrus
was reused for a school exercise.!> In a grammatical piece, 368, a blank is often visible
between the letters of a word, showing that the student attempted to avoid damaged sections.
At times papyri were repaired and show ancient patchings, as in 102, where the student wrote

7See, however, the remarks of Hermann Harrauer and Klaas A. Worp about the incorrect provenance of
literary texts supposedly coming from Soknopaiou Nesos as well as from other locations in “Literarische Papyri aus
Soknopaiu Nesos” Tyche 8 (1993) 36-40.
Marrou 1975, I 218, believes in the existence of schools jusque dans les plus petits centres ruraux even in
the Hellenistic period.
*See Harris 1989, 134-35 and 241, criticizing Marrou’s view, but considering insufficient data.
From these towns come 330, 345, 359, and 362, which preserve grammatical exercises and Scholia minora
See above p. 20 and note 64.
\IThis happens in about 50 cases, but probably such remarks would be more frequent if editors in the past
had had the contemporary habit of commenting in detail on the external characteristics of papyri. On the poor qual-
ity of papyrus used for Coptic school exercises see Husselman 1947, 130. See moreover Collart’s almost “pathetic”
desert on of the miserable piece given by his parents to un petit écolier copte to practice a syllabary, 96.
oe Turner 1980, 2-3. See also MPER NS XV, p. 13 about late school exercises.
See, e.g., the school exercises published by H. Oellacher in MPER NS Ill, all belonging to the first or sec-
ond century AD, most of them done on poor-quality reused papyrus (and especially 256, 257, 258, 261, 262). Per-
haps irregulars or defectives were sold at a cut rate and used as scratch paper. |
141n these cases the writin g runs across one such loss and shows iti to have been ancient
I5see e.g. Nos. 289, 358, 369. aR EOI.
 WRITING MATERIALS USED IN SCHOOLS 59

the third column of a list of names on a dark patch of papyrus of different fabric, whose fibers
were perpendicular to the others. The same problem was encountered by the writer of 379,
whose roll showed, in addition to fibers of different colors, one such clumsy patch. The prac-
tice of washing off a previous text, which in general was relatively uncommon,!® is seen in a
few school papyri, where the washed-off text appears to have been Demotic, a Greek letter, an
old exercise, or even a literary text.!’ Each time this practice was motivated by the desire to
write along the fibers of a nice piece of papyrus, because, although the back of the same piece
was available, the student chose not to use it. Cutting a previously used papyrus was also a
way to make it fit one’s needs, as 412 shows: the unwritten papyrus of an old codex was used
to make a neat little book. Although it was possible to get a used papyrus with some unused
space and write one’s exercise right there, without cutting off the piece, this was not the usual
choice, because generally a student preferred to have his own papyrus fragment, small though
it might be.!8 Thus the pupil who wrote 240 cut a papyrus and then tried to fit in a chorus of
Euripides: the letter that is missing at the end of line 5 was probably omitted because of the
lack of space. Although it is not always possible to assess exactly the original size of a papyrus
scrap,!° it is still possible to determine that about 10 percent of papyri inscribed by students
along the fibers preserved texts longer than one column and that a student who wanted to write
an exercise along the fibers was likely to be able to get hold of only a small scrap.2°
Once a student had a piece of papyrus in his hands—no matter what size, or which side
was to be written on—he was not concerned with using the space at his disposal economically;
on the contrary, he often left some areas blank (@ypadov). The frequent presence of unwritten
areas is another demonstration of the wasteful manner in which papyrus was sometimes used in
antiquity and, even though in school contexts reused material is very common, this may be
another indication that papyrus was not very costly.2! In a papyrus, as Turner says,22 “the
unwritten areas may be as important as the written,” but often editors do not make any remarks
about the unwritten areas, or define them imprecisely.23 Most instances of blank spaces in
literary papyri written outside of school contexts are at the end of a roll, when the scribe had
finished copying a certain work or book,”4 while occurrences of spaces left blank in other areas

16On the reasons for the infrequency of this practice, see Montevecchi 1988, 21: it was difficult to wash and
reuse papyrus with good results.
7See 78, 248, 250, 341, 346, 370, and 382.
18Cjearly Apollonios did not mind sharing his papyrus, see 244 and 246, but he is unlikely to have been in a
formal school. See also 25, 131, where letters and parts of words were practiced underneath a petition (and also on
the back), and 63. To these we must add three more examples of apprentice scribes practicing letters: Nos. 7, 10,
and 11.
19But see, e.g., 207, 231, 255, and 302. No. 304 was not complete at the bottom, but, since a red border
seems to have surrounded it, it was probably not a very big piece.
20There are, of course, doubtful cases, namely 123, 211, 238, 253, 270, 271, 344, and 354. Even if we do
not know the size of these exercises, still it is possible - or even likely—that the majority of them preserved short
texts.
21] ewis 1974, 130 especially, but for this problem cf. below, p. 62 and note 47.
22Turner 1987, vii.
23Thus, e.g., Gallo 1980, 349 in describing 211 defines the unwritten space as an unusually large margin.
24Thus the &ypadoy is present at the end of several Herculaneum rolls (38 cm. in P.Herc. 1675), see
Guglielmo Cavallo, Libri scritture scribi a Ercolano, X suppl. Cronache Ercolanesi 13 (1983) 19.
60 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

and
are very rare.25 Blank spaces are a conspicuous characteristic of school exercises on papyri
ostraca.2© In
they can be observed, usually at the end of an exercise, also on tablets and on
in
some school papyri, as in 343, the unwritten areas are distributed here and there, while
others there is usually one blank area somewhere, which often consists of an unusually large
lateral margin, as if the exercise was written without any regard for symmetry.2” Much more
common is a blank area located at the end of the exercise. Scraps of papyrus were written,
starting at the top, by inexperienced writers who were not adept at estimating how much space
their writing would take: when the exercise was completed, the remaining empty space was not
used for anything else. Although writers’ inexperience is the usual reason for the presence of
unwritten areas, sometimes blank spaces are caused by the sudden interruption of an exercise,
for no apparent reason.?8 Unwritten spaces appear in exercises of different levels and often in
Scholia Minora. For example, in 336 the hypothesis of Iliad 7, which is preserved in the seven
lines of the first column, is followed by an extensive blank area, while the Scholia Minora to
the book start in the second column. In this case the existence of the blank space is a helpful
indication that the text is an exercise, since such spaces do not occur in professional copies.

Papyrus Front and Back

The existence of the practice of writing on the back of papyri, across the fibers, in school con-
texts was debated in the past. C.H. Oldfather adopted the position of F.G. Kenyon, who
asserted that literary texts written on the verso were never intended for sale.2? Oldfather fur-
ther claimed that the vast majority of such texts were school texts and postulated a regular
issue of public documents from the archives to the local schools for reuse.3° Turner argued
against Oldfather’s view, asserting that many of the texts in question were likely to be private
copies, while others were professionally produced books.?! Examining the texts written on
versos in order to see what types of literature and what authors were used in schools, Oldfather
tried cursorily—and unsuccessfully—to prove that all these texts had been produced under
school conditions, even though the content of some of them did not seem at all suitable. More

2SInstances of this practice known to me are: P.Oxy. VI 923, a prayer; P.Col. VIII 204, Isocrates, In Soph.
(Or. 13) 1-3, suddenly interrupted; PSI XII 1275, a medical definition; P.Oxy. XLII 3002, 26 hexameters of an
ethopoiia; PSI XIII 1303, a composition representing a scene of the Phoenissae of Euripides; PUG 1 4, Homer, the
Odyssey 8.168-176, suddenly interrupted; P.Harr. 4, an epitaph for the dead Patroclus; MPER NS XV 135, the
sketch of a composition. Most of these literary texts with blank spaces could, in fact, be exercises of Phctotieal
schools. For palaeographical reasons they have not been included in my list.
There are not many ostraca showing blank spaces, for usually an ostracon of appropriate shape and size
was eae for an exercise, see below, p. 64. Ostraca with evident blank spaces are: 54, 205, and especially 273
Examples of exercises of this kind are: 8, 29, 238, and 357. .
oe 288, 320, 348, 349, and 358.
y ;
Kenyon 1899, 20. In response to that, see, for instance, note 1 in the in
, > > ’ tr d i .

pelea aaa to P. Mert. II 53. a hy ee ne

Oldfather 1923, 68, “Nothing i i i
after sighboring
— serving theiraed
time and Seared sa ceeedse to uaa
the exercises
ee ee 4
ti Raper
of students 1 theieschools
in ak SER Cah i
of the metropolis

See Turner 1980, , 89-90. According to this scholar there was no rea son to postulate a i
documents unwritten on the back, since the schools after all were private schools. i le ae
 WRITING MATERIALS USED IN SCHOOLS 61

recently Julian Kriiger, in a book about Oxyrhynchos,*? inquired into the origin of the literary
texts. From the fact that about three quarters of the papyri found in that city and containing
literary texts had been written on only one side, he concluded that these came from public and
scholars’ libraries, and that the rest, inscribed on both sides, came from private and school
environments.33 Only eight of these, however, come demonstrably from schools.34 Most of
these texts written in Oxyrhynchos on a papyrus verso were probably private copies.3°
Writing on the backs of papyri was a practice commonly followed in schools. Speaking
of recto and verso is for many of these papyri completely inappropriate, and sometimes even
the terms “front” and “back” proposed by Turner are inadequate.*© Although in some cases it
is reasonable to suppose that a student used the back of a document, but rotated the sheet 90
degrees in order to be able to write with the fibers,?” sometimes it is extremely difficult to
decide which side was the front and which was the back. In many cases common sense is not
of much help:%8 it is often impossible to establish the order of the sides—front to back—of a
small piece of papyrus written along the fibers on both sides. One can only say that a student
rotated a papyrus to write along the fibers, as many students chose to do.3? When a scrap was
instead written across the fibers—even when the other side is blank—it is reasonable to suppose
that the back of a sheet was reused for the exercise, since students did not like and did not
choose to write across the fibers and would therefore rotate the sheet 90 degrees.4° Very rarely
was a papyrus written on both sides across the fibers,4! and in these cases the writer seems to
have been an apprentice scribe, who was already at home with writing.
Students did not write on the backs of papyri at every level of education.4? To find a
substantial number of papyri with writing on the back one must turn to pieces at the level of
the Longer Passages, since about half of them are written across the fibers. Moreover, while

32Julian Kruger, Oxyrhynchos in der Kaiserzeit (Europaische Hochschulschriften III, Frankfurt 1990). In view
of the importance of this city among places of provenance of papyri, it is necessary to examine and correct his con-
clusions. In a recent article “Aspetti di tecnica libraria ad Ossirinco” Aegyptus 71 (1991) 55-120, Mariachiara Lama
considered very briefly school texts and exercises written on versos, without reaching new conclusions.
331m the discussion of the data relative to texts written on both sides, however, Kruger did not distinguish
between 1) papyri with a literary text on the recto and a document on the verso, 2) papyri with a literary text on the
recto and a literary or school text on the verso, and 3) papyri with a document on the recto and a literary or school
text on the verso. These distinctions are essential if one is going to accurately determine the origin of the texts. In
addition, most of the data Kriiger reports regarding texts written on both sides is wrong.
34When I speak of school I refer to the classes of the grammatistes and the grammatikos up to the point where
the hand or the mistakes cease to offer a reasonable indication that they were the work of a student or teacher. It is
true that the content of some of the texts could point to schools of rhetoric. Many of the papyri considered by
Kriiger, however, are medical, astrological, and magical.
351t is true that the percentage of school texts coming from Oxyrhynchos appears exaggeratedly low. Peter
Parsons (per litteras April 19, 1992) confirms that this represents editorial choice.
36Turner 1978, 11-12 and 63 especially. See also p. 13: “This did not settle the ambiguities posed by the case
of the single sheet, on both sides of which the writing ran with or across the fibers.”
37See, e.g., 180, 208, 210.
38Turner 1978, 55-56: “Common sense would suggest that draft petitions...writing exercises etc. would
normally be written on scrap paper. But enough difficult cases can be found to prevent erection of a common sense
standard.”
39See 8, 11, 18, 89, 156, 180, 208, 210, and 356.
40Itis important to insist on this point, since editors show considerable confusion, see e.g., the editors of 276.
41 See 28 and 149.
42Sce Table 3: exercises written by students.
62 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

only a quarter of these papyri written on the back were less than one whole column, and the
rest were or could have been considerably longer, the other half of papyri in the category of
the Longer Passages, those that were written along the fibers, show that rarely did a student
write pieces of a considerable length on the front of a papyrus.*? It is clear that when a pupil
had to write a relatively long piece, he had a good chance of ending up with a back. Beginners,
on the other hand, preferred to write on the front of a papyrus: first of all, they had at their
disposal small blank scraps cut from bigger papyri, which were probably easy to come across,
and, moreover, they were apparently more comfortable writing along the fibers. They needed
ruled lines guiding their letters in the first writing exercises on tablets*4 and they probably
found it easier to use the horizontal fibers as guides,*> seeing that they often turned a papyrus
to write along the fibers. The front of the papyrus was also smoother and their uncertain pens
did not have to fight with the surface.4° When writing became less difficult, the back of the
papyrus did not present as many problems, and, since it was necessary to copy more extensive
pieces, a student, who rarely had at his disposal a fresh roll for his exercises, did not have
many choices. It was not exclusively a problem of cost.4”7 Most school exercises ended up
being thrown away, and it is not surprising that they were written on reused papyrus. Even
nowadays a student would not use the fine paper of the notebook where he keeps his poetry or
diary for his homework. Only infrequently, then, did a student have the privilege of writing his
Homer or his conjugations on the front of a nice piece of roll; usually, if the exercise was
long, the back would do just fine.*8
The practice of writing school exercises on the back of a papyrus roll was not equally
common in all periods, but it was especially frequent in the Roman age.*? Martial speaks of
children furrowing the backs of poems, inversa pueris arande charta.5° While in the Roman
period more than half of the exercises on papyrus were written on the back, in the Byzantine
age the percentage declines considerably. Although the decline may be explained by the large
amount of school work which could be written in a codex, or the fact that most of the exercises
written along the fibers were quite short and were written on small papyrus scraps, perhaps
one must also conclude that the practice of writing school exercises on the back of a used
papyrus was coming to an end.

43Nos. 245, 264 and 288.

44For this see below, pp. 126-27.
ikor the question whether scribes ever ruled their lines on papyrus, see Turner 1987, 4-5.
Turner 1978, 17 speaks of scribes choosing the side of the papyrus with horizontal fibers not because
it was
ee ee epee it was more protected. For beginners, though, the situation was different because

47For the cost of papyrus see Lewis 1974 and Papyrus in Classical Antiquity: a Supplement (Papyrologica
Bruxellensia 23, Bruxelles 1989). One must also take into account the fact that some students
of limited he
might have learned the first rudiments: for them the price of papyrus was a problem. ah
48In P.Mich. VIII 468 a soldier writes to his father telling him that he is going to send,
among other thi
chartas scholares duas inside a chicken coop, together with ink wrapped in them and five cd
vs See T sa
1954, 103 note 4, and Turner 1980, 89. Since it is unlikely that he was sending just two pa s oe
probably referring to rolls unwritten on the back. Pig babe ey
49See Table 1.
>See Martial IV 86.
 WRITING MATERIALS USED IN SCHOOLS 63

Ostraca

Ostraca—sherds of broken pottery that could be found in any household or rubbish heap,>! or,
more rarely, flat pieces of limestone—were used extensively in schools.°? Although not an
ideal material for literary exercises and texts,°? they were extremely cheap and readily avail-
able. The episode handed down by Diogenes Laertius*4 of the philosopher Cleanthes being too
poor to buy papyrus and writing on sherds, may be responsible for a frequent misapprehension
of the use of ostraca in education. I discussed above how habit, and not primarily cost, was the
salient reason for the use of small scraps of papyrus or the backs of larger pieces. In the same
way, although low cost was the major reason for their employment, ostraca were not used only
by poor students,°> but probably by all students at a certain level and for particular types of
exercises. Although one can imagine circumstances under which literary fragments preserved
on potsherds came from sources other than schools, Oldfather thought that “such circumstances
are so improbable that we can scarcely err if we conclude that all such texts were used in the
schools.”°® For instance, it is unlikely that scholars wrote verses on potsherds, since papyrus
was usually readily available and not expensive for the wealthier classes. On the other hand, it
is enough to examine the literary ostraca in Pack’s catalogue or in the list drawn by Mertens>”
to realize that, although most of the ostraca originated in contexts of organized education, a
good number must have come from different milieus.°8
Ostraca make up 34 percent of all school exercises. The percentages of exercises on this
material distributed throughout the different periods closely resemble those of exercises on
papyrus: about 10 percent are Ptolemaic and the rest are almost equally divided between the
Roman and Byzantine periods.°? It has recently been argued that in the Byzantine age there was
a decisive decline in the use of ostraca, but this is not corroborated by the school evidence.
In regard to the provenance of school ostraca, one should keep in mind, as for papyrus, both
the random occurrence of the finds and the fact that the sites fall into recognizable clusters.
That ostraca were found particularly in Upper Egypt is well known. It is debatable whether
chance is responsible or whether they were actually used more frequently in that region.®!

SICf. p. 18.
avery often also Coptic school exercises are preserved on ostraca, see Hasitzka 1990, 16.
530Qn this see Mertens 1975-76, 398.
54Diogenes Laertius VII 174.
S5Bonner 1977, 165 declares on the contrary that potsherds were mainly used by schoolchildren in the poorest
circles.
56Qldfather 1923, 63.
57Mertens 1975-76, 397-403.
58Thus in Mertens’ list of literary ostraca appear many medical prescriptions, a few astrological and
astronomical pieces, and several very dubious fragments whose form is peither clearly prose or verse. In addition
there are a few literary pieces that can hardly belong in school, such as p2 1771 épitaphe humoristique, which is
obscene. A few other sherds were described by their editors as “scholastic” because the content was baffling and
obscure.
59See Table 1.
60 About the view that ostraca were much less used in Byzantine than in Roman times, see Cavallo and Mahler
1987, 3. This view, moreover, is untenable even in regard to documentary ostraca. Byzantine ostraca in large
quantity have been found, for instance, during the excavations at Abu Mina and they are currently being studied by
Georgina Fantoni.
614 brief sketch of the problem in Montevecchi 1988, 22.
64 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

About two thirds of school ostraca come from Upper Egypt—from that region in general or
from specific locations.
Ostraca were selected for school work on the basis of their size, shape, and the length of
the exercise to be inscribed. When one inspects the ostraca with Short Passages: Maxims,
Sayings, and Limited Amount of Verses—that is, level 6, which shows the largest number of
ostraca—it is clear that there was a definite relationship between the size of an ostracon and the
length of the exercise. Although the dozen complete examples in this category show that a
sherd of appropriate size was chosen, sometimes a student was not accurate in estimating and
had to squeeze the exercise in.®* Usually there was no need to define the exercise’s con-
clusion—for example with a paragraphos—because the shape of the sherd itself made it evi-
dent, but when additional space remained, as in 187, an elaborately decorated line was traced
to indicate the text’s end.
Although students chose ostraca for exercises of limited length, teachers at times did not
mind inscribing long texts on them. Ostracon 91 consists of two fragments of the same ampho-
ra, which were not contiguous and were already detached in antiquity. A teacher inscribed on
them a syllabary, in which the two fragments were part of a unit and were supposed to be read
one after the other, as the different pages of a book.® Other ostraca used by teachers as
models, all belonging to the Byzantine period, were equally large.®* They contained texts of
considerable length—three lists of words one after the other, gnomic anthologies, and Homeric
verses—and were inscribed in legible, even hands. Such imposing models were probably sup-
posed to stand in one place in the classroom to be consulted by students who had to copy dif-
ferent gnomai and verses from them. Ostraca had acquired the status of reference books.
A curious problem concerns the rare presence on ostraca of poetic verses, especially
Homeric ones. The interest aroused by Homer in school, even at an elementary level, is
reflected also in this material: two epigrams, 177 and 198, concern Homer’s birthplace,®> and
two ostraca, 273 and 274, contain part of a Homeric theme and a partial paraphrase of Iliad
20, with a catalogue of deities. Ostraca inscribed by students with the verses themselves, how-
ever, are extremely rare: ostracon 315 was a model; 193 and 201 contain just the initial words
of several sections of the catalogue of ships of Iliad 2, notes jotted down in a hurry; and 237
presents rare glosses of Homer. Other ostraca preserve one or two verses of Iliad 1,% but
appear to be scribes’ writing exercises. Sherds were used for specific tasks: very short exer-
cises, notes, and memoranda. Although poetic verses in general do not appear very frequently
in ostraca, Homer was certainly the least represented among poets. Maybe an ostracon can pro-
vide an answer: exercise 209, a list of names, shows at the end a maxim alluding to the divine
cult of this poet: “Not a man, but a god was Homer.”°’ Were Homeric verses generally too
divine for a rough sherd?

7Seeespecially 177 and 186.

The same probably happened with 285 and 286. About letters occupying two different ostraca, see W.E.
Crum iie Monastery of Epiphanius at Thebes (New York 1926) Part I, p. 189 and note 10.
See 113, 311, 315, 319. Only a description of 312, whose whereabouts are unknown, is available. It
ee that the passage was extensive. It is likely that this ostracon also contained a model.
5Qn 191 only the poet’s name can be deciphered.
eeSee 224, 225, 226, 227.
The same words appear on a waxed tablet, No. 176. For the cult Homer inspired see C.O. Brink, “Ennius
and the Hellenistic Worship of Homer,” APP 93 (1972) 547-67.
 WRITING MATERIALS USED IN SCHOOLS 65

Tablets

Tablets functioned in Egypt as writing material for different kinds of texts. Some preserved
important documents such as contracts, certificates, and wills, usually intended to be kept for a
long time, and were rarely or never erased. Others contained shorter, ephemeral texts that
were effaced as soon as they had discharged their function: lists, accounts, inventories, and
school exercises.8 In general, two kinds of tablets were employed in school: wooden and
waxed tablets. I will maintain these two traditional terms,°? which are clearer and more com-
prehensive than others that have been recently proposed, such as “stylus tablet” and “wooden
leaf tablet.””° Both wooden and waxed tablets were made of wood. Different types of wood
were used, some imported, others local, but all very expensive, considering that the country
did not produce much wood.”! Although both kinds of tablets were erasable and their surfaces
could be used several times, the cost was still considerable.’2 Inevitably school tablets had to
be particularly costly compared with the other cheap and reused materials that students almost
always employed.
Wooden tablets were made with a smooth surface, and they were supposed to be used
with ink and pen. The surface was sometimes kept plain, sometimes covered with a white or
ochre-colored coating, which made writing smoother and, perhaps, also made erasing easier.
Such a tablet was called an album or leucoma (Aeixwya). Wooden tablets, which were tradi-
tionally used in pharaonic Egypt, were supposedly used in schools in nineteenth-century Egypt
and apparently are still used today.’? They could be joined together’* to form a notebook.75
Waxed tablets were hollowed out in the centre, filled with wax, and were inscribed with
a metal stylus and smoothed with its flat end. Sometimes’® the wax came off and the stylus

68For lists of tablets: Brashear and Hoogendijk 1990, 21-54; Patrice Cauderlier, “Les tablettes grecques
d’Bgypte: inventaire,” Bibliologia 12 (1992) 63-94.
See, e.g., Schubart 1918, 41; 1921, 17: Holztafel and Wachstafel, and Robert Marichal, “L’écriture Latine
du I au VII siécle: les sources. b. Tablettes de cire. c. Tablettes de bois”, Scriptorium 4 (1950) 131-33.
70Bowman and Thomas 1983, 36. See also pp. 32-33 for a comprehensive discussion of writing materials and
terminology. The terms they propose seem to be an especially convenient designation for the Vindolanda tablets, the
majority of which were thin slivers of wood.
710n wood being scarce in Egypt, see Bagnall 1993, 41. A technical survey of the different kinds of woods
used in the Vatican tablets of Pap.Flor. XVIII, provided with illuminating photographs and drawings, is given in the
appendix to that volume, pp. 201-42. In the same volume, pp.100-01, Patrice Cauderlier discusses the beech
wood—imported—of which the 4 notebooks he edits are made, the references to Roman citizens, and the possibility
that the use of beech tablets came directly from Italy. Cf. the technical observations in Pap.Lugd.
Bat. XXV, pp. 87-
88.
72See recently Brashear and Hoogendijk 1990, 22, who relate the cost to the limited durability of the text.
Contra, John Lee White, Light from Ancient Letters (Philadelphia 1986) 213, who asserts that tablets were as
inexpensive as potsherds.
73See Brashear and Hoogendijk 1990, 26 and 33, note 37 with bibliography cited.
74There are only two sets of wooden school tablets, both of the Roman period, 385 and 388. In both binding
holes are bored in one of the long sides. The thongs of 388, which originally joined the tablets together, have not
survived. The 8 tablets of the second set, instead, were fastened by silk cords.
73] prefer not to use the term codex, which was traditionally used in Latin, especially when waxed tablets
were bound together; see Bowman and Thomas 1983, 42-43 with note 75 (they strive to demonstrate that the
ancient sources referred also to sets of wooden tablets) and van Haelst 1989, 15-16. Of course the papyrus or par-
chment codex is said to have originated from a bound set of tablets—for this problem, see, e.g., Schubart 1918, 41;
Turner 1980, 7; van Haelst 1989, 14. .
76See, e.g., notebook 386, where letters scratched on the wood are still visible, and 391, made of 5 waxed
tablets, some of which have lost the wax almost entirely and show traces on the wood.
66 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

scratched the wooden surface underneath: the tablets needed to be recoated.’7 When the tablets
were hinged or tied together in a notebook, the outer sides of the first and last tablets func-
tioned as covers and were not coated with wax.78 Often these covers do not show any writ-
ing,7? but at times letters of the alphabet, numbers, or the name of the possessor-user are
inscribed on them.8? Sometimes the user of a tablet would inscribe his name or letters on the
wooden border.8! Waxed tablets originally came from Greece,8? where another kind of tablet,
of slatelike stone, was also used in schools.83 Waxed tablets are said to have been the most fre-
quently used tablet in antiquity,84 but, as we will see, wooden tablets were extremely popular
in schools.
When wooden or waxed tablets were joined together—up to a maximum of 10 tablets8>—
their sides were rarely numbered.8© To keep them in sequence, notches were provided along
one of the edges so that, when the set was ordered in the right way, the notches formed con-
tinous oblique lines. Tablets usually had binding holes, from one to six, ordered in groups of
two, bored into the top border.8” At times tablets were also provided with nicks or notches cut
into the edges corresponding to the binding holes, probably to keep the strings in place and to
prevent them from damaging the wood.88 Sometimes a notebook shows binding holes also in
the lower margin, to bind it shut on two opposite sides, when it contained legal documents.®?
Many individual tablets have been preserved, together with a good number of wooden and
waxed schoolbooks. Although it is usually assumed that these individual tablets were part of
notebooks, since they have holes in their borders,” some of the wooden tablets may have been
single tablets, owned by students who could not afford or did not need a whole notebook.”!
Moreover, many of the single tablets are teachers’ models and display texts that had to be
copied and then were erased and replaced. The holes and strings could serve to hang them,
although most likely the models were passed from hand to hand, seeing that the writing is not
large enough to be read from a distance. Waxed tablets were preferred for notebooks. The wax

77Herodas’ Didask. line 15, shows that tablets were recoated once a month.
78But see 395, where one of the covers is not hollowed, but is coated with a thin layer of wax.
79See, e.g., Nos. 391 and 395.
80See 381 with letters and numbers on the covers, 394 with a name, 408 with a name, a nomen sacrum, a
sacred monogram, and concentric circles. “
81See 394, with an alphabet clearly visible on the top part of the border, and 398 with a name: Paulus.
82Schubart 1918, 41.
83Sce Turner 1980, 6 and note 26; Eugene Vanderpool, “News letter from Greece”, AJA 63 (1959) 279-80
reports about the finding in Athens of a hundred inscribed school slabs and slab fragments that date from the fifth
century BC. These have a hole for suspension and contain letters, lists, and names scratched with a sharp instru-
ment. On these tablets, see Lynch 1983.
84See, e.g., Montevecchi 1988, 23 and van Haelst 1989, 14-15.
85Cf. 408.
86Only the “pages” of one school wooden notebook, 385, were numbered.
87400 and 407 are provided with 6 binding holes. Brashear and Hoogendijk 1990, 25, state instead that tablets
had at the most 4 binding holes.
88See, e.g., 395 and 408.
ee 408. In 394 the lower holes have instead been added by someone who utilized the book at a later time.
See Boyaval 1977, 223, “nombreuses tablettes isolées, percées de trous de suspension qui témoignent
encore qu’elles ont sirement fait partie, elles aussi, de cahiers.” :
if I oa ae this regard with Brashear and Hoogendijk 1990, 25. They point out that tablets of this kind
suspendedlied bya a MERCED.
sleriy cord hand of
from the Tov, eaea scribe, were used in 1 pharaonici Egypt. See, moreover, a tablet that was
 WRITING MATERIALS USED IN SCHOOLS 67

was protected by the protruding borders, which came into contact with the border of the
adjacent tablet when the book was closed.
School tablets were usually written parallel to the long dimension, with the long sides
forming the upper and lower edge of the book. Since the binding holes stood close to the upper
edge, the book did not open to the left of the writer, but away from him. Of course, if the
tablet was a long one, and particularly if the student wanted to make line and verse coincide,
he had to divide the writing surface vertically into two or more columns.*? In the second tablet
of 320 a vertical line, partitioning the surface in two, allows the pupil to write two different
kinds of exercises, arithmetic and word divisions.94 Since fiscal documents in notebooks are
written across the short dimension, scholars have tried to establish a clear distinction between
school use—writing parallel to the long sides—and documentary use—parallel to the short
sides.9° Nevertheless, in several school tablets—even if a minority—the writing runs parallel to
the shorter dimension, and sometimes alternate sides of a notebook were inscribed along dif-
ferent axes.°’ It is impossible to establish a universally followed rule: although generally stu-
dents and teachers preferred to write across the long dimension because they could write along
the grain of the wood, occasionally they decided for no apparent reason to go the other way.
Both wooden and waxed tablets were often ruled, and the lines were drawn without a
tuler, even if they belonged to a model. Occasionally, in students’ tablets, these lines were so
crooked that they did not adequately serve their function.?® Some students had trouble
“resting” their letters on the line, and they ended up writing across the lines or even making
the letters hang down from what was supposed to be a bottom line.°? Generally single lines
were ruled across the tablet, and students strove to keep their letters low so that they did not
touch the top limit. Lines of this kind are used not only in beginners’ exercises but also by
older students for Scholia Minora or grammar.!© Occasionally sets of pairs of lines were ruled
for inexperienced beginners.!°! The teacher wrote the model text on the top part of the tablet
on a single line, then underneath he ruled parallel sets of horizontal lines at a good distance
from each other so that the pupil could copy the exercise within these lines. Sometimes, proba-
bly to save space, the sets of pairs of lines were very close so that they almost appear to be one

92Some waxed tablets apparently had a little raised "knob" in the middle so that the two sides did not touch,
see P.Fouad 74.10-12 and note to line 12. I have not noticed it in school tablets. Iam only aware of the presence of
amounts of resin in the corners of the tablets to protect the surface in Pap.Flor. 14. See also Mario Capasso,
"L’instrumentum scriptorium in un ritratto conservato al museo egizio" Rudiae 5 (1993) 69-72.
93This is what happens in 381 and 333, where the writing is divided into two columns, and in 303, with four
columns.
°4This is a rather common situation, see e.g. side IV A of 395 and sides 2 and 17 of 404. See in addition 296
for an Homeric model written in two columns.
95See Patrice Cauderlier, Pap.Flor. XVIII, p.101 and note 8.
Tablets 326, 327, 328, 328 with Scholia Minora; 142 and 160 contained writing exercises; 118, inscribed
across the long dimension with mathematical exercises, was turned around to write a list on the other side.
971n 386 only two tablets are written across the long dimension; and in 404 side 6 was the only one written
parallel to the short sides; the same is true for tablets MND 552 I, H, L of 396.
8See Nos. 202, 333, 364, 397.
99See, e.g., 107 and 386. Hanging the letters from a top line could sometimes be a deliberate style—it is typi-
cal of Ptolemaic hands—but especially in 386 it seems to be an accident.
100S¢e 333 and 364. In the latter tablet the exercise is also framed by single and double lines.
101gee 134 and the first tablet of 383.
68 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

was
line.!°2 Another strategy for keeping letters from coming into contact with adjacent letters
to trace a very thick ruled line that could function as divider.!93 Ruled lines, which for the
most part are a characteristic of students’ work, appear occasionally in models, probably when
teachers thought the example was going to be more effective.!
Wooden and waxed tablets were not used without distinction, but their employment was
determined by certain factors: while waxed tablets and notebooks were used at many different
levels, but most often for exercises of an elementary character,!95 wooden tablets and note-
books were used by teachers and older students for calligraphic exercises and grammar, and
occasionally by scribes. Beginners rarely used wooden tablets,!°° and when they did the tablets
were always covered with a white coating, which allowed the writing to be washed off
easily.!07 In any case, wooden tablets were treated in this way quite often!°8 and at every level,
both by students and teachers, since the coating made the pen move smoothly.
Tablets carry 20 percent of all school exercises, although the figures lose some sig-
nificance when one considers that 22 items consist of notebooks, each made up of several
leaves:!99 2 wooden notebooks and 20 made of waxed tablets.!!° There are also 60 isolated
tablets: 11 waxed and 49 wooden. Thus the notebooks found up to now are comprised mostly
of waxed tablets, while isolated tablets are simply made of wood. No tablets dating to the
Ptolemaic period have been found. Among the notebooks, eight waxed and the two wooden
books were dated—on a palaeographical basis—to the Roman period, together with 19 isolated
tablets (11 wooden and eight waxed). Twelve notebooks made of waxed tablets were dated to
the Byzantine age together with 41 individual tablets (38 wooden and three waxed). Thus it is
evident that many more tablets and notebooks have been found that belong to the Byzantine age
than to the Roman period. The data regarding school tablets contradict Cavallo and Maehler’s
observation of a decline in the use of tablets in this period:!!! not only did tablets continue to
be used in school but individual tablets were employed with more frequency. The number of
the notebooks increased slightly, but a notable increase can be observed in the number of iso-

102Such double lines, which almost make up a single line, appear only in 202 and 386.
hoatte hexameter poem of 394 is written on such lines.
See tablet 37.473E of notebook No. 391 and tablet MND of No. 396. It is curious that in the last notebook
the student’s copy is not ruled. -
105 About 60 percent of the exercises on waxed tablets are of elementary nature.
pee e.g., 83, 148, 150.
See, e.g., 83, 160. Sometimes it is difficult to ascertain the presence of the light coating from a
poctoe ren. Moreover editors, especially in the past, often did not mention it.
For texts other than school exercises (e.g., vs liturgical texts) that were written on wood i
way, aceBrashear and Hoogendijk 1990, 24-25. a i
Four of the notebooks were made of 2 tablets, , 2 of 3 tablets, , 3 of 4 tablets, , 6 of 5 tabl
of 8 Bee, 1 of9 tablets, and 1 of 10 tablets. re fe elie
: When Zalateo 1961, 201-202 listed the notebooks, he tried to distinguish between quaderni and manuali
Since he did not look at the hands, but only at the mistakes, the data is far from accurate. He listed
12 notebooks 7
fsile a ba of tablets: 4 waxed and 3 wooden notebooks. Afterwards, Boyaval 1977, 215-29 again listed
e notebooks. Of 18 cahiers 10 are constituted of tablets: 2 wooden notebooks and 8
notcbooe have been discovered. ek Laan aoe
(1987) 3: “Compared with other periods, in particular with the first centuries of the Roman Empire
which
produced a much greater and more varied output of all forms of written material, Late Antiquity is characterized
b
a decline in the number of other kinds of inscribed objects, such as ostraca, wooden tablets and graffiti.”
.
 WRITING MATERIALS USED IN SCHOOLS 69

lated tablets and, among these, especially in the wooden ones.!!2 The provenance of less than a
quarter of tablets is known, and not only is this percentage too low to allow any conclusions
but apparently only a few locations (e.g., Antinoopolis) are represented.!!3 This is especially
unfortunate since the notebooks with their varied and rich content could tell much about educa-
tion in certain areas.

Parchment

A brief discussion of parchment is necessary, since six school exercises!!4 and a fragment of a
school manual, 120, were written on this material. The percentage of school exercises on par-
chment is very low, and it remains so even for exercises dating from after the fourth to the
sixth centuries AD, even though in this period parchment competes with papyrus as the favorite
material for literary texts.!!5 Even at this late date papyrus was the favorite material for exer-
cises, with parchment containing only 5 percent of them. Most of the time small pieces of par-
chment—probably cut from bigger leaves—were employed for exercises, and even 406 and
410, the only parchment notebooks, were small. Only for 373 was a piece of considerable size
used, probably part of a codex.!!® Since the text is grammatical and was thus written at an
advanced school level, it is less surprising that parchment was used, for at this level students
started to have access to more valuable material for their work.

Use of Writing Materials at Different Educational Levels

An investigation of how the various writing materials were used at specific levels of education
reveals definite and characteristic preferences: even though students were exposed to all the
different materials during their years in school, they did not employ them uniformly and with
the same frequency, while teachers preferred specific materials for the models since their goal
was durability and easy handling.!!7 A consideration of the first two levels, Letters of the
Alphabet and Alphabets, already reveals typical patterns. About two-thirds of the exercises at
the first level, all Byzantine, were written on small pieces of papyrus, and one third on ostraca.
Most of the examples on ostraca belong to the centuries between the sixth and the eighth. Per-
haps it is not too hazardous to suppose that at the beginning of the Byzantine period students
mostly used papyrus scraps to scribble letters, but later they also turned to ostraca for this

112Practically all the tablets included in R. Pintaudi and P.J. Sijpesteijn, Tavolette lignee e cerate da varie col-
lezioni, Papyrologica Florentina vol. XVIII (Firenze 1989), belong to a single find in recent years. The same is
probably true also for 125, 320, 402, and 411. Not taking into account all these tablets would alter significantly the
balance of the findings in the Roman and Byzantine periods. The Byzantine tablets, however, would still be more
numerous than those of the Roman period, and the number of the individual wooden tablets from the Byzantine
period is particularly significant.
113]f one considers also other types of tablets (e.g., tablets written by scribes or carrying mathematics) the
recent finds seem to indicate mostly a Middle Egypt provenance (Oxyrhynchus and Antinoopolis especially).
114Sc¢ 88, 230, 232, 373, 406 and 410.
115 For papyrus and parchment both in use see Lewis 1974, 90-91 and note 8.
116The back had also been written and had probably been erased. See Wouters 1979, 204-205.
117Table 2 presents the correlation of writing materials and levels of exercises: it considers all the exercises,
that is, exercises written by students, teachers, and scribes. Table 3 again presents the correlation between levels
and writing surface, but considers only exercises written by students.
70 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

5
exercise, even though this material was not ideal for a very inexperienced beginner. Ostracon
is especially interesting because it is shared by two students practicing letters at unequal levels
of ability: while the more advanced student writes his confident letters randomly, the letters of
the inexperienced one rest on three horizontal grooves etched on the surface. This is the only
example of grooves on a sherd made expressly to guide the tracing of letters, not unlike the
lines commonly traced on tablets.!!8 It is likely that this novice, who usually practiced on wax
tablets, tried to reproduce the same ideal conditions on a potsherd.
This supposition is supported by the data from the next level, Alphabets, where exam-
ples from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods are also available, which show that beginners
learned how to write alphabets on wax tablets. Alphabets on ostraca make up more than half of
the total number of alphabets, but most of them were inscribed by teachers. One cannot avoid
recalling by contrast the words of Paul Collart, who remarked on the touching and fragile
aspect of alphabets: “Toute une collection d’alphabets, touchants a voir...avec des grandes let-
tres inégales, en équilibre instable.”!!9 But when we examine the series of alphabets we are
struck by the fact that the majority are very weil written, with confident and decorated letters.
Since writing an alphabet demands such limited space, ostraca were the ideal material when the
writer did not have any problems with a surface that offered resistence to the pen. But for
beginners it was a different question. As a rule, the ostraca that contain alphabets actually writ-
ten by beginners!2° do not preserve those first awkward attempts at practicing the letters. Most
of the time the exercises consist either of the pupil’s name written along with a partial alphabet
or of alphabets inscribed in reverse order or with the letters paired according to a prearranged
sequence. What seems to be common to all these ostraca is that the letters are not completely
unpracticed, and that these exercises are well-defined and complete in themselves and perhaps
contain the students’ homework. At this stage of learning papyrus is not very much repre-
sented—fewer than 15 percent of alphabets appear on this material. Alphabets on tablets of
notebooks not only are more numerous but also include examples that evidence the painstaking
work of the beginner practicing his first alphabet.!?! Many of the alphabets appearing in note-
books are striking for their frailty and uncertainty. In tablet 4 (side B) of 402, for instance, the
painful struggle of a beginner is still apparent in the hardened wax: the letters, made of a mul-
titude of minute quivering strokes, are huge and of various size, and they seem to float in dif-
ferent directions. When a student was just a novice and needed endless practice, waxed and
wooden tablets that could be smoothed and washed were ideal. Thus, in the school Colloquies
a student arrives at school, sits at his desk, take out stylus and tablet, and, as his first action of
the day, smoothes out the tablet to erase the exercises of the previous day. !22
Syllabaries (level 3), which needed lots of writing space, were preferably written on
papyrus: about half of syllabaries are written on this material, and in addition syllabaries are
written in three professional schoolbooks on papyrus codices.!23 The few examples of students’

118 About this cf. above p. 67 and below p. 76.

'19Collart 1936, 497.
120See, e.g., 43, 44, 51, 55, 65.
'21See 135, 160, 200, 394, 399, 400, 402, 407, and 408. See also a beginner's alphabets on an individual
tablet: An equally significant example of alphabets practiced by a beginner on papyrus is 79 pays
See Goetz 1892, 225: 7@ €ud TOTw KAOHMEVOS, NELaiVW. ;
123 See peal
 WRITING MATERIALS USED IN SCHOOLS 71

syllabaries on ostraca show that when using this material pupils customarily practiced a limited
number of syllabic combinations. Syllabaries, moreover, were characterized by a certain per-
manence, since they were not supposed to be continuously erased and rewritten, and papyrus
therefore was a suitable material for them. There are no examples of syllabaries on waxed
tablets and most of the syllabaries inscribed on wooden tablets are teachers’ models. By the
time a student had reached the next level (4), Lists of Words, he had done enough writing so as
not to be intimidated by ostraca: a third of the lists are written on this material, and it appears
that ostraca were chosen for writing lists of limited length. Papyrus and tablets are equally well
represented among word lists, but often contain the longer models.
Papyrus and tablets are equally represented at level (5), Writing Exercises, with ostraca
constituting fewer than a quarter of the examples. At this level, however, the data require a
careful interpretation. First of all, scribes’ trials are frequently found among writing exercises,
as well as in the practice of individual letters, and in both instances it is clear that papyrus was
the material scribes almost invariably chose to practice on. If we exclude scribes’ trials on
papyrus at this level and include only exercises done by beginners and teachers, more than half
of them were written on tablets. Exercises that include the pupil’s copy together with the
teacher’s model appear almost exclusively in individual tablets or in tablets that are part of
notebooks:!24 very few of them are inscribed on papyrus,!25 and none on ostraca or parchment.
Although tablets were also used by intermediate students for calligraphic exercises to improve
the hand,!2° they were considered ideal for beginners’ exercises. When the copying was done
by a novice, a lot of erasing and repeating was involved, and many such exercises were needed
to master the art. The very nature of potsherds and limestone pieces precluded their employ-
ment for calligraphic exercises, since the unevenness of the surface discouraged the best
attempts. An examination of writing exercises on ostraca shows that most of them either were
written by a few apprentice scribes or were notes jotted down in class.
Ostraca were the preferred material for level (6), Short Passages: more than half of
exercises of this kind appear to be inscribed on ostraca, with papyrus accounting for ca. a
fourth of them. As students’ educational levels progressed, however, ostraca were destined to
lose their preeminence: with the exception perhaps of the Ptolemaic period, ostraca were used
only at an elementary level, maybe up to the very first years under a grammarian. About a
quarter of Longer Passages are preserved on ostraca and among them a cluster of 12 Ptolemaic
sherds, !27 often characterized by more difficult, scholarly passages, seems to have been used at
an advanced school level. It is uncertain whether many of the sherds, which were written by
skilled, even hands, represent a teacher’s or an advanced student’s work. Most of the Roman
ostraca in this category, on the other hand, preserve exercises at the lower limit of length for
inclusion at this level—eight lines—and of an elementary nature. About half of exercises at the
same level (7) were done on papyrus, while some tablets were used for models. It was the
length of the texts to be written down that caused the prevalence of papyrus at all the following
stages of learning. For Scholia Minora a roll, the page of a papyrus codex, or an isolated sheet

1245 ce, ¢.g., 136, 160, 383, 386, 391, and 396.
125See, e.g., 133 and 138.
126See 146 and 395.
127 g¢¢ 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 239, 241, 242, 243, 247, 249, and 252.
72 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

of papyrus was used most of the time, and papyrus still was by far the favorite material for
compositions and grammatical exercises. At these higher levels of learning ostraca almost dis-
appear, and tablets were used infrequently. A little surprising, however, is the existence of
seven tablets containing Scholia Minora, mostly written by students. Their use at this level was
motivated by the good amount of rewriting that the exercise involved. Some work at an
advanced level, moreover, appeared in notebooks made of tablets. !8
Although the preceding discussion took into consideration the exercises contained in
notebooks, a brief survey of the materials from which notebooks were made is needed. While
about two-thirds of notebooks were made of tablets, mostly waxed, papyrus accounted for the
other third, with in addition two late examples of parchment codices. Although papyrus rolls
were used only in three Ptolemaic instances,!2° later on papyrus was the favorite material for
school codices. The size of these codices written by students deserves some attention: these
notebooks were often of diminutive size—with the longest side of a page being about 10 centi-
meters and sometimes even less. Knowledge of the typical format of a papyrus school book can
aid in the identification of school notebooks. Thus, for instance, the nature of notebook 387
was a matter of dispute: an amulet? A toy book made for a child? It is instead a tiny school-
book originally composed of two double pages bound by thread. A student wrote a prayer on it
with an uncertain hand, and typically interrupted his work, leaving a wide blank space in the
last page. Even later on, in fourteenth century Florence, the typical format of school notebooks
was similar to this, with the book size evidently correlated with the “size” of the writer. !30

128See 383, 385, 388, and 401.

129Sc¢e 379, 380, and 382.
130See Gehl 1989, 392.
 TABLE 1
Writing Materials

Ptolemaic Roman Byzantine Und. Total

# % # % # % # %
Papyrus: 21 5 76 18 85 21 182 44
Front 15 4 26 6 46 11 87 Ail
Back 4 1 45 11 17 4 66 16
Both sides = = 3 1 16 4 19 5
Notebook 2 0 2 0 6 y 10 y

Ostracon 19 5 63 15 58 14 1 141 34

Wax: = = 16 4 15 4 31 8
Tablet = = 8 2 B 1 11 3
Notebook = = 8 2 iZ 3 20 5
Wood: = = 13 3 38 9 51 12
Tablet = = 11 3 38 9 49 WP
Notebook = 2 2 0 ~ - 2 0

Parchment: - : - 73 Toe
Parchment - = - : 5 ee? Sa ee
Notebook - = - ~ pe NT, 2d

Total 40 10% 168 41% 203 49 % 1 412 100%

TABLE 2
Exercises of Students, Teachers and Scribes

Papyrus Ostr. Wax Wood Parchment Total

front back both Tablet Tablet

Letters LS 8 3 13 = 3 42
Alphabets 1 4 = 28 = 3 = 36
Syllabaries 4 Dy, 3 >) 5 1 20
Lists 10 1 = 15 - a 1 82
Writing Ex. 14 3 3 iki 1 13 = 45
Short Pass. Tf 5 = 35 3 3 = 53
Long Pass. 23 UD 3 jt 3 i} 2, 97
Scholia min. 2 8 2 = 4 3 = 19
Compositions 8 3 1 1 = 1 = 14
Grammar Dy 10 3) 1 = 1 1 20
Notebooks 3 = i = 20 2 2 34

Total 88 66 28 141 Sil a! 7 412

 74 TABLE 3
Exercises of Students

Papyrus Ostr. Wax Wax Wood Wood Parchment Total

front back both Tablet Notebk. Tablet Notebk.

Letters 6 2 1 v) = 4 1 = = |

Alphabets 1 Z = 10 = S) 1 cs = 17

Syllabaries 4 i = Zz = = yy = 1 11

Lists 1 1 1 6 > 3 2 = = 20

Writing Ex. 8 2 1 6 = 1 9 = = 33

Short Pass. Js ») A 16 2 1 = = = 26

Long Pass. 20 19 4 11 3 6 5 = 2 70

Scholia min. 2 8 1 = 4 = = = 15

Compositions 8 3 1 1 = = 1 = - 14

Grammar 3 ) 4 = = 2 1 y i 22

Total 61 53 13 59 9 26 A Z 4 249
6 Distinguishing Characteristics of School Exercises

Various characteristics of school exercises help identify what a school exercise is and in what
respects, besides palaeographical characteristics, teachers’ and students’ work differed. This
chapter will consider features of various kinds. Some, such as lines, borders, drawings, and
decorations, involve the external appearance and layout of an exercise. Many of these features
had practical purposes: they could help a student to keep his lines and columns straight and
evenly spaced, make some information more easily intelligible, emphasize examples, set off
titles, and separate different texts that appeared on the same writing surface and might other-
wise cause confusion. Some of these features are typical of specific kinds of exercises such as
syllabaries, in which clarity of presentation was extremely important. Mere decorative pur-
poses, on the other hand, also come into play: at very early educational levels students cared
about the aesthetic quality of their work. Since an exercise was also considered a thing of
beauty, and embellishing its presentation was highly valued, even beginners aimed to give their
writing an attractive appearance.
Other characteristics of exercises that I will consider relate to the presentation of con-
tent. I will examine punctuation and lectional signs as well as accents, breathings, and marks of
quantity to see whether scholastic practice differed from normal usage and to ascertain at what
level a student learned to use diacritical signs. The accepted practice of writing words without
separation, in continuous blocks—scriptio continua—rendered necessary some _lectional
assistance for students beginning to read. For this purpose teachers prepared models that gave
students special aid in the form of spaces, dots, or oblique strokes that divided syllables and
words. In addition, since the practice of writing poetry in continuous lines, without observing
colometry, was widespread in schools in every period, it will be relevant to study the specific
marks that were adopted to distinguish poetic lines.
This chapter will also study the practice of dating school work that ancient students and
teachers sometimes followed. Dates—often incomplete, only consisting of the day of the week
or the month—appear in a few exercises. These occurrences will serve to determine whether
such practice was totally erratic or depended on particular circumstances. Lastly I will discuss
the mistakes that show up in exercises, their different kinds and frequency, and the various
ways in which mistakes in school work were corrected. Not only can the presence of errors be
a decisive factor in detecting a school exercise, but the import and gravity of mistakes need to
be evaluated in order to dispel some widespread and deep-rooted convictions. Mistakes of
certain kinds, which reflect the phonetic pronunciation and spelling of the times, cannot be
considered exclusive indications of students’ work and hence of faulty literacy, since they also
appear in the writing of people belonging to cultivated social strata and occur very frequently
in the work of teachers.
76 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

Layout and Decorations

Horizontal Rulings and Lines

Horizontal rulings are very common in school tablets written by beginners and advanced stu-
dents alike, even if beginners benefited most from them.! Pupils were not always able or will-
ing to follow these rulings, and advanced students preferred to follow the grain of the wood or
their own sense of direction.2 Horizontal guidelines, which never appear on literary papyri
from Egypt but were used quite often in hieratic and demotic papyri in the Roman period,? are
never visible on school exercises done on papyrus. It is likely that on this material students
tried to follow the horizontal fibers as a guide.* Horizontal lines often appear in grammatical
exercises to separate different sections of declensions and conjugations.> At times they are
accompanied by marginal abbreviations: A (to indicate the singular number), A for dual
(dvexcé), and II for plural (wAnOuv7ixc&).© The lines were not a requirement and in fact they are
not a constant feature of grammatical exercises. As happens with morphological labels, they
can also be found in tables of declensions and conjugations written by scribes. What distin-
guishes scribal copies from students’ and teachers’ copies is rather the difference in the execu-
tion and the variety of the lines: while these are simple and regular horizontals in profes-
sionally produced manuals, in school exercises they can vary a great deal and may be crudely
drawn.’ Short horizontal supralineations may emphasize grammatical terms and exemplifica-
tions in grammatical exercises,® but are not an exclusive feature of these texts: irregularity of
such strokes indicates a student’s copy. The same short lines mark some words in the second
leaf of 405: the student probably used the same technique he had used in the grammatical part,
with the supralineations being almost the equivalent of modern highlighting. In 229 it is a
teacher who uses the same method to draw his students’ attention to two important words of
the text of Isocrates that appears in the model.? In 380 the titles of the different sections in the
list of names have the first letter underlined as a way to draw attention to them.

IFor ruled lines on tablets, their different kinds, and their irregularity, see p. 67. A horizontal ruling appears
only once in an ostracon, 5, see p. 70. ~
2For disregard of the horizontal rulings by advanced pupils, see 333 and especially 364.
3See Turner (1987) 5. For hieratic and demotic texts penned by professional scribes where these guidelines
appear, see Tait 1986, especially p. 5-6, where he considers the possible influence on demotic texts of the lines
designed for the teaching of Greek beginners. His conclusions are, however, negative, since there are no demotic
beginner exercises where the lines are used.
4Sece pp. 61-62. In rejecting the possibility that scribes relied upon the fibers and for this reason wrote first on
the front of a papyrus, Tait 1986, 68 claims that the horizontal fibers were visible on each side of the sheet espe-
clally in good quality papyrus. Students, however, often wrote on thick, dark pieces, where the fibers Geloneing to
the opposite side could not be detected.
See 363, 364, 366, 372, 374 (a manual or a model), 376, 377, 378.
®See e.g., 363 and 377.
7Cf. the variety of lines in 363, 364, and 378.
8See 359, 362, 369, 370, and the first page of 405.
Probably the same thing happened in 369, where the supralineations appear not only on top of exempla, but
also above some numerals that were nevertheless written in full.
 DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS a

Vertical Rulings
Vertical rulings, which never appear in literary papyri, but sometimes are visible in astrologi-
cal tables,!° are found very frequently in exercises. The purpose of such lines was to provide
separation between columns whether adjacent columns contained the same text or different
exercises. Usually students place their columns very close to each other so that the space
between them is almost nonexistent: a vertical ruling distinguishes the letters belonging to each
column and in addition saves writing space. Occasionally a pupil drew a vertical ruling at the
beginning of the first column on his tablet, indicating the initial point of each line,!! but
usually such a precaution was unnecessary, since students could take advantage of the left
vertical limit of a tablet or piece of papyrus. The vertical ruling between columns was very
useful in giving students the proper beginning of each line so that the phenomenon called
“Maas’s Law” is rarely visible in school exercises, and then only in copies of advanced stu-
dents.!? Vertical ruling can appear in tablets,!3 in papyrus,!4 and in ostraca,!5 in exercises at
every educational level, and sometimes it is of fundamental importance in pointing to school
work.!© Some specific types of exercises required an elaborate system of vertical or horizontal
lines, or both. Thus in a syllabary the various sets may all be underlined as in 83 and 88, may
be written successively in different columns separated by long vertical rulings (79), or may be
inserted in rectangular boxes, as in 81 and 89. In lists!” horizontal lines may divide the groups
(120), vertical and horizontal lines may be combined to separate the different items (121 and
127), or a grid of rectangular spaces where whole words or syllables are inserted may be
formed, as in 100 and 383. Vertical and horizontal lines are also found frequently in mathe-
matical exercises.!® In addition, single, short lines may be drawn in a text specifically in order

10Sce Turner 1978, 5, and see below, note 18, for the different kinds of rulings on mathematical exercises.
The horoscope on the front of the papyrus that carries on the back 283 shows vertical rulings.
IISee e.g., 333.
12 According to “Maas’s Law” scribes in writing a column started each line a little more to the left so that the
bottom lines contained more letters than the top lines. For the phenomenon to manifest itself it is necessary that a
text be of considerable extent and, of course, lack ruling. If both conditions are met, a student finds it hard to keep
his lines vertically defined. This is seen for instance in 317, 362, 368, and especially in 358, which shows complete
convergence of the two columns. I incline to consider the slant to the column as the consequence of the writer’s
position combined with the speed of writing. I do not agree with William A. Johnson, “Column Layout in Oxyrhyn-
chus Literary papyri: Maas’s Law, Ruling and Alignment Dots,” ZPE 96 (1993) 211-15, who considers the slope a
deliberate aesthetic effect.
13S¢¢ 121, 303, 308, 333, 381, and 383. The vertical lines appearing in 404 (tablets 1 and 9) and 395 (tablet
4) are wavy and serve to separate the different exercises.
14gce 100, 283, 291, 348 and 349. In 352 the lines are double and separated.
15gee 34, 72, and 127. On this material the lines, which are usually drawn carelessly, function only as sepa-
rators.
16See e.g., 283. Also in 352 the presence of the double, vertical lines eliminates the possibility that the text is
a manual, even before examination of the content confirms that this is an exercise.
17 Approximately the same manner of organizing the material is found in many Coptic school exercises (e.g.,
MPER NS XVIII 226, 229, 244). As in syllabaries, the ruling was perhaps a feature adopted from Egyptian school
practice.
18Thus in tablet VIII of 400 the different mathematical operations are separated by long horizontal lines on the
side that was written by a student, while short paragraphoi appear in the teacher’s side. The example may be
instructive in tracing the origin of such lines. In 407 long rectangles appear in several tablets with mathematical
tables. The lines in mathematical exercises may be simple, double (as in MPER NS XV 152), or decorated (e.g., in
MPER NS XV 161). They may appear on any material, even ostraca: e.g., O.Mich. inv. 9733 published by Herbert
Youtie in ZPE 18 (1975) 283-84, with tables of fractions in 3 columns, separated by rough vertical lines. They also
show up in advanced exercises (e.g., Pap.Flor. XVIII 71-78, a set of waxed tablets with geometrical problems
divided by long horizontal lines).
78 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

to divide two parts,!9 to separate two columns that are in contact,2° or to insert something into
the text that had been forgotten or could not fit into a regular position in the line,?!
Line Fillers
Line fillers—strokes set at the end of lines—help to maintain a vertically defined right margin.
They take many different sizes and shapes in exercises: in 3457? and 283 there is a wedge-
shaped filler,23 which in the latter papyrus is sometimes followed by a short, slanting, horizon-
tal or perpendicular stroke. In the same papyrus the characters at the end of the line may be
smaller, the last letter may be written above the line, or a long horizontal stroke may conclude
the line. Similar horizontal strokes of various lengths are used in 285, an acrostic of moral
maxims written by a teacher—the only ostracon displaying line fillers. In 373 (line 13) the fil-
ler consists of two oblique dashes; in 250 a single oblique stroke concludes the line; and in
257, 403, and 394 two short horizontal dashes appear.?4 In 394, when the verse ends in mid-
line the last word is written with huge characters. A peculiar sign, almost in the shape of an H
with two short hastae, is used to conclude some lines in 393.2° It is noteworthy that line fillers
do not show up only in advanced students’ exercises but were known and used by some
beginners, who learned from the start to care about the presentation of their texts.
Borders
Borders were used almost exclusively for decorative purposes. The most elaborate is the
system of arcades visible in 379, in which the vertical sides are formed by columns variously
decorated and joined by horizontal, single or double lines. These arcades, where the color red
predominates, frame only the elementary and mathematical exercises, while the more advanced
texts are disposed in columns that are defined at the end by a long horizontal line. The thick
border that surrounds the text of 304 is also painted in dark red. The border that frames the
text of 323 is heavily decorated with designs of lozenges, especially on the top. Borders appear
particularly frequently in tablets, and they appear with equal frequency in the work of students
and teachers.”° In 398 a rectangle was drawn with two panels, on top and below, where letters
of the alphabet were inserted.27

19See 395 and 403, where an oblique line is used to separate the date, and 127, where a wiggling oblique dash
is used to set apart a word appearing in a list in a confused position.
nee 369, where the line follows the contour of the trespassing part of the text.
See 340, where the teacher originally forgot to write on the model a few lemmas and glosses; 321; and 406
side IV verso, line 100.
oyte filler is considered by the text’s editor, Timothy Renner, to be “a mark of a certain pretentiousness.”
In Turner 1987, 5 note 12, bibliography for this end filler appears. Ulrich Wilcken, “Aus der Strassburger
Sammlung,” Archiv 4 (1907) 135, remarks on the presence of line fillers in this shape in a documentary roll (Graec
87 ee) that was written almost calligraphically.
For these fillers visible in a literary text, see F.G. Kenyon, Classical Texts from Papyri in the British
Museum (London, 1891) 42 and Kenyon 1899, 31. Two long lines, which are almost horizontal, are found
at the
end mecha and one (or two) lines appear at the conclusion of 276.
The sign is probably made of two diplai against each other. : The diple i used
iple is i a lot in
quite i th
7SSee 148, 158, 160, 303, 321, 333, 364 and 398. 3 ye
Probably the remainder of the tablet was supposed to be ruled so that the pupil could continue
resting the
letters on a base. On the whole the border is not as unusual as the editors believe. :
 DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS 719

Ornamented Lines and Decorations

Horizontal decorated lines and more elaborate decorative motifs tend to appear either at the end
of an exercise, to indicate its conclusion, or in the middle to separate different parts.28 A few
examples of the first kind might represent a school transformation of the paragraphos,”° except
that in 207 the final ornamented line appears together with the paragraphos. The second kind
of decoration, which was used to separate different parts, shows up in tablets to set off the
teacher’s model?° and once in the body of a student’s exercise.3!
Initials
In a series of exercises of the seventh century AD decorated initials appear.32 These range from
the clumsily enlarged omicron of an inexperienced beginner in 231 to more heavily decorated
designs drawn around the initials. In 412 the heavily ornamented initial becomes an elaborate
design with a life of its own.
Titles
In 405 (first leaf of the notebook) a student seems to imitate the layout of a title: before copy-
ing Dionysius’s famous definition of grammar, which started the Techne, he places the title,
Tlepi Tpappatixjs,>? in a prominent position. In the exercise the title is put at the beginning
of the work, probably in conformity with prevailing usage,*4 the wording is extremely simple,
with even the name of the author omitted,> and the student tries to reproduce a plain decora-
tive fashion of title.°° In 183 the number of the Homeric book preceding the passage is
inscribed within a circle. In 385 (tablet 5, side iota), before starting to write the set of for-
mulae for the declension of a chria, the student wanted to graphically express his satisfaction’

28Van Groningen 1955, 49, calls these motifs “vignettes.”

29See 187, 207, 232, 314, and 405.
30See 70, 136, 142, and 160.
31In 406 (side IV, line 77).
32See 231, 232, 323, 409, and 412. Schubart 1921, 141, claims that ornamented initials appear in Greek and
Coptic books as early as the fourth century AD. For initials, see also B.A. Van Groningen, Short Manual of Greek
Palaeography (Leiden 1955) 49.
33Because of the disagreement in the textual tradition and in the testimonia, scholars are uncertain whether
this was the title of the entire work of Dionysius Thrax. Wouters 1979, 124 claims that this was only the heading of
the first section.
34Cf. in Turner 1987, 13-14, the controversial discussion of the placement of titles at the end or at the
beginning of a work, the latter practice usually being related to a late date. Since the notebook was dated to the fifth
ecatnry, AD, the student was likely to be imitating an already established practice.
5For the omission of the name of the author on some occasions, see Revilo P. Oliver, “The First Medicean
MS of Tacitus and the Titulature of Ancient Books,” TAPA 82 (1951) 247.
36Only Gardthausen 1913, 410 writes very briefly of decorative marks that sometimes accompany titles. The
short strokes above and below the title at the end of the “Bankes Homer” (P.Lond.Lit. 28, II AD), in P.Oxy. X 1231
(plate 17b of Turner 1987, 47, If AD) and in P.Haun. III 48 (I-II AD) are similar to the decorative lines of our
exercise. In the exercise the student simply repeated the decoration. Patterns of horizontal strokes that set off the
end-title are found also in P.Oxy. V 843 and XLII 3000. A more elaborate border of angular marks is visible in
P.Oxy. VI 850 (IV AD). Sometimes the layout becomes more complicated, with flourishes and different ornamented
motifs, as in P.Bodm. XXV (III AD), in the two P.Morgan (U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and G. Plaumann, in
SKPAW [1912] 38 and 62), and in P.Oxy. VII 1011 (see the plates of the last three papyri in Lameere [1960] 195,
Fig. 12, 13, 14. They are dated to the fourth century AD.)
370ne can compare the similar cry of triumph evident in the words scribbled on the book cover 216.
80 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

at concluding a section of his work. Scribes often added similar colophons at the conclusion of
their endeavor.*8
Drawings
A few exercises display drawings of an elementary kind,*? some of which relate to the content
of the exercise and some of which are simply decorative.4° Although modern histories of
ancient education usually complain of the rigidity of the ancient school system and point to the
lack of drawing and painting in primary schools as a sign of indifference to the personality and
preferences of the child,4! the exercises of Graeco-Roman Egypt allow a different scenario to
emerge. The evidence for the existence of professionally produced illustrated books for
elementary students is limited to P.Oxy. XXII 2331, which preserves part of three columns of
an elementary text regarding the labours of Heracles, with corresponding illustrations.’
Exercises 13, 36, and 37 display drawings together with letters of the alphabet: the decorated
body of an animal, two animal sketches, and a stick figure. Two rough drawings that represent
ships containing nomina sacra appear in the front of a teacher’s model with alphabets, 70.%
The least advanced student who inscribed notebook 403 also made a drawing of a stick figure
with a tiny body and disproportionate hands, and two stick figures are visible on the right side
of a tablet containing a list of names, 118. Two more elementary drawings appear in notebook
412: they are related to the text and represent the head of a very friendly-looking lion. More
interesting are the drawings made by the pupils of 210 and 245. The student of 210 intends to
illustrate a maxim about the luck of rich people: he draws a crude stick figure with long ears
and, on the left, what appears to be an abacus.*4 In 245 Apollonios interrupts the copying of
the Dream of Nektanebos to draw a human figure with a thin body wrapped in cloth, from
which legs and feet protrude.4> The arms, which are not visible, were probably bound along-
side the body. If we turn the papyrus upside down, the head looks almost the same, but is pro-

38Sc¢, e.g., the “Harris Homer,” P.Lond.Lit. 5, plate 14 in Turner 1987, 41.
°Drawings, when part of school exercises, are usually dismissed quickly. Naturally they command more
respect when they are more elaborate and are part of illuminated rolls and codexes. K. Weitzmann, Ancient Book
Illumination (Cambridge 1959) 128, considered neither these simple drawings, nor magical or astrological ones,
even though they might be interesting from other points of view, because they were generally “unartistic and
crude.” For book illustrations, see also Schubart 1921, 108-09 and 140-42; K. Weitzmann, Illustrations in Roll
and Codex (Princeton 1947); Nicholas Horsfall, “The Origins of the Illustrated Book” Aegyptus 62 (1982) 199-216;
and U. Horak, Illuminierte Papyri, Pergamente und Papiere \ (Vienna 1992).
40For drawings in schoolbooks of the fourteenth century, see Gehl 1989, 398. In these books as well some of
the drawings illustrate the text, while others are completely extraneous to it.
41See Bonner 1977, 329. Marrou 1975, I 201 speaks of the artistic education of students of the Hellenistic
period. He confesses that we know very little of the first years. When he says that a new discipline, fwypadia, was
Bat of the regular curriculum in the third century BC, he refers to students of higher levels than the ones iteicced
ere.
42] did not include this text in the Catalogue since it was certainly penned by a very capable scribe and was
not an exercise.
3The ship was often used in graffiti as a symbol for the Christian church; see William Brashear, “Holz- und
Wachstafeln der Sammlung Kiseleff. 2 Teil” Enchoria 14 (1986) 15.
44The editor refers to the opinion of Herbert Youtie that a town-plan was here represented, but this seems
unlikely: it is difficult to see what would be the connection to the sententia in this case. ,
45Thompson 1988, 262 calls it a head, but it seems beyond doubt that a whole figure is portrayed here.
 DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS 81

vided with a beard and perhaps shows a grin. The pious king Nectanebo was a famous
magician, and the mischievous little figure seems to reflect that aspect of his personality.*®

Punctuation

Most of the time the aim of punctuation in a school exercise is the separation of different parts
of the text,” while less often it serves to indicate the conclusion of a text. The paragraphos
generally filled these two functions, and both teachers and students used it commonly.*® This
sign was at times replaced by a more elaborate form, the diple obelismene, and more rarely a
space in the line or a more extensive space between lines was used. The dicolon and the high
and middle dots were more elaborate systems of punctuation, and were apparently used by
teachers and advanced students.
Paragraphos
The paragraphos—a horizontal stroke written at the left margin—appears frequently in
exercises at all levels: it was not a learned sign typical of books.4? Although a few exercises of
elementary level from the Ptolemaic age onward already display it,°° the paragraphos was used
even more often at intermediate and advanced levels of education. In exercises, however, this
sign took on different sizes and shapes. In literary texts it was described as “a short, horizontal
stroke below the beginning of the line in which the break occurs,”>! and this is how it appears
in many exercises.°? In others, however, paragraphoi in the same text have different dimen-
sions, some of them looking considerably longer than usual,°? or long horizontal lines are
visible, which occupy the whole column.°4 Are they paragraphoi? Turner on one occasion
calls them quasi-paragraphoi,°> for they seem conceptually related to the paragraphos and dis-
charge more or less the same functions: separation and, more rarely, conclusion of the exer-
cise. At times these longer lines mark stronger breaks, especially in texts such as 355, where
they are used in conjunction with real paragraphoi. In a school exercise, moreover, one was

46Three other designs are practically impossible to see in photographs: Frederic G. Kenyon, “Two Greek
School-Tablets,” JHS 29 (1909) 39, relates that a drawing is visible in 401; Gallo 1980, 396, speaks of some kind
of ornamented motif in 288; and Weems 1981, 86-87, describes a badly faded, crude pinwheel or swastika-like
design in 385.
47For punctuation as separation, see Turner 1987, 8-9. Emphatic punctuation in our sense, which is rare in
literary texts, does not appear in school exercises.
480n punctuation being indispensable for scriptio continua from the earliest time, see Pfeiffer 1968, 179-80.
Aristophanes of Byzantium should not be considered the “inventor” of punctuation. He may have systematized or
regularized the tradition, and he probably established a set of agreed-upon signs.
49Thus G. Nachtergael, “Fragments d’anthologies homériques,” CdE 46 (1971) 344-51, convinced that the
student of 382 could not possibly have used this sign on his own initiative, strives to demonstrate that he borrowed it
from a Homeric anthology. See above p. 98 and note 144.
50Sce 118, 188, 207, 238, 273, and 403. In 393 the paragraphos is used very often.
5lKenyon 1899, 27.
528ee, e.g., 102, 177, 235, and 355.
53Consider for instance 248, where the sign was generally used to separate the various parts of the anthology.
The hexameters of the Homeric excerpt were then divided in two at the caesura and copied in two separate lines.
The paragraphoi are all of different length, but there does not seem to be a relation between length and function.
54Sce 188, 400 (tablet 2), 403, 274, 379, 326, 327, 328, 329.
55Turner 1987, 86, Plate 48, B.M.Pap. 825, receipt for payment of rents, with long quasi-paragraphus at foot
of column. Similar lines are visible occasionally in other documentary papyri, e.g., P.Oxy. XLVII 3340,
P.Vindob.G. 2079b (plate 48 in Seider 1967), and P.Heid. 235 (plate 32 in Seider 1967).
82 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

freer to experiment and to be creative: thus the paragraphos—at least the sign is so called by
the editors of these texts— twice appears as a series of short horizontal dashes.°°
The extensive use of the paragraphos in school work was primarily due to the nature of
the exercises themselves: a sign to indicate separation and organize different sections was
necessary, since many of them consist of small anthologies, collections of maxims or sayings,
or collections of texts of different types. Some exercises were very short, and again a sign of
some sort was needed to mark their conclusion. It is also likely that the frequent use of the pa-
ragraphos in school work is to be related to reading: it was an aid to the inexperienced reader
who lost his place while reading aloud.°? The paragraphos was not used exclusively on papy-
rus, but also on tablets and ostraca. Sometimes students show a certain confusion about the
placement of the line, which may even appear flush with the right, not the left, margin.*8
When the paragraphos is marked for no apparent reason or under the wrong line, it is likely
that the student copied the sign without understanding it and without considering that perhaps
the width of his columns was different from the width of the columns of the text copied.°?
Diple Obelismene
The diple obelismene, as Turner noted,® is a sign that often goes unrecognized, and its proper
name®! is rarely used. At times it is not distinguished from the linear paragraphos, and editors
often call it a decorative, forked, or hooked paragraphos. In literary texts it is almost a transi-
tion sign between the paragraphos and the coronis,®* and it is sometimes regarded as the
origin of the latter sign.°3 The diple obelismene appears in a few school exercises dating from
the third to the seventh century AD.®4 Its shape may vary slightly depending on whether this
sign is traced slowly or without lifting the pen. When it appears together with the para-
graphos, it is clear that there was no apparent difference in function between the two.® When
only the diple obelismene is present, its function is to separate different sections or verses, or
to indicate an exercise’s conclusion. It should be noted that five of the eight exercises where
this sign appears are teachers’ models: the sign with its graceful shape offered more pos-
sibilities for ornamentation than a regular paragraphos.®

56See 257, where the pause is reinforced by a large unwritten space, and 124, where the series of lines
appears at the end of a teacher’s model. s
57In this regard, see William A. Johnson, “The Function of the Paragraphus in Greek Literary Prose Texts,”
ZPE 100 (1994) 65-68. :
se ieao a ape 10) the sign is placed next to the right margin, a very peculiar mistake.
Oe
ee . , an . Uncertainty y in using g thethe paragraphos
par isi also found in
i scribes’
ibes’ work, see Kenyon

60Turner 1987, 12, note 60.

61The name occurs in the Anecdotum Parisinum discovered by Theodore Mommsen, see Gardthausen 1913
412. oe shape which appears in this text, almost a T with an oblique hasta, is the same as in 340. ;
Po rines 1987, 13, considers its effect “less decisive than that of the asteriscus or the coronis.”
Gwendolen M. Stephen, “The Coronis,” Scriptorium 13 (1959) 4.
64Sce 121, 122, 296, 333, 340, 380, 390, and 393.
®5$ee 390 and 393 where the diple obelismene is generally used, at times alternating with the paragraphos. |
380 the diple separates the larger sections, while the paragraphos distinguishes the smaller sections Gallo 1986,
91, claims that the function of the two signs is identical. In literary texts, however, their function . sometim
|
clearly distinguished: the paragraphos has a syntactical function, whereas the diple marks organizational ee
ccial
divisions. See e.g., P.Hercul. 1428, where each time a new philosopher is mentioned, the transition is
ates b
combination of diple and obelos in the left margin, GRBS 13 (1972) 95, note 96. te
66See especially the teacher of 296, who used the sign frequently.
 DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS 83

Coronis
The coronis, which originated as a strengthened form of the paragraphos and later developed
into an independent sign, appears only once in the school exercises, in 379.%7 It is unclear
whether this notebook was penned by a scribe or by a teacher, and the presence of the coronis,
a book sign, may be an indication that it was professionally produced, even though the sign is
used quite capriciously. In this notebook the sign has not yet attained its final and more
elaborate shape: it starts from a paragraphos and attains a kind of a hook-like shape with a few
flourishes underneath.®8
Blank Spaces
Blank spaces can be used as punctuation. They are used either in conjunction with the para-
graphos®® or by themselves, to indicate a break between two different sections or to point to
some kind of a pause.’° In an ostracon used as a teacher’s model, 286, clarity and easy legi-
bility have been attained by leaving spaces between the single words and larger spaces between
the various maxims.
Dots
Dots may also be used for punctuation, especially for the separation of different entries. Thus
single and double dots distinguish lemmata and glosses in Scholia minora or maxims in a col-
lection.’! Sometimes, and not very consistently, dots are used for emphatic punctuation.72
Generally dots were used by advanced students or teachers. They were probably taught sys-
tematically only at an advanced level, as tablet 340 shows.

Lectional Signs
Diaeresis
Diaeresis is frequently indicated in school exercises, starting approximately from the second
century AD.’3 It is necessary to make a distinction between the proper use of diaeresis—two
dots (less often one) placed over a vowel to indicate that it is pronounced as a separate syl-
lable—and a secondary use—diaeresis placed on initial or final vowels, most often on upsilon
and iota.’4 Diaeresis proper does not occur very frequently: while teachers tended to mark it

67In the margin of 370 a coronis is visible, but it belongs to a previous literary text, which was washed off.
68For a history of the development of the coronis, see Lameere 1960, 190-204.
69See 188 and 257, where a quasi-paragraphos appears. See also 258. In 349 space and paragraphos are
used to indicate change of speakers. In 388—tablets 1b and 4a, in the Homeric paraphrase—the space is sometimes
used together with a mark similar to a percentage sign to indicate a pause.
See 252, 368, and 283. In Scholia minora, moreover, they are used quite often between the lemmata and the
losses.
: 71See 326, 327, 328, 329, 334, and 341, all containing Scholia minora, where most often the high point is
used. In 311 and 318 the double dot divides maxims and riddles.
72See 252, 283, 306, 355, 368, and 369. In 314 three vertical dots are used to mark pauses.
73For diaeresis appearing often in papyri from the second century AD onward, see Schubart 1921, 85. Turner
1987, 10, note 46, draws attention to early examples.
74Turner 1987, 10, calls these the “organic” and “inorganic” use of diaeresis. In the first case diaeresis is
essential to the phonetic identity of the word, indicating that an iota or upsilon does not form a diphthong with the
preceding or following vowel. In the second case diaeresis is only an addition.
84 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

on texts of Homer that were supposed to be used for reading,’> students did not use it much in
their own writing.76 The second, “inorganic” use of diaeresis was much more popular: upsilon
and iota were usually marked at the beginning of a word, less often at the end or in the middle
of a compound word.77 Abuses were committed: the sign could be marked on the ending of a
word,78 in the middle,79 or here and there inconsistently on any vowel.8° Although most of the
examples of diaeresis appear in teachers’ models, in exercises of advanced level, or in long
passages copied by rather experienced hands,*! not infrequently the sign is marked by inter-
mediate or beginning students in the Byzantine period.” Two teachers’ models may provide an
interesting explanation of the phenomenon, showing that it is not unlikely that in the Byzantine
period the letters iota and upsilon were automatically provided with a diaeresis from the very
start, when students learned these letters. In the alphabet written by the teacher of 63, in fact,
iota is shown with a diaeresis, and both iota and upsilon are provided with diaeresis in the
alphabets of tablet 92.
Apostrophe
In literary texts sometimes the words were written in full (scriptio plena), or, when elision
occurred, it was not signaled with apostrophe.*? Although, asa rule, school exercises reflect
the general usage, with scriptio plena occurring occasionally
,** and most of the time unmarked
elision, apostrophe is found more often in school work than in literary texts. The student who
copied the grammatical manual 368 and used apostrophe a few times calls it a@mootpo¢7n, a
term that does not appear in the rest of the grammatical literature, where this sign is always
called &mé6o0Tpodoc.8> The form of the sign he uses, a high comma, is the usual but not the
only form appearing in the exercises: apostrophe may resemble a circumflex accent, a grave
accent, or a tiny dot.86 While apostrophe is marked occasionally in a few school exercises,
usually not of elementary level,’’ more interesting is the consistent use of apostrophe in a
group of teachers’ models with Homeric passages.°* On the models the words are separated by
oblique strokes, and apostrophe is the only lectional sign consistently used. The visible pres-

75§ee 294 (a teacher or an advanced student), 296, 340, and 342.

7©See 206, 303, 355, and 396.
77 See thus éxxaTioay (line 1 of 313), dtiypoc, and a few examples in 385 (e.g., ovviorapat).
BSee, e.g., vopovc in 230.
79See e.g., yiverau in 304 or yovipou in 207.
80See 314 where a single dot appears on many vowels.
81See, ¢.g., 283, 304, 306, and 385.
82See, e.g., 123, 127, 230, 231, 280, and 393.
83See Gallo 1986, 90 and Turner 1987, 8. The way in which both scholars, especially Gallo, express their
thoughts about scriptio plena is slightly ambiguous. The practice occurred, but not very frequently. Usually elision
was effected, even if it was rarely marked. For examples of texts in which both silent elision and scriptio plena
occured, see Turner 1987, 173 under scriptio plena. For examples of Homeric texts where words are occasionall
ee pe see Nancy Priest, “Michigan Homeric Papyri, I: Iliad A-P,” ZPE 46 (1982) 51-94, e.g., P.Mich
a)

4Words are written in full in 135 , 159, 244, 246, 250, 306, and 386.
. 85See, e.g., P.Oxy. XLIX 3453 and 3454. It is uncertain whether the word &mooTpody designated
the elisi
itself or was an older term still in use in the fourth century AD. About this, see Wouters 1979. 193 a
$3 86See 292, 296, and 333. For a few examples of apostrophe in the shape of a dot see Gardens 1913, 398-

87See, e.g., 290, 354, 368, and 393, of elementary level.

®8See 292, 296, 303, 310, 313, 333, 340, and 342. See also 297, written on papyrus.
 DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS 85

ence of the apostrophe when letters had been elided according to the metrical rules meant that a
word had been truncated. Thus the student was becoming visually conscious of the words, and
the verses of Homer were not being learned by ear. At later stages, when a student understood
what a word was and what elision meant, the sign was used only occasionally.
Diastole
In exercise 368 the student calls this sign éua070\7} Kab’idiav. He was perhaps distinguishing
the diastole proper, or the separation between words (sometimes syllables of a word), from the
bwodtaoroAy, the mark used to indicate it.89 This sign, that looks like a comma, is used in only
one other exercise, 335, again the work of an advanced student.
Hyphen
This sign also is not very common in school exercises: it appears once in the grammatical
exercise 368—with definition, example, and graphic sign—and twice in 340. It was used only
at an advanced level. While the diastole separates, the i¢év joins parts of compound words.”
Accents
In literary papyri accents were generally marked in ambiguous places that might otherwise lead
to doubts in reading. They were a help to the reader who was going through a text in scriptio
continua, and grave accents, which were marked on the syllable that preceded the syllable with
the tonic accent, were used for this purpose.?! Accents often were not written by the original
scribe, but were added by the corrector or by a reader, who did not want to encounter the same
difficulties during the second reading of a book.?* When at the beginning of the Byzantine
period the Greek accent changed from melodic to dynamic,?? a need arose to reconstruct
accents in texts. It is not by chance, thus, that accents appear in school exercises from the late
Roman period onward,” and especially in Byzantine exercises. The accent that is marked most
frequently in school work is the circumflex, because the difference between acute and circum-
flex was no longer perceived.%* Students who started to read Homer and other poets had at
their disposal teachers’ models with the words separated and did not need accents that, in fact,
are not written in exercises that feature word division. Accents are marked sometimes, but not
consistently, in more advanced work:*° they are a regular feature only in exercise 340, where
grave accents are also visible on the syllables preceding that with the tonic accent. At a certain
point in the curriculum grammarians initiated a more profound study of the accentuation
system, and the students were encouraged to use accents frequently and to mark them for prac-
tice on texts. Thus Homeric texts where every word—or almost every word—bears an accent
may have been written for students or used as books in schools.”

89Wouters 1979, 194.

90See Gardthausen 1913, 400 for different forms of this sign.
91Se¢e¢ Mazzucchi 1979, 146.
92¢chubart 1921, 82.
93See W. Sidney Allen, Accents and Rhythm (Cambridge 1973) 268-71.
94Gallo 1986, 90 claims that in the Ptolemaic period accents are rare, “though they are sometimes used in
school exercises.” I do not know of any Ptolemaic exercise that contains accents.
950n this problem and exercise 310, see Cribiore 1993, 150-51.
96One or two accents are visible, e.g., in 293, 333, 342, 353, 355, 368, and 376.
97For texts with very abundant accentuation likely to have been used in school, see Turner 1980, 90-91 and
1987 11, note 53; Mazzucchi 1979, 164.
86 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

Breathings
Breathings are sometimes marked in school exercises, particularly rough breathings.° For
interaspiratio a rough breathing can be marked also on an internal vowel.9? In exercises rough
breathings take on many shapes: in addition to the usual angular and curved forms used in lit-
erary papyri,!° they could have a round shape, like a mark for short quantity,!°! and the shape
of a small s placed horizontally.!°? Usually breathings tend to show up in intermediate and
advanced exercises!03 and only occasionally in elementary work.!%
Marks of Quantity
Marks of quantity are rare in school exercises.!°° In 368 a student lists among the marks
indicating differences in pronunciation two marks of short and long quantity, but he does not
use the signs in the grammar he is copying, except in the appropriate exempla.
Other Signs
A few other signs are visible: in 250 an arrow in the left margin may indicate the beginning of
the strophe,!° and the same arrow is used in 264, for unknown purposes. In the same papyrus
a sign that looks like an antisigma is visible, but, since the level of the text and the hand are
very poor, the sign probably just resembled the critical sign.
Abbreviations
Abbreviations are uncommon in exercises. Only in 362 are many of them used, mainly at the
end of the lines, with different systems: superposition, suspension, and superposition and
suspension together. The rest of the abbreviations occurring in exercises consist of abbrevia-
tion of a final » represented by a horizontal dash on top of the last letter in advanced school
work of the Byzantine period.!°7 Contractions of nomina sacra cannot be considered real ab-
breviations, since they are not used to save space and time, but rather to mark off sacral words
from the rest of the text.!°8 When nomina sacra occur in school exercises they are usually con-
tracted.!°° Many exercises of the Byzantine period contain a cross!!° or a chrism,!"! the Christ

The smooth breathing is rare, see 340 and 283. The rough breathing, which was no longer pronounced, had
to be learned and was marked. This is true generally for literary papyri,.see Gardthausen 1913, 383 and Schubart
1921, 84.
99See 340 (col. I line 16 and col. II line 4) and 313 (line 5).
100For these see Gardthausen 1913, 384 and 386.
101 See, e.g., 393 (where this breathing appears also in the usual angular form) and 313.
02This occurs only in 393, where altogether there are 11 breathings of different shapes.
103S¢e, e.g., 296, 310, 340, and 342.
104gee¢ 123, 154 and 393.
105See 310 and 335.
1067] col. next to line 4. It is inserted in an obtuse angle.
107 See, e.g., 304, 305, and 356.
1084 HR.E. Paap, “Nomina Sacra in the Greek papyri of the first five centuries AD. The sources and some
deductions,” Pap.Lugd.Bat. VIII (1959) 126. See also C.H. Roberts, Manuscript, Society and Belief in Earl
Christian Egypt (London 1979) 26-27. :
109Se6e, e.g., 70, 321, 396, and 403. In the invocations 167 and 170 the names are not abbreviated but this is
not uncommon.
110g¢¢, e.g., 8, 11, 125, and 404.
l11see, e.g., 92, 169, 314, and 357.
 DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS 87

monogram similar to a cross, which was originally an abbreviated nomen sacrum.'!2 The two
signs are often found also at the beginning of documents, lists, or private letters.!!3 It is not
always easy to distinguish between the two, and apparently there are no differences in the treat-
ment of the two symbols in school exercises. The two symbols occur in students’ exercises,
teachers’ models,!!4 and scribes’ trials. Usually!!5 they occur in elementary exercises, such as
alphabets, writing exercises, stories copied by mere beginners, and in some tablets of ele-
mentary notebooks. It is difficult to find a reason for this: was religious education limited to
the first years or was the Christian sign simply omitted from the advanced exercises?
Syllabic Division, Word Separation, and Verse Distinction
Besides the syllabaries, many exercises show how the division of words into syllables was a
fundamental step in education.!!© One of the practical effects of the syllabic method of instruc-
tion was to teach how to break words at line end, and the extreme consistency of scribes in
literary and documentary papyri shows that education succeeded at this. Students and especially
teachers wrote lists of words divided into their components that were frequently inscribed on
tablets.!!7 Usually blank spaces separate the syllables, but a student could also insert them into
some kind of a grid made with lines (383) or mark the divisions with dots (114). The educa-
tional step immediately following this is represented by individual verses (222) and texts of
prose and poetry in which the words were again divided into syllables.!!8 Although spaces still
separated the syllables at times, more often one or two dots were used,!!° and once, in 292,
small grave accents.
After a student had practiced enough with words divided into syllables and was ready for
more challenging reading, separation between words was still necessary. Among exercises that
display words separated, teachers’ models are extremely common:!?° although in most cases
oblique strokes are used for separation, at times, as in 296, the words were already separated
by blank spaces, and oblique dashes were added to make the model more intelligible. In 286,
the only model on an ostracon with word divisions, only blank spaces were left between the
words, and in notebook 393 a different system of word division was developed: the words of
Diogenes’ sayings were transcribed in very narrow columns, one word per line, with a clear
and effective presentation.
The practice of inscribing poetic texts in continuous lines that did not coincide with the
verse-units is noteworthy in school exercises. Although in the early period professional scribes
did not observe very strict norms in copying verses, from the third century BC they generally

112§ee Mario Naldini, I] Cristianesimo in Egitto (Firenze 1968) 26.

113For the different shapes that the cross could take and the various documents where it can be found see Karl
Wessely, “Das Kreuz und seine Formen,” Stud. Pal. VIII (1908) 225 and also III (1904) 288-546, pp.75-119.
114g¢6, ¢.g., 92, 124, and 357.
115They are rarely found in exercises above the elementary level: 303, 310, and 357.
116See above, pp. 43 and 47-48. Coptic school exercises also show words divided into syllables, see e.g.,
MPER NS XVIII 243, 244.
117 gee, e.g., 101, 124, 125, 391, and 404.
118S¢¢, ¢.g., 182, 291, 294, and 298.
119gee 294, 295, and 297, 298 (medial dot), and 379 (space and colon).
120See, e. g., 286, 292, 296, and 342 (probably student and teacher). Only two exercises with these character-
istics were entirely compiled by students: 276 and 310.
88 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

inscribed poetic texts in verse-form,!2! especially hexameters and iambics.!22 It was not un-
common for texts of lyric poets and choral parts in tragedy and comedy to be transcribed in
continuous lines, without regard for colometry. A good number of school exercises of the
Ptolemaic period are written in continuous lines.!?3 Even though generally in the Ptolemaic
exercises the distinction between verses is not marked, in 246 Apollonios writes the prologue
of the Telephus of Euripides in two columns: the first is a narrow column written in continuous
lines, where the verses are separated by blank spaces, while in the second column the verse-
unit coincides with the written line. The practice of writing verses as prose was common in
schools in the Roman period and in the early Byzantine period until the fourth-fifth centuries
AD. In most of the exercises the verses were not separated from each other and were just writ-
ten one after the other, as in the early period.!24 Many exercises, however, display marks of
separation between verses that generally consist of single or double oblique or horizontal
strokes.!25 In 394 the oblique dashes are sometimes accompanied by two dots, producing
something resembling a percent sign. Although students had no need for dividing marks when
they wrote verses one per line, a few exercises show curious signs at the conclusion of each
line, by the right margin.!2° A possible explanation is that signs at the end of each verse re-
minded students to pause or that they were specific marks for poetry and indicated that a line
was poetic.!27 In 257 and 261 students used a mark in the shape of a percent sign: %, a sign
that is often visible in literary texts with various unclear meanings!28 and appears a few other
times in the exercises as a mark of separation or pause.!2? In school exercises this sign is the
exact equivalent of the oblique stroke and appears by the right margin.

Dates

School exercises are not as impersonal as literary texts. While scribes of literary works did
not indicate their names or the date on which they copied the manuscript,!3° in exercises stu-
dents sometimes wrote their personal names!3! and started their work with a date, and their
instructors added a date at the conclusion of the models they prepared.!32 Unfortunately such
dates are often incomplete: most of the time they only indicate the day of the week or of the

~~

121 See Schubart 1918, 49 and 1921, 66-69.

122Sce Turner 1987, 12 and note 57. See also Cribiore 1992, 259 note 29.
123See 175, 177, 178, 235, 236, 240, 241, 242, 246, 248, 250, and 345.
1248ce 199, 206, 207, 221, 267, 268, 287, 300, 304, 391, and 392.
125See 135, 139, 142, 203, 208, 305, 394, 396, 397, and 305.
126See 270, where oblique strokes appear at the conclusion of two lines; the editor thinks that each line
terminated in this way; 257, where the sign % ends each line of verse as in 262; and 353, in which signs resemblin
crosses conclude each line. i
127For the whole question of verse separation in exercises, see Cribiore 1992.
128See Turner 1987 14 and note 75.
oe 261, 388 in the rhetorical paraphrase, and 385 in the classification of the nouns.
Roberts 1955, xii says, “There was no interest, as there was at times in the Middle Ages, in when the man-
uscript was written or in who copied it.”
eet a list of students’ names, see Appendix 2. See also 160, which bears the teacher’s name.
Although John Lee White, Light from Ancient Letters (Philadelphia 1986) 5 and 8 claims that letters w
usually dateless, private letters not infrequently include dates by day and month, see, Gila, LOL S4eePGisse | 80,
i oa ee en lend In the Roman world it seems that Atticus wrote meticulous dates in his letters,
 DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS 89

month when the exercise was written; only occasionally do they point to the exact year. School
life was—and still is—regulated by the week or, at most, by the month, and dating school work
served to document progress. It is noteworthy that school exercises of the pharaonic period
sometimes contained a date.!33 Some exercises of the Graeco-Roman period display dates: on a
wooden book cover, 216, two dates are inscribed by different hands and may refer to the
beginning and the end of the work of the scribes or to subsequent uses of the book; partial
dates appear in 408 and 16; and on ostracon 266 a student indicated the date by the regnal year
of the present ruler.
Other exercises are even more interesting, because they show the existence of two dif-
ferent practices of dating, depending on whether students or teachers inscribed them. The
dating systems constitute therefore an important cross-check on palaeographical characteristics,
confirming the distinction of students’ from teachers’ hands. Some exercises show that students
learned and used the planetary names for the days of the week.!34 In the planetary week each
day was named after a planet and had its ruler, that is, the planet that governed the first hour
of the day (kipoc Tig &Spac).!3> Thus on Saturday, which was the first day of the week, the
first hour was allotted to Saturn. The planetary names (Saturn= Kronos, Sun= Helios, Moon=
Selene, Mars=Ares, Mercury=Hermes, Jupiter=Zeus, Venus= Aphrodite) had a wonderful
literary ring for pupils who were learning classical mythology. Cassius Dio contends that this
use was instituted by the Egyptians: “The dedication of the days to the stars called planets
originated in Egypt, but is now universal, though its origin is comparatively recent.”!36 Some
scholars nowadays agree with him in considering that this usage originated in Hellenistic
Egypt, probably in Alexandria.!3’ The use of the planetary week was probably well established
in the East by the first century BC and then arrived in the Roman world under Augustus. !38
The first mention of it occurs in the writings of Tibullus, who speaks of Saturday, the day
sacred to Saturn.!3° A fresco in Pompeii represents the divinities presiding over each day of
the week,!4° and a few inscriptions in the same town list days of the planetary week and might
represent attempts by schoolboys to memorize the days of the week.!4! The school colloquies
show that students were supposed to know the names of the days of the planetary week: in the
Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana the days of the seven planets are listed in an order beginning
with Saturday—Saturn, Sunday—Sun, Monday—Moon, Tuesday—Mars, Wednesday—Mercu-

133S¢¢ Eyre and Baines 1989, 94.

134Sc¢ 146, 210, 386 (tablet VII), 389, and 395 (tablet I).
135]n the magical papyri the planets are called wpoyeveic. See W. Gundel, RE XX (1950) 2143.
136Dio XXXVII 18: Td 5& 59 é¢ Tod doreépas Toc ExT& TOdS TAAYHTAS GVoOMaopLEVoUS TaS Huepac
avaketobau KaTéoTn pév vm’ AiyumTioy, m&peori OE Kai ETL TaVTAG AVOpdTOUG, OV THOU TOTE WS OY EiTELY
apEapEevor.
137See W. Gundel, RE XX (1950) 2143. Not all scholars, however, agree. See, e.g., Schiirer 1905, 16-18,
who claims that the use started among the Babylonians.
1388J. Bickermann, Chronology of the Ancient World, (rev. ed. London, 1980) 61.
139Se¢e Tibullus I 3.18: Saturnive sacra me tenuisse diem. Cf. also Horace, Sat. II 3.291, illo mane die quo tu
indicis ieiunia, “on the morning of the day in which you are holding a fast,” that is, Thursday.
140See Schiirer 1905, 27-28, where he also lists the inscriptions in Pompeii and Puteoli referring to the
planetary week.
141 This is the opinion of F.H. Colson, The Week (Cambridge 1926) 32 note 2.
90 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

ry, Thursday—Jupiter, Friday—Venus. Except in schools, reckoning by this system was almost
unheard of in Egypt.!4?
Dating work by the day of the week suits a young student’s psychology well: some of
these pupils may not have been able to go much beyond the week in calculating time. All the
exercises in which the planetary date appears have an elementary character. Exercise 210 is
written on the back of a taxation report of 229-230 AD, and on the papyrus the pupil indicates,
besides the planetary day, the day of the month (12 Phamenoth) and the year (the sixth).!*° The
planetary date also appears in the upper edge of three tablets written by a student, M. Aurelius
Theodoros!44 who, some time later, to judge from the more fluent handwriting, inscribes on
another tablet, 146, the story of Agamemnon and Iphigeneia. On this tablet he again uses the
planetary date, but he also dates his exercise by the consuls:!4° the more complete and elabo-
rate date confirms that some time had passed between the writing of the two tablets. On tablet I
of 395, moreover, a pupil uses only the planetary dating system, while the student of 386
copies automatically the name of the month, Dius, from the teacher’s model, but then adds on
his own initiative “the day of Ares” (nuéoa “Apewc), Tuesday. In addition to the few students’
exercises that are dated by this system, a late exercise, 122, is a further proof that the names of
the planetary week were taught in school. On one side of this ostracon the student lists the
names for the days, from Monday to Friday, according to the Jewish week and the planetary
week, and then repeats the planetary names on the other side.
Students seem to have dated only according to the planetary week and they did so
infrequently. By contrast, teachers’ models made more frequent use of dating formulae,
employing systems in use among the general population.!4° Teachers usually dated their
models at the end of the exercise,!4” underneath or on one side, if there was some empty space.
Models bearing a date always appear in tablets, either in individual tablets or in leaves, which
were part of notebooks. If a chrism was inscribed at the beginning of the exercise, sometimes it
was repeated just before the date.!48 The dates teachers wrote on the models often consisted of
day and month, which were sometimes abbreviated.!4° At other times teachers took care to be

142Sce P.Oxy. XLIV 3174 (210) note 17. Apparently reference to the planetary week is found only in a
Christian letter of late Byzantine date, PSI VII 843.
143 according to the editor, if this year date refers to the reign of Gordian, the date would be March 8, 243
AD. The use of the sophisticated date confirms that the student was copying from a model, as the hand indicates
144N otebook 389, tablets 1564, 1565, 1566. |
ieSee Bagnall and Worp 1980, 17, who remark that the pupil probably made a mistake in marking the date.
See 60, 85, 90 (on both sides of the tablet), 95, 121, 124, 125, 229, 292, 296, 308, 386 (Tablet I), 395
(tablet IV A), 389 (tablet no. 1567), and 400 (tablet VID). On the first side of tablet 292 there may be a Gate b
month and day, although it is difficult to read it clearly. f
. 147 There is only one exception, 308, where it is difficult to know exactly what is going on. At the beginnin
of side A the date by day, month, and perhaps the indiction, is clearly written by the same hand of the Ses :
teacher's. On the other side again the teacher writes a name with a formula that also appears in 146 and 389 sition
by pupils: I Aurelios Theodoros son of Iustos wrote.... The editors consider this to be the name of the sta but it
might be the teacher’s name, with the teacher imitating a typical formula for the students to copy, substituting their
own names.
148 S¢¢, e.g., 60 and 85.
149The date appearing in 400 consists only of the day’s number, but the indication of the month probabl
shows up in the following mathematical tablet of the same notebook. i ee
 DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS 91

more precise and inscribed on their tablets the indiction as well.!°° On both sides of tablet 121
the editor reads the indication of the Era of Diocletian together with the indiction year, but the
reading is very uncertain.!5! Mathematical exercises written by teachers were dated in the same
way.!52 The reason for the use of dates in models is unclear: only once, and in a mathematical
tablet,!53 is the date by day, month, and indiction preceded by the word egraphe (éypa¢n, “it
was written”), indicating that the tablet was inscribed on that specific day. One also wonders
whether the date may have sometimes indicated when an assignment was due. It would seem
reasonable that the simple dates by day and month, which were added at the bottom of so many
models, could have such a purpose. In any case, teachers did not intend that the dates should
be copied by students along with the rest of models, since such short dates do not appear in
pupils’ copies.

Mistakes

Ninety percent of the exercises consist of texts that were either copied from a model or dic-
tated. There is evidence that a very small percentage of these were written from memory. In
any case, all the texts were already established, having been composed by a poet, chosen by a
teacher from a gnomic anthology or another school text, or written by the teachers themselves.
Students’ mistakes consisted, therefore, of orthographic errors that were caused by lack of
attention or phonetic spelling. The remaining ten percent of the exercises consist of grammati-
cal texts and compositions. While the former include declensions and conjugations that show
morphological changes and abnormalities, the latter at times reflect difficulties with syntax.
Slips of the Pen
Orthographic mistakes caused by haste and lack of care are found in every kind of papyrologi-
cal text and are often made by scribes also. They abound in school exercises, and their fre-
quency is often a good indication of the school origin of a text.!°4 These errors consist of
incorrect spelling of words that cannot be explained through morphological errors or current
pronunciation.!°5 Haplography and dittography, visual errors that often point to texts that were
copied from models and not dictated,!°° are particularly frequent, and at times verses are
repeated.!5’ Careless mistakes are unavoidable when a text is copied mechanically, as in 339.

150Se¢ 95, 121, 124, and 125. On 60 and 85 the indiction may have been indicated, but only numbers appear,
and the editor is very uncertain. For the dating by indiction as serving essentially the fiscal administration, see
Roger S. Bagnall and Klaas A. Worp, The Chronological Systems of Byzantine Egypt, Stud.Amst. VIII (Zutphen
1978) 17.
151The models on both sides of the tablet have been written by the same teacher, and it is very unlikely that a
year clapsed between the two.
132for mathematical models dated by day, month, and indiction year, see, e.g., Pap.Flor. XVIII 4.49 and
5.38. See Brashear, 1984, 1-6.
153Tablet Wurzburg K 1024, edited by Brashear 1984.
154 Ajthough I kept a record of the mistakes, I did not tabulate all the occurrences of a particular phenomenon
in this category and in phonology.
155Gignac 1976, 59 classifies slips of the pen into five categories according to the way in which they
originate. nist
1560f course there is always the possibility that students, copying from dictation, reproduced visual errors of
the person dictating.
157See, e.g., 382 in which the student writing—perhaps from memory—the second half of Iliad 6.398 repeats
incorrectly line 395, and 199 in which two lines are written twice.
92 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

Slips of the pen—or of the mind—are numerous at every level of instruction. Thus, they are
indicative of the school origin of some grammatical texts of superior level that show a careless
appearance. !58 Mistakes of a particular kind occur in texts written down from memory: they
are mostly caused by lapses of memory, so that verses are omitted or are cited at the wrong
place.!59 That teachers could sometimes meet with the same mishaps is shown by 298.
Phonetic errors
Phonetic errors reflect developments that are inherent in the Greek language itself and are typi-
cal of the koine as well as other developments due to bilingual interference. It is important to
recognize their very frequent occurrence in school exercises, since scholars have at times con-
sidered them rather as a feature of private documents.!® On the contrary, phonetic errors are
especially abundant not only in students’ exercises at every educational level but also in
teachers’ models.!6! Among them itacistic errors are the most frequent: they are evidence of a
widespread confusion not only of the sounds represented by n, +, and ex, but also of v and ov—
that is, of the interchange of the sounds /i/ and /y/.!®* An interchange of 7 and e is also pre-
sent, probably under the influence of bilingual interference.!®? The interchange of 7 and e is
also a sign of that loss of quantitative distinction that is present in Egypt in the Roman and
Byzantine periods. The interchange of w with o, the most frequent phonetic error, is a
manifestation of the same phenomenon. At times it is impossible to avoid the suspicion that
conflation of omega and omicron was also caused by confusion of case endings. The inter-
change of e and au is also frequent.!©+ The most common interchange of consonants is that
between 7 and 6.!% This is probably due to bilingual interference, since the phenomenon does
not appear outside Egypt, and a few Egyptian dialects did not distinguish between voiced and
voiceless stops.!6 The conflation of x and y is less frequent.!®’ Other phenomena that some-
times occur in the school exercises are the interchange of the aspirated and voiceless stops x
and x, which is also attested outside Egypt;!®8 the confusion of the liquids \ and p;!69 and the
omission of final v.!7°
A problem usually connected with the presence of phonetic mistakes is the question of
dictation. Most editors who encounter phonetic errors in a school exercise are very anxious to
proclaim it a dictation: the student misheard the text, and the mistakes are the proof of that. At
.

pee e.g., 358, 362, 366, and 368.

: *Such errors appear for instance in 254 and 291. The wrong ending of 264 at line 138 may be a mistake of
this kind. The student, who was writing the Homeric passage from memory, had forgotten the ending of line 136
He then inserted it at the wrong place.
160See for instance Gallo 1980, 396 and 413 in regard to 288.
16lsee, e.g., 99, 121, 124, 125, 135 and 319.
162Sce, ¢.g., 386, 396, and 397.
163S¢¢ Gignac 1976, 242.
aa 164For this, see Gignac 1976, 191-93. The interchange is particularly frequent, e.g., in 187, 288, 320 and

165Random examples of this phenomenon are 122, 187, 317, and 320.
166See for this Gignac 1976, 57 and 85 especially, and Kramer 1986, 251-52
167Sce, e.g., 178, 382 and 412.
pte for this Gignac 1976, 86, and, e.g., 288 and 382.
This only appears three times, in 147, 382, and 396. Only one of these texts comes from the Fayum
According to Gignac 1976, 102 the phenomenon is especially evident in this region. .
170Se¢, e.g., 201 and 353.
 DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS 93

times not even the existence of the model from which the text was copied and the student’s
obvious imitation of the teacher’s hand are able to refute the dictation theory.!7! It is impor-
tant, however, to take into account the fact that a student reproducing a text from a model read
it either aloud or silently to himself.!’? He therefore dictated to himself, and, in doing so,
made errors of pronunciation.!’73 When visual mistakes (slips of the pen) and audible errors
(phonetic mistakes) occur, it is difficult to be sure what kind of copying caused them: both
kinds of copying—from external dictation and from self-dictation—were liable to both kinds of
mistakes. But there are cases when we are certain that a text was indeed dictated, when some
errors show an evident lack of understanding between the dictating teacher and the pupil: the
student not only misheard, but lost the sense of the dictated text and reproduced it as he
thought he heard it, most of the time making a meaningless jumble.!’4 Of course one expects
dictation to be widely used in schools, not only as a useful exercise but also to create the texts
that the students were supposed to study. On the other hand, the noteworthy number of
teachers’ models and their presence at every school level demonstrate that visual copying was
also widely used, or at least that it was used in simultaneous conjunction with aural copying.!75
Morphological errors
Morphological errors occur almost exclusively in the grammatical exercises, when students
were expected to generate forms. At times completely erroneous formations in declensions or
conjugations demonstrate an uncertain knowledge of the language in pupils who were still
learning it or whose first language was not Greek.!7© Other mistakes are less serious, such as
errors that prove students’ lack of familiarity with certain forms that were used rarely or were
obsolete. Mistakes of this kind are extremely useful in distinguishing school exercises from
works of grammarians: confusions in the use of the pluperfect, perfect, and active participles,
the dual number, and the optative are particularly frequent in students’ work. In 363 the third
person plural of the pluperfect in -eu- is used (€yeypaderoay), the same form that often occurs
in the documentary papyri,!’7’ and this uncertainty is explained by the rare use of this tense.

171Thus Boyaval 1975, 231 insists on considering the text that Aurelios Papnouthis wrote on tablet MND 552
L side A (part of 396) a dictation. In this case only one phonetic mistake (é7aipou for ér€pou) is enough to trigger
the dictation theory. The student, moreover, clearly imitated the teacher’s hand and produced a script that is much
more vertical and stylized than that on the other tablets.
172About interior dictation, see Dain 1975, 44-46. The basic article on the theory that the ancients read
literary texts aloud is Balogh 1927. Objections to an indiscriminate extension of this theory are found in E.G.
Turner, Athenian Books in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC, (London, 1952) 14 note 4 and especially in Knox
1968. About silent reading, see p. 150 and note 65.
173Consider what Skeat 1956, 179-208, writes about the practice of dictating to scribes reproducing books:
scribes copying a book in a hurry were likely to make phonetic mistakes. Students were even more liable to such
errors. Moreover, the comparison of a copy with the teacher’s model shows that pupils did not often reproduce a
text faithfully.
174Clear examples of texts copied from dictation are 179, 241, 265, 317, and tablet MNDL 552 L side 2 (part
of 396).
175Ronner 1977, 127 considers as reasons for the widespread use of dictation in school the shortage of texts
and the difficulty of copying a passage from a roll. Most of the teachers’ models, however, were written on tablets
or on ostraca that were very handy to use.
176S¢e for instance the erroneous formation of the aorist and generally of the past tenses in 364. Cf. also 368
and 373, which at times display completely wrong forms that are probably not slips of the pen. The same is also
true for the declensions of tablet 363.
177Mandilaras 1973, 231 records four cases of -e1, six of -n and one of -e.
94 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

Exercises 375 and 377!78 demonstrate a clear confusion between the formation of the aorist and
perfect tenses, which was widespread. Minor mistakes in the declension of the active
participle, as in 364, are not too surprising, since the inflection of the participle had begun to
fade from contemporary usage,!79 and perplexity in the use of dual verb forms, which had dis-
appeared from the spoken language, can be easily pardoned as well.189 Several mistakes in the
exercises involve the optative mood: in 364 the confusion in the formation also reflects
uncertainty in the conjugation of contract verbs in -aw, and in the same tablet and in 377 non-
periphrastic forms are used for the optative perfect active and middle-passive. Since this mood
was almost extinct by the third century AD, the errors can be easily explained. One should not
be too surprised to find such forms included in a school paradigm, because the aim of learning
Greek was not only to master current forms but also to understand literary usage. Grammar
necessarily clings to tradition.!8! “The grammarian was fundamentally a man of distinc-
tions”!82 who liked to define and separate, and at times even invented forms, respecting of
course all the theoretical rules. This is what appears in 361: although, according to the editor,
the proliferation of nonexistent future imperatives should be attributed to the student who
materially wrote them, I prefer to think of a teacher delighting in his artificial formations.

Syntactical errors
Mistakes in syntax are the most revealing of students’ work: they usually occur in composi-
tions, although some errors of case usage can be found in passages that were probably copied.
Such mistakes are misleading: the numerous interchanges of dative and genitive of the second
declension in 381 can also be explained phonetically,!8> and the fact that final nasals were fre-
quently added to words ending in vowels makes it difficult to classify as synctactical the error
in owrnpiav (subject, 304 line 5).!84 Sometimes, however, it is clear that a student did not
understand a passage correctly and therefore mistook the roles of nouns or adjectives in the
sentence.!8° Perhaps this is what happened in 320, although the apparent confusion of formulae
makes it possible that the passage was not copied, but that the apprentice scribe was practicing
writing his own loan contract. In students’ compositions one sometimes perceives the
awkwardness of a sentence, without knowing exactly what is wrong and whether or not the stu-
dent had finished working on it.!8° Syntactical mistakes often consist of omissions of parts of a
sentence that were considered superfluous: the subject or the-direct object can be left out when

178Perhaps the form éoxvyjvn of 320 reflects the same confusion.

ee Mandilaras 1973, 352-53 especially. Cf. Weems 1981, 71.
363, 364, and 388 (tablet 7a) show uncertainty between historical and principal endings. In 363, 364, and
376 the very rare dual forms for the first person -we@ov are used. They are a manifestation of the tendency toward
SEN obsolete forms that is typical of the grammatical papyri.
Thus 364 and 376 give the aorist optative forms in -oa.pu which, although grammatically correct accordin
to classical usage, were by then completely obsolete. 4
182K aster 1988, 19.
eae Gignac 1976, 208.
. 4See Gignac 1976, 111-14. I incline, however, to consider the mistake a syntactical confusion between
direct oe and subject.
. : See for instance 199 line 2. The Homeric verse was not properly understood, and the word ETaipn agreed
with the genitive close by. In 241 the mistakes of case usage are many and suggest that the passage of the Phoenis-
sae We een misunderstood. Most of them consist of interchanges between nominatives and accusatives.
This is what happens for instance in 353. The first and last line are difficult to comprehend, and, more-
over, the repetitions and corrections speak of unfinished work. : ;
 DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS 95

they are well known to the writer, even if the resulting sentence is obscure.!87 At times the
subject is omitted when it is most necessary—that is, when it changes suddenly in a string of
short clauses,!88 or a student may omit a verb either for emphasis or because he simply for-
got.'8° A series of infinitive clauses may suddenly appear in a composition: such lapses into
oratio obliqua can mean that, in writing his paraphrase, the student had in the back of his mind
“the poet says” (Agyer 6 mounri),!° or that, in referring to someone’s speech, he forgot to
express the main verb of saying. The main verb of a sentence gives students much trouble: it is
not rare to find clauses with a verb in the indicative even though the resulting immediacy and
vividness break every rule, as in 352; or the student, as in 335, may use the present indicative
instead of the future after a protasis, because he is comfortable with this tense and anticipates
the action in the happening. In writing the paraphrase of a story or the summary of the content
of a book of the liad or Odyssey, a common mistake is the lack of proportion of the different
parts. For example, in 406 a student narrates the story of Paris’ judgment at a generally slow
pace, with many main verbs and a few repetitions, then suddenly, perhaps aware of the need to
accelerate, he skips the rape of Helen and with the adverb oye, “after a long time” (lines 46-
47), passes to the narration of the conflict.!°! In the same schoolbook there are a few signs of
another problem: the incorrect use of relative pronouns and their agreement. A few centuries
earlier the pupil who wrote the story of Philoktetes on ostracon 351 also found them difficult.
Corrections and erasures
Corrections appear in school exercises much more frequently than in texts written by
scribes.!92 Although most of the time the hand that wrote the exercise makes the corrections, at
times a different ink or pen and a neater execution show that another hand, presumably the
teacher’s, intervenes. Both types of correction can be present in the same student’s exercise.
!%
Teachers’ models also bear corrections, especially when texts were written down from memory
and then checked before being displayed. Students and teachers used various methods of cor-
rection: they might erase words with a sponge and then rewrite them, or delete letters by draw-
ing a stroke through them or simply by writing the correct letter over the wrong one. Particu-
larly clumsy corrections arouse the suspicion that pupils at times used less orthodox meth-
ods.!94 Rarely, but never in elementary work, students used expunging dots above the
errors,!95 and sometimes they used a combination of the different methods.!° Naturally certain
exercises, such as compositions, present an unusual number of corrections.!9” Corrections and

187Cf. 351. In 335, in the rush of writing his paraphrase of Odyssey 2, the pupil omits the direct object “the
suitors,” probably because of the obviousness of the story.
188This mistake is evident several times in 406.
189¢c¢ 266 (lines 7-8).
190S¢e 344.
191gee also in 335 the summary of Odyssey 2, which at first proceeds quickly, covering hundreds of verses,
and then slows down (lines 19-22) becoming a close paraphrase of the Homeric line 223. The student is interested
in interpreting the line and explaining the nuptial custom of the time.
192866, e. g., 100, 368, and 369, which bears a large number of corrections.
193See, e.g., 254 and 369, which contain corrections made by two different hands.
194¢c¢ the extensive erasure of 363, in which the instrument was probably a wet finger.
195See 283, 353, and 368.
196See, e.g., 368.
197Sce thus 350 and 353.
96 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

erasures, when particularly extensive or clumsy in the execution, are often conclusive in
identifying a school exercise.!%8
The layout and presentation of an exercise are useful in identifying work produced by a
teacher and distinguishing it from work produced by a student. Learning how pupils and their
instructors used lectional signs and punctuation not only gives a concrete and accurate idea of
the educational level of a particular school context, but also eliminates the danger of consider-
ing certain signs too “literary” and sophisticated for a student. The different characteristics of
exercises discussed above, far from being mere technical and external details, of interest only
to papyrologists, help us to obtain a realistic idea of what a school exercise is. By now it
should be more clear how instructors such as Flavius Kollouthos son of Isakios worked, and
what challenges students such as Aurelius Antonios son of Nemesion had to confront.!9 In the
following chapter I will look at their hands and examine their way of writing.

198 Very clumsy deletions can be found in 98, 210, 238, 290, 293, 363, 366, and 367.
199Sce 160 and 395.
7 Palaeography: Teachers’ and Students’ Hands

“Teachers write letters of great beauty for the children in order that they imitate them, even if
at an inferior level,”! says John Chrysostom, describing an important part of a teacher’s
activity in antiquity. In the first part of this chapter I will look at the hands teachers used to
inscribe the models. Striving to make their message clear and easy to imitate, teachers stripped
their script of its most idiosyncratic characteristics. The purpose of examining these hands will
be to define the unique set of features they share and to see whether one is fully justified in
speaking of a teacher’s hand. The second part of the chapter will consider the students’ way of
writing in order to clarify the concept of school hand, the first hand anyone learning to write
acquired. Some never moved beyond it; for others it was the point of departure on their way to
becoming fast writers or professional scribes.

Teachers’ Hands

Although some rapid writing was already in use in the fourth century,” at the beginning of the
Ptolemaic period “book hands” and “cursive hands” were extremely similar, and only later did
their distinct characteristics become more perceptible. While “book hands” use mostly sepa-
rated letters and aim at clarity and legibility, “cursive hands” employ ligatures and abbrevia-
tions so as to save time. Between them there is an almost infinite range of different levels, and
sometimes it is difficult to decide whether a hand belongs to one or the other category. Thus it
is unclear how to define a formally written chancery hand,* which is not completely unliga-
tured but whose ligatures are very few.* Moreover a chancery hand is clear, legible, and pos-
sesses a high degree of calligraphic beauty. But this is dangerous ground: aesthetic principles
are too volatile and subjective to serve as criteria of distinction, and some documentary hands
look undeniably beautiful—if only relatively so. Often it is function that provides the best dis-
tinguishing characteristic, with book hands being used for literary works and documentary
hands for official, business, and private documents.
Since the content of the exercises is not always literary, function is not always helpful in
deciding whether teachers’ hands are “book hands” or “cursive hands.” The general character-
istics of the hands also offer little help, because teachers’ hands associate uniformity and
legibility with the presence of some ligatures. Most of these hands possess characteristics lying
between those of “book hands,” which are more rigid and formal, and of “documentary

IMPG 59.385.56, Kai yap oi didkoKador Tog Tool TH YoappaTa peTa TOAAOD TOD KaAAOUS yoadovar, iva
Kav moc TO KaTade€oTEpov ENOwor THC piwHoews. John Chrysostom is comparing students’ imperfect imitation of
the letters of their teachers to men’s imperfect imitation of Christ’s example.
2See Plato, Laws 810 b interpreted by Eric G. Turner, Athenian Books in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC
(London 1952) 7 ff. and Turner 1987, 2.
3See, for instance, P.Berol. 11532, Schubart 1911, plate 35.
4Gardthausen 1913, 183, is uncertain in which category to place this hand.
5See Turner 1987, 3-4.
98 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

in
hands,” which are usually less regular and more cursive. To use the words of Pintaudi,
these hands “strictly literary trends and specifically cursive trends seem to blend.”® Although
in the view of Pintaudi the fluid, confident hand of tablet 319 is a completely accidental out-
come, my task in what follows will be to demonstrate that the hands of the models share a
unique set of distinctive features.
Even though I questioned above the value of beauty as a criterion in distinguishing
teachers’ hands, beauty is nonetheless one of the most evident characteristics these hands have
in common, in marked contrast to the ungainly quality of pupils’ hands. Pupils were told to
write kala grammata and to imitate the letters of their teachers.’ The beauty of teachers’ hands
should not be considered an objective, aesthetic quality, but consists of an attractive and even
regularity and a precise consciousness of the strokes. The ancients were well aware that on
certain occasions a text needed to be written in an attractive way. For example, Heliodoros in a
postscript of his letter to Sarapion, P.Sarap. 84a ii 5-8, tells Sarapion that he is returning to
him a letter addressed to the prefect because it is written badly, so that he can rewrite it well.®
In the models beauty is attained through the evenness and fluency of the strokes and is far from
diminished by ligatures and linking strokes. Since teachers’ hands possess a different kind of
beauty than that of “book hand” (Schénschrift), where each letter is inscribed in isolated per-
fection, scholars seem reluctant to recognize their attractiveness.?
Another evident feature of the hands of the models is the fluency, strength, and facility
of the writing. The uniformity and regularity is maintained throughout an entire model without
deterioration, although at times the hand seems to become slightly more cursive toward the
end. This uniformity represents a notable difference from students’ writing, which, at its best,
is good at the beginning, but quickly deteriorates as the hand tires. The regular and consistent
hands of the models also differ from the hands of apprentice scribes, which show improvement
as the work progresses.!° Although the fluency of the writing is mentioned by scholars,!! there
is sometimes disagreement in the identification of the writer of an exercise: editors often jump
to the conclusion that the writer must be a student, even if a capable one,!2 or, if the hand
looks too practiced, they may formulate the most fanciful hypotheses.!3
Since most models aimed at being copied by inexperienced students, teachers’ hands
were characterized by excellent legibility, which was attained by writing clear, regular letters

Rosario Pintaudi about 319: “Una tavoletta lignea della biblioteca Vaticana,” ZPE 48 (1982) 101.
‘See 136 and 222.
Pus Heliodoros speaks of a letter KAKOS yeypuupevnv, which needs to be rewritten kad@c. Although the editor
inclines to think that he is referring to a new version rather than to a more attractive handwriting, I believe
Heliodoros was referring to both.
"Itis significant that scholars often note the attactiveness of teachers’ hands by litotes. See Boyaval 1975, 229
La main professorale...ne manque pas d’élégance,” or Ann Ellis Hanson, Pap. Flor. XVIII 79 p. 170, “the hand i:
a large and not ungraceful one.” , , :
1See Petrucci 1995, 85 and 91.
TBnx Seesaaatoneerc
Rosario Pintaudi
aaah and oo
P.J. Sijpesteijn, Pap.Flor. XVIII 6, , p.38,
p.38, and J.. L Lenaerts, iE “La tablette isocratique
i i

Cf. William Brashear, Enchoria 14 (1986) 3-5, who identified the hand that wrote the syllabary and the
ones of 90 as belonging to a very advanced student who was surprisingly at such low level.
Cf., e.g., in Spinelli 1988, 50, the hypothesis that the collection of gnomai inscribed
on the ostracon 311
had been
oewritten by a rhetor, ; who wanted to creat € a perso n al collec tion—but wh Mi on an ?—
ostracon’—to consult i
in
 PALAEOGRAPHY 99

that were often linked together, without their shape being affected. In teachers’ hands it is
uncommon to find true ligatures that modify the basic letter form, even though the final stroke
of a letter—especially in alpha, epsilon, or mu—is carried on to the next one. When letters are
completely separate from each other, legibility is less than when they are provided with a few
ligatures and linking strokes, which ease the combination of the letters into syllables and then
into whole words. In a few of the models, however, the letters are mostly separate from each
other.!* These latter models are accompanied by the copy made underneath by the pupil. They
were meant to be copied slowly by students who had been already exposed to a great deal of
writing and had to learn a “book hand,” or at least a better hand.!5
Clarity and legibility also depend on the size of the script. Plutarch speaks of Cato writ-
ing for his son his History of Rome in large letters.!© All teachers’ hands stand out for their
large size. In this respect the models probably resembled the documents through which the cen-
tral government communicated with the people, such as the royal ordinances of the Ptolemies,
and, later on, official letters or edicts of the emperor and his representatives. These documents
were posted up to be read by the population and were usually written on wooden boards in let-
ters variously described as “clear and legible” (davepoic Kai evavayvaaotoc or evdjdoL1c
yo&ppaor).!’ About half of the models are inscribed in a large hand, where the average letter
is .5 cm. high, and about a third are written in very large hands, where the average letter is 1
cm. high.!8 A small percentage of hands display extra-large letters, larger than 1 cm., and
sometimes close to 2 cm. Particularly large letters are used in the group of models that were
supposed to be copied by the student underneath or on a different tablet. In only one of these
models, 138, which is also the only one written in cursives, do the letters not reach .5 cm. In
this model, however, another phenomenon appears: the initial letter of each line is enlarged.
Enlargement of initial letters is to be observed in more than ten models, either for the initials
of each line or of most of the lines. This practice is seldom found in literary papyri, but is
quite common in documentary texts and in Christian papyri.!? Where it appears, it makes mod-
els even more conspicuous and draws attention to each line. Teachers enhanced the legibility
and clarity of the models with regular interlinear spacing. This usually equals at least the
height of the letters, but often is more generous.?° Generally the models were not written at a
fast pace, and those that are accompanied by the student’s copy were written at a slow pace.
All the constituent strokes of each letter had to be shown both to the learning novice and to the

l4See 134, 142, 383, 386, 391, and 396.

I5The only exception is 134, copied by a beginner.
16See Plutarch, Marcus Cato XX, 5: kai Tas ioropiag 6& ovyypayou dyoiv avToc idia xEpi Kal pey&douc
Yoappaou.
l7See SB XIV 12144.13-14 (=P. Coll. Youtie 1 30); P.Oxy. VIII 1100.2; P.Hib. 129; P.Oxy. XXXIV 2705.10.
See Hanson 1991, 179-80.
18] take as a term of comparison the hand of Dioscoros in P.Lond.Lit. 98, which is about .5 cm. high and is
defined as large by Cavallo and Maehler 1987, plate 32a. In measuring the individual letters I do not take into
account those with long ascenders or descenders, or those that are enlarged while the rest of the script is smaller.
Therefore, I do not consider the height of 6, ¢, y, v, 1, », which in most cases are not confined within the two
notional parallels.
19See C.H. Roberts, Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt (London 1979) 16-17 and
Turner 1987, 7 and note 25.
20Stanley Morison, Politics and Script (Oxford 1972) 11, considers economic—that is, on the ungenerous
side—an interlinear spacing in papyri that amounts to half the height of the letter.
100 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

model is
student who was trying to improve his calligraphy. The speed of execution of a given
.
often directly proportional to the ability and the educational level of the students it addresses
Teachers’ hands have something in common with epistolary hands. Epistles written by
their senders as well as those penned by slaves or scribes are characterized by greater clarity
and legibility than documents.”! The body of the letter is generally written in characters that
are larger than usual and not infrequently separated. When ligatures are present, they are
executed carefully so as not to conceal the basic form of the character. Only the final saluta-
tions, which were often added by the sender himself, were scribbled in a hurry. Teachers’
hands also have much in common with the hands of hypomnemata, scholarly commentaries on
ancient authors. Usually hypomnemata are written competently and quickly in neat hands that
sometimes link some of the letters. Although in hypomnemata the letters’ size and spacing
vary, and the script is less regular than in models, clarity and legibility are good. The most
distinguishing feature of hypomnemata in comparison to models is the size of the script, which
in the commentaries is small and often tiny. The hand of a well-known teacher, the gram-
marian Lollianos, provides a good example.?* A short roll, P.Oxy. XLVII 3366, contains three
documents, written in different hands: A and C are drafts of the same petition of Lollianos,
and B is a letter. B uses the typical small hand of hypomnemata, which “reveals the profes-
sional”; according to Peter Parsons, this should be Lollianos’ hand.2? A shows a larger and
more formal hand than the others, with some ligatures and excellent legibility: it is very
similar to a “teacher’s hand.” I incline to think that A also represents the hand of Lollianos in
a situation that required a more formal performance.
Most teachers’ hands are definitely informal.24 Only in a very small group of models,
which appear together with a pupil’s copy, do the hands seem to follow closely enough the dic-
tates of a formal round style.2> From the students’ copies it is clear that probably only one was
a real beginner, while the others were more advanced pupils. Judging from the use of finials, it
seems likely that these students were learning “book hands.” The remaining teachers’ hands
can be arranged roughly in four groups: first there is a class of informal round hands that are
coeval with a second group of hands that had clear connections with the chancery style. The
Byzanane scripts can then be divided into two groups of informally written pointed majuscule:
sloping hands and hands written mostly upright.
| The first group consists of informal round scripts that are written neatly and fluently, but
without observing strictly the characteristics of a style.2° They can be dated to the second,

To verify this, examination of the plates of letters in the major collections of papyri suffices. I will cite as
21 e Fy . . .

Sia a few letters that were written in particularly clear characters: P.Flor. II 202, 208, 218, 234, 259; P. Mert.
8, 1 80, 93, Ill 114; P. Mich. XIV 679; P.Oxy. XVIII 2191, XXXI 2601, XLIII 3106; PGB plate 147; Montevec-
chi 1988, tav. 35, 44, 76, 91. Clarity and easy legibility seem to have been characteristics of epistles in every
period. The most beautiful and elegantly executed teachers’ hands have much in common with formally writt
epistles such as P.Herm.Rees 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Cf. also above pp. 5-6. db
55 grammatikos (3) in Appendix 1.
Document C, with its incorrect spelling and cursive script, was probabl i i
eg Ns See P. Coll. Youtie 66 pp. 411-12. ; ;
. . . M

Sard
ub

biker. ton,2dca
; I consider “formal” hands that are absolutely regul
gular and embody real ¥ “styles.” 4 F i
en and “informal” hands, see Turner 1987, 20-22. ? sees i Bs ule
See 49, 134, 383, 386, and to a certain extent also 142, where all the characteristics of the style
appe
except a strict bilinearity. The formal round hand is called by Cavallo 1967, 209-20 “onciale romana.”
adeto
I prefer
adopt the term used by Turner 1987, 21. *
26See, e.g., 204, 285, 286, and 389.
 PALAEOGRAPHY 101

third, and the beginning of the fourth century AD. In these hands bilinearity is not always
maintained, and ligatures do not impair the exemplary clarity. At times the letters even approx-
imate cursive forms, but, when they do, they are written separately.
A second group of hands from the third and fourth centuries AD consists of scripts that
show to different degrees the influence of the chancery style.2” What these hands have in com-
mon is that they are mostly upright, tall, and narrow, and show what Schubart calls the
“railings” (Gitter) effect.28 Letters such as v, n, and m are narrow and emphasize the verticality
of the whole script. Although in the most stylized scripts, such as 296 and 297, these letters
contrast with others—o, w, and a—that are written small and above the baseline, generally the
chancery style is not observed so formally. The circlets and hooks with which a typical chan-
cery hand starts are kept to a minimum in these hands,?? perhaps because teachers were afraid
they might impair the clarity of the script; they most often appear inv, x, and d. Frequently the
descending diagonal of 6 starts with a crest. In these hands cursive elements abound. Epsilon is
rarely written in the two superimposed movements of formal chancery, and sometimes it ap-
pears plainly cursive. Beta, however, is a typical chancery letter: it is tall, and a continuous
line defines the two protruding parts.
The hands of these models evidence a less pretentious and elaborate style than that
appearing in the official chancery documents. Even the most formal examples are far from the
degree of formality of a P.Berol. 11532, which was the product of the high chancery of Ale-
xandria.3° These hands are closer to those more modest and less stylized chancery hands that
were used for copies and official documents circulating in the countryside. At the same time,
the chancery hand was not only used to write official documents but also for letters and private
documents.?! Aithough these less stylized chancery hands do not show uniform elements, but
present various ductus, different ligatures, and variable letter shapes, they have something in
common that distinguishes them from other graphic phenomena of the same period: the chan-
cery Style.
The similarity between chancery style and some teachers’ hands may be explained by the
fact that some teachers supplemented their earnings by working as scribes or notaries.%2
Teachers who wrote stylized chancery hands may have been working part-time in offices,
where such script was used. The texts written in a formal style may have been inscribed by
employees of chancery offices who conversely functioned as teachers or tutors for part of the
day. The connections with chancery offices are less probable, or at least not necessary to posit,

27Sce 141, 296, 297, 298, 365, 391, 396, and 400.
28Schubart 1925, 73 calls this script Gitterschrift.
29with the exception of 297.
30The fundamental article regarding the chancery style is Cavallo 1965. Chancery elements in Byzantine
hands are studied by the same scholar in “La xowv# scrittoria greco-romana nella prassi documentale di eta
bizantina,” JOBG 19 (1970) 5-31. Since then more documents written in chancery hands have been published.
Without claiming comprehensiveness, I can cite P.Oxy. XXXIV 2707, XXXVIII 2847, XLIII 3110, 3123, 3124,
S129. XICV 3243, 62357735718, 3579, 3593,73994, LI 3611; LIL 3694;°CPR V9, 20> VI 12514; VIE 13, 48;
P.Koln. 1 55; P.Laur. IV 157; P.Wisc. II 58, 59; P.Med. 52 (Montevecchi 1988, tav. 79); P.Harr. II 203, 227;
P.Amst. 1 46; P.Col. VIII 227, 236; P.Lugd.Bat. XXV 56. The hands of these documents show various degrees of
formality.
31g¢e Cavallo (1965) 239.
32See p. 22.
102 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

when the hands have only a general chancery look, reflecting /’air du temps. It is not surpris-
ing that some teachers saw the hand as well suited to models: letter size was larger than
ordinary, and the elegant script possessed in a high degree the clarity and legibility that were
indispensable in models.
The last two groups of Byzantine teachers’ hands are differentiated by the inclination of
the letters. Formal scripts such as “Biblical majuscule” are not represented. “Pointed majus-
cule,”33 a type of script that seems to derive directly from second century hands, appears in the
models in the sloping type34 and in the upright type.*> All these hands are characterized by a
more or less pronounced informality and show some cursive elements, especially in the way
the last stroke of a word is carried out. E, 6, 0, o are narrow or very narrow, while letters
such as pl, v, 7, ™ may vary in width. These hands vary in the degree to which rounder or
more angular elements predominate. Generally they do not show any contrast in thickness of
the strokes, and the very late hands display some decorative elements. It is surprising to find
several teachers’ hands in upright “pointed majuscule,” since this hand appears very rarely in
the centuries between the fourth and the eighth AD.3° These informal teachers’ hands seem to
vary from the sloping types only because of the inclination of the letters, which was probably
dictated by the teachers’ preference for a slower and basic hand.
Teachers always kept their audience in mind, striving for clarity: they needed to trans-
cend the different features of their scripts in order to provide students with simple and com-
prehensible exemplars. Even when they followed a definite style, they adjusted and simplified
its features, and this is what confers a common appearance on the models. The teachers’
models are fascinating because they show the same class of people over the centuries using a
script or different scripts in a common way and for a common purpose. There are some paral-
lels with the use of the chancery style by a rigid class of technicians who employed a script
that conformed to fixed norms for at least two centuries. Although teachers did not all use an
identical script, their hands show many common elements for a longer period of time.

School Hands

School hands are usually dismissed with adjectives ranging from “rough,” “rude,” “clumsy,”
“untutored,” “ungainly,” ”
and “unformed” to “cramped and ugly”3” or simply “quite hide-
ous.”38 Such hasty descriptions are not only quite subjective but also refer inclusively to stu-
dents’ hands of various levels, as if no distinctions were discernible.9 Since in a school hand
the characteristics that derive from imperfect skill and coordination are fully evident, I shall

pting the term used by Cavallo and Maehler 1987. The scriptipt
33] am adopti isi also sometim lled “ g
348 ce, e.g., 85, 306, 313, 315, and 357. 4 ealipnings cS
See e.g., 60, 121, 308, 404, and 411.
Pepa
See Edoardo Crisci,
ISCi “L a maiuscola
1 i
ogivale iri
diritta. igini, tipologie,
Origini, ti i dislocazioni,”
i ioni,” i i
Scrittura e Civilta 9

37Peter J. Parsons describing 255.

er Bradford Welles with regard to the hand of 358.
neg The last two descriptions,
limonene Myatt ) for instance, , refer to hands that still show ed aa disdistinctive
istincti i i
lack of uniformity, but
 PALAEOGRAPHY 103

examine these first. Most features appear to be caused by defective uniformity and continuity
in the handwriting movement and by excessively low speed. I shall then consider the way in
which students formed the individual letters to elucidate the stroke-sequence they followed. An
examination of the characteristics of school hands that derive from deficient coordination and
skill will permit me to distinguish different types of hands in relation to ability and maturity.
Afterwards I shall examine the relationship of school hands to cursive and book hands, as well
as the connection between the hands of students and of “slow writers.” Lastly I shall address
the problems school hands present with respect to dating.

Uniformity of Writing
Uniformity of writing is a product of practice and skill: an inexperienced writer betrays a vari-
able writing movement in the irregularity of alignment and margins and in letter spacing,
inclination, and form. Irregular alignment is widespread in school hands, since most of them
did not have the benefit of guidelines, which appear in a few tablets and never in papyrus.4?
Difficulties with alignment are visible in the work of students at all levels and are not directly
proportional to ability in forming individual letters.44 Uneven top and bottom margins are a
direct consequence of inability to maintain good alignment.** Often the lateral margins are also
irregular and wavering. In general students did not follow a common practice with regard to
Margins in exercises: margins may be practically nonexistent, but they may be particularly
wide and reach up to 4 cm.*3 Marginal space is a conscious artifice that is positively correlated
with experience in writing.
Variable letter spacing and inclination are directly proportional to the ability of the
writer and are characteristic of beginners’ work. From the Ptolemaic to the Byzantine periods
school hands are generally upright. A regular inclination to the right can be observed only in a
few Byzantine exercises of advanced students and depends on the speed of writing. Letter form
is affected by lack of uniformity of speed and pressure in the strokes, particularly in those let-
ters that are made by repetition of identical strokes, such as WY, w, or even the easy a. In
exercises of beginners two or more instances of the same letter may show a completely dif-
ferent appearance.*4 Since inexperienced writers tend to tire out and lose concentration, their
hands show a marked lack of consistency, deteriorating as the writing proceeds.*>

Writing Continuity
Maturity of coordination is responsible for continuity in the writing movement. Interrupted
continuity in the strokes is evident in the hands of beginners and, occasionally, in more ad-

40 About guidelines, see p. 67. About the fact that inexperienced students preferred to write along the fibers,
Seep Oo:
41see, e. g., the faulty alignment in advanced exercises such as 352, 362, 368, and 405.
42Sce, . g., the exercise of an advanced student, 383.
43No standard practice for margins was observed even in literary works, but of course greater variations in
margin size appear in exercises. Turner 1987, considers margins of 4-5 cm. especially wide. These margins were
more common in sumptuous manuscripts such as Turner 1987, 34, plate 11. With regard to margins I am consider-
ing only the evidence of exercises on papyrus, since in ostraca the shape of the sherd dictates the amount of space
left on the sides, and on tablets students either did not leave margins or marked them with vertical rulings (cf. pp.
71-78).
44 An extreme example of this phenomenon is 100.
45 See, e.g., 78 and 133.
104 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

vanced school hands as well: letters are not formed as units, but as assemblages of separate
strokes. The inexperienced writer also makes long pauses between strokes: this is conspicuous
in the round letters that appear broken. In letters such as v or 6 the strokes often do not meet at
an angle, but cross each other.4° Because each movement is made at a very low speed and
without continuity, the number of constituent strokes for each letter is increased.47 Lack of
continuity in the writing movement has repercussions on the ductus—that is, on the flow and
speed of the hand along the surface.

Speed of Writing
It is necessary to distinguish between the low speed required for calligraphic writing and the
slow tentativeness evident in beginners’ work. The first clearly aimed at perfection: it is con-
spicuous in teachers’ models, in which all the constituent strokes of a letter can be clearly per-
ceived, and in the calligraphic writing of students who had already learned their letters well.*®
Beginners’ exercises were also done at an extremely slow pace, but the consequences were not
equally attractive.
The Greeks themselves were aware of the importance of speed in writing. “Is it pre-
ferable in schools to copy the model’s letters quickly or slowly? Quickly,” says Plato, who is
speaking of students copying from models.4? From the adverb he is using, x&AdoTor, it ap-
pears that he is aware of the ungainly appearance of beginners’ slow writing. Plato in another
passage prescribes three years as the period necessary for a ten-year-old child to learn how to
write.°9 During this period students must work at letters until they are able to read and write,
but one should not demand speed and calligraphic beauty from those who do not seem naturally
inclined to achieve them.*! Plato’s words show that after three years many pupils were still
writing relatively slowly. Some who did not progress further in their schooling remained slow
writers for the rest of their lives. The Romans too were aware of the necessity of learning to
write quickly. Quintilian calls the skill that good teachers try to impart “the task of writing
well and quickly” (cura bene ac velociter scribendi).°* Immediately after, he describes the con-
sequences of slow writing: the writer’s thinking is also slowed down, and legibility is ham-
pered (tardior stilus cogitationem moratur, rudis et confusus intellectu caret).
Writing speed is directly dependent on skill and tends to improve as a writer progresses.
The greatest speed of writing was achieved by advanced students writing on waxed tablets.53
This is also what Quintilian observes when he recommends writing on wax since it involved no
delay in dipping the pen into the ink.°4 After some time spent at writing, the hand of some stu-

46Sce especially 79.

AICEs €.g., Sigma made in three or more movements in 182.
aoe e.g., 142 and 395.
eae) Charmides 159 c: métepov oby KaANOTOY év YOOpp
ypapmpaTioTOD
OU THTH Opolm
6 y
YoappaTa ‘
yoadew Taxd ene
Hh hovx7;2

Plato,
1
Laws VII 810 a.
: : Plato, Laws Vil ae , ae Z < Z Seed, A
HEV TOWUY XON TO EXPL TOD ypaYau TE Kal aVayVaVat SuvVaToY Elva
waTovelv’
WAL moog Ta&XOG bE H Ka&AAOS aTEKpIBOOOai
puB ig wyph Haig
TLolwv o1g $0 TE
EmEoTEVOEY EV: ToIC
n TeTHypEvoLS
¢ 4
ETEaL
>2Inst.Or. 11. 28.
2See, e.g., 325 and 329.
*"Quintilian,
ian, Inst.Or. X 3.31, ; intinguntur calami, , morantur man um et cogitationis
itationis i iti
on wax was difficult only for people with bad eyesight. J ae
 PALAEOGRAPHY 105

dents still displays many of the characteristics of a school hand, although they have acquired a
relatively fast writing pace. At the very beginning, when speed is excessively low, the letters
look tentative and quivering. St. Jerome calls trementi manu the quivering hand of beginners
going through the letter shapes.°> I shall call a hand where this phenomenon appears multi-
stroke. Although hands that are prevalently multistroke are found in the lower stages of educa-
tion,°® occasionally multistroke letters appear in exercises copied by relatively advanced stu-
dents who were following formal styles of writing.5’ A true multistroke hand splits each writ-
ing movement into infinitesimal strokes, which reveal the painful concentration of the writer.
Every letter can be affected, but the phenomenon is especially visible in round letters—that is,
these letters tend to be made up of very short, straight lines at varying angles to one another.
Size of a School Hand
School hands are often described as particularly large. The size of a hand varies quite a lot as a
student progresses and has to fulfill more difficult tasks.°8 In the first two stages, Letters and
Alphabets, hands are on average very large, approaching 1 cm.°? The size then decreases to
large and reaches about .5 cm in Syllabaries, Lists, Writing Exercises, and Short Passages.
Although at these stages there are insignificant variations, the hands of calligraphic writing
exercises always reach a very large size. In the Long Passages the size diminishes further, to
about .3 cm.: the hand is medium-sized, as are the majority of literary hands. Letters remain
medium-sized in Compositions and in Grammatical Exercises. Only in Scholia Minora do the
letters at times reach .2 cm; on average they are written in a hand that is medium to small.
School hands do not reach the extra large size seen in certain models, and only at the
first stages of education do they approximate the size of a model. Perhaps a student was asked
to progressively reduce his hand’s size, without sacrificing legibility. In tablet 383 the teacher,
after writing his model, ruled the rest of the space with four sets of double guidelines for the
pupil. These are drawn progressively closer so that the student, who had started with a letter
size of .8 cm., identical to the teacher’s, was forced to reduce it to .4 cm. Great variations in
the size of a hand may be observed in the same exercise in immature hands, generally at the
elementary level,®° and more rarely in advanced students’ work.®! A comparison of exercises
done by students of equivalent ability reveals that especially at the first levels exercises on
waxed tablets are inscribed in considerably larger letters than those appearing on papyrus or

55See St. Jerome, Letter 107.4.

56See, e.g., 63, 79, 167, and 170.
57See, e.g., 262, where the student was writing in an elaborate and formal round hand. See also 254 and 276.
S8According to J. De Ajuriaguerra, M. Auzias, A. Denner, L’Ecriture de l’enfant Il, La rééducation de
l’écriture (Neuchatel 1964) 130, except for the very beginning, the size of a school hand at the stage of writing
sentences reaches about .3 cm.—not counting letters with long descenders and long ascenders—while a size of .4
cm. is maintained when the student has problems in writing. Probably this was the letter size of a generation ago in
Europe. Judging from the rulings on notebook paper designed for elementary school students nowadays, at least in
the United States, pupils are taught to maintain letters of a much bigger size during the first years of education.
59 About large and very large hands, cf. what I have said above about the hands of models on p. 99 and note
18. I consider a hand medium-sized when it approximates .3 cm (Turner 1987, plate 15 and 41), small when it is
about .2 cm (Turner 1987, plate 16) and tiny when it is about .1 cm or less (Turner 1987 plate 33).
60The second hand of 403 varies the size of the letters three times with disastrous consequences, especially on
page VII of the little notebook. The size oscillates between .7 and .3 cm.
61] etter size varies considerably in the grammatical exercise 362.
106 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

material
ostraca. Students probably took advantage of the space at their disposal, because the
was easily erasable.

Degree of Difficulty in Writing Letter-Shapes

The school exercises indicate that the letters of the Greek alphabet that were written with the
most confidence and the best results were those that were constructed with verticals and
horizontals, alone or combined.®? Therefore y, 7, 1, m,and 7 are always recognizable, even
though in letters such as a problems of symmetry arise at the very beginning, and the two
verticals are often of unequal length or inclination.®? The two single letters that are most inter-
changed are a and 6, especially if the bottom stroke of 6 was drawn a little too high.°4 Two
other letters that sometimes look similar in beginners’ exercises are \ and 7 when the horizon-
tal stroke of 7 appears oblique. The two most difficult letters are likely to have been y and §.
Some beginners tended to do the vertical stroke of y first and then tried to arrange the two
obliques on the side, so that the three top elements were not in line.®> Toward the end of the
Roman period this letter was drawn like a cross and was much simplified. In 6 the difficulty
consisted of combining the vertical with the two half circles: when a beginner drew more than
one £, all of them looked radically different.6° When a student was not satisfied with the
appearance of a letter, he tried to correct it by going over the strokes again: corrections of mal-
formed letters are frequent and greatly contribute to the untidy look of some exercises.®’
Stroke-Sequence
By the term stroke-sequence I mean the number, sequence, and direction of the strokes used to
construct a letter—that is, what Bataille calls construction,®8 Pratesi and Cavallo call tratteg-
gio,®? and Bischoff calls the structure of a letter.’° An investigation of the stroke-sequence fol-
lowed in schools will attempt to determine whether teachers always taught the letters of the
alphabet according to a fixed sequence of strokes, or if there were changes over time. Since it
is advantageous to consider whenever possible the teachers’ models together with the students’
exercises, the time span of this research will be somewhat limited, covering the Roman period
starting from the second century AD and the beginning of the Byzantine period.”! It seems that

621t is an accepted norm that children learn to construct verticals and horizontals at an early age, see K. Beery
and N.A. Buktenica, Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (Chicago 1967) 18.
©3Note especially the difficulty encountered by a raw beginner in practicing this letter in 24.
64S¢¢, e.g., 207 and 232.
5See, e.g., 79 and 182.
ean extreme example of this is the row of B’s in 26. The U-shaped 6 appears very rarely, see, Cepeda 78)Ue
Bade e.g., 207 and 276. This kind of correction almost never appears in the work of a scribe.
See André Bataille, Pour une terminologie en paléographie grecque (Paris 1954) 33. He calls séquence (
iea20 ibe stroke, from the point where the pen starts to write up to where it is lifted, even for an instant
. See Alessandro Pratesi’s Prefazione to Guglielmo Cavallo, Ricerche sulla maiuscola biblica (Blorense 1967)
ix, and Gavel, “Metodi di descrizione della scrittura in paleografia greca,” Scrittura e Civilta 15 (1991) 28
: Cf. Bernhard Bischoff, Latin Palaeography (Cambridge 1990) 51. The term Struktur was
used first es this
meating by JP: Gumbert, Die utrechter Kartduser und ihre Biicher (Leiden 1974) 216 and note
7.
I will not consider 379, since I am not sure whether it was compiled by a teacher or copied by a
scribe. Th
only Ptolemaic model left would therefore be 380. It is often difficult to determine the stroke-seque
nce by rel titan
a photograph alone. The most difficult cases will be settled only by autopsy. ae
 PALAEOGRAPHY 107

students, regardless of the period, learned to form the constitutive strokes of most of their let-
ters in almost the same way. An examination of the individual letters will make this clear.72
A: was formed in three movements when the model addressed the needs of real
beginners or intended to show the features of a formal style. Often, however, the movements
were made in two sequences and very rarely in one. The direction of the strokes was always
the same. —~

B: was formed in four movements, which could become three and rarely two. The
sequence and direction of the strokes was always basically the same.

me
—————

I’: was drawn in two movements, but the direction of the strokes is not always clear.

—> 2 ie

L
t

A: was formed in three movements, which could become two. =

— 2

E: was usually formed in three separate movements that could be made in two
sequences, but even when’? the teacher’s hand in the model combines the first two movements,
the student’s copy shows unmistakably that the letter was taught in three separate movements at
the very beginning.

721n considering the single letters I will point to their basic shape and show how the stroke-sequence changed
with the passing of time, taking into limited account those individual features dictated by different scripts and styles.
73Sec, e.g., 383.
108 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

Z: was drawn in three movements, generally made separately.

Delo if Lares
tw w~

Q: was formed in three separate strokes. At times teachers’ hands combine the first two
movements so well that they are hardly distinguishable, but students’ work shows that the let-
ter was taught in this way.

}
= =
:
I: was drawn in one stroke, from top to bottom.

L
K: was formed in three strokes, the first of which always went from top to bottom. It is
more difficult to determine the sequence and direction of the last two strokes. In every period
the last two strokes of « usually started from the middle of the vertical stroke departing in
Opposite directions, toward the top and then toward the bottom. Students, however, seem at
times to have followed a different sequence: a downward second stroke followed by the
upward one.’* Sometimes one even has the impression that the second stroke may be drawn
from top to bottom.75

a 1 See,
aeaRe.g, 142, and in 391 the student’s copy. In the models the letter is; clearly
made in three movements
but it ee umpanebis to ascertain the stroke-sequence.
“See e.g., the last line of the student’s copy in 320. It is impossible to determine the stroke-sequence fol-
lowed in the model.
 PALAEOGRAPHY 109

A: was always formed in two separate movements.

i
ra 2,

M: was drawn in three movements. Although it is often difficult to ascertain the direc-
tion of the first stroke, one has the impression that it was usually drawn from the bottom
toward the top, especially when the first stroke is joined in a loop to the second.76

N: was always formed in a three-stroke sequence. It seems that the last stroke was drawn
from top to bottom, at least in the work of beginners. When students had become more familiar
with writing, they sometimes joined the last two strokes into a loop so that the final stroke pro-
ceeded toward the top.’’ It is practically impossible to tell the direction of the last stroke.

UNH 2+3

: was drawn in several strokes, as many as five.

O: As with 0, the letter o was always drawn in a two-stroke sequence that began on the
top.78 Sometimes, especially in the formal models, the point of juncture of the two half-circles
is hardly visible, but the students’ copies make it very clear that the letter was taught that way.

C)
II: The letter was taught in a three-stroke sequence.

i}
76See e.g., the student’s copy of 333 and the model 92.
77 See, e.g., 136.
78On this, see the observations in Schubart 1925, 13-14.
110 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

P: The letter was formed in two strokes, first the vertical stroke and then the semicircle.
Starting from the Byzantine period, however, the half circle was drawn first and ligatured to
the previous letter.

| Z
i

¥: was drawn in two movements, which are less evident in the formal models.

T: was usually formed in two movements, first the horizontal and then the vertical. One
cannot be absolutely certain, however, that this order was always followed.

Y: the three constitutive movements of this letter could be drawn either separately, in a
two-stroke sequence or in one sequence. It is not always easy to determine the direction of the
strokes. The sketches below represent what were the most usual ways to draw this letter.

{
®: was drawn in three movements. In the Roman period it is clear that the vertical stroke
was drawn first and then the two semicircles were arranged around that. Later on it seems that
teachers preferred to draw the two semicircles first and the vertical line afterward.

1a) Op :
Kear ,
X: was drawn in two movements, but it is not always clear which stroke was made first
It seems that sometimes a first stroke was traced from top right to bottom left,7? but that espe-

19Sec, (Ha oA)

 PALAEOGRAPHY ja

cially in the Byzantine period it was more usual to start the stroke from the top left toward the
bottom right, so that the letter could be ligatured to the previous one.®°

W: was formed in two movements, but it is difficult to be sure about the stroke-sequence
that was taught to students, since this letter does not appear very often, and there are also some
ambiguous indications. At times, and especially when the letter was drawn rapidly and liga-
tured to the previous one, the horizontal stroke was made first.8! Beginners, who made the let-
ter slowly, sometimes made the vertical stroke first.82

Q: was usually drawn in two movements, rarely in three.83 The first semicircle was

co See
always smaller than the second that came up all the way, but in the formal models the two
strokes were fused in such a way that this was hardly noticeable.

It is not a problem to determine the number of strokes forming a letter: in any period
students learned to form letter shapes with a specific and predetermined number of strokes. For
some letters, however—especially x, w, v, x, and y —it is uncertain what sequence and direc-
tion of strokes was followed. Perhaps there was no real systematic approach to the problem,
but the stroke-sequence depended on the style of writing the teacher himself had been taught
and on his degree of professionality.

Typology of School Hands

The distinctive characteristics school hands exhibit with respect to experience in writing permit
one to isolate four definite types.84 Although all the four types are represented in the school
exercises, “the evolving hand” appears more frequently than the first two types. The first two
hands did not last for long: hand 1 is so temporary that to find it is almost a miracle, and hand
2 was also quickly superseded, if the student continued to attend school. Hand 3, however,
persisted for years and changed into hand 4 only after much practice and longer education.

80sec, e.g., 124 and 321.

81See, e.g., 294 and 321.
82See 79.
83Sce, e.g., 313.
84Sce above p. 33.
1f2 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

Hand 1: “The zero-grade hand”

Hand 1 is the least skilled of the school hands, the hand of the total novice who does not yet
know the letters and sometimes confuses them or writes them in peculiar ways. To use
Quintilian’s words, this is the hand of a student who “was at a loss about the shapes of the let-
ters” (haesit circa formas litterarum).85 Thus a 6 may acquire a vertical bar8° and a p may be
written as in a mirror image, with the loop on the left and the vertical on the top.8” This kind
of hand usually does not attempt to write more than a few lines. It is often severely multi-
stroke, and one sees in it learning at its tender beginning.
Hand 2: “The alphabetic hand”
This is the hand of a learner, of someone who may be relied upon to write the alphabet
accurately and without hesitation but who has not yet developed hand-eye coordination. Some-
times he still writes multistroke letters, and he always seems to proceed at a slow pace. This
kind of hand is not trusted to do a lot of writing, and it obtains poor overall effects.
Hand 3: “The evolving hand”
This is the hand of a pupil who uses it every day and does a conspicuous amount of writing
with it.88 The clumsy and uneven look and the difficulty in maintaining an alignment are still
present, but the hand can be moderately fluent and proceeds at a good pace.8? I also consider
as belonging in this category the group of hands writing in formal style.?° They have a rather
unformed look and some multistroke letters, but they attempt to draw each letter in elaborate
ways and they can write long passages.
Hand 4: “The rapid hand”
Hand 4 is the hand of the advanced student. It is fluent and can be trusted to do lots of writing.
Often it cannot be distinguished from a personal and well-developed hand, for instance the
hand of a teacher writing informal notes or of a person copying a passage for his own use.
While sometimes hand 4 by itself can point to an exercise penned by a student, usually other
indications are needed, such as mistakes or the writing material used.

School Hands and Cursive Writing

The main characteristics of a school hand may be inferred from the typical features of teachers’
hands, since the models were placed before students, proposita,?! so that they might imitate
them. Clarity and legibility were as important for a student as for a teacher: a pupil had to

SS inst.Or. 11.21
86Sce 63.
87See 154.
. 88 outie 1971a, 165 spotted this kind of hand in the documents. It was different from the hand of the “slow
writers, but still it was not totally practiced and he called it the retarded hand: “The latter are hands which became
stabilized at an early stage of development and so resemble slow hands in their awkward appearance, but are used
freely and for compositions of any length.” Undoubtedly the retarded hand is our “evolving hand.” I am not going
to i Roe S ee however, because I find it somewhat infelicitous. In addition we should notice that
Of greenanh
unlike ete
the retarded hand, atioate
which was somewhat fossilized in that state, our hand iss stilstill in
in d development and capable

I consider “evolving” the hand of Theon, the boy who wrote to his father asking to be taken to Alexandria
in P. wid 1119. The individual letters are not unpracticed, but the whole looks rather coarse.
eee for instance, 257, 258, and 262. I will speak of this group below, on pp. 114-116.
Cf. Quintilian, Jnst.Orat. X.2.2 and Seneca, Epist.Moral. 94.51.
 PALAEOGRAPHY bie

develop a clear handwriting to meet his future needs in study and in life. “A handwriting
which is rough and unclear cannot be understood; therefore it follows that one must strive to
dictate what has to be copied again,” says Quintilian.°*? The models proposed scripts in which
the letters were individually formed, without being strictly separated, and even if a few letters
were linked, the shape of each remained unchanged. The same characteristic is evident in most
students’ handwriting, with very few exceptions determined either by total lack of experience
or by the attempt of a student to make the formal copy of a literary text. In most exercises the
letter that is almost always linked to the following one is epsilon, and this is already evident in
Ptolemaic schoo! work.93 When epsilon is not linked, its crossbar is at least stretched out and
lengthened so as almost to touch the next letter. Alpha is the next letter most frequently linked,
and mu follows. School hands of the Byzantine period very often show the crossbar of theta
linked to the next letter. The exercises show not only that students linked some letters such as
epsilon and theta when they were parts of words but that beginners learned these letters with
the crossbar outstretched and ready to be ligatured, even when they wrote them as separate
characters in alphabets. Although the phenomenon is less evident in Roman alphabets, the
Byzantine exercises where pupils and teachers drew both letters in this way are numerous.%
Even though the exercises show that most school hands did not make separate capitals,?°
but linked some letters, students did not employ real ligatures, which would have impaired
legibility. The similarity between the script taught in schools and the scripts used in private
epistles is undeniable. Quintilian correlated the clarity and legibility that were necessary for
students and for writers of epistles. After speaking of the necessity of learning a clear readable
script from the very beginning, he continues, “one should take care not to overlook this, espe-
cially in the intimate, private letters.”°° Education was geared to give students who attended
school for only a few years the ability to write a private letter or a subscription to a document
in their own hand. Students who continued their education acquired a quick, clear, and well-
developed hand, which was the most suitable for writing notes and observations and resembled
a scholar’s hand and the hand of hypomnemata.
Modern histories of ancient education state categorically that schoolchildren learned
separate capitals first.°’7 Even though the school exercises show that students in general prac-
ticed a kind of semi-cursive writing, it is a problem to understand whether they learned to link
a few of their letters from the very beginning or whether they were first introduced to separate,
almost epigraphic letters. The literary evidence is practically silent in this respect, besides the
testimony of a Byzantine Coptic text containing the Passio of the monks and martyrs Panine
and Paneu who were persecuted under Diocletian. The text speaks of the early education of

92mst.Or. 1 1 28: stilus...rudis et confusus intellectu caret; unde sequitur alter dictandi, quae transferenda
sunt, labor.
93See, e.g., 78, the syllabary of Apollonios, son of Glaukias. For a few columns epsilon is very neatly and
regularly written, then its crossbar is outstretched. In the last columns it is ligatured to the next letter.
94Sce, e.g., 5, 13, 14, 24, 33, 63, 402, 121, and 124.
95}t is generally maintained that in school exercises the letters are made in completely separate capitals, see,
e.g., Turner 1980, 88-89 and Bernard Boyaval, “Psaume 92 sur deux tablettes scolaires,” ZPE 17 (1975) 145-46.
96Inst.Or. 11 29: quare cum semper et ubique tum praecipue in epistolis secretis et familiaribus delectabit ne
hoc quidem neglectum reliquisse.
97See, e.g., Bonner 1977, 168, “In writing the capitals were naturally taught first.”
98See Orlandi 1978, 98-99. Cf. below, p. 149.
114 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

the child Synphronios, who is first introduced to some kind of cursive writing in the school of
Silvanos, the village teacher. When after a month Synphronios has learned the cursive letters,
he approaches the capitals. In this respect the evidence of the school exercises is neither com-
pletely clear nor consistent. Thus, although most novices connected the letters at least when
they attempted to write their own names, a few of them, such as Kametis in 51, used separate
characters. It is difficult to be sure whether the model given to Kametis was in completely
separate letters or whether Kametis, who placed the characters forming his name almost touch-
ing each other, was only unable to link some of them. It is often assumed that separate letters
would have been easier for a beginner, but it is difficult not to be influenced on this matter by
the ongoing discussion as to whether or not script writing—also called printscript and manu-
script writing—is preferred to cursive writing when learning to write.?? Since our models and
school hands did not use real cursive writing, but only linked a few letters, the resulting script
did not present more challenges than completely separate capitals.
Although it is sometimes maintained that in antiquity children were introduced to cur-
sives soon after learning separate capitals,!° the only example cited to support this idea is 141,
a papyrus in which the “capitals” consist of block decorated letters, which are unique among
the exercises, and the “cursives” are semi-cursive letters written by a teacher. Examples of real
cursives are very rare in the school exercises and can be found only at advanced levels. With
more experience in writing, students learned a way to form their letters quickly by joining the
constitutive movements in a looped sequence, but generally refrained from using such script in
school. For example, Apollonios son of Glaukias writes in cursives underneath his copy of the
Telephus of Euripides, 246, which is written in linked capitals, and the student who wrote 381
resorts to real cursives only in the second half of his tablet for lack of space. Even at advanced
levels, students still felt the need to have a clear and understandable handwriting: their hands
were Often minute and faster than before, but they still tried to form all the constituent strokes
of each letter.!®!
School Hands and Styles of Writing
The type of script school hands used was an informal round script. Attempts to write in dif-
ferent styles are extremely few, besides the examples in formal round discussed below. !02
Although one would expect to find examples of school hands following the chancery style of
some of the models, the lack of school hands that can be identified as chancery derives from
the fact that they are copies of teachers’ hands written in an informal chancery style. Usually
most students did not follow the models closely and derived from them only a general idea of a
script. In the models the chancery style consisted of a vertical, narrow look together with ~ faw
other subtle characteristics that tended to get lost in the copies. For example, when in notebook
396 Aurelius Papnouthis copies his teacher’s hand, which is influenced by the chancery style
his copy resembles the model only in so far as Papnouthis’ script is less round and more Satie
cal in this particular tablet than in the rest of his writing.

99See Gray y 1956 , 194-96,

- j
where the advantages and disadvantages of both scri ts i
100S¢¢, e.g., Bonner 1977, 168. . Sa nhc ci
101 See, e.g., 361, 364, 368, and 385.
Oe. men
See, e.g., 210 and 290, both written in a script of mixed style, which emphasized narrow and broad letters
 PALAEOGRAPHY 115

A considerable number of school hands adopted an elaborate, self-conscious, and affec-

tedly decorated style of writing: about ten percent of students used serifs—small strokes
decorating the top and bottom of verticals—and five percent attempted to imitate a formal
round style decorated by serifs.!°? The hands that are decorated by serifs occur during a large
time span, from approximately the second century BC to the third century AD, while there are
only occasional examples of Byzantine hands with serifs or decorated roundels.!°4 In the
Ptolemaic period the hands used serifs aiming at elegant effects, because in this period cal-
ligraphic writing usually employed finials.!°5 Between the first and third centuries AD, a large
group of school hands used serifs together with all the characteristics of a formal and heavily
decorated round style!°6—that is, the style that Schubart called Zierstil!°’ and Hunger!
Héakchenstil.!°° These hands tend to be strictly bilinear and employ round letters that are
decorated by serifs at the extremity of verticals and obliques. They always form the letter mu
in four rigid movements and apparently do not know the soft mu of the Onciale romana, with
the second and third movements fused in a round curve.!!9 Many of these hands betray
inexperience and lack of skill, which is visible even in the prominent serifs.!!! These large and
coarse serifs!!? indicate that students considered this style attractive and were ready to go to
extremes to demonstrate that they were mastering it.!}3
Since it is unclear how long students who wished to pursue a scribal career attended
regular schools, and at which level and age scribal schools started, it is difficult to be sure
whether these exercises in formal style represent the work of regular schools or of schools spe-
cializing in scribal training. When the exercises do not show extreme flaws in the hand, there
are doubts regarding the setting that produced them. Some exercises, on the other hand, dis-
play the work of students who encountered considerable difficulties, and whose hand trembled
from the effort of writing.!!* It is reasonable to suppose that students who showed serious dif-
ficulties with writing were attending regular schools and had teachers who particularly valued
efforts at writing in style.!!5 Students were encouraged to improve their handwriting and to
make their hand really beautiful. In 136 and 222 two pupils had to work on a hexameter that

103There are also some isolated attempts at writing a round, calligraphic hand that employed a p with soft
central movement and without serifs, as, e.g., 323 and 328:
104See 122, 147, and 314.
105g¢e 129, 175, 179, 238 (erratic use of serifs), 253, 344, and 345.
106See 131, 132, 142, 184, 256, 257, 258, 261, 262, 263, 287, 304, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349, 382, and 391.
The following exercises, which seem to have followed a more informal round style, employ finials more sporadi-
cally: 133, 259, 276, 280, and 284. About teachers’ models in formal round style, see above p. 100.
107§ee Schubart 1925, 112.
108Sc¢ Hunger 1961, 79-80.
109Turner 1987, 21 objected to recognizing a real “decorated style” in which finials were the most prominent
feature.
110Se¢ Cavallo 1967, 210.
111Giovanna Menci, “Scritture greche librarie con apici ornamentali,” Scrittura e Civilté 3 (1979) 49, notes
that in book hands there is an aesthetic relationship between the size of the letter and the serifs.
\128¢¢, e.g., 131 and 346.
113Thus the copy of 142 displays a much higher number of serifs than the model.
114S¢e, e.g., 257, 258, 261, and 263.
115Gray 1956, 188-89 says, “Even as late as the nineteenth century a superior quality of handwriting was so
greatly prized in many countries that schools devoted much time and effort to attaining high standards in this
respect.”
116 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

KANG
said, “Good hand, begin with beautiful letters and a straight line” (&péau xeip ayabh
epigram for a
ypappaTta Kal otixov opdv). Contests for the best hand even existed, as an
child who won for his kala grammata tells us:
Nixnoac Toic maidac, émel Kade yodppar’ Eypawer,
Kévvapoc oydaxovr’ doTpayadouc EdaBer,
Kapé, xxo.v Moboais, TOV KwpKov de X@pnTa
mpeoBiTny bopbBw OjKaTo TaLldapiov
“Winning the boys’ contest, since he wrote a beautiful hand,
Connaros received eighty knucklebones,
and in gratitude to the Muses he hung me up there,
the comic mask of old Chares, amid the applause of the other boys.”!!6

School Hands and Slow Writers’ Hands

School hands and slow writers’ hands, which are both at one extremity of literacy, are so
similar in many respects that they are often treated as if they were the same. Schubart called
Schulschrift a script showing coarse and unligatured letters: he found examples of it in private
letters and in subscriptions to documents written by people who formed their letters slowly, as
they had learned them in school.!!7 According to Schubart, these hands had to be distinguished
from “book hands” (Schénschrift) and cursive hands (Geschdftsschrift): a papyrus such as the
Curse of Artemisia was written in neither script, but showed the unmistakable features of a
Schulschrift.\18 Turner went further and considered together in one category—that of “the slow
writers” —school hands and the hands of adults on the verge of illiteracy who could barely
form their name and a few painful lines.!!9 Youtie protested against this: to confuse schoolboys
and slow writers was not permissible, since schoolboys were starting their lives and were
expected to learn and progress, while slow writers were grown men and women with limited
and faded writing capabilities.!2° Although this protest was legitimate, it addressed only the
identities of school boys and slow writers, considering their hands virtually indistinguishable.
Let me clarify. The hands of slow writers—that is, the hands of people designated as
bradeos graphontes, together with hands that are similar but lack the designation!2!—come in
two varieties: severely multistroke hands that, if they belorged in a school context, would be
called “zero-grade hands,” and “alphabetic hands,” which had at least learned the letter shapes.
Slow writers’ hands resemble the hands of those beginners in school who could copy a limited
amount of text, but not the hands of students functioning at other levels. In addition, while
school hands generally learned from the beginning to link some of their letters, slow writers’
hands trace each letter separately and often separate the individual characters by large spaces.

1164P VI 308.
gsc Schubart 1925, 13-14.
See Schubart Pas), P28). The same terminology was maintained by later palaeographers. Thus Hunger
1961, 74 considers the Curse of Artemisia an example of the rather primitive and schulmassigen Schrift of a woman
inexperienced in writing, and the same is true for Seider 1990, III,1, pp. 141-45, Abb.8, f h
Artemisia show the basic forms learned in school. , Shaka hea aan
119S¢e Turner 1980, 88-92.
120See Youtie (1971) 251.
121 Ror people not called slow, but whose writing is very ill-formed, see Youtie 1971, 256-58.
 PALAEOGRAPHY tiv

Slow writers had probably attended school for one or two years, attaining a minimal literacy:
they had learned to copy from models, but never proceeded to a stage where they were
required to write quickly. After leaving school, when they had to write their names and a few
lines of a subscription, they did not go back exactly to the forms learned in school, but
regressed to a stage of minimum discomfort and maximum legibility.
Dating School Hands
Both teachers’ and students’ hands are difficult to date: the former because teachers con-
sciously eschewed cursive scripts in favor of easy legibility, and the latter because students
were unable to follow the fashions in penmanship that changed century by century.!22 A school
hand, which is idiosyncratic, is at the opposite extreme from an impersonal “book hand.”!23 A
student does not achieve his own personal script at an elementary level and, even though he
traces the letters in the same way, the end results may differ greatly in the same exercise.
While documentary hands follow in their variations the passing of time, and even “book
hands” show subtle but still identifiable changes, school hands remain unchanged for centuries.
At times it is possible to single out in the hand of a student elements that are datable: an
epsilon whose crossbar is detached from the main arch (as in 100), a slanted delta whose base
extends on both sides,!24 a v-shaped upsilon.!25 Nevertheless, in a school exercise single ele-
ments only point very roughly to a date: it is difficult to know how long certain details of a
script might persist in a school hand. It is likely that teachers were conservative in this respect
and introduced new characteristics of a script only after they had been sufficiently tested.
Since it is very rare for a school exercise to bear a complete date,!2° it is necessary to
find reference points to provide a framework for dating. Occasionally some cursive writing by
the student (246) or by someone else (302) comes together with the exercise, or school work
may appear on the back of a document that is more or less precisely datable (294). Since it is
difficult to find a sufficient number of chronological indicators for a framework of dates, one
lacks the means to place the study of school hands on a sound and objective basis. The rela-
tively few exercises of the Ptolemaic period are particularly challenging in this respect, because
the lack of an adequate number of literary texts from this period renders it difficult to make a
classification of types and styles.!?’

Evaluating the papyrus that contains the Funeral Oration of Hyperides, 283, F.G. Kenyon
noted its literary importance, in spite of its many blunders and the appearance of its hand. He
added, however, that the papyrus “for the humbler purposes of palaeography is not very use-
ful. A schoolboy’s exercise can throw little light on the writing of trained literary scribes, and
holds no place in the history of palaeography.”!?8 Nevertheless, one of the main duties of

122For similar difficulties in dating Coptic school exercises, see Husselman 1947, 131 and MPER NS XVIII,
jo. I:
123 See Roberts 1955, xi.
124s ce, e.g., 86 and 88.
125566, e.g., 83.
126On this matter, see pp. 88-89.
127S¢¢, however, Eric G. Turner, “Ptolemaic Bookhands and Lille Stesichorus,” Scrittura e Civiltd 4 (1980)
19-40.
128K enyon 1899, 103-04.
118 IDENTIFYING SCHOOL EXERCISES

palaeographical science is, as the same scholar recognized, to reconstruct from a consideration
of all graphic phenomena “the history of the evolution of Greek writing.”!?? A thorough
knowledge of school hands is essential, and is vital for the foundations of palaeography.

129Frederick G. Kenyon, “The Palaeography of the Herculaneum Papyri,” Festschrift Theodor Gomperz
(Wien 1902) 380.
PART THREE

Writing in Graeco-Roman Schools

 ae X.
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8 The Teachers’ Models

Teaching in ancient schools was organized in a simple, primitive way, especially at the
elementary level. There were no desks, no teaching aids such as blackboards, and a limited
supply of writing materials, which impelled students to reuse sherds and the blank backs of
papyri that already bore writing on the front. It is unlikely that textbooks, written by profes-
sionals on rolls of papyrus or on codices, were widely used, because they were too fragile for
a large number of students to handle.! Very little is known about the individual lesson prepara-
tion of teachers in their own homes or in libraries. In a well-known passage of Plutarch,
Alcibiades, as he is leaving boyhood, accosts a school teacher to demand a book of Homer.
When the teacher says that he has nothing of Homer, Alcibiades becomes enraged to the point
of striking the teacher with his fist.? It is likely that teachers had to confront a shortage of
books even in Graeco-Roman Egypt. Even supposing that sometimes they had any books at all,
it is improbable that they entrusted them to their pupils to be circulated in class. Thus already
Marrou remarked that 379 was likely to have been a teacher’s book used for class preparation,
rather than a livre d’écolier.3
Textbooks inscribed by professionals to be used in schools are difficult to identify, with
the exception of a few books whose content and presentation are so elementary that it is
unlikely that they addressed a general public. Thus, 81, 84, and 97, which are fragments of
syllabaries inscribed by professional scribal hands on fine papyrus codices, were elementary
school books.* Similarly, school textbooks include 120, a parchment codex presenting rare
words divided into syllables, and probably 295, which preserves the fragments of a roll in-
scribed by a proficient “Biblical majuscule” hand and containing a Psalm with the words
divided into syllables by middle dots. When one moves to higher levels of learning, however,
it is necessary to rely on external characteristics, such as separation of words by spaces or bars
and an unusual number of accents and lectional signs.> Texts presenting such features are more
likely to have addressed students or, at least, readers who had some need for lectional
assistance in decoding words. Nevertheless, a margin of uncertainty concerning their use in
schools always remains. Models inscribed by teachers, on the other hand, provide unques-
tionable examples of books made for the use of students. I shall now consider these models as
a group in order to assess their physical characteristics, the writing materials they favored, and
the levels and needs of education they specifically addressed.

Ischolars, however, usually refer to books used in elementary classrooms; see, for instance, Bonner 1977,
116.
2See Plutarch, Alc. VII 1: Thy 6é madixqy nrrkiav Tapaddcoowy ET€oTH yoappaTodidacKary Kai BiBdiov
irnoev ‘Ounpixov. eimovToc 6é Tod didaoKddou pydév ExErv ‘Opipor, KovdtrAw KabiKdpEvoc avrod TapHrGer.
3See Marrou 1975, I 233.
4Cf. p. 41.
5See above p. 49 note 109 and p. 85 note 97.
122 WRITING IN GRAECO-ROMAN SCHOOLS

Literary Evidence for the Use of Models

The ancient sources testify to the existence of teachers’ models used in schools. Clement of
Alexandria calls models hypogrammoi paidikoi (bwoypappoi mavéckot), but refers only to
models containing the so-called chalinoi (xadvoi), alphabets in scrambled order.® In the school
colloquies of the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana models are also called Aypogrammoi:’ a
student in school erases the exercises of the previous day from his tablet and then copies some
writing from a model (repvypadw mpdc Tov UToyoappdv). In this text the term hypogrammos
is glossed with the Latin exemplar. A very similar school scene is preserved in the Celtes col-
loquies, where a student copies from a model (wapaypadw mpo¢g Tov étvypappov.)® The word
epigrammos is glossed as superpostum, and immediately above, in a list of school implements,
as superpositum.° In the same list the term hypogrammos is also quoted and is glossed as
praescriptum. Perhaps we can surmise that hypogrammos was the model that the teacher wrote
for students, but that the term epigrammos indicated the teacher’s model of writing when it was
inscribed on the same tablet or piece of papyrus to be copied by the pupil immediately
underneath. The school exercises show numerous examples of both kinds.
Seneca says that children learned to write following a model: pueri ad praescriptum di-
scunt.!° He calls by the name praescriptum a model that the pupils try to imitate as their parent
or master guides their fingers. Then, according to Seneca, after learning the letters, students
were supposed to improve their handwriting by imitating more complicated models: deinde
imitari iubentur proposita et ad illa reformare chirographum. Seneca alludes to the content of
these models in a different passage, when he says that one need only go to an elementary
school to find maxims emanating from highbrow philosophers on students’ models: in puerili
esse praescripto.!!
With the same term, praescriptum, Quintilian indicates the very first models from which
a student learned his letters: wooden models, where the letters were carved so that students
could trace them by themselves without needing an adult’s hand to guide their fingers.
Quintilian says that on models of this kind pupils were forced to write within the outlines of
the letters, and did not make mistakes as they did when following models inscribed in wax
presumably those described above: namque neque errabit, quemadmodum in ceris, Sonnenene
enim utrimque marginibus neque extra praescriptum egredi poterit.'* In a different passage
Quintilian speaks in general of children learning to write by imitating models, praescripta, but
he does not describe them, sic litterarum ductus, ut scribendi fiat usus, pueri sequun-
tur...omnis denique disciplinae initia ad propositum sibi prescriptum formari videmus.'3 Ear-
lier in his work he speaks of the value of setting maxims of moral import as writing samples

See Clement, Strom. V 8 48.4-9; 49.1; 359.1-9; 360.3 Stahlin—Friichtel. Clement knew of three differ.
xaduvoi used as models of writing. See above p. 39.
7Sce Goetz 1892, 225.
8See Dionisotti 1982, 83-125, and especially p. 99 line 27.
See line 24.
10Seneca, Epist.Mor. 94.51.
\lSeneca Ep. 94.9. See p. 44 note 67 and p. 143.
12S¢e Inst.Or. I ie eral
13See Inst.Or. X 2, 2.
 THE TEACHERS’ MODELS 123

for students to copy: ii quoque versus qui ad imitationem scribendi proponentur non otiosas
velim sententias habeant sed honestum aliquid monentes. 4
A different term for models, protypium, is mentioned by Cassian in reference to an early
activity of students: the imitation of characters inscribed in models and wax exemplars,
protypiis quibusdam et formulis cerae diligenter impressis.'> This is the only literary attesta-
tion of the term protypium, but in Sophocles’ Greek Lexicon the word protypon (mpétvTov) is
listed with the meaning “model, pattern.”
The existence of models that teachers wrote for their students may also be attested on
Athenian vases of the fifth century BC. A typical school scene with instruction in poetry, writ-
ing, and music is represented in every detail on the famous vase of Douris, dating from about
480 Bc.!° In addition to flute and lyre instructors, there is a teacher holding an open roll. On
one side is represented another teacher with a notebook of tablets in his lap: he is writing
something on it, while a student is standing in front of him. A similar scene is visible in a cup
in the Antikenmuseum of Basel: again a teacher is portrayed sitting and writing on a tablet.!7
The student facing the teacher is perhaps waiting for the model to be finished.}8

List of the Models in the Exercises

379 Cairo, Journal d’entrée 65445. III Bc.

380 =P.Berol.inv. 13044 r. I Bc.
383. BM inv.Add.MS. 34186. II AD.
48 O.Claud.inv. 50. II AD.
49 O.Mich.inv. 4544. Roman.
134 P.Berol. 13234. Roman.
285 OMM inv. 779. II-III AD.
286 OMM inv. 1197. II-III AD.
136 T.Hearst Museum 6-21416. II-III AD.
204 O.Berol. 10747. I-III AD.
135 P.Ross.Georg. 112. MU-IlI AD.
139 P.Ross.Georg. 113. Il AD.
141. P.Vindob.G. 26011k. III AD.
138 P.Mich.inv. 4953. III AD.
292. T.BL Add.MS. 33293. III AD.
386 T.Leid.BPG 109. III AD.
365 P.Vindob.G. 40382. III AD.
142 T.Brooklyn 37.1724e TII-IV AD.
296 T.Berol.inv. 13839. III-IV AD.
297 P.BL inv. 230 (recto). II-IV AD.

l4gce Inst.Or. 11, 35. See p. 44 note 66 and p. 142.

I5gee Cassian, Conlatio X.5.
16See Beck 1975, pl. 10, 53-54.
17S¢e Beck 1975, ch. II Note 7 (m).
18Both scenes have traditionally been interpreted as portraying teachers in the act of correcting students’ writ-
ing.
124 WRITING IN GRAECO-ROMAN SCHOOLS

298 P.BL inv. 230 (verso). II-IV AD.

390 P.Chester Beatty. ILI-IV AD.
391 T.Brooklyn 37.473E. IV AD.
392 T.Brooklyn 37.1912E. IV AD.
389 T.Borely inv. 1567. IV AD.
395 T.Leid.Pap.inst.inv. V 16-20. IV AD.
396 T.Louvre inv. MND. IV AD.
112 O.UC 31896. IV AD.
220 O.Périgord inv. 2382. IV AD.
113. O.UC DIS. IV AD.
400 T.Louvre inv. MNE-912. III-V AD.
404 T.Berol. 14000 (side B tab. 4). IV-V AD.
306 T.Brux.E 8507. IV-V AD.
148 T.Wiirzburg K 1023. IV-V AD.
150 T.Wiirzburg K 1020. IV-V AD.
308 T.K6lIn. V AD.
160 T.Louvre inv. AF 1195. V AD.
85 T.Louvre inv. MND 552c. V-VI AD.
313. Fordham inv. T 1/82. V-VI AD.
158 T.Mich.inv. 29974. V-VI AD.
311 O.Petr. 449. V-VI AD.
315 O.Petr. 399-404, 406-08, 471-72. V-VI AD.
60 T.Louvre inv. AF 1193-2, 1193-3. V-VI AD.
121 T.Ashm.inv. 1982.1119. VI AD.
316 P.Ryl. 141. VI AD.
63 P.Wash.inv. 235v. VI AD?
319 O.MMA 11.1.210. VI-VII aD.
67 O.MMA 12.180.107. VI-VII AD.
90 T.Wirzburg K 1017. VI-VII AD.
91 O.Deir el Gizaz 14. VI-VII AD.
92 T.Paris BN inv. y 19 920. VII AD.
124 P.Vat.Gr. 54. VII AD.
125. HT Moen 5. VII AD.
321 P.VatiGr. 56:. VIT AD:
70 T.Wiirzburg K 1027. VII AD.
229 T.Moen inv. 78. VII AD.
357 P.Vindob.G. 26186. VII AD.
411 WT Barbara. VII AD.

General Characteristics of the Models

There are about 60 exercises that I consider teachers’ models: either they are accompanied by
a
copied version of a student or they present characteristics typical of models. Although in the
catalogue I have included a few more items as possible models, I prefer to consider now only
 THE TEACHERS’ MODELS 125

those whose attribution to teachers is relatively secure because of the material used, the quality
of the hand, and, sometimes, the presence of external characteristics such as word separation
and syllabic division. Consequently I will not discuss many of the well-written alphabets on
ostraca, since it is unclear whether they were written by regular teachers, by scribes, or by
teachers in scribal schools. Knowledge of a typical teacher’s hand does not help much in this
case because in alphabets all the letters are separated.
Almost two-thirds of the models were inscribed on wooden and waxed tablets. There are
34 models on tablets in all, both individual and belonging to notebooks: 11 on waxed tablets
and 23 on wooden tablets. Columella speaks of teachers’ models on waxed tablets carrying let-
ters of the alphabet: “the plant with the Greek name like the letter coming after the first (beta,
the beet), which the skillful teacher imprints in the wax with the point of the stylus” (littera
proxima primae, pangitur in cera docti mucrone magistri). Among the tablets, in any case,
there is a definite preponderance of wooden tablets of Byzantine date.!9 Tablets were ideal as
models for several reasons: first of all, they could be erased and used many times; tablets could
also be passed around easily and without great risk of damage, unlike papyrus. Tablets were
the favored material of beginners copying their first writing exercises, and the smoothed sur-
face of waxed tablets was especially well-suited for calligraphic exercises. Although tablets of
unusually large size were probably used for classroom display,2° generally the models were
used by students at close range: even the large size of the letters was not sufficient to permit a
model to be read and copied from a distance.
Teachers also used ostraca for models, though not as often as tablets. At least 13 models
were inscribed on sherds. None of the models on ostraca contains the student’s copy
underneath: the uneven surface of ostraca discouraged the attempts of beginners or advanced
students working on calligraphy. Ostraca were useful to teachers for writing model alphabets,
however. The limited length of the exercise compensated for the coarse texture of the sherds,
and alphabets on ostraca could also be easily handled. More intriguing is the presence among
the models of a few heavy ostraca of large size containing selections of moral maxims, long
lists of words, or Homeric verses.?!
Papyrus as a medium for models is represented by 11 items: at least 5 are scraps of
modest size, 4 are long rolls, and one is a codex. Generally models are written along the fibers
on the rectos of papyri, with the exception of three pieces, which are inscribed across the
fibers.22 Because of their fragility, the majority of the models on papyrus were not meant to be
copied by beginners. Only one of them, moreover, was accompanied by the copy that the stu-
dent made, since tablets were preferred for that. Some of the examples written by teachers may
have been intended for individual use and consultation by the instructor himself rather than for
use by students.23 Although it is unclear whether 379, a Livre d’écolier, was written by a
teacher or by a professional scribe, it is interesting that the hand displays characteristics very
similar to teachers’ hands, with large letter size, remarkable clarity, and a few linking strokes.

19See above pp. 68-69.

20See, e.g., 292 and 313.
21 About these, see p. 64.
22See 138, 298, 365.
23See, e.g., 390.
126 WRITING IN GRAECO-ROMAN SCHOOLS

In this roll the presentation of the exercises also shows similarities to the presentation in
teachers’ models.
Models were particularly useful to beginners when they copied their first maxims and
tried to imitate faithfully the master’s letters inscribed at the top of the same tablet or on a
separate tablet. In the same way, more advanced students, who still needed practice and may
have wanted to learn a particular style, found it useful to have the master’s letters to guide
them.24 To all these writing exercises, which usually consisted of short maxims, one should
add the models which present maxims, sayings, and limited amounts of verse that were pre-
served without the pupils’ copies.2> Another kind of exercise that often appears on models is a
list of words.26 Usually the words are divided into syllables by blank spaces. Since such lists
appear frequently on models and more rarely on students’ copies, one may assume that, unless
pure chance is responsible, these models were used primarily for reading. Other exercises that
teachers often inscribed on models were alphabets and syllabaries.”’
Teachers’ models often display longer passages.2® A few of them present maxims or Ho-
meric verses that the students may have used for reference,?? and some reproduce passages
written in scriptio continua.*° However, in most of the models preserving long passages the
syllables are distinguished by spaces, dots, or bars, or the words are separated by spaces or
oblique strokes, or both.3! Passages presenting word divisions were infrequently written by
students. It seems likely that models in which the syllables or the words are separated fulfilled
the function of books for readers in need of assistance: such models were extremely convenient
when students practiced reading. Only a few models seem to have addressed more advanced
students, who copied from them titles for compositions and some grammar. At this level, in
fact, students had already mastered writing and often wrote from dictation:32 the models were
no longer essential tools for learning.
Incomplete dates by day, month, and sometimes indiction year appear on some models.?3
One model, 121, is dated by the indiction year and the Era of Diocletian, but the suggested
dates (544-545 AD) are not very secure, especially because a year seems to have elapsed
between the writing of the texts on the front and on the back of the tablet, which are clearly
inscribed by the same hand. Dates are usually assigned to models only on a palaeographical
basis. Assigned dates are very approximate and are often indicated by the editors within a
range of more than one century. It is not easy to specify the date of a model: the neat hand of
such texts is the result of a discipline that a teacher has achieved in order to obtain regularity

24Models that show underneath the student’s copy or were copied on a different tablet include 63, 134, 135
136, 141, 142, 148, 150, 160, 383, 386, 389, 391, 392, 396 and 138 (on papyrus). In addition, in 158, which dis.
plays the maxim inscribed in the first three lines of the tablet while the rest is left empty, it is posable to see the
guidelines that were traced underneath for the student.
25See 139, 204, 220, 229, 285, 286, and 404.
26See 112, 113, 121, 124, 125, 380, 390, 395, 112, 113, 308, 400, and 411.
27See 48, 49, 60, 67, 70, 85, 90, 91, and 92.
28Sce 292, 296, 297, 298, 306, 308, 311, 313, 315, 316, 319, 321, 379, and 380.
29See 311, 315, 316, and 319.
30S¢e the last part of 379, 306 and 380: these addressed older students.
31§¢e above pp. 47-49 and 87.
32Qn dictation, see above pp. 175-76.
33Se¢ pp. 88 and 90-91.
 THE TEACHERS’ MODELS 127

and good legibility. The cursive elements are too few to help much in dating, while the hand
does not possess the finished look of a real “book hand” and remains only in the peripheral
regions of a style. A teacher’s hand is even less subject to changes in fashion than a literary
hand and shows great resistance to modifications. Occasionally it is possible to base the dating
on more objective evidence. Thus in 379 internal elements regarding the composition of an
epigram of the anthology in honor of Ptolemy Philopator suggest a date between 217 and not
long after 203 Bc. A few more models are more easily datable, because either they were
inscribed on the front or back of documents written in cursive,34 or are ostraca found at the
same site as documentary ostraca.39
Teachers’ models sometimes display an interesting expression: philoponei (¢:AoTévet,
“be diligent, pay attention”). On tablet 134 a teacher warns a student to be diligent, unless he
wants to be thrashed. The same expression appears in other exercises, either appended to a
maxim or as part of the maxim itself.3° In 106 the exhortation is expanded: “since you are
young, pay attention” (véoc Gv didoTOver). A variation is visible in the exercise of a scribe of
the first century AD who practices several documentary formulae with an already proficient
hand, repeating a few times: “pay attention as you write” (¢:Aomé6ver yod&dwv).3’ Contrary to
the opinion of some scholars,8 I believe that the expression is only an exhortation that teachers
incorporated into the writing exercises and had the students copy for salutary practice, not
unlike what happened in modern schoolrooms quite recently.39? @:Aomwéver or drAoTOvel cannot
be viewed either as a negative evaluation (you did not do well, pay attention), or as a positive
mark (the student is diligent). First of all it is preferable to consider the verb form an impera-
tive rather than a third person indicative. An examination of the hands, moreover, reveals that
this expression was part of the model and that it was obediently copied by students as part of
the writing exercise. The expression philoponei is similar to another that appears in model 136,
where the teacher appends to his maxim the exhortation “imitate it.” In this case too the
recommendation was unfailingly copied by the student. As in the apprentice scribe’s exercise,
where philoponei was an admonition to write with care, in students’ exercises the expression
should also be considered an encouragement to write diligently and well.
The word philoponia (¢:AoTovic) often appears in Hellenistic inscriptions. In the gym-
nasia of the Hellenistic world students were required to compete not only in contests involving
physical training but also in competitions of academic performance. Together with lists of vic-
tors in athletic agones there are lists of victors in “good behavior” (evtaéia), “academic a-
chievement” (zoAvpaéia), and “good effort” (¢:AoTovia). Among the inscriptions one found

34Sce, e.g., 138, 306, and 365.

35See 285 and 286.
36See 106 (a very well written ostracon, perhaps a model), 139 (a teacher’s model), 392 (written on several
tablets by the student), and 389 (tablet with teacher’s model which is then copied by one or more students on three
other tablets), and 220.
37The exercise, MPER NS XV 97, is not included in the catalogue, since it presupposes specialized scribal
training.
38. Froehner, the editor of 389, views the expression diAoméver or PidoTove’ as a teacher’s mark added
later to the exercises. The same opinion has Ziebarth 1914, 129.
39Cf. what W.A. Alcott, On Teaching Penmanship (Boston 1833) 7, says, “Perhaps we write over the top of
the second page in letters of monstrous size: ‘Amend your hand,’ or some other equally sage precept; and having
done so, require the pupil to imitate it.”
128 WRITING IN GRAECO-ROMAN SCHOOLS

at Eretria is particularly interesting: it consists of a small crown that surrounds the words
“Paramonos son of Dorotheos, for the good effort of the children” (p:Aomoviac Twaidav
Tapcépovoc Awpoéov).4° Paramonos was likely to have been a teacher who obtained a prize
for helping his students do well or whose students collectively won a contest.
The verb philoponein appears a few times in papyri in personal letters from the second
to the fourth century AD.4! It is used transitively and intransitively as an admonition to a slave,
a young mother, a sister, and a brother. In three of these letters the verb can be related to
school. In P.Mil. Vogl. 1 24 Patron seems to be a young child making every effort in school. In
P.Oxy. X 12964? a son writes to his worried father, “Do not worry about my studies. I am
trying hard and taking relaxation. I will be all right” (¢cAoTwovobpev Kai dvayixoper). The two
verbs almost seem to be in antithesis, but perhaps this student, Aurelius Dios, had found the
formula of success. In P. Giss. I 80 a father, sending leftovers from his table to kathegetes (7),
wishes that the teacher would “show some diligence, pay attention” to his daughter (¢:Ao70-
pion eic adrhv). The writer in using the verb may have alluded to the usual practice of
teachers asking students to philoponein. The expression seems ironic, almost like a student’s
revenge: finally it was the teacher’s turn to “pay attention.”
The teachers’ models are particularly fascinating because they are the most tangible and
conspicuous sign of the work and the pedagogical methods of teachers in Graeco-Roman
Egypt. Teachers confronted the shortage of professionally produced school books by creating
their own books. The models had various functions: they served as copy-books geared to
improving handwriting, exemplars for students making their own books, and reading books
affording students special assistance. Since their content continued to change as they were peri-
odically replaced and rewritten, the models could follow the growth and progress of students as
real books. To use the expression coined by an eminent palaeographer with regard to the set of
conventions by which professional scribes from the seventh century onward tried to improve
the intelligibility of minuscule scripts, the models relied heavily on a “grammar of legi-
bility.”4? Medieval scribes attempted to use clear and legible scripts and adopted special con-
ventions to distinguish words, sentences, and clauses. Not unlike these scribes, teachers made
an effort to create texts that were less challenging to inexperienced readers.

40Sce Ziebarth 1914, 144-45. The inscription is visible on the book’s cover.
4ISee the reference to kathegetes (7) and P.Mil.Vogl. 1 24.58, P.Mil. Il 74.6, P.land. VI 97.6, P.Oxy. VII
1069.20 and X 1296.7, P.Nag.Hamm. 70.16. In school exercises the expression appears from the end of the first to
the fourth century.
42The letter was already mentioned on p: LS:
43See M.B. Parkes, Scribes, Scripts, and Readers (London 1991) 2.
9 Writing and Levels of Education

Teachers’ models addressed the needs of students at various educational levels, from the time
when writing consisted merely of blind imitation of the master’s letters to the time when stu-
dents were able to copy whole columns with understanding, thus sometimes making their own
books. At this more advanced stage students learned to take demanding texts from dictation
and approached writing as composition, from crafting summaries and paraphrases to producing
original texts. The hand of a student underwent dramatic changes from the days of tracing its
first letters to the time when writing became easy and self-confident. An “evolving hand” was
still uneven, but was a serviceable tool, capable of writing down columns in succession. A
“rapid hand” might not be easily distinguished from the well-developed hand of a scholar writ-
ing notes and commentaries, or from the confident hand of an adult copying a book for his
own use. The observation that students’ hands matured as they progressed may seem a
platitude, but it needs to be emphasized: sometimes scholars seem to consider the state of being
a student quite fixed and fossilized with respect to writing proficiency.! It is necessary to sur-
vey the hands of students to see how ready they were to fulfill the demands writing imposed
upon them at the different levels of education.
This investigation will also help to clarify the question of how writing was introduced in
schools. It is customary to view the teaching and acquisition of writing in Graeco-Roman times
as indistinguishable from the instruction in and mastery of reading. Modern histories of ancient
education state that the teaching of writing and reading developed along parallel lines, and that
the stages of difficulty through which reading and writing progressed were correlated with the
quantity of material to master. I have maintained throughout this study the same sequence of
progressive steps that was followed when a student learned to read: the ancient testimonia do
not put the same emphasis on the various stages of learning to write, but appear to refer to
reading when describing the exposure of students to grammata.* A study of school hands at the
various educational levels provides a complete set of verifiable data on which it is now possible
to base a sound investigation of the methods followed in teaching writing.*

IThus H.J.M. Milne asserts about 241, an ostracon of the Phoenissae that has many mistakes but is well writ-
ten, “Perhaps for use in school, but certainly not written by a schoolboy.” And Peter J. Parsons, about hand A and
C of 388, “Neither A nor C can be called a schoolboy hand: they are not people to whom writing was a new
accomplishment.” Despite the mistakes, then, Parsons prefers to see the work of schoolmasters in the writing of the
tablets, which is irregular and uneven, but practiced.
2See chapter pp. 139-43.
3The number of school hands taken into consideration for this discussion is different from that of the hands
examined in Table 3 of chapter 5 because I have included in the graphs only the hands that I could inspect directly
from a photograph or autopsy. I maintain the separation of the data into the Ptolemaic, Roman, and Byzantine peri-
ods in order to test whether education experienced any changes at all.
 130 Lethe esqdahicy aay)

Exerclses
of
Number

neon
Xs
Xx
eas
Nee
ee .
+9! Secaee, PNA

BS‘2Betetetet
ras

Hand 3

Reed Ptolernale ESSS) Roman = (&’X] Byzantine

Piste tigen)

ms
xX XD OE TO
PSS eeete!
Exercises
of
Number
(
REESE ASRS D Se
SESS

Hand 1 Hand 2

Bees] Ptolemale RSS Roman (SX) Byzantine

 WRITING AND LEVELS OF EDUCATION ba

Letters and Alphabets

I have considered the initial stage of learning the letters of the alphabet to be divided into two
complementary levels: practicing individual letters in no apparent order, and writing partial or
whole alphabets with some knowledge of the alphabetical sequence.* The first level, Letters,
shows mostly type 1 hands, “zero-grade hands” together with some type 2 hands, “alphabetic
hands,” which were in the process of learning the letters’ shapes. Exercises consisting of prac-
ticing single letters in random order are preserved almost exclusively from the Byzantine
period,> with no examples from the Roman period. Unless the incomplete and random preser-
vation of the evidence is entirely responsible for this fact, it appears that Roman teachers found
it more useful to start from the complete alphabet. I am not including an individual graph for
Alphabets.® The data regarding school hands at the level of Alphabets show examples from
both the Roman and Byzantine periods: this fact is sufficient justification for splitting the initial
stage into two levels. At the level of Alphabets, moreover, in addition to mostly type 1 hands,
“zero-grade” and type 2, “alphabetic” hands, there are also some hands of type 3, “evolving
hands.”’ The presence of the latter can be variously explained: by the better coordination of
individual student, by the need of a more advanced student to practice the alphabet, or by the
fact that some of these alphabets, accompanied by the students’ names, may have been
demonstrations that they gave of their recently acquired knowledge of the letters.8
Syllabaries
There are only 13 examples of syllabaries written by students: not only was this exercise often
performed orally, but almost half of the extant syllabaries were the work of teachers or profes-
sional scribes. The evidence from syllabaries is also impaired by the fact that ten of the exam-
ples written by students belong to the Byzantine period, while only two come from the Roman
and one from the Ptolemaic period. The preserved texts reveal that unskilled beginners penned
only three syllabaries—one hand of type 1, “zero-grade,” and two hands of type 2, “alpha-
betic”—with the rest of the examples being written by type 3 hands, “evolving,” and even
hands of type 4, “rapid hands.”° Since it is usually maintained that students were exposed to
syllabaries immediately after learning the letters of the alphabet, these data are a little surpris-
ing. One would expect to find more very inexpert hands engaged in this kind of exercise. Is it
unlikely that at the level of Syllabaries the hand of a student could be fluent already, if he had
only been exposed to the writing of letters of the alphabet.
Lists of words
From the graph showing the correlation between school hands and the writing of lists of words
(fig. 2), one learns that the hand by far most represented is the “evolving hand,” while exam-

4See pp. 31 and 37-38.

SAs we said above on p. 38 and note 9, it is better not to take into account the three Ptolemaic exercises
because it is far from certain that they represented only letters and not, for instance, the initials of names.
6The comprehensive graph on p. 136 is sufficiently clear for that.
7They are three and belong to the Byzantine period.
8See, C5910
°There are four Byzantine syllabaries penned by uneven but rather skilled hands. Again, the situation is
clarified by the general graph on p. 136.
 Writing Exercises (fig. 3)

errors
Seo eS 004
SCOR
P er

RSoe eS05
Resesesenenens
BS PRNESERISIG
aes o.cc6.8. pum Oo. 8,
C622200.6,
SS

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Exercises
of
Number

Besse] Ptolemale SSS) Roman fs] Byzantine

Short Passages (fig. 4)

KRIS
-

KES
SKves
SOO
Reeeconenaces
s 0-0 O-0-@-4 \N
Ke
Exercises
of
Number

Sees
Oe

Bees] Ptolemale ESS Roman (YX) Byzantine

 WRITING AND LEVELS OF EDUCATION 133

ples of hands of type 4, “rapid hands,” are also present and balance the extant hands of type 2,
“alphabetic hands.” Hand 1, the hand of the total novice, has disappeared. It seems that most
students engaged in writing words showed a considerable fluency in writing, even though their
hand had not lost all of its clumsy characteristics. This general picture is in agreement with
that presented by syllabaries. In addition, the large number of lists that display words divided
into syllables!° proves that this level came immediately after the level of Syllabaries. It is sur-
prising that comparatively speaking so few very unskilled hands practiced this kind of exercise.

Writing Exercises and Short Passages

Students at different levels of ability engaged in Writing Exercises to improve their hand and
copied Short Passages: Maxims, Sayings, and Limited Amount of verse.'! In many respects the
two stages overlap and are complementary: this is confirmed by examination of the students’
hands at both stages. It is likely that beginners writing short passages copied them from models
that have not been preserved. Older students did the same when they needed to improve the
quality of their hands or to learn a different style. The latter students are represented by the
numerous hands of type 3, “evolving hands,” and especially by “rapid hands.”
At the other end of the spectrum, one is somewhat surprised to find so many students
who had not been exposed to much writing before. Their strokes are tentative and quiver with
uncertainty and effort. They seem to have been incapable of writing much more than appears in
a given exercise. This is the first time that a consistent group of such deficient hands is seen
above the level of Alphabets. The solid groups of hands of types 1 and 2, “zero-grade” and
“alphabetic hands,” are striking. The “zero-grade” and “alphabetic” hands, which were hardly
present at the latter levels, are struggling to keep up, copying blindly from models that they
often could not comprehend. Beginners moved directly from writing alphabets to copying pas-
sages of limited extent, and the two stages of Writing Exercises and Short Passages often inter-
rupted and preceded the sequence Syllabaries and Lists. But all this seems to go against that
ordo docendi—from the simple to the more complex—that according to literary sources
teachers in antiquity followed.
Longer Passages
At the level of Longer Passages hand 3, “the evolving hand,” is the most represented, together
with a substantial number of type 4 hands, “rapid hands.” The “evolving hands” still show
some clumsy characteristics, but they also demonstrate confidence and the ability to handle
large amounts of writing. Comparatively very few type 2 hands, “alphabetic hands,” are still
present.!2 At times!? these “alphabetic hands,” now responsible for extensive writing, seem to
have been the same kind of hands that Plato considered ultimately hopeless when he advised
against insisting on strict standards of speed and beauty from students who were not gifted in

10Se¢ p. 43.
\1gee pp. 43-44.
12In most cases these hands are penning relatively short passages, which are nevertheless longer than 7-8
lines and because of that have been included at this stage.
13See e.g., 264 and 287.
 134 Long Passages (fig. 5)

os
ererereren Sy

Exerclses
of
Number

Hand 1 Hand 2 Hand 3 Hand 4

fegsed Ptolernale SSS) Roman = [XX] Byzantine

Cramimiadr <nicate

SP
WH
Oo
©w
“s
AD

— _—

SOL
Exercises
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Number
nen
DK PA OK

cee
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i
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ST
Hand 1 Hand 2 Hand 3 Hand 4

Bee} Ptolemalc ESS Roman (YX) Byzantine

 WRITING AND LEVELS OF EDUCATION 15

writing.'4 Hand 1, “the zero-grade hand,” has disappeared at this stage: the task of writing
long passages was beyond its capacity.

Scholia Minora, Compositions, and Grammar

At the level of Scholia Minora only 19 hands, the only ones that appear to be students’ hands,
are taken into consideration. Undoubtedly many more papyri preserving Scholia Minora were
written by students, but they cannot be distinguished from papyri preserving private copies
because of the overall proficiency of the writing. I will not show an individual graph for this
and the following level for two reasons: the restricted number of exercises considered and the
evident similarity to the picture presented at the level Grammar (fig. 6), where more exercises
are included.!> At the level of Scholia Minora students wrote relatively well. Only five type 3
hands, “evolving hands,” are visible, while the remaining are “rapid hands.” The former
represent the work of students who had not yet reached the fluency of most of their classmates:
they show irregular alignment and heavy and coarse strokes. At this level hand 2, “the alpha-
betic hand,” has all but disappeared, because students had already spent a considerable number
of years in school. Thirteen students’ hands penned Compositions, Paraphrases, and Sum-
maries. They are mostly “rapid hands,” together with five “evolving hands.”
The final level Grammar includes conjugations, declensions, and grammatical rules writ-
ten down by students. As with Scholia Minora, Ptolemaic samples are not present: grammar
was taught in schools only from the Roman period on. The graph shows the prevalence of type
4 hands, “rapid hands,” accompanied by some “evolving hands,” which can be identified by a
certain heaviness of the strokes and a tendency to degenerate in the course of a considerable
amount of writing. As in the two previous stages “zero-grade,” and “alphabetic hands” have
totally disappeared.

In conclusion, while hand 1, the “zero-grade hand,” is active especially at the levels of
Letters and Alphabets, after that, aside from a few isolated cases, its presence is only notice-
able in Writing Exercises and Short Passages. The hand of the total novice vanishes at the fol-
lowing level, where a student was required to write considerable amounts of text. Hand 2, “the
alphabetic hand,” is first visible with Letters, is conspicuous writing Alphabets and then fades
away to emerge again strongly in Writing Exercises and Short Passages. A few “alphabetic
hands” are still visible copying long passages, but at more advanced levels this hand cannot be
found. Hand 3, “the evolving hand,” is prevalent at the levels of Syllabaries, Lists of Words,
and especially Long Passages. It begins to fade_away at more advanced stages to be supplanted
by hand 4. “The rapid hand,” which is typical of intermediate and especially advanced stu-
dents, is prominent in Long Passages and becomes prevalent from the level of Scholia Minora
on. Strictly speaking, hand 4 should not be considered a “school hand,” since this term usually
refers to deficient hands at an imperfect stage of development. However, it is important to note
its appearance and prevalence at specific levels of education in order to be able to identify stu-
dents’ work even after their handwriting acquires some fluency.

14Sce above p. 104 and note 51.

15The overall picture is visible in the general graph, cf. p. 136.
136

Exercises
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 WRITING AND LEVELS OF EDUCATION 137

The correlation of types of students’ hands and levels of education allows interesting
insights about how students learned to write. It is generally assumed that in the Graeco-Roman
world students learned to write as they were learning to read, and by an identical method. The
evidence from the school exercises, however, unmistakably points to a progression of stages
different from the traditional sequence—from letters to syllables, words, and sentences—that
was certainly observed in teaching reading. Apparently, students who learned to write progres-
sed from Letters and Alphabets to Writing Exercises and Short Passages and only then pro-
ceeded to Syllabaries, Lists of Words, and Long Passages. After learning the alphabet and
before being introduced to a systematic study of syllables—that is, before reading—students
copied sentences and verses from models in order to improve the quality of their hand. In addi-
tion to the very poor quality of the handwriting, the meaningless jumble these students often
produced in copying blindly from models is a further proof that this kind of writing was intro-
duced very early, immediately after learning the letters of the alphabet.!® It is now necessary to
examine in detail the various ancient testimonia about the teaching of grammata and to verify
what they say specifically about learning to read and write, in order to ascertain whether the
testimony of the ancient authors about education openly contradicts the evidence of the ex-
ercises of Graeco-Roman Egypt.

l6g¢¢, e.g., 136.

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10 Learning to Write

Literary Evidence for Teaching Writing

The ancient literary sources are particularly effusive with respect to learning grammata.
According to them the process of learning the rudiments was divided into well-defined stages.
While the traditional interpretation of the literary evidence considers learning to read and
learning to write as parts of an undifferentiated process that followed an identical method,! I
believe that the literary evidence has been misinterpreted and confused.
All the literary sources agree on the existence of a gradual sequence of stages in learning
grammata. According to St. Augustine, teaching was supposed to respect a certain sequence,
and an ordo docendi had to be maintained: “If we heard of a teacher trying to teach syllables to
a boy who did not already know his letters, we would not just laugh at him and consider him
foolish, we would think that he was totally out of his mind, because he did not follow the
sequence of teaching (tamen si quempiam ludimagistrum audiremus, conantem docere puerum
syllabas, quem prius litteras nemo docuisset; non dico ridendum tamquam stultum, sed vin-
ciendum tamquam furiosum putaremus, non ob aliud, opinor, nisi quod docendi ordinem non
teneret).”* Similarly St. Ambrose speaks of teaching letters per ordinem with mandatory stages
represented by syllables, words, and sentences (a syllabis ad nomina orationemque).? Manilius
too stresses that it is important to master each step in order, for if the teacher hurries to give
his explanations out of order the instruction will be in vain (quae nisi constiterint primis
fundata elementis, effluat in vanum rerum praeposterus ordo versaque quae propere dederint
praecepta magistri).4
Ancient students had to follow an orderly sequence of stages when they learned to read,
proceeding from letters to syllables and then to whole words and sentences. They learned how
to read by the so-called synthetic method, which started from the basic elements, the letters,
and built on them to construct words and sentences. Synthetic methods have been widely used
in all periods, and only relatively recently have efforts been made to begin with whole words
according to the “see-and-say” method.° The same sequence was followed when a student
learned how to write a word consciously and knowingly, syllable by syllable—that is, when he
really learned how to write and to express himself, advancing beyond simple copying. But
must we believe that students always had to learn and master their syllables before writing
down—that is, copying down—their first words and sentences? It is important to find out
whether the relevant statements in the various literary sources refer only to learning to read or
to both reading and writing.

ISee, e.g., Marrou 1975, 234 and Harvey 1978.

2st Augustine, De Ord. II 7 (24).
3De Abraham 1 30.
4 Astronom. Il 762-764, “For unless they are based upon underlying principles, the order of teaching and the
precepts that the teachers expounded too hurriedly will be lost and ill-arranged.”
SSee Gray 1956, 83-84. See also Douglas Pidgeon, “Theory and practice in learning to read,” in Mercer
1988, 126-39.
140 WRITING IN GRAECO-ROMAN SCHOOLS

Dionysius of Halicarnassus describes in detail the process of teaching the letters:

Te yoappaTta Grav Todevopeda, TMo@Tov pév TH SvVOMATH abvtav éxpavicdvoper,
Emerta Too TimovG Kal T&CS duVepEtc, E10’ O}TW TUG GUAAABAS Kal TH EV TAUTOLC
madn, Kal pweT& TOTO HOn Tac AEEELC Kal TH OUpBEBNKOTA AVTAIC, EKTQOELG TE AEYH
Kal ovaToAac Kai mTpocwoiac Kai Ta TapamdAjova TobTOC OTav O& THY TOITWY
emioThunv AGBwpev, TOTE Kpxbpeba yoapev Te Kai GVAyLyVaOKELY, KATH ovAAaBHY
Ka Boadéwc TO TO@ToV.©
When we are taught letters, first we learn their names, then their forms and values,
then in due course syllables and their modifications, and after that words and their
properties, viz. lengthenings and shortenings, accents, and the like. After acquiring the
knowledge of these things, we begin to write and read, syllable by syllable and slowly
at first.
It seems that at the beginning of the passage Dionysius is mainly describing the process of
learning how to read.’ Only later does he speak of writing. According to Dionysius, writing
was approached not only after the learning of the syllables and names but also when the student
had learned accents, quantities of the syllables, breathings, and so on. Mastering all these con-
cepts certainly took time: it is unreasonable to assume that students were not required in the
meantime to practice their letters and to improve their handwriting. The practice of copying
words and sentences from a model is not at variance with the account that Dionysius gives of
the learning of grammata.
It is clear from other sources as well that the ancients referred especially to reading
when describing the progression from letters to syllables to words. Gregory of Nyssa compares
the gradual teaching by the Church of religious concepts to the teaching of the grammatistai.
Receiving from their fathers very young children who still speak inarticulately, the gram-
matistai guide them gradually from the initial to the more advanced concepts, teaching them
first the names of the letters and their shapes to trace in the wax, then exposing the children to
syllables and to the pronunciation of words (weT& 6& TodTO Taig ovANABAic TpoGBiB&tovar Kai
ToY dvopaTav EEG Tadebovar Thy Expdvnowv).® Gregory’s use of the term ekphonesis clearly
indicates that he has reading aloud in mind. :
Manilius in his account of the beginning of education shows that he refers to reading:
ut rudibus pueris monstratur littera primum
per faciem nomenque suum, tum ponitur usus
tum coniuncta suis formatur syllaba nodis
hinc verbi structura venit per membra legendi,
tunc rerum vires atque artis traditur usus
perque pedes proprios nascentia carmina surgunt,
singulaque in summam prodest didicisse priora.?

6De Comp. Verb. 211 (XXV adfin.).

7W.R. Roberts, Dionysius of Halicarnassus. On Literary Composition (London 1910) 269, translates, “when
we are taught to read, first we learn the names of the letters.”
8De Benefic. 5-13.
?Astronom. Il 755-61.
 LEARNING TO WRITE 141

“Thus the shape and name of a letter is shown to beginners and then its value is
explained, then a syllable is formed by the linking of letters, then comes the building
up of the word to read through the component syllables, then the meaning of expres-
sions and the rules of grammar are taught, and verses arise in their own metres, and to
reach the final goal it is useful to have mastered each of the earlier steps.”
Manilius clearly points to reading as the object of the whole learning progression, particularly
in the line hinc verbi structura venit per membra legendi.
St. Ambrose, in the short passage about elementary education where he mentions the
traditional learning process, refers generically to instruction and does not point specifically to
writing. The expression he uses, ut si puerulum litteris imbuas,'° “to introduce a child to let-
ters,” is rather vague and probably refers to a method that at the beginning was rigidly used in
teaching reading. The evidence provided by the passages of St. Jerome concerning the educa-
tion of little Paula and Pacatula is equally uncertain.!! St. Jerome does not allude directly to
learning to write. Since he seems to repeat exactly what his predecessors say about learning
letters, it is plausible that he is also referring to learning to read. In his account Pacatula is
supposed to learn her alphabet, connect the letters into syllables, and then proceed to words
and sentences: “interim modo litterularum elementa cognoscat, iungat syllabas, discat nomina,
verba consociet.” It is the same progression that Paula will follow. The expression syllabas
iungat, “let her link syllables,” which occurs in both letters, might refer to reading; the same
is true for similar expressions such as ipsa nomina, per quae consuescet verba contexere, non
sint fortuita by which St. Jerome wishes that Paula could be exposed to meaningful words and
names, such as those of the prophets and the apostles and the whole list of patriarchs.!2
Quintilian, who is the most explicit source for the Roman world, was greatly influ-
enced by Greek practices. Quintilian starts by expounding a particular method for teaching a
child the shapes of the letters; immediately afterward, and before specifically discussing the
teaching of reading through the syllables, he speaks of the care teachers should devote to teach-
ing writing, cura bene ac velociter scribendi.'> Scribere ipsum, “writing one’s self,”!4 he says,
is of the utmost importance, and its foundations must be laid in the first years, since personal
writing is so necessary for the advanced student. After that Quintilian expounds at length the
method of teaching reading, Jectio, through syllabic combinations. As usual, he warns against
proceeding in a hurry and skipping passages, since reading can thus be greatly delayed,
incredibile est quantum morae lectioni festinatione adiiciatur.'> Only after lingering for some
time over the dangers of an improper method for teaching reading and on the wisdom of
making children read slowly at first does Quintilian move to writing:
illud non poenitebit curasse, cum scribere nomina puer, quemadmodum moris est,
coeperit, ne hanc operam in vocabulis vulgaribus et forte occurrentibus perdat.

10De¢ Abraham | 30.

17 etters 107.4 and 128.1.
12See Letter 107.4: “The names from which she will get into the way of connecting words should not be taken
at haphazard.”
13Inst.Or. 11, 28. |
14cf BH. Colson, M. Fabii Quintiliani Institutionis Oratoriae Liber I (Cambridge 1924) 20-21.
1Simst.Or. 11, 32.
142 WRITING IN GRAECO-ROMAN SCHOOLS

Protinus enim potest interpretationem linguae secretioris, quas Graeci ywoous

vocant, dum aliud agitur, ediscere et inter prima elementa consequi rem postea
proprium tempus desideraturam. Et quonian circa res adhuc tenues moramur, ii quo-
que versus, qui ad imitationem scribendi proponentur, non otiosas velim sententias
habeant sed honestum aliquid monentis.'®
“It will be worthwhile, when the boy begins to write words as usual, to see that he
does not waste time writing common words of everyday occurrence. For he can readily
learn the explanations or glosses, as the Greeks call them, of the more obscure words
by the way and, while he is still engaged in the first rudiments, acquire what would
otherwise demand special time. And since we are still discussing minor subjects, I wish
also that those verses which are written as models of writing do not contain maxims of
no significance, but convey some useful exhortations.”
He advises teachers to make children write meaningful words and even glossae. After that
Quintilian seems to make an important distinction between the writing of words that the chil-
dren did at that stage and the simple copying of verses. He wishes that even when children
were made to copy verses to improve their hand, these could be meaningful. He is not alluding
to a more advanced exercise,!” but he is returning to what he had said earlier about the impor-
tance of improving a beginner’s hand and about exercises that were geared to that purpose. The
very way he starts the sentence shows that he is not simply proceeding to the next stage, but
that he is somehow interrupting what he was saying.
Important evidence with regard to early copying as a method used in schools is also
provided by Seneca. He speaks of a practice of teaching writing according to which the teacher
held the child’s fingers and guided them through the letters’ shapes:
pueri ad praescriptum discunt; digiti illorum tenentur et aliena manu per litterarum
simulacra ducuntur, deinde imitari iubentur proposita et ad illa reformare chi-
rographum.'8
“Children learn following a model; their fingers are held and guided by someone else’s
hand through the forms of the letters, then they are told to copy what is put in front of
them and improve their handwriting by comparison with it.”
After teaching students the letters’ shapes, teachers challenged them further with more compli-
cated models, which presumably contained sentences and verses and which they were supposed
to copy to improve their hand. Immediately after stage one, the copying of letters, Seneca
speaks of what was interpreted as stage four, the writing of sentences.!9 The fact that he places
the copying of sentences right after the learning of letters shows that he is speaking not of the
real ability to write, in the sense of composition, which the student was supposed to acquire
later, but of simple copying.

16mst.Or. 11, 34-35.

"However, this is the traditional interpretation. Even Harvey 1978, 73, who carefully examines Greek and
Roman writing practices, believes that this is a more advanced stage, the copying of sentences, but simple copyin
was not at the same level as real writing in the sense of expressing oneself. : i ip
18 Fyist.Moral. 94.51. Cf. above pel2Z2.
19See Harvey (1978) 72-73. Of course syllables and words represent for him stages two and three.
 LEARNING TO WRITE 143

In a different passage Seneca explains what teachers’ models geared to improve stu-
dents’ handwriting contained. Speaking of the wide use of maxims in early education, he says:
Si ludum litterarium intraveris, scies ista, quae ingenti supercilio philosophi iactant, in
puerili esse praescripto.*°
“On entering any elementary school you will learn that just such pronouncements com-
ing from high-browed philosophers are written on models for children.”
Thus the testimonies of Quintilian and Seneca confirm the actual practice of teaching
writing that was followed in schools of Graeco-Roman Egypt. The existence of such practice,
moreover, is not disproved by the other testimonia. The frequent allusions to a rigid system of
learning by well-defined stages—letters, syllables, words, and sentences—that are found in
many authors seem to refer to teaching reading and not specifically to writing. After introduc-
ing students to the letters of the alphabet and before teaching them formally to read through the
syllabaries, teachers found it useful to make them practice their handwriting. For this purpose
they made them copy, rather passively, sentences and verses from models. Before considering
the full implications of this method and returning to the evidence of the school exercises, it is
useful to examine closely the actual mechanics of teaching beginners to write, according to the
ancient evidence.?!
We have mentioned that Quintilian and Seneca refer to two different methods.22 While
Quintilian speaks of letters carved into a wooden tablet so that children could follow their out-
lines by themselves, Seneca speaks of beginners practicing the letters with the help of adults,
parents or teachers, holding their hands and guiding their fingers through the letter shapes.
Both these methods were mentioned by St. Jerome, who seems especially familiar with Quin-
tilian’s passage, since he echoes a few words of it. When Paula starts writing her first letters
with quivering hand Jerome suggests either method: the hand of an adult guiding her little fin-
gers or letters incised into a wooden tablet (vel alterius superposita manu teneri regantur
articuli vel in tabella sculpantur elementa ut per eosdem sulcos inclusa marginibus trahantur
vestigia et foras non queant evagari).?3 It is plausible that the method mentioned by Seneca
was sometimes followed in antiquity, as it is still practiced today. Archaeological and
papyrological evidence does not support Quintilian’s claim, and there is no way to ascertain
whether letters were often incised into wood for the use of beginners.
A third method, consisting of having the student copy the master’s model between paral-
lel lines, is well attested in the school exercises and is mentioned in a well-known passage of
Plato’s Protagoras 326 c-e:
émerdav b& &x didacKerAwy aTAAAAYooW, 7) TdNC AD TOS TE V6moUS cvaryKateEL
pavdcver Kai KaT& TobTOVG Shy KaTa& Tapdderypa, va pn avToL Ed’ avTOV EiKh
TOQTTWOL, WAN ATEXVAS GoTEP ol YoappatioTai Toi¢g pHTw deivotc yeadew THY
Taidwy bmoypayavTes ypaupac TH yoadidi ovTW 76 ypappatetov diddac Kai
avayKatvovor yoadew KaT& Thy vdtynow THY ypappav, Bo b& Kai } Td VvdpoucG

20Seneca, Ep. 94.9. See above pp. 83 and 228.

21Ror a detailed examination of the following passages, see Harvey 1978, 69-73.
22See pp. 141-42.
23See Letter 107.4.
144 WRITING IN GRAECO-ROMAN SCHOOLS

imoypayaoca, wyab@v Kai Tadouwy vowobeTav evPHpaTa, KATA TOUTOUG GVArYKaSEL

koi wpxew Kai &pxedar, 6¢ 6’ av éxtd¢ Baivy TobTwy, KoAa SEL’ Kai SVOMA TH KOACOEL
ratty Kol Tap’ bpiv Kai &ddobt ToANAXOD, WC EVIUVObONS THS dixnco, evOdvat.
“When the students leave their teachers, the city again compels them to learn the laws
and live after the example these laws provide, and not after their own fancies; and just
as teachers draw lines with the stylus for children who are learning to write and give
them the tablet and make them write along the guide-lines, so the city draws the laws
invented by good lawgivers in the old times and compels the young man to rule and be
ruled according to them; he who transgresses them is punished, and the term used for
the punishment in our country and in many others is putting his account straight,
seeing that justice guides men straight.”

Turner rightly revived an old interpretation of this passage according to which the grammai
were not the outlines of letters, but sets of pairs of parallel lines between which pupils had to
copy the example written by the master.24 The former interpretation was made to accommodate
Plato’s testimony to the words of Seneca, Quintilian, and Jerome. But the passage from the
Protagoras, which was written around 390 BC, is extremely interesting in showing that a prac-
tice commonly followed in Graeco-Roman Egypt can be traced back at least to the fourth
century BC. Turner mentioned a few school exercises showing sets of pairs of parallel lines:
383, 202, and 134, and to these one should now also add 386. Sets of pairs of lines apparently
were not drawn very frequently on tablets. Much more common are single parallel lines on
which the student was supposed to rest his letters, but even in this case the pupil’s writing was
always included between the top and bottom lines. It seems reasonable to extend the interpreta-
tion of the Protagoras passage to single lines ruled by the master, since the passage does not
specifically mention double lines. This kind of guide-line was extremely common on tablets,
but is not visible on papyrus, probably because beginners followed the fibers as guide.2> A
recently published tablet, 158, provides the exact parallel to the example mentioned in Plato.
On the top part of this tablet a teacher wrote a maxim as model for copying and then ruled the
remaining space with 20 lines. This is the condition in which the tablet was recovered, with
those guide-lines still awaiting a pupil to copy the example between them. As in the passage
from the Protagoras, a teacher had just finished ruling the tablet for the use of a student.

Learning to Write According to the School Exercises

The practice of exposing beginners to the mechanical copying of verses and sentences as soon
as they had learned the letters of the alphabet originated at least as early as the Roman period.
Unfortunately the insignificant number of Ptolemaic school exercises does not allow a cross-
check of the educational writing practices of that period. It is not unlikely that in the Roman
period some students were exposed at the same time to both methods—that is, learning the syll-
ables and passively copying passages that they were not yet able to read. In the Byzantine
period, however, students proceeded directly from the letters of the alphabet to the mechanical

oe Turner 1965. Turner’s interpretation is further elaborated by Harvey 1978, 64-69.

~See pp. 62 and 76. Guidelines are visible in one ostracon, 5.
 LEARNING TO WRITE 145

copying of short passages in order to practice their hand, and learned the syllabaries at a later
stage. An examination of the texts in which very deficient hands copy Writing Exercises and
Short Passages shows that the number of Byzantine examples only slightly exceeds the number
of Roman examples, and that the practice of mechanical copying without much understanding
was probably very widespread even in Roman times. There are, however, other aspects of the
school exercises that are not shown in the graphs but still deserve consideration.®
Some of the Roman evidence for the existence of a method that called upon students to
write sentences or verses when they could not yet read is as clear as the Byzantine evidence,
showing “zero-grade” and “alphabetic hands” that copied passively and painfully what they
were told. At other times, however, very immature hands of the Roman period copied passages
divided into syllables.?7 It is plausible that the practice of making a beginner copy sentences
coexisted with the traditional practice of dividing words into syllables. Thus in notebook 383
on one tablet a student copied two gnomai underneath the teacher’s model and on another the
same student wrote five disyllabic words divided into syllables. The student, who was just
starting to work with disyllabic words in theta, was probably not capable of reading the max-
ims he had to copy, which were much more complicated. In copying the beginning of the first
maxim he omitted the first letter, and he continued to leave that letter out since he was proba-
bly following what he had written previously as a model.?8 This student who was learning how
to write by the syllabic method at the same time, continued copying maxims he could hardly
read in order to strengthen and improve his hand.
In Byzantine times, moreover, occasionally the format and presentation of beginners’
exercises constitute a further proof that the stage of writing verses and sentences followed
immediately the initial stage of learning the letters. Thus some Byzantine exercises display let-
ters of the alphabet together with a maxim or short story written by the unskillful hand of a
beginner.2? A small piece of parchment, 232, provides a ready example. In this exercise a stu-
dent writes with such difficulty that the letters are barely recognizable. On the left of the par-
chment he practices a few letters of the alphabet and on the right he writes a short story that is
interrupted after a few lines. Many of the letters of the story are totally illegible, among them
an unformed beta. The student was therefore told to continue practicing this letter in the space
underneath the story. He traces horizontal and vertical guidelines to form a grid, where he
inserts at least twenty beta’s. Even though the editors of the exercise do not recognize them as
letters and interpret them as a decorative design, they are clearly a repetition of the same letter.
The assumption that in schools of the Byzantine period the syllabic method was con-
fronted only after a student had done much copying is also supported by the evidence of the
syllabaries. As was said above,*° the vast majority of syllabaries penned by students belong to
the Byzantine period. It is clear that most of these students had practiced writing extensively
before beginning to learn to read: their hands already appear well developed, even though they
are not completely uniform. It is also worthwhile to consider one of the three syllabaries writ-

26It is essential, as always, to keep in mind that random chance determined the survival of the texts, and thus
some caution is needed before making precise assertions about changes in the Roman and Byzantine periods.
27See 182.
28Cf. P.Petaus 121.5-12, about which see below, pp. 150-52.
29Sce 160, 232, and 403.
30Sce p. 131.
146 WRITING IN GRAECO-ROMAN SCHOOLS

ten by students before the Byzantine period, and the only Ptolemaic example, 78, since this
pupil, Apollonios son of Glaukias, is well known. Although Apollonios’ hand seems confident,
a papyrus he copies, 344, shows that he probably did not yet know either how to read well or
how to really express himself in writing, and he still needed to practice a syllabary.
The school exercises shed light upon another area that is ignored by modern histories of
ancient education: the practice of teaching a beginner to write his own name. Since modern
handbooks of Greek and Roman education rigidly follow with regard to learning writing the
traditional sequence of educational stages that was advocated by the ancients for learning read-
ing, they do not even mention the practice of teaching a novice to write his own name.*! Hence
a student, after learning the letters of the alphabet and practicing endlessly with syllables,
presumably had to wait for the introduction of nouns, again in strict syllabic order, to finally
learn how to trace his own name. Such delay in acquiring this skill seems rather unreasonable
in the light of modern pedagogical methods that enforce the teaching of one’s name as the first
step in literacy and the first application of instruction in letters. More importantly, it appears
that in antiquity learning to write one’s personal name at a very early stage of education was
even more crucial than it is today. Since only a few privileged individuals completed their
education, and many of the students who started school remained there for a limited period,*3
it would have been desirable to teach students to write their name at the very beginning. Even
though professional scribes and literate friends and neighbors were available for help,
innumerable subscriptions display the signatures of slow writers who chose to engage in this
painful exercise rather than ask someone else to sign for them.34 While illiteracy carried no
real stigma, being able to append one’s signature to a transaction was highly desirable. Thus,
semiliterates could engage directly in the same activities as the literates and appear literate.
Signature literates functioned only as copiers and memorizers: their limited schooling had at
least left them this precious heritage.
In the Old Babylonian period personal names were one of the most common vehicles of
writing instruction in schools. Students had to copy their name over and over from a teacher’s
model. A tablet found at Ur presents a scene in which a senior student, who is acting as as-
sistant teacher, reproaches a younger student for not even being able to write his own name.36
In the Greek world a student learned how to write his own name in school. Plato in Charmides
seems to consider it a rather obvious achievement: “Does the schoolmaster, in your opinion,
write and read his own name only, and teach you children to do the same with yours, or did
you write your enemies’ names just as much as your own and your friends’?”37 On some of the
so-called “Academy tablets,”?® which were discovered in the Athenian agora and supposedly

3lcf,, for instance, Marrou 1975, I 234, who says that writing was taught in the same way as reading with the
same indifference to psychology and the real needs of the student.
32Nowadays generally a beginner is taught to write his name in preschool, even before learning the whole
alphabet. The teaching of one’s name is used to stimulate the desire to learn to read and write. Gray 1956, 193
speaks of pupils learning to trace their names in the sand. ‘
33See pp. 19-20.
34S ce pp. 6 and 116-17.
35§ee Youtie 1973, 629-51.
3©See Gadd 1956, 11 and 29-33: tablet U. 17900 J.
>7Plato, Charm. 161.d.3: Aoxei oby oor 7d avTOD Gvopa pdvov ypadew 6 YOXUMATLOTHS Kal avaAyryVeoK
ij ovdEv NTTOV Ta TOY ExOpGy Eypadere H TH bpeTEpA Kal TH TOY ditwy dvopaTa; bi ae
38.SEG XIX, No. 37.
 LEARNING TO WRITE 147

belong to the fifth century Bc,° letters and lists of names are followed by the name of the stu-
dent who scratched them on the slatelike schist. In the Roman world at least one child knew
how to sign his name at five years of age: the son of Constantinus is complimented for this by
the panegyrist Nazarius, since he was able to validate important decisions with his signature
(iam maturato studio litteris habilis, iam felix dextera fructuosa subscriptione laetatur).*°
Some of the school exercises of Graeco-Roman Egypt show that teaching a student to
write his own name was part of the first elementary lessons. These exercises date from the sec-
ond to the eighth century AD: in them beginners wrote their names in letters quivering with
uncertainty, and completed the exercise by writing letters of the alphabet in regular or random
order, or whole series of alphabets.4! Generally*? different treatments were reserved for writ-
ing the personal name and the letters of the alphabet. While in alphabets the single letters are
not only separated but are sometimes even written in epigraphical characters, when writing his
name a Student strove to link some of the characters, or at least prolonged the last stroke of the
final letter to give it an appearance of cursive fluency. Exercise 23 is particularly interesting in
this respect. Two hands appear to have contributed to write the words “Makarios son of
Soter.”43 A teacher started the name in confident, cursive letters, and a student continued. The
latter was evidently unable to imitate closely the elaborate, cursive example and so positioned
his spidery characters separately from one another. Practicing the writing of one’s name con-
tinued at the stage of Writing exercises, which followed immediately the initial level of the
alphabet.*4 Repetition of a name—presumably the personal name of the student—is a common
writing exercise:* this is a further proof that the two stages Alphabets and Writing Exercises
were closely linked.
Students continued writing their names on school work even at later stages.4® Generally
personal names do not appear on advanced exercises: only once does a pupil write his name on
the first line of a grammatical exercise.4’ At intermediate levels students inscribed their per-
sonal names on exercises to identify the school work rather than for practice. Sometimes the
name appears almost as a signature appended to the bottom of the writing.48 At other times,

39See Lynch 1983, who would rather date the tablets to the second century AD or even later. His argument
that the tablets did not belong to schoolboys, but were discarded material on which some graffiti were scratched,
seems to be untenable. On the only published example the clumsily written names of three deities are followed by
the name of the student, Demosthenes. Lynch believes rather absurdly that this is the name of “the famous orator,
wittily imagined to have completed a lesson involving the names of three deities.”
40SEG XIX, No. 37.
4lsee 12, 23, 40, 51, 55, 57, 400 (tablets 4 and 5), and 407 (tablet 4). Perhaps the personal name of the stu-
dent also appears in 61.
42Sece pp. 113-14.
43The editors of the exercise do not recognize that this is the personal name of the student, followed by the
atronymic.
: 4sc0 p. 137;
45See 109, 137, 147, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 172, and 174.
46See a list of students compiled according to the names they inscribed on their exercises in Appendix 2.
47See 385.
48See 229, 230, 246, and 250 (where the name appears on the back of the small piece of parchment). In 250
the name Maron underneath the second column certainly served to distinguish this student from the other pupil who
wrote in the adjacent column. I do not agree with the claim of J.S. Rusten, “Maron in School” ZPE 60 (1985) 21-
22, that this was not the personal name of the schoolboy, but a name written for practice. Although Rusten finds that
the name Maron occurs in Herodas’ Didask. 24 and in two school lists, he does not explain why the schoolboy
wrote it after a passage, if it was not his name. This name, moreover, was very common.
148 WRITING IN GRAECO-ROMAN SCHOOLS

but only on tablets, the name is traced on the first line of the tablet, with or without a partial
date.49 If the exercise was continued on several tablets, the name of the student was repeated
on each, perhaps as a mark of ownership.°° Indication of ownership was the purpose of
engraving a personal name on the border or cover of some notebooks made of tablets.>!

Writing and Reading

An investigation into learning to write and read in Graeco-Roman Egypt must take into account
these two constituents of literacy as separate entities. In modern education there is considerable
evidence of the dynamic relation between writing and reading: each influences the other in the
course of development, and reading is integrally involved when a student writes.>2 Although a
similar interaction partially characterized the acquisition of literacy in antiquity, it is essential
to keep in mind not only the different challenges that reading offered to ancient students but
also the fact that the limited length of schooling influenced teaching methods.
Various factors contributed to delay the process of reading. Bilingualism hampered the
acquisition of reading, especially when literacy was taught via the student’s weaker language.°?
Most students in Egypt were more familiar with spoken Egyptian than with Greek, while in the
Roman culture children of the privileged classes learned Greek in schools before Latin, but
encountered the Greek language first in the written form. St. Augustine gives voice to the utter
frustration of the student exposed to more than one language, revealing that he hated Homer
and Greek literature as a child, for “the difficulty of having to learn from the start a foreign
language did sprinkle as it were with gall all the pleasures of those fabulous narrations, for I
understood not a word of it” (videlicet difficultas, difficultas omnino ediscendae linguae
peregrinae quasi felle aspergebat omnes suavitates graecas fabulosarum narrationum; nulla
enim verba illa noveram).>4
In addition, the texts did not have spaces between words, and pauses within major sec-
tions were not indicated.°> Reading a text in scriptio continua required careful preparation. A
reader was supposed to proceed from identification of the different elements—that is, letters,
syllables, and words—to comprehension of the whole text. Lack of punctuation signs required
him to examine the nature of each sentence and to recognize and identify words and linguistic
markers.°© Grammatical and literary training were necessary to properly read aloud a text.
Readers in antiquity who could not rely on word separation and punctuation had to interpret a
text before reading it. Reading a text aloud with expression and appropriate pronunciation was
not a simple matter, and without careful practice a person could easily fall into an embarassing

a 5ee 146, 308, 385, 389, 394, and 396.

°Cf. in Gehl 1989, 395-97 the marks and colophons of ownership appearing on Latin primers of the four-
teenth century.
5lSee 307, 342, 394, and 408. For the names of students incised on mathematical tablets, see H. Thompson
“A Byzantine Table of Fractions,” Ancient Egypt 1 (1914) 54; Bernard Boyaval, “Tablettes arithméti
’ > ) ti Le
du oer RA (1973) 251, Plate 1 and 3. pilates
See W.H. Teale and E. Sulzby, “Emergent literacy as a perspective for examining how young children
become writers and readers,” in Mercer 1988, I 256-62.
53S¢e B. Mayor, “What does it mean to be bilingual?” in Mercer 1988, I 113-25. Cf. also above p.9
548t Augustine, Confess. 114. i
See pp. 47-48.
56See Parkes 1993, 10-11.
 LEARNING TO WRITE 149

situation, as a well-known passage in Gellius shows. While Gellius refused to read aloud a pas-
sage he did not know, someone else made himself utterly ridiculous reading the passage with
the clumsiness of a total novice.>’ Lack of word separation and punctuation were formidable
hurdles, especially for beginners. One of the purposes of teachers’ models was to present texts
that offered reading assistance, particularly in the form of word separation.>® The precision and
discipline of the syllabic method that was followed in teaching reading were the only
guarantees of success. Reading was the accomplishment of the intermediate student who dedi-
cated much time to penmanship in the process of learning.
Writing preceded reading at the school level. It was this initial form of writing that con-
sisted of copying a text without much understanding. Ancient students at this stage were very
much in the same condition as Hermas in a passage quoted above.°? While the passage shows
that Hermas was copying a text without word separation and was desperately trying to distin-
guish the various syllables, it also points to an activity to which ancient students were
accustomed when they had just learned the alphabet: copying blindly from a text and writing
everything letter by letter, as Hermas says (ueTeypavauny TavTa Tpd¢ yokppa). It is diffi-
cult to come across ancient literary evidence indicating a separation of the activities of learning
writing and reading and a precedence of one with respect to the other. When Lucian in
Anacharsis 21 mentions that children learn to write the letters and then to read them clearly
(yeappata ypawaobou kai Top@¢ avTa émAEEaoPa), he is probably only alluding to the fact
that students learned to trace the single characters first. It is the same practice that Gregory of
Nyssa describes when he says that “children first are taught to trace alpha and the other letters
in wax and then learn their names” (mp@Tov év T® Kno® 76 &Apa yxapaéavtec Kai TU EEC
TOV OTOLXEiwWY TA TE OVOMATA AUTaV Eldévau didc@oKovot). These testimonies point to the same
precedence of writing over reading that Corbier claims as part of the experience of those who
were at the very initial stage of learning, when they first drew the letters of the alphabet.®
But an early Byzantine Coptic text seems to go a few steps further in claiming a priority
of writing over reading in school practice. The text purports to describe events of the emperor
Diocletian’s persecution of two monks and martyrs, Paneu and Panine. The fragments of the
Passio of these monks are preserved by two ninth century manuscripts of the White
Monastery.®! The first part of the Coptic text concerns the childhood of the two monks, who
attend the school of the teacher Silvanos in Antinoe until an unfortunate incident involving
Synphronios, one of their classmates, forces them to run away. Synphronios, who is excep-
tionally good at writing, arouses the envy of an older student, who breaks his thumbs. From
the first moment that “little” Synphronios starts attending school he is described as a fast
learner. The Coptic text clearly indicates that he is exposed to writing first, and shows that
reading belonged to a higher level of competence: “He learned the art of writing quickly and
started to surpass the older students who had already began reading.”®

57Gellius XIII 31.5: pueri in ludo rudes, si eum librum accepissent, non hi magis in legendo deridiculi fuis-
sent.
58Goody 1987, 227, points to the difficulties the Vai people in Africa have in separating words because they
use syllabic writing without word division.
59See p-. 48.
69Sce Corbier 1991, 105-106.
6lgee Orlandi 1978, 95-115. Cf. pp. 113-14.
62See Orlandi 1978, 98 line 10-11. Part of the word indicating “reading, sounding out” is contained in a
lacuna but Orlandi’s restoration is certain.
150 WRITING IN GRAECO-ROMAN SCHOOLS

Marrou alludes to a method used to teach reading in Christian schools of medieval type
that was different from the traditional one.®3 After practicing the letters of the alphabet, stu-
dents learned by heart a Psalm or a passage from the Sacred Scriptures. They were then
handed the written text of the work and learned to read it by going over it many times, without
embarking on the practice of the syllabaries. The evidence of the early Byzantine school
exercises, however, shows that the method of learning the syllables was not completely dis-
carded but only postponed. A school exercise of the fourth-fifth century AD, 403, shows the
work of a novice who, after tracing the letters of the alphabet, attempted to write the beginning
of a Psalm when he was not ready for a continuous text. There is no way to tell whether he
was writing from memory—following a method analogous to the one described by Marrou for
reading—or whether he was copying. The occasional nonsense he wrote shows that he did it
without understanding much of it.
The existence of the pedagogic practice of exposing students to lots of copying before
teaching them how to read has implications for the question of silent writing and reading in
antiquity. Joseph Balogh in his well-known article of 1927 maintained that not only reading but
also writing was as a rule done aloud in antiquity.°° This aspect of the problem is usually over-
looked. Although Balogh purports to refer to writing in general, at every level, he cites evi-
dence that mainly refers to writing as an act of composition. Moreover, Balogh recognizes that
only later on, in medieval monasteries, was writing done in silence, because it consisted
mainly of copying. But, as was shown, copying was an important school activity at the very
beginning for the ancient student, and there are no indications that it was done aloud.
The practice of introducing students to writing by assigning them texts to copy also has
implications for reading and silent reading. It is an educational approach that placed emphasis
on larger units at the beginning. Even though students often failed to recognize the units as
words, since to them they were only strings of discrete letters, nevertheless it is likely that at
least some students who continued to copy simple maxims whose meaning was explained
started associating meaning and words. It was an initial form of reading that was not yet asso-
ciated with pronouncing every syllable aloud. There is no reason to think that it was done
aloud, at least at this very elementary stage.
Copying blindly from partly unintelligible models was not exclusively the work of be-
ginners in school. In the real world some people resorted to the same method just to cope with
circumstances. The example of Petaus is well known.°’ He was town clerk (kwpoypappatetc)
of Ptolemais Hormou and other small villages at the end of the second century AD. The signa-
ture that he appends to a few documents is written in an “alphabetic hand” with rigid, multi-
stroke letters of varying size. A sheet of papyrus, moreover, contains his repeated attempts to

63See Marrou 1975, II 160.

°See the third hand, “zero-grade,” of 403.
. See Balogh 1927. On the question of silent reading and reading aloud, see G.L. Hendrickson, “Ancient
Reading,” CJ 25 (1929) 182-96; W.P. Clark, “Ancient Reading,” CJ 26 (1931) 698-700; Knox 1968: Dirk M
pyar hee “Prose usages of AKOTEIN ‘to read’” CQ 42 (1992) 129-41; Svenbro 1993; cf, pr.93 note 172
See Balogh 1927, 233; On silent reading in the Middle Ages, see Paul Saenger, “Silent Reading:
Its Impact
on roe Medieval Script and Society,” Viator 13 (1982) 367-414.
ee be pages atpale Se aes vanes Sie chle scribe qui ne savait pas écrire,” CdE 41
-43 = -95; Youtie ay —335, Ga) lurneranere 7 :
ham 1973) 36-47; Hanson 1991, 171-74. PE tan e
 LEARNING TO WRITE 151

reproduce his signature, his title, and a verb, “I have submitted”—that is, the formulaic
expression he used to sign documents in his official capacity.°8 The papyrus shows that at the
fifth attempt Petaus omitted the initial vowel of the verb and from that time on he continued to
leave the vowel out, writing the formula another seven times. He could not reproduce the for-
mula correctly by heart, but constantly needed to have a model in front of his eyes, and in
writing each line he copied the line immediately above. Petaus’ cover for his severely limited
ability as a writer is interesting because it indicates that he used his knowledge of the codes of
the literate population to pass himself off as literate. He knew where and how to sign and was
thus able to cope with the demands of his office since he could probably rely on professional
scribes in his employ. _
Petaus as an adult walked the same path as students who moved from barely wielding a
pen to reproducing the letters of the alphabet, from clumsy copying to skillful copying, from
blind writing to partial comprehension of the written word, from the ability to reproduce a text
from dictation to drafting their own text. Although he could pass himself out of the category of
“those who did not know letters,” he had just started to walk the path of literacy. His perform-
ance is curiously similar to that of many students: thus, the two students who write on tablet
136 copy a text letter by letter with varying degrees of success. The less able student of side B,
an “alphabetic hand,” is able to avoid Petaus’ mistakes because he proceeds with total regu-
larity as if he had divided the tablet into squares that could contain each letter. The student of
side A, whose hand is more skillful, omits or distorts many words he copies, because he tries
to reproduce blindly the text of the line immediately above. His copy deteriorates markedly as
he proceeds down the tablet.
These students were not able to read, as Petaus was not properly reading the formula he
was reproducing. Their mechanical way of copying and their inability to correct themselves
once they make a mistake speak against it. Youtie believed that Petaus was unable to read, and
that slow writers, who were only nominally literate, generally could not read.®? To this end he
produced the example of a papyrus in which a slow-writer who adds a subscription in tortured
letters is described as unable to read.?? One must remember, on the other hand, that there are
varying degrees of competence in reading as in writing: reading ability can range from the
recognition of one or more words to the comprehension of a whole text. Petaus himself was
able to recognize and read his name, since he corrected himself when he misspelled it at the
ninth try.’! The learning process of students in school and of people who took advantage of
life’s circumstances to obtain something of an education were not identical.’2 Once school was
left behind, and people had to respond to the demands of a society that relied on the written
word, an initial and much needed form of reading consisted of the ability to verify the format

68See P. Petaus 121.

69Sce Youtie 1971a, 254. Contra, Harris 1989, 278, who thinks that is very possible that Petaus was able to
read.
70See P.Lond. Ill 1164k.
71See P. Petaus 121.9.
72Corbier 1991, 107, who argues for a precedence of writing with respect to reading, noted however that
Hermeros, who in Petronius Satyricon 58.7 declares that he knows lapidarias litteras, does not boast of being able
to write. People like Hermeros learned how to read from inscriptions, signs, posters, and the like. On literacy in the
Satyricon, see Nicholas Horsfall, “The Uses of Literacy and the Cena Trimalchionis,” Greece & Rome 36 (1989)
74-89 and 194-209.
152 WRITING IN GRAECO-ROMAN SCHOOLS

of a document and understand that it was the correct kind of text, or to recognize one’s signa-
ture appearing at the proper place within the document. It is possible that a number of people
resorted to these expedients in order to defend their interests and could thus be regarded as
readers in the narrowest possible definition of the word.7?
Since most individuals in Graeco-Roman Egypt had access to education only for a few
years, teaching was structured to make them functional members of the society, once they
reached the adult stage. A minimal level of direct involvement in a culture that was thoroughly
penetrated by the written word was represented by the ability to sign one’s name and reproduce
a subscription. When teachers stressed penmanship among students, assigning them writing
practice at a very early stage, they intended to take best advantage of the time at their disposal
to make them part of the class of those who “did know letters.” Thus basic copying skills and
the ability to produce a signature were probably considered more desirable in the first place
than the ability to read properly, especially when balanced against the time and effort needed to
produce such result.
The student Aurelius Antonios, son of Nemesion, lived in the middle of the fourth
century AD, and the notebook (395) he used in a later stage of his studies has been preserved.
After learning his letters, Aurelius Antonios probably wrote an endless series of alphabets,
sometimes in backward order or skipping a letter in between. From the beginning he had
become accustomed to using a waxed tablet: he was probably fortunate enough to own one. At
first the teacher allowed him to trace huge characters, identical to the ones on the model, but
he was soon told that he should gradually reduce their size and that eventually, as an advanced
student, he would feel at ease writing small and quick letters. Very soon he had learned to
write his name: his letters may have resembled the signature of his father, if the latter had not
remained in school for long. Antonios’ teacher frequently encouraged him to write attractive
and regular characters and, as soon as he had learned his alphabet, gave him harder models to
copy, with sentences or verses that the teacher read to him, because he could not yet read them
himself. Writing a syllabary was the next task: Aurelius Antonios held his piece of papyrus or
a big sherd on his lap. Even if he sat in the shade of a big tree with his classmates, the air was
still and burning, and the consonants were too many. It was easy to forget a series, even if the
teacher insisted that they had to be accurate and that the moment had come to learn how to read
and write properly. To this purpose the teacher wrote for Antonios a series of names divided
into syllables and asked him to copy passages that were longer and harder than before. It is at
this point in his academic career that Aurelius Antonios is known: his name appears on the
first line of each tablet of his notebook. He was still learning to read and write well, but his
hand was already quite developed, and his teacher had asked him to copy a model in a formal
round hand. He copied a sententia of Isocrates several times, each time beautifully. His letters
were still large, and his hand proceeded slowly and cautiously, as at the beginning, but finally
these were kala grammata.

73 Hanson
1991, 179-81, argues that there were more readers than writers among the adult population of
Graeco-Roman Egypt, and she may be right. There is now no way, however, to test the reading ability among
‘ Sae while
adults, e ‘tt the
; samples of writing left by the slow-writers attest that the y Pperf 10)rm ed as WI iters i ini
at this minimal
Conclusion

E]UTUXHS TH
&|XOVTL KL T@
QV laylyva@oKovTt
par]Aov 6& TH
volovv7t

writes a student at the end of his notebook.! His hand is fairly fluent, approaching an advanced
hand. This formal conclusion imitates the colophons that scribes often appended to literary pa-
pyri:? lucky was the student who owned the notebook and could read it, especially if he under-
stood it. It is hard to say whether this student was lucky enough to be able to read his own
words. In the notebook the exercises seem especially geared to teach reading and were written
according to progressive difficulty. Perhaps this student was able to go through the lists of
words, the gnomai and the chreiai with relative ease, but at the end he was in trouble with the
prologue to Babrius’ Fables and like Cottalos let his syllables fall away drop by drop, as if
from a sieve (éx Tetonuévnc).? Judging from the mistakes he made copying the piece (espe-
cially didov aiti¢ instead of dikw vatTn), at this point he had some trouble understanding.
Undoubtedly, though, this student was lucky because he had acquired an almost fluent hand
after lots of practicing and possessed a papyrus booklet he had written himself.
The handwriting of the student who owned this notebook displays the confidence he had
developed after much copying. Although it is likely that his letters had evolved considerably
from the days of his initial struggle with writing, comparison with exercises of mere beginners
shows that he maintained the characteristics of the script that he had originally learned. As
teachers’ models also show, students learned a slightly ligatured script that evidenced all the
constituent strokes of each letter. This is the foundation or basic script that appears in the writ-
ing samples of students, semiliterates, and individuals who occasionally used writing. This
basic script could evolve in different directions with frequent use or following the dictates of a
formal style. Some of the school exercises display the process by which students, departing
from a basic script that was in the background, learned to imitate more formal “book hands.”
Thus in notebook 395 the performance of the student in a formal style is accompanied by a sig-
nature and date written in a more basic hand, and in 381 the student, who is making every
effort to maintain the regularity of a formal script, gives up altogether in the second tablet,
reverting to less disciplined writing. It is useful to compare procedures followed to learn dif-
ferent scripts in the high Middle Ages. While in antiquity the processes of teaching and imita-

See 393: “Good luck to whoever owns it, reads it, and especially to whoever understands it.”
2Cf. especially P.Ryl. 158 204-206, the end of Demosthenes De Corona, which was copied as an exercise by
a very proficient apprentice scribe. See also in Gehl (1989) 396-97, the many colophons expressing pride of owner-
ship at the end of Latin readers copied by children in fourteenth-century Florence.
3See Herodas’ Didask. 33.
154 CONCLUSION

tion in learning a script are inextricably related, it is possible to make a distinction between
medieval “taught scripts,” which originated through a process of learning, from a writing
master, hands that were currently in use, and “imitated scripts,” which developed by the direct
imitation of models of ancient scripts that were not in use any more.* In any case, as in Grae-
co-Roman Egypt, so also in the Middle Ages, all scripts took as their point of departure foun-
dation or elementary scripts learned in schools which were then used as a basis for more
elaborate scripts.
The evidence of the school exercises of Graeco-Roman Egypt shows the importance of
copying at initial levels of education. Copying was fundamental in ancient schools not only to
learn a script but also so that students could make their own books. Together with copying,
memorization played a very important role in ancient education. According to the traditional
rhetorical division, verbatim memory was distinguished from general recall: there was a
memory of things (memoria rerum) and a memory of words (memoria verborum).> Quintilian
had doubts about the use of mnemonics for the orator who had to learn a text by heart: it was
preferable to memorize a text that had been previously written on a tablet.© Thus Quintilian
understood that verbatim memory consisted essentially of writing. Plato in the Phaedrus had
leveled a strong critique against writing as an activity harmful to memory, since the mind
quickly forgot a text that had been consigned to writing.’ Although Quintilian knew and quoted
his criticism, he disagreed with Plato and was able to appreciate the different and important
functions of both writing and memory in education.’ In spite of Plato’s critique, writing and
memory had common roots in the eyes of the ancients, as demonstrated by the tradition of the
invention of the ars memoriae, attributed to Simonides, who traditionally had also “invented”
some letters of the alphabet.? Verbatim memory flourishes in literate societies and is the equi-
valent of exact copying. Memorization and copying were fundamental in the initial stages of
learning.!° Although in principle, with the advent of writing and the creation of schools,
memory could be dispensed with for certain purposes, nevertheless exact recall continued to
play a major role. Learning consisted of storing written texts in one’s mind, internalizing them
in precise form, and copying their content word by word.
School practices in pharaonic Egypt and in Mesopotamia offer suitable comparanda. In
ancient Egypt, where there is evidence of schools at the end of the third millennium, reading
and writing were learned by copying and memorizing traditional works. A passage was copied
phrase by phrase.'! Education used the informal style typical of many craft apprenticeships,
with students copying and emulating their master. These activities became even more necessary
as spoken and written language continued to diverge and literate culture was limited to

“See Petrucci 1995, 61-62. The didactic tradition of the latter scripts was interrupted centuries before.
SMemory and mnemonics are considered especially by Cicero, Ad Herenn. III 28-40 and De Or. II 350- 360;
and Qunghan Inst.Or. X12, 1-26. On memory and mnemonics, see Blum 1969.
6Inst.Or. XI 2,32.
7Plato, Phaedrus 275 a, see Desbordes 1990, 82-87.
see Inst.Or. XI 2,9.
*See especially Cicero, De Orat. 352-353. Callimachus, fr. 64 Pfeiffer, attributed the invention of mnemonics
to Simonides. The various ancient testimonies about Simonides as inventor are reported in Blum 1969, 42 note 21;
see also p. 44 on Simonides as the inventor of certain letters.
10See Goody 1987, 234-41.
IISe¢ Eyre and Baines 1989, 94-95.
 CONCLUSION 155

restricted classes of the elite. Copying was also a fundamental basis of learning in Meso-
potamian schools, where an intensive copying activity went on: students copied the same texts
over a period of more than a thousand years.!2 Thus traditional lists of words were
painstakingly copied by apprentice scribes even when the language and the script had evolved
to such an extent that they were barely understood.!3
The activity of exact copying is fundamental to the transmission of manuscript cultures,
and the preeminence of copying continued in Graeco-Roman education. The function of copy-
ing in schools has generally been overlooked, and much emphasis has been placed on the role
of the syllabic method in reading and writing and on dictation. It may be that dictation was
paramount at advanced levels of education, but certainly copying was the principal way to
reproduce texts at elementary and intermediate levels. In this respect the evidence of the
teachers’ models also comes into play. Not only did the models represent the main textbooks
used for reading, but students relied on them heavily, initially to practice a basic script and
later to learn different styles of writing and to copy from them the literary texts they needed to
study, thus, making their own books.
Stress on good penmanship and on copying was preeminent at initial levels of learning,
while systematic attempts to learn reading with the aid of a syllabary were pursued at later
stages: students who started to read already possessed a fairly confident hand. Although
scholars who study literacy and writing nowadays usually recognize a distinction between read-
ing and writing as separate ingredients of literacy, sometimes they have claimed a priority of
reading with respect to writing in early Christianity as well as in the Middle Ages. Thus R.
Lane Fox claims that people employed as Readers in the early Church often could not write.!4
Although two epitaphs attest cases of boys who acted as Readers and died at five years of age
without a deep knowledge of letters,!> not only it is still possible that they knew some writing
but it is even more likely that either they were cantors,!© or recited the Scriptures by heart.
The Carthaginian confessor Aurelius in Cyprian’s Letter 38 was probably in the same situation:
he was enrolled as lector, but unable to write personally certificates of forgiveness. Aurelius’
incompetence, moreover, is only a proof that he did not know how to compose in writing. A
more complicated scenario must be brought into play in the case of Ammonios, the apparently
illiterate lector of the village of Chysis in 304 AD, who appears in P.Oxy. XXXIII 2673. It is
more likely that Ammonios was illiterate only in Greek or that he declared himself illiterate for
religious reasons,!7 than that he was able to read but totally unable to write. If Ammonios
really knew how to read fluently and did not simply recite by heart, he could have at least
signed his name and copied the subscription like many other “slow writers” of his time.

12Sce A. Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization (Chicago 1977) 235-49.
13S¢¢ Nissen, Damerow, and Englund 1993, 106.
14See Lane Fox 1994, 144; He is arguing to extremes the evidence cited by G.W. Clarke, “An Illiterate Lec-
tor?” ZPE 57 (1984) 103-104.
ISgee CIL XI 1709 (= ILCV 1277A) and CIL VIII453 (=ILCV 1285). See E. Peterson, “Das jugendliche
Alter der Lectoren,” Ephemerides Liturgicae 48 (1934) 437-42.
16These boys, therefore, perhaps did not do the actual reading, which was taken over by higher clergy. About
young boys employed as cantors, see Johannes Quasten, Music & Worship in Pagan & Christian Antiquity (Trans.
Boniface Ramsey, Washington 1983) 90-91.
l7See Colin Roberts, Manuscript, Society, and Belief (London 1979) 65, Eva Wipszycka, “Un lecteur qui ne
sait pas écrire ou un chrétien qui ne veut pas se souiller? P.Oxy. XXXIII 2673)” ZPE 50 (1983) 117-21.
156 CONCLUSION

one
Although there can be a disparity in the ability to read and write, or a priority in learning
likely
or the other, a complete unbalance between these two constituents of literacy is not very
in the fourth century AD.
In Egypt people lived in constant contact with the written word and had to become famil-
iar with literate modes of thinking and functioning. When they could not operate directly in the
literate world, they relied on the help of others, not only professional scribes but also a
network of family and friends who could write a whole document or at least reproduce a sub-
scription. When people could perform directly even at a minimal level of competence they
usually chose to do so. With an undeniable sense of pride they wrote their signatures and
copied subscriptions as direct responders to the codes of the literate population. Penmanship
immediately demonstrated schooling and marked the “slow writer” as “once schooled,” at least
through a beginner level. Handwriting pointed to the probable length of such schooling and
demonstrated whether or not it extended to the point when copying began to mesh with some
degree of comprehension.
In Graeco-Roman Egypt sometimes people wrote their own letters. Although it was very
common to dictate a letter to a scribe or to one’s secretary, literate people cared to add per-
sonal greetings even if they had to display disjointed hands with a limited degree of expertise.
In Plautus’ Pseudolus the letter written by the courtesan Phoenicium exhibits such handwriting,
with “letters that climb on top of each other” (alia aliam scandit), hen’s scratches in the
opinion of Pseudolus (habent quas gallinae manus? Nam has quidem gallina scripsit).!® Not
only had Phoenicium written her name at full length on the tablet, but she had written the
whole text herself. At Vindolanda at the close of the first and beginning of the second century
AD the letter of Claudia Severa was written by a scribe, but then showed in the closure Seve-
ra’s own handwriting, as clumsy as Phoenicium’s.!? Aurelia Charite, a woman living in Her-
mopolis in the early fourth century AD, resembles Phoenicium in that she could write in a vari-
ety of situations, being able not only to copy but also to draft a whole text.2° Her hand is not
very inexperienced, but it displays the lack of fluency and the unevenness of people for whom
writing was not a frequent occupation. In the Graeco-Roman world people did not mind engag-
ing in this activity occasionally, even when the results of their efforts were far from perfect.
It is useful to compare the different situation in early medieval civilization in order to
fully understand the significance of writing in Graeco-Roman Egypt. Medieval attitudes to lit-
eracy differed in a variety of ways from the literate mentality of Graeco-Roman Egypt. In early
medieval England writing with a practical function was very rare.2! As in Roman Judea, where
writing in Hebrew was much less common than reading because it was confined to the special-
ized task of producing religious texts,”* the skills of the early medieval scribes were primarily
applied to acts of worship. The aim was to produce liturgical works: lots of time and ability
were dedicated to creating impersonal book scripts and illuminations. Books of imposing size
with lavish miniatures were to be displayed or read aloud in monasteries. When after the

18See Plautus, : Pseud. : 28-29: : “Have hen s got any hands? i was a hen that
For surely it Ist
19See Bowman 1994, 124. meh rch
sce P.Charite 27 and 36. Cf. p. 15 and note 23.
ey 1993, intends to show the gradual growth of literacy for practical purposes in medieval England
See M.D. Goodman, “Texts, scribes and power in Roman Judaea,” in Bowman and Woolf 1994 99-100
 CONCLUSION 157

twelfth century religious books started to become smaller, they were still works of art, and
writing was considered an art in itself. In early medieval England there was a distrust for the
written word that is not unlike the suspicion manifested by Socrates in the Phaedrus. It was
preferable to depend on memory rather than on a written text. Documentary proof was not con-
sidered better than existing methods that relied on memory and words uttered in oaths and pub-
lic ceremonies. Even literate people in the early Middle Ages, moreover, did not use docu-
ments in ways as effective as those used in antiquity to make them valid proofs. Most charters
in the twelfth century did not have dates or signatures, and medieval people warranted docu-
ments by their seals or a notary’s mark.?? In twelfth- and thirteenth-century England the per-
sonal signature was not accepted as a symbol of authentication. Christians signed with a cross
or using a seal.
Some continuity, but also much change, characterizes the functions of writing from the
late Roman to the Carolingian period. It has been recently argued that Frankish society was far
from being illiterate and that the written word was used by the Carolingians not only in the
production of religious books, but also in government, administration, and law.24 Neverthe-
less, there is almost no evidence that writing was performed by common people. Evidence of
private legal transactions involving writing is lacking?> and the names of the witnesses on
charters were written by scribes as in medieval England.
The ability to read and the ability to write were not coupled in early medieval civiliza-
tion. Writing was a skill that was left to a small class of scribes and clerical workers. Even
when writing did not aim at magnificent standards with the production of lavish books of devo-
tion, it was regarded as a manual task that was left to professionals, who aimed to make it as
uniform and impersonal as possible. Writing was one of the manual and visual arts. It was a
necessary activity, but it was not practiced or learned by common people. Reading consisted
mainly of going over the sacred Scriptures and the related illuminations many times, at dif-
ferent levels of understanding and appreciation. Reading was not usually coupled with writing,
but with dictation. Writing and composing were completely different skills. Although dictation
was widely practiced, writing was considered a specialized skill. In medieval times a letter was
“written” in the sense of “composed” and then dictated without the author doing any material
writing. In early medieval civilization the common distrust of writing as a personal skill was
also involved with the difficulties inherent in the act of writing, since, especially in the West,
the reed pen was superseded by the quill.?° Putting a quill to parchment became an art in itself.
Medieval writing techniques were intimidating to the inexperienced, and mastering them
became the exclusive task of specialized groups: monks using mostly book hands and local
scribes employing more cursive scripts. Although the average medieval reader probably
learned during youth to trace the letters of the alphabet with a stylus on a tablet, he completely
refrained from using writing in later life and relied on professionals.
By contrast, the more confident attitude toward writing in Graeco-Roman times
depended on the fact that students and common people took advantage of what was available in

23See Clanchy 1993, 294.

24Rosamond McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge 1989).
25 Almost all the surviving charters are either royal diplomas or charters relating to a particular institution,
such as a monastery.
26Sce Bischoff 1990, 18-19.
158 CONCLUSION

terms of writing materials. Papyrus was not only used to inscribe books and documents: pieces
of limited size were employed for personal letters, and smaller, irregular pieces that had been
discarded functioned as modern scrap paper for notes or schoolwork. While students frequently
relied on sherds for exercises of limited length, common people also used ostraca for specific
purposes or when papyrus was not available. Although the backs of pieces of papyrus, ostraca,
and tablets are writing materials traditionally associated with school contexts, and although all
were used in education, students did not employ the various materials indiscriminately.
Materials were selected according to the kind of writing a student was required to do and the
proficiency of the exercise. As a student progressed, he gained access to different materials and
was exposed to a variety of them in the course of his academic career. It was probably this
early school exposure to writing on materials of various kind that determined the familiarity
with different materials that people showed in their later years and the casualness with which
they used them.
Even though in Graeco-Roman Egypt students learned very early that writing had to be a
thing of beauty and were taught to care about the presentation and ornamentation of their
exercises, aesthetic preoccupations did not prove impediments. Teachers themselves wrote the
books that offered special assistance to beginners and that were used for reading in the early
years. These models also served as exemplars for learning and improving writing skills. From
the first days of their schooling students were encouraged to write and imitate teachers’ models
that displayed fluency and attractive regularity. Teachers’ hands looked their best on tablets:
slow, graceful, and almost easy to imitate, with an exemplary clarity and smoothness. It does
not seem, however, that the superior quality of teachers’ scripts intimidated students to a great
extent or radically conditioned their performances. Students copied the models with a certain
easy and careless attitude. It is no wonder that Aurelia Charite in adult life—and many other
people with her—did not show any self-consciousness in appending their signatures and sub-
scriptions to documents written by scribal pens that flowed on papyrus much more swiftly than
did theirs.”
In the Graeco-Roman world education was paramount in promoting not only the writing
skills of a class of people embarking on highly rewarding public careers and on specialized
professions but also the more limited competence in writing that was needed to care for one’s
interests in everyday life. Students were exposed to writing in their first school days and
acquired through education that attitude of trust toward writing that they were going to main-
tain in their adult years. Even though only a small minority continued in their academic careers
and learned to master the complexities of writing, such as composing and authoring a text, the
early stages oF education to which more people were exposed were fundamental in creating a
literate mentality. In early medieval Europe, on the other hand, classical education was more
and more isolated and the financial advantages it had once promoted became questionable, if

hryny tuations Anmncal

Oh Ain-teeeal
rats eee
became e
warrior aristocrats”28 and
Opportunities for secular careers became rare,”° students’ skills were no longer recognized as

as e.g., P.Charite 8.
on Peter Heather, “Literacy and Power in the Migration Period,” in Bowman and Woolf 1994. 196
About traditional culture yielding to Christianity, see Kaster 1988, 70-95.
 CONCLUSION 159

the key to advancement in the imperial administration. When in medieval Europe traditiona
l
education and much of its substance became less highly regarded and ceased to be
a powerful
motivation, all the familiar institutions of the traditional culture lost their customers
, and writ-
ing at every level—from copying to composing—lost its promoters.
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Appendix I

List of Teachers

Teachers Named in School Exercises

I will consider first the only two teachers we get to know by name in the school exercises.

(1) 244 [II Bc Memphis]: After copying the last piece of his personal anthology, Apollonios,
the son of Glaukias, describes the texts as “the lessons of Ariston, the philosopher,”
CApiorwy gid600d0¢, pabrpata.)! Ariston may have been a real teacher who went up
to the Serapeum to give regular lessons to the boy or he may have been just a learned
friend who helped him occasionally.

(2) 160 [V AD Antinoopolis]: Underneath the model of a maxim a teacher writes his own
name, PAatvog Kéddovbog son of “loc&kiog. We do not know of any elementary school
teacher who possessed the Flaviate, although some grammarians did.2 The student,
however, was certainly a beginner, and the exercise itself is very elementary.
Tlavdaywyoi
The references from here on are to teachers known from documents and letters, starting from
madaywyoi.? They are usually thought to have been children’s attendants.

(1) P.Lond. VII 2042.11 [Il Bc]: Fragmentary letter of an Alexandrian employee of Apol-
lonios regarding money he had deposited with a third party for the use of a younger
brother. The name of the ta:daywydc, LrTbipaé, appears without further information.

(2) P.Tebt. 1112 vi [112 Bc]: “Eopiac marda(ywyd¢?) is mentioned in an account.

(3) P. Oxy. L 3555.13-15 [I-II AD]: the woman Evxcéprov is mentioned in a petition; she was
the attendant of a young slave girl (tatdaywyotonc aiTnv) who was on her way to a les-
son in music and other skills when she had an accident.

(4) O.Edfu 1 150 [October 24 104 AD]: Kumpaic mad(aywydc¢?) of Antipater pays the
Jewish tax in Apollinopolis. The term, however, is abbreviated and perhaps could be
expanded as maudcpiov, since slaves also had to pay the tax.

(5) P. Oxy. VI 930.17.19-20.27-28 [II-III AD]: Letter to Ptolemaios from his mother, who
is concerned because his xa@nyn7hc has departed. The instructor in question spoke to

INote, however, the nominative instead of the genitive. K. Gaiser, “Ein Lob Athens in der Komdédie,” Gym-
nasium 75 (1968) 205-206, thinks that perhaps Apollonios meant to say: “for lovers of wisdom the best thing is learn-
ing.
2Sce above pp. 14-15 and 22.
3] am not including SB VI 9050, col. IV.10, since the term appears in a comparison and does not refer to a his-
torical person.
162 APPENDIX 1

her very well of the youngster’s pedagogue, the slave "Epwe, (éuapTiper b& ToAAw TrEpt
Tov Tadaywyod cov.) “Now, my son,” says the mother, “I urge both you and your ped-
agogue to take care that you go to a suitable Kadnyntis.”
(6) Stud. Pal. XX 85.11v [320-21 ap]:4 Payment of 8 talents to a pedagogue named *AxA-
edo, for six months. It is unclear to what transaction it referred.

(7) PSI VIL 809.8 [IV-V AD]: Payment to a pedagogue named Makarios, probably for the
dyeing of a cloak.
TpappatodtdaoKanou
They were traditionally the elementary school instructors. The first two references are somewhat
unclear.
(1) P.Ryl. IV 572.1.10 [II Bc]: Instructions regarding the selection of scribes (called yoap-
woToddcoxador), who were permitted to draw up Demotic contracts. They were perhaps
scribes’ teachers or regular elementary teachers who performed some scribal functions.
(2) BGU VI 1214.4 [II Bc]: Related to the previous papyrus. The text concerns the transmis-
sion of the list of scribes.
(3) SB Ill 7268.4 [I AD]: Private letter written in Heracleopolis from Sarapion to a friend,
Ptolemaios, whom he has left in the Arsinoite. Sarapion is distressed because he is
unable to solve some geometry problems. For the sake of their long friendship he asks
Ptolemaios to give the person who will carry the letter a certain ya@o7n, which will help
in the problems’ solution. Sarapion will be extremely grateful to his friend. The letter is
addressed to the yoappatodidackadetov of MerXavkopac.

(4) SB I 680 [108 AD]: Inscription in which the schoolteacher Iletevepatnco says that he
built a wall for the goddess Leto out of piety.
(5) P.Mert. III 113.8 [II AD]: Private letter to Lucia. The letter, which is fragmentary,
seems to consist only of a list of goods, which were sent by different people. A teacher
is also sending something, but we do not know what.

(6) P.Oxy. XXIV 2421.2.48 [ca. 312-323]:° Account of payments in kind. The school-
master Sarapion receives some wheat and barley, the cash value of which is indicated.
Neither the period covered nor the purpose of the account is included.§
(7) Stud. Pal. XX 117.18 [411 AD]: The schoolmaster AdpyLog Oipoevotd.ioc wrote a sub-
scription in a sale contract for someone who did not know how to write.
(8) P.Oxy. LVIII 3952.11-12, 40, 54 [before 29 August 610]: the teacher of the South
School (7od Notivov LxoXéov), son of the late Justus, acts as guarantor in a steward’s
work contract.

4Dated by Bagnall 1985, 15 note 10.

5For the date see Bagnall 1985, 57.
References (6) and (7) are included by Kaster 1988, in the Prosopography, as nos. 133 and 112.
 APPENDIX 1 163

Xapardc6aoKxanor
This term appears only in a late tax codex from Hermopolis.

(1) P.Sorb. II 69 [VII AD]: the schoolmaster Gennadios is listed as intermediary for his wife
in 58.37 and pays directly in 84 E 12.
(2) P.Sorb. I 69 [VII AD]: in 93.3 the schoolmaster Kollouthos is listed as intermediary. He
is also mentioned in BM 1077, f.i.31 and iii. 13 and 30.

AtéaoKandou

Before listing the references, it is necessary to remark that the term duda@oxadoc is widely used
in documentary papyri,’ and that only certain kinds of references will be considered. It is neces-
sary to evaluate the appearance of the term in the various documents to see whether, when used
alone and without further specifications, it refers to someone giving an education in yodppata.
On two occasions (SB VIII 10113.3 and BGU XIV 2430.1) dudcoxadog is used together with
words that help define it, and it does not refer to school.’ The word is also used directly in some
of the contracts of apprenticeship (apprenticeship will not be considered here, because the teach-
ing involved different arts and occupations). Sometimes in the contracts the student-master rela-
tionship is only implied by terms such as padety, ucOnoic, or éxdtdcoxerv. In 16 contracts out of
21, the situation is one of the following: either the word d:dcoKadocg is not used directly or it is
accompanied by a defining term, such as yépdétog (weaver), xadkéTuT0¢ (coppersmith),
xTevioTnc (wool carder or hairdresser).? In P.Lond. VII 2017 (which is not included) the word
6u6a@oKadoc is used by itself even though it probably refers to a teacher in the xOapwdikh TEx.
Here, however, the term is not employed as a title, but rather to express a relationship (6
6u6a@oKadO¢ pov). Only in two apprenticeship contracts, P.Mich. III 170.10 and P.Mich. III
172.12, both concerning the yepd.axn Téxvn, does dudc&oKadoc seem to be used as a title without
a further specifying term. It therefore seems safe to conclude that, when dudc&oxadoc is employed
as a title by itself, it usually refers to a teacher involved in formal education. I do not list here
two papyri, P.Ant. III 156 and P.Cair.Masp. I 67089 recto B.7, where the word ddc&oKadoc is
either unclear or does not seem to refer to a real person.!° We should notice, moreover, that in a
few instances (all included in the references) the term d66&@oxadoc appears in an abbreviated
form as d€oxadoc or deoxa&dn.!! A further difficulty is created by a few documents appearing in

TA list of all the references to 616@o0KaAog in papyri appears in CPR XIII, Einleitung D, pp. 65-68.
8In the first papyrus the word refers to a military officer who had the honorific title of dudcéoxadog Tod
Baoéuc Tay TaxTiKGv. In BGU XIV 2430.1 it refers to someone in charge of wine (o7#p.ov) in a religious associa-
tion, which had its own wine and a specific person to mix it.
%In two contracts, P.Tebt. Il 442 and SB XII 10946, the word appears alone, but the documents are frag-
mentary. The exact meaning of xreviory¢ is unclear, see P. Oxy. XLI 2977.
10The front of the first papyrus is written in a good scribal hand. The small fragment shows only five lines of
writing and in the last one can read Jw dudaoxaéAy. We do not know if we are dealing with an apprenticeship contract
or not. Since the elaborate hand does not resemble a teacher’s hand, the fact that a school exercise—299, written in a
different, clumsy hand—appears on the back is not very indicative. P. Cair.Masp. 1 67089 r.B.7 is the draft of a peti-
tion addressed to an official. Here du6&oxaXog is used in a sentence that seems to be a proverb: “one is a teacher to
oneself,” therefore he learns his lesson.
11Cf, pp. 23-24.
164 APPENDIX 1

the list in which the word d:dcéoxeAoc, used without further indications, seems to designate
someone acting in the capacity of scribe or notary.'?
(1) P.Cair.Zen. 1 59098 [257 or 256 BC]: Fragmentary letter of Hierocles to Zenon (?). It
regards the education of Pyrrhos,!? who is going to be sent to another bidcoKadoc.
(2) Pap.Lugd.Bat. XX 20.9 [May 1, 252 Bc]: Loan of money by Zenon to Asklepiades,
which is an advance of the rent Zenon owes the cleruch. ’Ao[...... Inc 6t6&oKadoc wrote
the document. He was acting as scribe.

(3) P.Mich. 1 77.5 {II Bc]: Letter with a distinctly literary flavor from Apollonios to Zenon
concerning a slave (mavdcp.ov) who was introduced to him by ®idwy ddc&aKadog and
whom Zenon had found older than he expected: “if in years he exceeds your expecta-
tions, until (as the saying goes) he has grey hairs and the rest, you can have nothing to
reproach him with.”
(4-5-6) CPR XIII 1.12 and 18, 2.13 [III Bc]: Among the 331 residents of the village of
Trikomia (in the Oepiorov Mepic) three teachers are exempt from the salt tax of one
drachma. The same teachers are also exempt from the obolos tax, which women did not
have to pay.

(7-8-9) CPR XIII 2.30 [III Bc]: Of the 322 citizens of Lagis (also in the Gepiorov Mepic) three
are teachers. Two of these did not have to pay the salt tax. In cases of exemption, only
the males in the household were exempt (vm6Aoyor) and the people were listed by
families. One “teacher,” therefore, was a woman, perhaps the wife of a real teacher.

(10) P.Tebt. IV 1139 col. VII.92 [113 Bc]: List of names of Crown tenants (GBaodKoi
yewpyot), followed by amounts due. Among them the teacher ‘Appuidorc son of
“Apmiatc.

(11) UPZ178.9-14 [Memphis II Bc]: Letter of Ptolemaios reporting two dreams. In the first
Ptolemaios finds his friends, the twin daugthers of Nephoris, in the school of the teacher
Tothes, év 7 dudaoxadnw Tov Tob7ATo¢, who brings the twins out to him.

(12) BGU X 1992 fr. B.7 [II BC]: a dudcoKxadog pays a certain amount in an account.
(13) SBI 4099.5! [II-I Bc]: Inscription on a column of the temple of Isis on the island of
Philae, with the dedication to the goddess (mpooxévnuc) made by Korax for his teacher
KaBar&c, the teacher’s son, and his own son. For this act of adoration Korax probably
expected wealth and health for these people, who were thus put under the god’s pro-
tection. The following inscription (Bernand 1969, 294-95, No. 49) was probably made

12S¢e below Nos. (2), (18), (19), (26) and (29). References (14), (17), (21), (31), and P. Berl. Bork. 1.18 part of
(28), were not mentioned in the list of CPR XIII, pp. 65-68. The following references correspond to cnteige in the
Prosopography of Kaster 1988: (17) = Kaster 243, (18) = 228, (19) = 278, (27) = 214, (25) = 277 (26) = 248
(29) = 260+279, (30) = 187, (28) = 198, (31) = 267, (34) = 280.
See also P. Cair.Zen. 159060 and 59061, which concern the physi ini =f Ss F
physical training and the education in ypdupara
of this young slave who was protected by Zenon.
14Ftienne Bernand, Les Inscriptions grecques de Philae. I. Epoque Ptolémaique (Paris 1969) 291-94, No. 48
 APPENDIX 1 165

by the teacher himself, who inscribed his act of adoration to Isis for his wife and some-
body else next to the mpooxivnua of his old pupil.

(14) P. Mich. 1 123 recto col. xxi.9 [45-47 AD]: grapheion register of Tebtunis with amounts
paid by different people for the writing of different kinds of documents. Lapamidc
d€oxadog paid 4 drachmae. The teacher is one of a list of 12 names under taopynydtwv
évxukdiov. The fees paid are for the grammatika (writer’s fees) and not for encyclic
taxes. The “notations” may have concerned the éyxix\oy tax, and they were drawn up
in the grapheion.

(15) P.Mich. VIII 464 [Karanis 99AD]: Private letter of Apollonous to Terentianos (probably
her husband), who is a soldier in service. Among other things she says that the children
are well and regularly see a teacher, deoxa&dnv.

(16) BGU I 332 [II-III AD]: Private letter found in the Fayum, written by a mother, Sarapias,
to her children. At the end she says that several people greet them and among them is
mentioned "A@nvaic 7 d€oKadoc.

(17) C.Etig.Mom. 900 [256 AD, Panopolis?]: Mummy label of five-year-old Tamouthes,
daughter of the schoolteacher Ilavioxoc.

(18) P. Cair.Isid. 3.41 and 4.21 [Karanis 299 AD]: Two declarations of land situated in dif-
ferent parts of Karanis and addressed to the censitor by Aurelius Isidoros and his
mother. Both documents were drawn up before the du6ao0xadog Aipydoc ‘Hoddnco, who
was acting as notary.

(19) P.Cair Isid. 5.45 = SB V 7672.20 [Karanis 299 AD]: Declarations of land made by
Aurelius Isidoros and drawn up before a schoolmaster (called apeoBirepoc, “the
elder”). This is probably not the same teacher as in the preceding text, because the land
lay in different parts of Karanis. Probably the same man, Aurelius... the elder, appears
as signatory in P.NYU 11.15, a copy of a declaration of land.

(20) P.Leipz. 11.12 [Memphis III AD]: The teacher Antisthenes is mentioned as having a
slave.

(21) P. Oxy. XXXI 2595 [III AD]: Private letter of Origenes to Serenos, inviting him to visit
for a few days. At the end Origenes greets members of the family and also rH
6€oKadov.
(22-23) SB Ill 6262 [III AD]: Private letter from Thonis to his father. Thonis, who is studying in
a different town, urges his father to visit him to see if his du6&a0xadoc pays him adequate
attention. Also, the teacher is asking when the father will come. “Come quickly,” says
Thonis, “so that he can start teaching me, as he is willing to do. If you had come
together with me I would have received my education already a long time ago. When
you come, remember what I wrote to you often. Come quickly then, before (the teacher)
leaves for Upper Egypt.” In the closing Thonis, after greeting members of his family,
greets his old teachers, tov¢ dda@oKcdovc pov.
166 APPENDIX 1

(24) O.Wilck. If 1188.7!5 [Roman]: An account with a list of names followed by unspecified
amounts. Among them *Aprepidwpog didcoKadoc.

P. Oxy. XXIV 2425 I1.16 [III-IV AD]: Private account, 7 didaoKkadw KB. No further
(25)
specifications.

(26) P.Ryl. IV 656.23 = P.Sakaon 3 [Philoteris, Arsinoite 300 AD]: Declaration of land
addressed to the censitor made by Aurelios Kamoutis and signed by the dudc&aKxado¢
Avp7rtoc Toutiwv.

(27) SB VIII 9902 = PBerlBork. A II.2 and 14 [Panopolis early IV AD]: Topographical list
of properties. Two houses are registered, one belonging to the daughter-in-law, and the
other to the sons of Evtuxic the teacher, who was probably dead by that time.

(28) P. Berl. Bork. 1.18 and SB XII 10981.25 [Panopolis early IV AD]: Two documents that
almost certainly both concern the teacher K&Bpiac.!© The first is a topographical listing
of properties drawn up at the beginning of the century. A house appears to be the joint
possession of the sons and brothers of the teacher, who at the time was probably dead.
In the second, a contemporary list of properties, the teacher’s wife (i.e., widow) appears
as the owner of some land.

(29) SB VI 9191.24 = SB VI 9270.40 (two different readings) [337 AD]: Loan agreement
written in the Arsinoite. A teacher acted as notary.

(30) P.Ant. Il 93.36-37 [IV AD]: Private letter written by a bridegroom to his future mother-
in-law concerning wedding preparations. It seems that “Apeovtotoc, a teacher, had given
the gift of a pearl.

(31) P. Berl. Bork. 12.34 [Panopolis IV AD]: Topographical listing of properties. Ogwy the
teacher is registered as the owner of a new house.

(32-33)SB XIV 11532 [IV AD]: Fragmentary Christian letter addressed to Philoxenos 616¢-
oxadoc and mentioning twice Kuria, rAv d:dcoKadov.

(34) O. Petr. 450.7 [IV AD?]: Account, 7@ ddaoxcdw B. The rest is unspecified.

(35) P.Jand. V1 101 [V-VI AD]: Fragmentary Christian letter addressed with warm words to
a Kvpr pov b&kane.

(36) P.Grenf. 1 67.2 [VI-VII AbD]: In a receipt for 6 and 3/4 xepc&rtia the dud6&oxadoc of the
sons of count Zacharias is mentioned.

(37) P.Lond. IV 1419.87 and 638 [716 AD]: Tax list. Among the subdivisions of the general
dnyoove there is a piece of land belonging to a teacher (K@poc d16@oxcAov), which was
probably so called after a teacher who originally owned it.

1SThe ostracon is not mentioned by Kaster 1988.

16See Robert A. Kaster, “P.Panop. 14.25” ZPE 51 (1983) 132-34.
 APPENDIX 1 167

Kadnynrai
Private teachers who taught at various levels of education seem to be designated by this name.!7

(1-2-3-4)P. Oxy. XVIII 2190.7-8, 15, 24, 26, 31 [I ADJ]: Private letter from Neilos to his
father.!8 Neilos is studying in a different town with a younger brother and will soon be
joined by an even younger brother. He has just dismissed his old ka@nynthc, Theon, of
whom he had formed a bad opinion. He is looking for a tutor (called ¢:Aé6Ao0yoc) and
finds it hard to get good lectures and meet clever teachers (éiouc A6you KabnynT&c)
who can offer something besides high fees (u&rnv proboic mAeiovac Tedeiv). There is a
shortage of professors (called here oogiorai). At first he had looked for two xa@rynrai,
Chaeremon and Didymos, the son of Aristocles, but with no success. The only one
available seems to be a certain Didymos. Some of Neilos’ friends attend Didymos’ les-
sons, but Neilos considers him inadequate. “If only I had found some decent teachers
(kaO@nynrai) I would pray never to set eyes on Didymos, even from a distance. I am so
distressed because he, who taught in the country, thinks he can compete with the other
teachers (&oéev sic abyKxpiow Toic &AdAol[tc] Eoxecdar ovtoc Oo emi Tho xdpac
KaOrnyeito).” At present Neilos is trying to study by himself and he intends to hear the
lecturers (T@y émidecxvupévwv), “of whom Posidonios is one.”

(5) P. Oxy. LV 3808 [I-II AD]: Private letter. The addressee is urged to supervise the work
in the fields and a business matter involving jars. He is invited to report to a teacher,
with whom the sender is also in correspondence.

(6-7) P.Giss. I 80 [II AD]: Private letter written by someone in the circle of the strategus Apol-
lonios. The sender asks the recipient to send the leftover pigeons and birds to the
Kabryntns of Heraidous and the leftover food to the ka?yynTH¢ of his own daughter, so
that he will pay attention to her (¢iAoTovHon Eig avTHY).

(8) P. Oslo WI 156 [Il AD]: Private letter. The addressee is Theon, the ka@nynrHe of a girl,
who is paid in kind with a jar of wine or oil and with a basket of grapes.
(9) P.Oxy. VI 930!° [II-III AD]: Private letter. A mother is anxious because her son’s
xabryynthc, Diogenes, has left. She trusted him and had previously asked what the boy
was reading and was told he was reading book 6 (of the Iliad?) A new, suitable teacher
(kaxOjKkovTe KaOnynTH) is needed.

(10) P.Tebt. 11 591 [II-III Ap]: Conclusion of a letter to Maron ka@yynryj¢ from his brother
regarding some private affairs and some fodder to be brought.
T'pappatekot
A list of the grammarians known from the papyri is added for the sake of completeness,
although only the first two do not appear in Kaster 1988, Prosopography.2? Among the gram-

174 doubtful kathegetes is registered in P. Kellis 1 69 no. 53.

18see Rea 1993, 75-88.
19The text was already cited as reference (3) of pedagogue.
20They exceed the chronological limits of his work, which are 253-566 AD. The following references cor-
K 150, (5) = K 69, (6) = K68, (7) = K
respond to entries in Kaster 1988, Prosopography: (3) = Kaster 90, (4) =
128, (8) = K 173, (9) = K 17, (10) = K 78, (11) K 174, (13) = K 41, (15) = K 175. About a third of the gram-
marians appearing in the Prosopography are known from papyri.
168 APPENDIX 1

called
marians listed here only Asklepiades (9) and Flavius Horapollon (10) are not actually
In the
yoapporikoc in the papyri, but are known to have taught at this level in other sources.
others the term yeapparxéc actually occurs in the papyrus.

(1) SB 1 5753.3 [Arsinoite I AD]: Painted inscription, “Eop.évy YOAPLPATLKH, On a Mummy

portrait of a young woman.
[Arsinoe March 23, 124 AD]: A notification by the grammarian Askle-
(2) SB 1 5808.6
piades, son of Neilos and grandson of Neilos, who was registered in a quarter of
Arsinoe, that he wanted to sell to a certain clothes-dealer a slave he had previously
acquired and registered.

(3) P. Oxy. XLVII 3366 [Oxyrhynchos 253-260 AD]: Two drafts of a petition and a letter of
Lollianos, dndov0¢g ypappartixéc, elected by the city council of Oxyrhynchos. The three
documents all concern the same problem: Lollianos complains of rarely seeing his
salary. “If paid at all, it is in sour wine and worm-eaten grain.” He and his family are in
need. He addresses his appeal not to the GovAy, but directly to the emperors. He pro-
poses that the city assign him an orchard, instead of the salary. The unknown addressee
of the letter is supposed to secure the success of the petition. The grammarian calls him-
self a scholar (oxoAa@or7tK6c).2!

(4) P.Lips. 56.6.23 [Hermopolis 398 AD]: Aurelios Theodoros son of Periodos acts as guar-
antor for his brother. He is called oyoAaortkod kai yoappartikod, therefore grammarian
and advocate, since oxyoAao7LKd¢ seems to be used here to indicate his occupation.

(5) P.Ross.Georg. V 60 [Hermopolis IV-V AD]: The grammarian Heraclammon is regis-

tered as receiving 20 artabae of wheat in an account of payments for six months made to
many people. It is not clear if the payments came from a public or private source or
what kind of services were paid.

(6-7) BGU XII 2152 [Hermopolis V AD]: The first of three witnesses to a lease is A(au10c)
‘Ep[... ]oiAov yoa[..]. The editor suggests the restoration yoa[up(a7Kdc)]. The third
witness is the grammarian Flavius Pythiodoros. If the restoration is right, it would be
evidence of the presence of two grammarians at the sanie time in Egypt in a city outside
Alexandria.

(8) SB XII 11084 [V Hermopolis ?]: Letter that Victor sends from Hermopolis to Theog-
nostos to ask him to return certain rhetorical books. The slave of “our master the gram-
marian,” 0 Kiptog 0 ypappyaTiKdc, is mentioned as the one who will act as courier. If the
slave had been sent from Hermopolis, his master the grammarian might possibly be one
of the previous two, (6) or (7).

(9-10) P.Cair.Masp. III 67295 [end V AD]: Four different documents. In the first (especially
lines 15-19), Asklepiades, who is deceased, is said by his son Horapollon to have lived
and taught in Alexandria. He is also said to have been linked to his brother by the Muse

2IThe meaning of this word developed from “scholar” to “lawyer” in Byzantine times, see PSI XIII 1337.22-
23: oxoAworTLKOG Kal Piddaodgoc.
 APPENDIX 1 169

of philosophy. “He dedicated all his life to the Muses, teaching young men the old
moavdeta.” He was a grammarian or philosopher (or both). His son was Flavius Horapol-
lon, who calls himself (line 1) Aapapdtatoc and who is known from other sources to
have been a grammarian in Alexandria. In line 13 Horapollon says that he had a school
in that city, oxoAnv wept Taco éxelioe] aKadnuiac, where he taught 7Hv diddcodov
Tmadeiav.2?

(11) PSI VU 891 [V-VI AD]: Account whose purpose and source are not specified, mention-
ing “one solidus to the grammarian.”

(12) SB 1 5941 [509 AD]: Extract of a contract on a wooden tablet mentioning the gram-
marian Flavius, wavédevTAg “EAAnuix@v NOywv.

(13) P. Cair.Masp. I 67134, 67135, 67139, II 67326, 67327 [Aphrodito init. VI AD]: Series
of receipts in which Aurelius (?) Kyros appears, who is probably the same as Aurelius
Kyros decurion (moXiTevduevoc) of Antaeopolis and perhaps the poet Cyrus of
Antaeopolis. In 67326 his heirs refer to him by the phrase tH¢ waxapiac pynunco Kipov
YOXPLPMATLKOV.

(14) P.Miinch. 1 14.29-30, 39 [Syene 15 February 594 AD]: Contract in which the gram-
marian IIqweiwy is mentioned as giving a judgement in writing.

(15) P.Cair.Masp. 1 67077 [Aphrodito VI AD]: A letter to an unknown recipient from an

unknown sender who declares that he has spoken about a certain accident to his master,
the grammarian, 7@ deom6TH pov TR YPAUPaTiKy.

(16) P.Sorb. Il 69, 115 B 3 [Hermopolis VII AD]: Antoninos, or his son, appears as inter-
mediary in a tax codex.

(17) P.Sorb. I] 69, 48 B 13 and 18: Theophilos is listed twice as intermediary in tax account.

(18) P.Sorb. 11 69, 89 G 1 and 91 B 1: Metrodoros is listed as name of tax account.

(19) P.Sorb. 11 69: A grammarian is listed as intermedary and pays for his wife in 14.11.

PHTwp
There is only one mention of a professor of rhetoric:

(1) SB XVIII 13758 i.11 [Hermopolis VII AD]: A rhetor is listed as a tax payer.

LoduoTat
Sophistai are probably teachers of rhetoric.”3

22K aster (1988) 295 concludes that, since Horapollon is known to have been a grammarian by the end of the V
century, either he uses the word “philosopher” in the sense of “lover of learning” or he became a philosopher later
on. On the family cf. O. Masson, “A propos d’Horapollon, l’auteur des Hieroglyphica,” REG 105 (1992/1) 231-36.
23Cf. references (1-2-3-4) to kaOnynrai.
170 APPENDIX 1

(1) P.Sorb. 11 69 [Hermopolis VII AD]: The sophistes Heliodoros is listed as intermediary in
a tax account and appears as paying for his wife in 38 E 9 and for himself in 48 A 7 and
128 B 6.

(2) P.Lond. Il 866b [Hermopolis VII AD]: Official letter in which is mentioned the so-
phistes Theodosios.”4

24See G.M. Pardssoglou, “Nineteen Papyri from the British Library,” Hellenika 38 (1987) 23-45.
Appendix 2

List of Students Appearing in the Exercises

“Atod\Awrios (son of TAaixiac) (II BC) 246 (78, 244, 245)

Mapwv (II-I Bc) 250
“Hoakdyjc (II-II] AD) 55
"Eragpoditoc (III AD) 385
Evtuxiéne (son of Ka&domoc) (III AD) 138
Kapntic (Roman) 51
“Avtovi(oc) (II-IV AD) 57
Avpnrdtog Geddwpoc (son of “AvouBiwv) (April 24, 327 AD) 146, 389
"Apporvog (IV AD) 394
Avpnrtog “Atiwv (son of “Inot@n¢) (IV AD) 392
Oeddidroc (son of Maptipioc) (IV AD) 391
Avpnrdoc “AvTavoc (son of Nepeciwv) (IV AD) 395
IIatAocg (IV AD) 398
Avtpnrog Tamvoifuc (son of *I86u¢) (Memphis, IV AD) 396
Lappatoc (II-V AD) 400 (side 40)
*Avoda (III-V AD) 400 (side 41)
Kadduvixoc (IV-V AD) 342
*loxupiwy (IV-VI AD) 307
Avpjrtog Beddwpoc (son of ‘lobatos) (V AD) 308
“Ada “APavalorog] (V AD) 12
Makcptoc (son of Lwrjp) (VI AD) 23
Oceddwpoc (Kerkeeris, end VI AD) 408
Ilamvottic (son of LiABavoc) (end VI AD) 407 (side 49)
Liwy (VII AD) 230
Aipyroc [[.e]]AA[[a..JJapwr [[a..]]Jawriog (VII AD) 229
"Atakipe (VIII AD) 40
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Catalogue of School Exercises

Introduction

The Catalogue mainly lists school exercises—that is, students’ school work, teachers’ models,
and teachers’ notes used for preparing classes. An exception was made for four texts inscribed
by professional scribes for school use, since the very elementary level of the exercises they
contain indicates beyond any doubt that they addressed students.! Exercises written by scribes
Or apprentice scribes have been considered only when their level is very elementary.” I did not
include scribal exercises of higher levels that seemed to presuppose practice in schools special-
izing in scribal training. Advanced scribal exercises are included in the two volumes of Greek
and Coptic school exercises, MPER NS XV and XVIII. The editors of both collections follow a
similar principle of inclusion for their collection of school exercises—namely, exercises of
every type indicate practice and the will to learn, and are therefore from a school milieu. I
have consciously defined the notion of “school,” and therefore “school exercises,” more nar-
rowly, because my intention is to study how writing was taught at the elementary and inter-
mediate levels. Likewise, as a rule I did not consider exercises performed in rhetorical schools.
As was said above,? the Catalogue does not include mathematical and Latin school exercises,
and lists Coptic exercises only when they involve a knowledge and practice of the Greek and
Coptic letters of the alphabet—that is, exercises geared to the learning of the Coptic script, not
the Coptic language.
The criteria I employed for the inclusion of exercises in this Catalogue have been men-
tioned not only in chapter 3, but elsewhere. The arrangement of the exercises in the Catalogue
is a chronological ranging of texts within ten different categories of exercises whose difficulty
increase from one category to the next.4 The eleventh category are notebooks, the majority of
which are composite, with exercises of more than a single type. The entry for each exercise
includes the inventory number of the collection where it is preserved, the editio princeps,
where it is illustrated>, and the relevant bibliography after the publication of the second edition
of the catalogue of Pack.® Also included are the respective numbers in Zalateo’s and Debut’s
lists. Provenance and date of the exercise is given as precisely as possible.’ Usually I have
maintained the dates of the editio princeps, but I have also specified when I disagree with it.

See 81, 84, 97, and 120. The professional origin of 295 and 379 is uncertain.
2See above pp. 28-29.
3See pp. 29-30.
4Cf. the distinction of the different levels that is introduced on p. 31 and see pp. 37-55.
SRoman numbers in bold characters refer to the plates at the end of this book.
6] did not list articles that only mention the individual exercises. In the bibliographic entry Z and D stand for
Zalateo and Debut.
7See on p. 117 the observations about the difficulty in dating school exercises. When a date is given for
instance in the form II-III AD, it means that the exercise was written either in the second or in the third century, and
no further specifications are possible.
174 CATALOGUE

Sometimes accompanying the indication of the material are observations about its quality, the
preservation of a given piece when it is noteworthy, its state of completeness, and the size,
when it is known.
When the back of a piece has not been written on, this is indicated along with the
information about the writing material. Otherwise the content of the exercise is divided
between “front” and “back,” when it is possible to determine which part was written first, or
“sides” 1 and 2, when no such indication is possible. The rubric “content” contains a brief des-
cription of the exercise, the characteristics of its layout and presentation, and a notation of lec-
tional and punctuation signs. It also indicates any dates marked on the exercise, whether the
mistakes are particularly numerous or noteworthy, and clues to the origin of a text from copy-
ing, dictation, or composition. This rubric occasionally contains some textual corrections.
Palaeographical characteristics come last in the description of each item. They are
divided according to hands. Students’ hands are first distinguished by type, using the terminol-
ogy devised for each one.* When necessary, the terms designating each hand are accompanied
by further observations such as remarks on ligatures, speed of execution, and the writing
instrument used. Teachers’ hands are usually described at length since, being products of a fin-
ished maturation and embodying certain styles, they offer a firmer basis for dating than school
hands can provide.
The eleven sections in which the Catalogue is divided include the following exercises:

Letters of the Alphabet nos. 1-40

Alphabets nos. 41-77
Syllabaries nos. 78-97
Lists of Words nos. 98-128
Writing Exercises nos. 129-174
Short Passages nos. 175-232
Long Passages nos. 233-324
Scholia Minora nos. 325-343
Compositions, Paraphrases, Summaries nos. 344-357
Grammar nos. 358-378
Notebooks nos. 379-412

8See p. 33 and 111-12.

 CATALOGUE 175

Letters of the Alphabet

1
Ed.pr.: B. Boyaval, CRIPEL 10 (1982) 108-109 P. Lille inv. 66
Photo: I
Prov.: Ghoran Date: Ptolemaic
Mat.: Cartonnage papyrus, 6 x 15 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Perhaps literary.
Back: t Two cols. of nu’s, in the second nu is followed by faint traces of letters.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” thick-nubbed pen.

Z
Ed.pr.: B. Boyaval, CRIPEL 10 (1982) 108-109 P. Lille inv. 110/B
Photo: Planche 19
Prov.: Ghoran Date: Ptolemaic
Mat.: Cartonnage papyrus, 8 x 8 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Perhaps mathematical.
Back: t Two cols. of omicron’s, in the second omicron is followed by traces of letters.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” with a thick pen.

3
Ed.pr.: B. Boyaval, CRIPEL 10 (1982) 108-109 P. Lille inv. 110/A
Photo: Planche 19
Prov.: Ghoran Date : Ptolemaic
Mat.: Very worn cartonnage papyrus, 7 x 7 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Perhaps mathematical.
Back: t Short col. of omicron’s.
Hand: “Zero-grade.”

Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 28 O.Vindob.G. 339

Photo: Tafel 6
Prov.: Unknown Date: III-IV AD
Mat.: Ostracon, incomplete, 9.3 x 9.5 cm.; other side blank.
Cont.: Many letters of the alphabet are practiced in seven lines, with epsilon and eta alone
covering about half of the total.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” alpha in epigraphic and cursive form, ligatured, epsilon always in cursive
form with cross stroke detached and ligatured to the next letter.

Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 27 O.Vindob.G. 593

Photo: Tafel 6
176 LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET

Prov.: Unknown IV AD (ed.pr.), probably later

Mat.: Ostracon, incomplete, 6 x 8 cm.; other side blank.
Cont.: Individual letters practiced by two hands.
Hand 1: “Zero-grade,” practices capital and cursive letters, trying unsuccessfully to place them
between parallel grooves. One large letter is traced underneath in the blank space.
Hand 2: “Rapid,” uses finer pen than Hand 1 and traces also some pen trials.

Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 11 P.Vindob.G. 23624

Photo: Tafel 2
Prov.: Arsinoite Date: IV AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 7.5 x 5 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: = A series of beta’s.
Hand: Experienced, probably an apprentice scribe.

7
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 14 P.Vindob.G. 15709
Photo: Tafel 4
Proyv.: Hermopolite Date: IV-V AD
Mat.: Papyrus strip, 27 x 4.5 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Document and writing by several hands. One hand turns the papyrus to write.
A few rows of epsilon’s are practiced by a fourth hand.
Back: t Hardly legible, perhaps an exercise.
Hand: Fluent, but some letters are drawn incorrectly: probably an apprentice scribe.

8
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 21 P.Vindob.G. 3763
Photo: Tafel 5
Prov.: Unknown A Date: IV-V AD
Mat.: Scrap of papyrus, 10 x 12.5 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Remains of an account.
Back: > A row of letters after what is probably a cross. Rest of space unocccupied.
Hand: Fluent, probably an apprentice scribe.

9
Ed.pr.: B. Boyaval, CRIPEL 2 (1974) 270-71 T.Louvre MND 552 C
Photo: Pap.Flor. XIX Tav. X Bibl.: D 6; Pap. Flor. XIX pp.134-35
Prov.: Unknown Date: V AD
Mat.: Fragment of wooden tablet, 35 x 4 x 0.6 cm.
Cont.: Rows of identical letters in three cols., practiced on both sides.
Hand: Fluent, even if the letters are not perfect. There is a contrast between thin and thick
strokes. Thickenings or roundels at the foot of verticals. Probably an apprentice scribe.
 LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET 177,

10
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 13 P.Vindob.G. 944
Photo: Tafel 3
Prov.: Heracleopolite Date: V AD
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 4.9 x 11.5 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: t Account. A different hand practices a series of epsilon’s.
Side 2: Some epsilon’s, more are written and erased.
Hand: Fluent, probably an apprentice scribe.

11
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 16 P.Vindob.G. 7426
Photo: Tafel 4
Prov.: Unknown Date: V AD
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 7.2 x 2.4 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Traces of writing.
Back: f A cross and a tau. Then some eta’s were practiced along the fibers, the papy-
rus being turned 90 degrees.
Hand: Moderately fluent, probably an apprentice scribe.

12
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XVIII 98 P.Vindob.K 18271
Photo: Tafel 36
Prov.: Unknown Date: V AD
Mat.: Papyrus fragment, 3 x 4.5 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: Pupil’s name and some letters (especially epsilon).
Hand: “Alphabetic,” with some difficulty of alignment.

13
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 23 P.Vindob.G. 25685
Photo: Tafel 5
Prov.: Unknown Date: V AD?
Mat.: Coarse papyrus, 7.5 x 2.7 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: > Six letters are practiced at all angles, at random. Underneath there is a drawing, per-
haps an animal.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” epsilon with cross bar elongated.

14
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 26 P.Vindob.G. 26122
Photo: Tafel 6
Prov.: Arsinoite Date: V AD?
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 8.5 x 8.4 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: ~ Letters written randomly in two lines; the rest of the sheet is blank. Perhaps
originally the whole alphabet was written. Zeta in line 2 has a supralinear stroke (to in-
178 LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET

dicate a number?) and is preceded by a letter before pi (iota?).

Hand: “Zero-grade.”

15
Ed.pr.: C. Wessely, Stud. Pal. II, p. XLIV 1 P.Vindob.G. 26011a
Photo: Tafel 5 Bibl.: P? 2735, Z 20, D 1; MPER NS XV 22
Prov.: Arsinoite/Heracleopolite Date: V-VI AD
Mat.: Coarse papyrus, 2.7 x 11 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: > A few letters and especially the combination epsilon lambda.
Hand: Fluent, even if showing some hesitation. An apprentice scribe?

16
Ed.pr.: B. Boyaval, RA (1971) f. 1, p. 61 T.Louvre inv. AF 6713
Photo: I Bibl DS
Prov.: Antinoopolis Date: V-VI AD
Mat.: Partial wooden tablet, 23 x 5 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Letters written randomly, some upside down. A date.
Side 2: Various letters.
Hand: Fluent, probably a scribe.

17
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 15 P.Vindob.G. 36534a
Photo: Tafel 4
Prov.: Unknown Date: V-VI AD
Mat.: Scrap of papyrus, 7.5 x 4 cm.; other side blank.
Cont.: t Series of epsilon’s.
Hand: Fairly fluent, uses a thick pen; probably an apprentice scribe.

18
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 19 P.Vindob.G. 40380
Photo: Tafel 5
Prov.: Unknown Date V-VI AD
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 6 x 7 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Part of a word, written by a hand different from Hand 1.
Back: — Series of phi’s and chi’s, many inkblots. Large blank space underneath.
Hand 1: Fluent, probably an apprentice scribe.

19
Ed.pr.: Phoebammon II p. 124 no. 34 Not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: MPER NS XVIII 45
Prov.: Thebaid Date: Byzantine
Mat.: Ostracon, stone, 7 x 10 cm.
 LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET 179

Cont.: Greek and Coptic letters of the alphabet, especially mu, written on both sides and in dif-
ferent directions.
Hand: Not described.

20
Ed.pr.: Phoebammon II p. 137 no. 75 Not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: MPER NS XVIII 47
Prov.: Thebaid Date: Byzantine
Mat.: Ostracon, 9 x 6 cm.
Cont.: Some letters, which do not seem to form words. Probably an exercise.
Hand: Not described.

21
Ed.pr.: Phoebammon II p. 137 no. 77 Not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: MPER NS XVIII 49
Prov.: Thebaid Date: Byzantine
Mat.: Ostracon, 8 x 12 cm.
Cont.: Some letters, probably an exercise.
Hand: Large, but not described further.

22
Ed.pr.: Phoebammon II p. 136 no. 72 Not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: MPER NS XVIII 50
Prov.: Thebaid Date: Byzantine
Mat.: Ostracon, 10 x 8.5 cm.
Cont.: Some letters, no word can be recognized; probably an exercise.
Hand: Very large, but not described further.

23
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 58 P.Vindob.G. 36500
Photo: Tafel 15
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI AD
Mat.: Coarse papyrus, 8 x 10.5 cm
Cont.: Front: ~ Pen trials and the letter chi practiced four times.
Back: t The name Makcp.og Lorhpoc is written by two hands. A few letters of the
alphabet are also practiced several times. On the top left corner a chrism.
Hand |: Practiced, perhaps the teacher guiding the student.
Hand 2: “Zero-grade,” very multistroke and uncertain about letter shapes.

24
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 29 O.Vindob.G. 565
Photo: Tafel 6
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI AD
180 LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET

Mat.: Ostracon, 5.3 x 4.7 cm.

Cont.: Some letters, especially pi, are traced in several lines.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” identical letters always appear different.

25
Ed.pr.: P.J. Sijpesteijn, Hermeneus 42 (1971) 255 no. 2 P.Amst.inv. 90
Photo: Plate
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 16.14 x 9.6 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: > Some letters and the combination oovx are practiced underneath an account.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” size varies considerably.

26
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 12 P.Vindob.G. 41103
Photo: Tafel 2
Prov.: Unknown . Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Cheap, coarse papyrus, 1.8 x 8.2 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: = Beta is practiced five times, then the whole is crossed out.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” writes with extreme difficulty.

27
Ed.pr.: P.J. Sijpesteijn, Hermeneus 42 (1971) 255 no. 3 P.Amst.inv. 93
Photo: Plate
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Papyrus strip, 31.5 x 3 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: > Xi is traced several times.
Hand: Somewhat fluent, probably a beginner scribe.

28
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 17 P.Vindob.G. 10022
Photo: Tafel 4
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 3.5 x 6.5 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: f A letter and a chrism.
Side 2: tT A cross and some phi’s. Blank space on the left.
Hand: Fluent, probably an apprentice scribe.

29
Ed.pr.: C. Wessely, Stud. Pal. Il, p. LIII 10 P.Vindob.G. 26011)
Photo: MPER XV 24, Tafel 5 Bibl.: P? 2735, Z 22, D 3; MPER NS XV 24
Proy.: Arsinoite/Heracleopolite Date: VII AD
Mat.: Coarse papyrus scrap, 8 x 10.5 cm.; back blank.
 LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET 181

Cont.: > Rows of letters in random order.

Hand: Fluent, a practicing scribe, the same as in 30.

30
Ed.pr.: C. Wessely, Stud. Pal. Il, p. LII 9 P.Vindob.G. 260111
Photo: MPER XV 25, Tafel 6 Bibl.: P? 2735, D 3, Z 22; MPER NS XV 25
Prov.: Arsinoite/Heracleopolite Date: VII AD
Mat.: Complete papyrus scrap, 8.5 x 10.5 cm.
Cont: Front: Cross and letters practiced at random.
Back: More letters, then a large blank space.
Hand: Same as in 29.

31
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XVIII 10 P.Vindob.K. 698
Photo: Tafel 5
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Papyrus piece, broken at bottom and right, 10.8 x 7.2 cm.; other side blank.
Cont.: Traces of a text previously written and washed out. ft Letters of the alphabet, mainly
alpha and zeta, are practiced several times.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” has particular trouble with zeta.

32
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XVIII 20 P.Vindob.K. 14850
Photo: Tafel 11
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII AD
Mat.: Papyrus fragment, 4 x 7.7 cm.
Cont.: Side 1 > Coptic documentary text.
Side 2 — The letter zeta is practiced several times.
Hand: Fluent, probably an apprentice scribe.

33
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 20 P.Vindob.G. 40940
Photo: Tafel 5
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII Ap
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 11 x 5.7 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Letters traced randomly, especially epsilon, theta, upsilon.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” multistroke and very uncertain. Cross bar of epsilon very extended.

34

Ed pre HR HallecGT ply 29 no! 2 O.BM inv. 19082, 18816, 18798, 18972
Photo: I Bibl.: P? 2695, Z 34, 99, D 7; MPER NS XVIII 39
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII Ab
Mat.: Fragments of ostracon, 6.5 x 6 + 4.5 x 10.2 cm.
182 LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET

gamma.
Cont.: Beta is practiced in several rows. There are also two cursive alpha’s and a
Sometimes vertical lines separate cols. of rows.
Hand: Fluent enough, probably an apprentice scribe.

35

Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 18 P.Vindob.G. 19575

Photo: Tafel 4
Prov.: Unknown Date: VIJI-VIII AD
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 6.8 x 21.3 cm.
Cont.: Front: > The letter omega is practiced, one line in Arabic.
Back: More Arabic.
Hand: Very fluent.

36
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XVIII 37 O.BM inv. 21291
Photo: I Bibl.: H.R. Hall, CGT pl. 24 no. 3
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 15.3 x 11.2 cm.
Cont.: Random Greek and Coptic letters, a chrism, a cross, and two animal drawings.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” now faded.

37
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XVIII 38 O.BM 21295
Photo: II Bibl.: H.R. Hall, CGT pl. 30 no.5
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 24 x 20.2 cm.
Cont.: Greek and Coptic letters written randomly and a drawing of a stick figure.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” very faded now.

38
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XVIII 40 O.BM 21379
Photo: II Bibl.: H.R. Hall, CGT pl. 28 no.1
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII ap
Mat.: Ostracon written on both sides, 12.2 cm. x 9.7 cm.
Cont.: Greek and Coptic letters written by two hands. The first writes random letters in four
lines, of which the last two are identical on one side of the ostracon. There is a chrism
at the beginning. A decorative line separates this from the following exercise. A sec-
ond very unskilled hand practices a few letters underneath the model, especially
upsilon. On the back the first hand traces more letters, of a larger size.
Hand 1: Skilled, fluent, and even: perhaps a teacher, but more likely an advanced student.
Hand 2: “Zero-grade,” the upsilon’s are all different.
 LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET 183

39
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XVIII 42 O.BM 33166
Photo: II Bibl.: H.R. Hall, CGT pl.26 no.5
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon written on both sides, 7.2 x 6.4 cm.
Cont.: Many Greek and Coptic letters written randomly.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” with very uncertain letter shapes and varying size.

40
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XVIII 96 P.Vindob.K 8562
Photo: Tafel 35
Prov.: Unknown Date: VIII AD?
Mat.: Papyrus, 3.3 x 6.4 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Writing by a different hand, difficult to see.
Back: t A name and a few letters in different lines.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” so uncertain that it is hard to identify the letters.

Alphabets

41
Ed.pr.: P.Mich. VIII 1099 O.Mich.inv. 9598
Photo: III Bibl.: P2 2745,°Z 1, D 17
Prov.: Unknown Date: Ptolemaic
Mat.: Ostracon, complete, 11.7 x 9.8 cm.
Cont.: Alphabet written in three lines, two-thirds of the space blank.
Hand: Fluent, the letters are calligraphic and some are serifed. Probably a model.

42
Ed.pr.: O.Bodl. Il 2191 O.Bodl.Gk.Inscr. 1975
Photo: III, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Bible. B222674,°7°2,, D183
Prov.: Unknown Date: I Bc-I AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 8.4 x 6.6 cm.
Cont.: Alphabet in four lines.
Hand: Fluent; draws slow, serifed letters. Ends of lines 3 and 4 difficult to see. Omega can be
recognized when the ostracon is turned 90 degrees. Probably a teacher’s model.

43
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 5 O.Vindob.G. 285
Photo: Tafel 2
Prov.: Unknown Date: I-III AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 4.5 x 7.5 cm.
184 ALPHABETS

Cont.: Alphabet in three lines and alphabet in reverse order from omega to alpha written in
four lines 90 degrees from the first alphabet.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” uncertain about letter order. There are some erasures and corrections.

44
Ed.pr.: J.G. Milne, JHS 28 (1908) 121 O.ROM inv. 906.8.522
Photo: Plate O.Rom. 65
Bibl.: P? 2715, Z 5, D 34; O.Rom. 1 65; Pap.Colon. XV1.1, Suppl.Magicum p. xv
Prov.: Upper Egypt Date: II AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 8 x 6.2 cm.
Cont.: Exercise on the alphabet, the first letter coupled with the last, the second with the sec-
ond to last, and so on (cf. 79 and 83). Unusual disposition in vertical cols. owing to
the shape of the ostracon. No need to think of magical or cypher codes (see ed.pr.).
Hand: “Alphabetic,” capable enough, but some hesitation and multistroke letters.

45
Ed.pr.: O. Claud. 1179 O.Claud.inv. 574
Photo: Pl. XXXI
Prov.: Mons Claudianus Date: II AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 5.8 x 6.2 cm.
Cont.: At least two alphabets, one in reverse order.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” with a thick pen. It has difficulty with psi.

46
Ed.pr.: O. Claud. 1 180 O.Claud.inv. 3883
Photo: Pl. XXXI
Prov.: Mons Claudianus Date: II AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 3.5 x 8 cm.
Cont.: Partial alphabet.
Hand: Fluent and confident, probably a model.

47
Ed.pr.: O. Claud. 1 181 O.Claud.inv. 4121
Photo: Pl. XXXI
Prov.: Mons Claudianus Date: II AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 6.5 x 9 cm.
Cont.: Some letters in alphabetical order.
Hand: “Alphabetic.”

48
Ed.pr.: O. Claud. 1 182 O.Claud.inv. 50
Photo: Pl, XXXI
Prov.: Mons Claudianus
Date: II AD
 ALPHABETS 185

Mat.: Ostracon, 11.5 x 7.5 cm.

Cont.: Hexameter with all the letters of the alphabet (cf. 56, 61, 66, and 287).
Hand: Teacher’s, with initials enlarged and some letters ligatured.

49
Ed.pr.: O.Mich. I 672 O.Mich.inv. 4544
Photo: Plate Bibl.: P? 2690, Z 18, D9
Prov.: Karanis Date: Roman
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 6.4 x 5 cm.
Cont.: Partial alphabet in random order.
Hand: The letters are very well executed; probably a teacher’s model.

50
Ed.pr.: O.Stras. I 806 O.Stras.inv.Gr. 210
Photo: TI Bibl.: P2. 2702, 210, D 11
Prov.: Upper Egypt Date: Roman
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 10.7 x 9.5 cm.
Cont.: Partial alphabet.
Hand: Fluent letters, sometimes decorated by roundels, but a peculiar disposition with some
crowding and much blank space. Perhaps a scribe’s trial.

51
Ed.pr.: P.M. Meyer (1916) 203, No.83 O.MU 2309
Photo: UI
Bibl.: P? 2740, Z 8, D 10; H.C. Youtie, TAPA 72 (1941) 456
Prov.: Thebes Date: Roman
Mat.: Ostracon, complete, 7 x 5.5 cm.
Cont.: The student Kametis wrote his name followed by the first four letters of the alphabet in
regular order and then in reverse order, exchanging two by mistake.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” large clumsy capitals of varying size and shape. In the name some of the
letters touch each other.

52
Ed.pr.: O.Stras. I 805 O.Stras.inv.D.Gr.r. 60
Photo: TI Bibl.: P? 2701, Z 9, D 20
Prov.: Upper Egypt Date: Roman
Mat.: Hexagonal ostracon, 9.8 x 9.2 cm.
Cont.: Alphabet
Hand: Proficient, with big roundels at the end of certain strokes. The extended cross bar of
epsilon ends in a big blob. Model or scribe’s trial.
186 ALPHABETS

53
Ed.pr.: G. Wagner, C. LeBlanc, G. Lecuyot, A. Loyrette, BIFAO 90 (1990) 376
OEA 314
Photo: Pl. XX VIII-C
Prov.: Thebes Date: Roman
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 7 x 6 cm.
Cont.: Two alphabets, one Greek and one with phonetic transcription in Latin, written in red
ink. In the Latin alphabet the order of the letters is not respected.
Hand: Very proficient, with some serifs, probably a model.

54

Ed.pr.: R. Pintaudi, P.J. Sijpesteijn, ZPE 76 (1989) 86 no. 1 OMM inv. 1158
Photo: Tafel IX Bibl.: OGN I 126
Prov.: Narmouthis Date: II-III AD
Mat.: Ribbed ostracon, probably incomplete, 5.4 x 5.6 cm.
Cont.: Beginning of the alphabet traced in the upper part, then blank space underneath.
Hand: Teacher’s, accurate and proficient serifed letters; epsilon’s crossbar is lengthened.

55
Ed.pr.: O.Leid. 332 O.Rijksmusum Van Oudheden inv. Ae.s.59
Photo: Plate 85
Bibl.: D 21; P.J. Sijpesteijn, Oudheidkundige Medelinger 45 (1964) 56 no. 24
Prov.: Unknown Date: II-III AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 13.7 x 11.1 cm.
Cont.: The student wrote his name and the alphabet (or part of it) underneath.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” in the name some of the letters are connected, alpha is cursive.

56
Ed.pr.: P. Oxy. XXXI 2604 f Ashmolean Museum
Photo: IV, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: III AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 24 x 30 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Remains of document.
Back: t Hexameter with all the letters of the alphabet written three times (cf. 48, 61,
66, and 287).
Hand: Apprentice scribe’s, writes twice in chancery style and once in Roman capitals.

=f
Ed.pr.: O.Mich. 1 659 O.Mich.inv. 9105
Photo: IV
Bibl.: P? 2687, Z 85, D 32; H.C. Youtie, TAPA 72 (1941) 453-56 = 1973 pp. 119-22 and
add. p. 128.
Prov.: Karanis Date: I-IV ap
 ALPHABETS 187

Mat.: Complete ostracon, 12.7 x 7.4 cm.

Cont.: The student wrote his name and the first five letters of the alphabet in reverse order
underneath.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” alpha epigraphic and serifed.

58
Ed.pr.: S. Donadoni, Studi Calderini Paribeni I (Milano 1957) 481 Not found
Photo: None published
Prov.: Antinoopolis Date: III-IV AD
Mat.: Fragment of grey marble.
Cont.: The first seven letters of the alphabet traced in ink.
Hand: From the sketch it appears that gamma had an exaggerated horizontal bar and delta was
upside down.

59
Ed.pr.: O. Petr. 412 O.London UC. 31902
Photo: V, courtesy of the Petrie Museum, University College London
Bibl.: P? 2671; Z 7; D 13
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV AD?
Mat.: Red ostracon, 6.5 x 4 cm.
Cont.: Alphabet up to pi.
Hand: Fluent enough, with a thick pen. Perhaps an apprentice scribe.

60
Ed.pr.: B. Boyaval, RA (1971) f. 1, pp. 60-61 no. 2 T.Louvre inv. AF11932 + 11933
Photo: Pl. 2a, 2b
Bibl.: D 5; W. Brashear, ZPE 50 (1983) 98-99
Prov.: Antinoopolis Date: V-VI AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet, across long dimension, 25 x 9 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Exercises on the alphabet (chalinos, cf. 79). Letters written in three rows, to be
read from top to bottom, from alpha to phi, from beta to chi, and so on.
Side 2: Exercises on the alphabet, to be read vertically. Two chrisms and a date.
Hand: Teacher’s, with letters larger than 1 cm. and contrast in thickness of the strokes.

61
Ed.pr.: Phoebammon II p. 126 no. 40 Not found
Photo: None published
Prov.: Thebaid Date: Byzantine
Mat.: Ostracon, stone, 11.5 x 19.5 cm.
Cont.: A hexameter verse containing all the letters of the alphabet is partially repeated a few
times with many mistakes (cf. 48, 56, 66, and 287). In the corrupt version not all the
letters are represented. In line 4 the name Moses is written.
Hand: Not described.
188 ALPHABETS

62
Ed.pr: O.Ashm. 105 O.Ashm. inv. 778
Photo: IV, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford Bibl.: P? 2669, Z 23
Prov.: Unknown Date: Byzantine?
Mat.: Ostracon, 13.9 x 10.3 cm.
Cont.: Two lines of writing: letters and a partial alphabet.
Hand: “Evolving,” letters a little uneven.

63
Ed.pr.: P. Wash. 1 61 P.Wash.inv. 235 v
Photo: Plate XV Bibl.: D 12
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: VI AD?
Mat.: Papyrus, 5.9 x 14.3 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Receipt.
Back: t Amounts of wheat and barley. A row of letters from alpha to lambda, each
with a supralineation (numbers?), but iota with diaeresis, copied then by a pupil.
Hand 1: Teacher’s, competent.
Hand 2: “Zero-grade,” very shaky, with basic doubts about letter shapes.

64
Ed.pr.: O.Stras. 1 807 O.Stras.inv.Gr. 958
Photo: V Bibl.: P? 2703, Z 13, D 33
Prov.: Upper Egypt Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 8.5 x 7.3 cm.
Cont.: Cross and alphabet in reverse order in two cols. partially preserved.
Hand: Competent, letters lean to the right. Could be a model.

65
Ed.pr.: O. Stras. 1 808 . O.Stras.inv.Gr. 955
Photo: VIII Bibl.? P22704)5Z'14, DIS
Prov.: Upper Egypt Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 111 x 11.4 cm.
Cont.: Two partial alphabets, separated by a line. The second is preceded by a cross.
Hand: “Evolving,” uses a thick pen. There is some contrast between narrow and broad shapes.

66
Ed.pr: Mon. Epiph. Il 616 T.MMA. 14.1.219
Photo: Pl. VII and Bellet, Plate 1 Bibl.: P? 1597, Z 98
Prov.: Thebes Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet, 15 x 5 cm.
Cont.: Ant.Graeca 9.538 (Stadtmiiller), a meaningless verse containing all letters of the
alphabet (cf. 48, 56, 61, and 287), followed by a cypher alphabet. There are phonetic
errors and omissions.
 ALPHABETS 189

Hand: Fairly proficient, probably an apprentice scribe’s trial.

67
Ed.pr.: Mon. Epiph. I 620 O.MMA.12.180.107
Photo: Pl. XIV Bibl.: P? 2743, Z 12, D 26
Prov.: Thebes Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 11 x 11.3 cm.
Cont.: An alphabet in a few lines and the phrase “Monks most beloved of God.”
Hand: Proficient, writing in clear, exemplary cursives. A model.

68
Ed.pr.: P.Lugd. Bat. XXV 11 O.Leiden inv. 0.2 + O.Deir el Gizaz inv. 41
Photo: Plate V. Partial photos, Hermeneus 52 (1980) 334, Aegyptus 68 Tav. 1.
Bibl.: D 8; Pap.Lugd. Bat. XTII 25 IV; A. Di Bitonto Kasser, Aegyptus 68 (1988) 167-68
Prov.: Deir el Gizaz (Thebes) Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Two fragments of ostracon, 10.9 x 8.9; 12.5 x 11.2 cm.
Cont.: Letters from alpha to theta practiced several times in alphabetical order with the intru-
sion of a mu and a Coptic letter.
Hand: Fluent, practicing “Biblical Majuscule” with a thick pen. Some letters are traced a little
incorrectly. Probably a monk or an apprentice scribe of the monastery school.

69
Ed.pr.: Pap.Flor. XIX pp. 132-33 no. 8 T.Louvre MND 552A + 551E +MNE 924
Photo: Tavv. VII-Ix
Prov.: Antinoopolis? Date: VII AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet written on both sides, washed previously, 45 x 19.5 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Traces of words, impossible to distinguish on the photo.
Side 2: Fourteen partially preserved alphabets. Traces of previously written alphabets.
Hand: The few visible letters seem to point to a beginner’s hand.

70
Ed.pr.: W. Brashear, Enchoria 14 (1986) 14-16 T.Wutrzburg K 1027
Photo: Tafel 10
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Two fragments of wooden board, ochre-color coating, 28 x 22.5 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: A chrism and an exercise on the alphabet, writing a letter every four. At the end
a series of short strokes. Underneath two drawings with contracted nomina sacra.
Side 2: Exercise on the alphabet in Coptic.
Hand: Teacher’s, with extra-large sized letters, slightly sloping to the right.

71
Ed.pr.: A. Kraft and A. Tripolitis, BJRL 51 (1968) 162-63 P.RL box4.106
190 ALPHABETS

Bibk:-D2Z7
Photo: V
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD ?
Mat.: Papyrus, 8.75 x 11.5 cm.
Cont.: Front.: ~ Document.
Back: ? The Greek alphabet is written in cursives and is then repeated in capitals, with,
in addition, the six Coptic letters.
Hand: Sure and proficient, a teacher or a scribe.

72
Ed.pr.: H.R. Hall, CGT pl. 28 no.4 O.BM inv. 31663
Photo: VI Bibl.: P? 2694, Z 35, D 30; MPER NS XVIII 64
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 10.4 x 7 cm.
Cont.: Alphabet in six vertical cols. Separated by a horizontal line there are the six Coptic let-
ters. A vertical line on the right side.
Hand: Proficient enough. A model?

a
Ed.pr.: H.R. Hall, CGT pl. 29 no.1 O.BM inv. 26739
Photo: V Bibl.: P? 2697, Z 38, D 14; MPER NS XVIII 65
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 10.4 x 7.2 cm.
Cont.: Alphabet in two rows, a row of Coptic letters repeated and two more lines of various
letters. Underneath there is a line of phi’s probably by a second hand.
Hand 1: Capable and proficient, attempting letters of different shape. A model perhaps.
Hand 2: “Alphabetic,” big letters traced with some hesitation with a thick pen.

74
Ed.pr.: H.R. Hall, CGT pl. 29 no.4 O.BM inv. 21247
Photo: VI Bibl.: P? 2696, Z 15, D 25; MPER NS XVIII 66
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII Ap
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 12.4 x 10 cm.
Cont.: Alphabet.
Hand: “Evolving,” fluent enough in spite of the ribbed ostracon. Xi is traced horizontally.

75
Ed.pr.: Aegyptus 65 (1985) 96-97 P.Med. Copto inv. 76.24
Photo: Tav. XIII Bibl.: MPER NS XVIII 70
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII Ap
Mat.: Papyrus strip, cut for the exercise, 20.2 x 6.4 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Personal letter.
Back: t Two more lines of the personal letter and three partial alphabets with Greek
and Coptic letters, one written turning the papyrus 90 degrees and two preceeded by
chrisms. A last line contains some random letters. Much of the space is unwritten.
 ALPHABETS 191

Hand: “Zero-grade,” uses a thick pen and has difficulty with some letters (e.g., xi).

76
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XVIII 57 P.Vindob.K 19609
Photo: Tafel 25
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII AD
Mat.: Papyrus broken on every side, 3 x 7.5 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Incomplete alphabet written by two hands with Greek and Coptic letters.
Back: *t Traces of writing in darker ink.
Hand 1: Capable and regular, a teacher’s or an older student’s.
Hand 2: “Zero-grade,” some letters (e.g. phi) are formed very badly.

77
Ed.pr.: J. Schwartz, Fouilles Fr.-Suiss. Il, p. 115 no.4 O.IFAO, Not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: D 16
Prov.: Dionysias Date: ?
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 11 x 15 cm.
Cont.: Alphabet in three rows.
Hand: Very large letters (2 to 4 cm. high), perhaps a model.

Syllabaries

78
Ed.pr.: UPZ 1 147 P.Leiden, Rijksmuseum Van Oudheden
Photo: Boswinkel and Sijpesteijn, Plate 1
Bibl.: P? 2742, Z 24, D 41, 66; E. Boswinkel and P.J. Sijpesteijn, Greek Papyri (Amsterdam
1968); Nardelli, 1986, 179-88; Thompson, 1988, 245-46
Prov.: Memphis Date: II Bc
Mat.: Papyrus cut into a strip, 90 x 9 cm.
Cont.: Syllabary written by Apollonios son of Glaukias after washing off a previous Demotic
text. He skips the zeta’s col. (and adds it later) and the triliteral series. There are some
omissions.
Hand: “Evolving,” (same as in 244, 245, and 246), starts with neat capitals that deteriorate
into bigger, clumsier letters.

79
Ed.pr.: C. Wessely, Stud. Pal. Il pp. XLV 2, XLVI-XLVII 3-4, XLVIII-XLIX 5
P.Vindob.G. 26011 b,e,c,d
Photo: MPER XV, Tafel 3
Bibl.: P2 2735; Z 3, 28, 26; D 19, 31, 43, 71, 55, 54, 67; MPER NS XV 7, 8, 10; Th.K.
Stephanopoulos, ZPE 66 (1986) 71-72
Prov.: Hermopolis? Date: I AD
192 SYLLABARIES

Mat.: Fragments of papyrus roll, 14 x 10.5 cm.; 13:.7oxil Seem 1S Hexehl 35cm:
Cont.: Front: > Text hardly visible, perhaps washed; includes mathematical problem.
Back: t Alphabet in usual and reverse order, then combinations of vowels and con-
sonants (all letters in scrambled order, chalinos, cf. 60), and paired letters. The whole
number system follows and then a formal syllabary: biliteral and triliteral combina-
tions, then quadriliteral with two fixed consonants. Vertical lines separate cols. Proba-
bly written by at least two pupils. The second commits many errors in the series.
Hand 1: “Alphabetic.” Both hands form identical letter shapes with some serifs. Letters mostly
separated, still multistroke, but the student (or students) knows their basic forms.
Hand 2: “Zero-grade.” Finds it diffficult to write phi’s and theta’s. Most letters touch.

80
Ed.pr.: Chrest. Wilck. no. 139 Leipzig UL
Photo: None published Bibl.: P? 2734, Z 30, D 42
Prov.: Unknown Date: I AD
Mat.: Ostracon
Cont.: Traces of previous writing. Then a syllabary up to VO. The exercise was not finished
for lack of space. Some mistakes and omissions.
Hand: Described as starting well, but writing then more hurriedly and cursively.

81
Ed.pr.: K. McNamee, ZPE 46 (1982) 124-26 P.Mich.inv. 2816
Photo: Tafel IV
Prov.: Karanis Date: (ed.pr.) V-VI AD, but IV AD
Mat.: Fragment from papyrus codex, 9.7 x 10.4 cm.
Cont.: Syllabary. Each side of the page was divided by horizontal and vertical lines into
irregular rectangles. Only the triliteral sets are preserved.
Hand: Proficient, rounded, and uniform “Coptic Uncial,” the hand of a teacher or a scribe.

82
Ed.pr.: J.G. Milne, JHS 28 (1908) 123 II and 43 (1923) 43 O.Bodl. Not found
Photo: Beck 1975, plate 7 II 37 Bibl aP4277 2815 D'50
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: IV-V AD
Mat.: Ostracon
Cont.: Biliteral syllabary. In addition to combinations of consonants and vowels, there are also
combinations of vowels (omicron and upsilon) with vowels. Corrects one mistake
(epsilon instead of eta in the rho series), but commits another three lines below.
Hand: “Evolving,” the letters are crowded and of different size.

83
Ed.pr.: A.E.R. Boak, CP 16 (1921) 189-91 no.1 T.Mich.inv. 763
gut VII Bibl.: P? 2708, Z 6, D 35, 63
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV AD? (ed.pr.), probably later
 SYLLABARIES 193

Mat.: Wooden tablet, 35.7 x 10.2 cm.

Cont.: Side 1: Syllabary, first a col. of vowels, then combinations with consonants, each one
underlined. In col. 7 iota functions both as consonant and as vowel.
Side 2: Alphabet in regular and reverse order, then the letters are paired.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” confusion between delta and alpha. Letters of various size.

84
Ed.pr.: E. Bresciani, Ann. Ist. Univ. Or. Napoli NS 15 (1965) 285-87
P.Vindob.K 11373
Photo: Tav. I A, B; MPER XVIII Tafel 28 Bibl.: MPER NS XVIII 76
Prov.: Unknown Date: V AD
Mat.: Fragment of codex page written both sides, very fine papyrus, 20 x 12 cm.
Cont.: Biliteral syllabary with Greek and Coptic letters, vowel and consonant in the first page
and consonant and vowel in the second. Each page is numbered and has ample
margins.
Hand: Formal and well executed in “Alexandrian Majuscule” style: a page from a book.

85
Ed.pr.: B. Boyaval, RA (1971) f. 1, pp. 58-60 T.Louvre inv. MND 552c
Photo: Pl. | and Cauderlier (1991) pl. F, G
Bibl.: D 56, 62; P. Cauderlier, Mél. Bernand (Besancon 1991) 148-53.
Proy.: Antinoopolis Date: V-VI AD
Mat.: Right corner of wooden tablet, 23 x 14 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Syllabary, triliteral sets in lambda where vowel and final consonant change.
Dated by month, with two chrisms. Remains of letters from a previous exercise.
Side 2: Syllabary with changing beginning consonant. Remains of previous letters.
Hand: Teacher’s, with very large letters slightly sloping. Lambda, with second diagonal below
the baseline, and delta, with left stroke fused with the base into a curve, point to the
sixth century AD.

86
Ed.pr.: P.J. Sijpesteijn, Hermeneus 42 (1971) 253-55 P.Amst.inv. 89
Photo: P.Amst. Tafel VII Bibl.: D 48; P.Amst. 14
Prov.: Unknown Date: V-VI AD
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 11.6 x 6.5 cm.; other side blank.
Cont.: t Variation of the common syllabary with vowels followed by each consonant.
Hand: “Rapid,” fluent, but with some irregularities. Sometimes the letters are ligatured.

87
Ed.pr.: O.Amst. 1 O.Amst.inv. 50
Photo: PlateI Bibl.: D 46
Prov.: Unknown Date: No date (ed.pr.), Byzantine
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 4 x 6.5 cm.
194 SYLLABARIES

Cont.: Part of a syllabary with biliteral sets.

Hand: “Rapid,” a few irregularities.

88
Ed.pr.: C. Wessely, Stud. Pal. Il, p. LV, 12 P.Vindob.G. 26011m
Photo: MPER XV, Tafel 2
Bibl.: P? 2735, Z 33, D 64; MPER NS XV 9
Prov.: Arsinoite Date: VI AD
Mat.: Piece of parchment, flesh side, 9 x 7.5 cm.
Cont.: Syllabary, triliteral sets, only middle vowel changes. Groups separated by short lines.
Hand: “Evolving,” irregular but capable. The sets are crowded.

89
Ed.pr.: P.J. Sijpesteijn, ZPE 40 (1980) 96-97 . P.Vindob.G. 36016
Photo: MPER XV, Tafel 2 Bibl.: D 49; MPER NS XV 6
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 9.5 x 8.6 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: > Isolated letters
Side 2: Syllabary, vowels alone first, then vowels followed by consonants. The sets are
inscribed in roughly drawn rectangles.
Hand: “Evolving,” the letters are traced slowly and carefully. A few irregularities.

90
Ed.pr.: W. Brashear, Enchoria 14 (1986) 3-5 T.Wurzburg K 1017
Photo: Tafel 4
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet, grey coating, 16.5 x 27 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Chrism, triliteral syllabary, alphabet in six rows, dated by day and month.
Side 2: Chrism, triliteral syllabary, alphabet and date, five days later than other side.
Hand: Teacher’s, large letters, some further enlarged, mostly separated except epsilon. Beta
has a rounded base and the first diagonal of chi goes well below the line.

91
Ed.pr.: A. Di Bitonto Kasser, Aegyptus 68 (1988) 169-75 O.Deir el Gizaz 14
Photo: Tavv. 3-4 Bibl.: MPER NS XVIII 82
Prov.: Deir el Gizaz Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Two fragments of ostracon already separated, written on both sides, 13 x 14, 5 x 10 cm.
Cont.: Syllabary with triliteral and quadriliteral sets with Greek and Coptic letters. Cols. sepa-
rated by dots in vertical alignment.
Hand: Teacher’s, fluent with small capable letters at times decorated by roundels.
 SYLLABARIES 195

92
Ed.pr.: P. Cauderlier, Mél. Bernand (Besancon 1991) 143-48 T.BN Paris inv. y 19 920
Photo: Planches C, D
Prov.: Arsinoite Date: VII AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet with bronze handle, 24.5 x 9.5 cm.
Cont.: On both sides a chrism, a syllabary (some cols. are incomplete, probably the student
was supposed to copy and complete the model), a Greek reversed alphabet and the
additional Coptic letters. In the alphabet upsilon and iota bear a diaeresis. Vertical
lines separate some of the exercises, and the different cols. end with a paragraphos.
Hand: Teacher’s; fluent, proficient, and clear, with some ligatures.

93
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XVIII 77 O.BM inv. 31387
Photo: VIII
Bibl.: P? 2693, Z 36, Dd 58; H.R. Hall, CGT pl. 28 no. 3
Prov.: Unknown Date: VIJ-VIII AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 7.7 x 9 cm.
Cont.: Syllabary with triliteral groups.
Hand: “Rapid,” written clearly and fluently. Possibly a model.

94
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XVIII 73 P.Vindob.K 2030
Photo: Tafel 27
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII AD?
Mat.: Coarse papyrus broken on three sides, 11.5 x 8.5 cm.
Cont.: Front: t Triliteral syllabary, a Coptic consonant followed by a vowel and by a Greek
consonant. The sets are separated by horizontal and vertical lines.
Back: — Continuation of the syllabary.
Hand: “Evolving,” some uncertainties, but also fluency. Letters of different size.

95
P. van Minnen, ZPE 106 (1995) 175-78. T.Duk.inv. 7
Photo: Tafel III, IV.
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet covered with white slip, 11.2 x 26.6 cm.
Cont.: Written on both sides with a syllabary (trisyllabic combinations with beta and gamma),
and, in addition, the letters of the alphabet in random combinations on one side and in
the regular order on the other. On both sides appear the six Sahidic Coptic letters and a
chrism. Side B also carries the date (month and indiction, abbreviated) and the number
of the syllabic sets. Vertical and horizontal lines divide the exercises. Diaeresis is used
over iota, sometimes in the form of 3 dots.
Hand 1: Teacher’s, on side B. Beta has a round enlarged base and delta an elongated base. The
amateurish look derives from the very crooked lines of separation.
196 SYLLABARIES

Hand 2: “Rapid,” very similar to the teacher’s, but with a different inclination.

96
Ed.pr.: P. Collart, BIFAO 30 (1930) 417-23 = Mél.Loret pp. 417-19 = P. Rein. 190
P.Sorb.inv. 2074, cliché Kagan-IRHT
Photo: VIII Bibl.: D 44, 47; MPER NS XVIII 75
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII AD
Mat.: Very worn papyrus patched in the back, 20 x 12 cm.
Cont.: Greek and Coptic biliteral syllabary, cols. separated by vertical lines. Some horizontal
lines divide the sets. As in 61, iota also functions as a consonant.
Hand: “Evolving,”not completely even, but showing confidence in some letters.

97

Descriptum: W.E. Crum, Coptic Mss. British Mus. (London 1905) no. 1215
BL. P.Lond or 4721 (25) recto and verso
Photo: IX, by permission of The British Library
Bibl.: MPER NS XVIII 80
Prov.: Unknown Date: VIII AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 11.6 x 8.1 cm.
Cont.: Two incomplete pages from a Coptic syllabary, a professionally written schoolbook.
There are triliteral combinations defined by horizontal and vertical lines. Page numbers
(25 and 26) appear on top of the pages.
Hand: Professionally executed “Alexandrian Majuscule” of square type.

Lists of Words

98
Ed. pr,-P:Par. 4 P.Louvre inv. N 2328
Photo: X
Bibl.: P? 2332, Z 272; W. Clarysse, Studia Hellenistica 27 (1982) 58
Prov.: Memphis Date: II Bc
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 8.5 x 5.5 cm.
Cont.: > List of Attic and Macedonian months in two uneven cols. On the right a third col. in
Demotic was written by another hand. Several misspellings.
Hand: “Evolving,” with letters all separated and of varying size, written by Apollonios.

99
Ed.pr.: P.Tebt. If 278 P.UC inv. 1355
Photo: XI Bibl.: P2 2654,.Z 353,.D 103, 389
Prov.: Tebtunis Date: I AD
Mat.: Papyrus written with the fibers, 29 x 16.9 cm.; Back blank.
 LISTS OF WORDS 197

Cont.: Two cols., alphabetic acrostic with a list of occupations and alphabetic acrostic narra-
tion of a tale about a stolen garment. Considered a composition (ed.pr. and Debut), it
is not certain that it is so. Orthography: many of the usual phonetic mistakes.
Hand: Well-developed cursives, quick and ligatured, perhaps a teacher’s notes.

100
Ed.pr.: P. Genova II 53
Photo: Tav. II Bibl.: D 74; J. Bingen, CdE 57 (1982) 107-10
Prov.: Unknown Date: I AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 24 x 18 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Account
Back: f List of bisyllabic words from alpha to omega, in 24 groups of four. Many
names fabricated for the occasion, probably by a teacher. The sets are separated by
horizontal and vertical lines. Half of the sheet is blank.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” uses a thick pen. Many corrections.

101
Ed.pr.: O. Edfu I 307 G 263, not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: P? 2682, Z 25, D 73
Prov.: Apollinopolis Date: I AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon
Cont.: List of words in two cols. divided into syllables, proper and common names. In the
right col. all the words start with kappa.
Hand: Not described

102
Ed.pr.: J. O’Callaghan, Stud. Pap. 6 (1967) 99-107 P.Palau Rib.inv. 121
Photo: Plate p. 102
Bibl.: D 81; O’Callaghan, Papiros literarios griegos del Fondo Palau Ribes (P.Lit Palau Rib.)
(Barcelona 1993) 37
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD
Mat.: Coarse, patched papyrus, 8.7 x 3.6 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: List of words with several phonological mistakes. Groups separated by paragraphoi.
Hand: “Rapid,” letters of varying size and spacing.

103
Ed.pr.: J.G. Milne, JHS 28 (1908) 124 IV O.Bodl. Not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: P? 2718, Z 56, D 331
Prov.: Upper Egypt Date: II AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 25.6 x 13.1 cm.
Cont.: col. of words, each starting with a different letter, written by the teacher, then the word
is completed by the student. The exercise consisted of writing monosyllables in -ouc,
but the student ended up writing accusative plurals of polysyllables in -ouc.
198 LISTS OF WORDS

104
Ed.pr.: J.G. Milne, JHS, 28 (1908) 124 V O.Bodl.Gk.Inscr. 2934
Photo: None published, hardly visible Bibl.: P2 2718, Z 57, D 331
Prov.: Upper Egypt Date: II AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 11.8 x 7.3 cm.
Cont.: Remains of a col. of words not in alphabetical order, only two letters for each line are
preserved at most. Large blank space at the left.
Hand: Probably “evolving,” but the remains are very scanty.

105
Ed.pr.: J.G. Milne, JHS 28 (1908) 122 II O.Bod1.Gk.Inscr. 2933
Photo: None published, hardly visible BibWAP2? 2716¥255, D 75
Prov.: Upper Egypt Date: II AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 8 x 9.6 cm.
Cont.: List of proper nouns in alphabetical order, some current Greek or Roman names, some
taken from history or mythology.
Hand: “Rapid,” round and regular capitals that are now hardly visible.

106
Ed.pr.: N. Lewis, Et. Pap. 3 (1936) 105 O.Cairo, Journal d’entrée no. 64847
Photo: None published
Bibl.: P? 2729, Z 67, D 117; SB V 8062; A.N. Oikonomides, CB 63 (1987) 124
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: II AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 8.5 x 11 cm.
Cont.: List of a few proper names; in the third line “Since you are young, work (¢:Ao76ve).”
Hand: Fluent, with tall narrow letters of exemplary clarity. It could be a model (though the last
line is crooked) or the exercise of an apprentice scribe.
~

107
Ed.pr.: W. Brunsch, Orientalia Suecana 31 (1982) 38-39, 6 T.BM 21615-21617
Photo: Tafel 6
Prov.: Unknown Date: Roman
Mat.: Two fragments of wooden tablet, 15 x 3 cm. and 14 x 5 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Words of difficult interpretation (from a comedy?). The surface is ruled.
Side 2: Letters of the alphabet are practiced.
Hand: Perhaps an apprentice scribe, the letters are elaborate and well-written.

108
Ed.pr.:
gal O.Mich. 1 656 ich.
O.Mich. i inv. 4609
ich.inv.

Bibl: P? 2685, Z 73, D 90; H. Youtie, CP 37 (1942) 148-49

Prov.: Karanis Date: III AD
 LISTS OF WORDS 199

Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 6.1 x 10.4 cm.

Cont.: List of seven Egyptian deities, all in the genitive case (cf. 119). In line 6 Youtie read
the genitive of the name of a deity, Meovaotrtpi60¢, known from Tebtunis papyri.
Hand: Fluent and sure, teacher’s or older student’s, with cursive alpha, epsilon, and pi.

109
Descriptum: P.Ryl. 11 443 P.Rylands UL
Photo: X, courtesy of the Director and University Librarian, the John Rylands University Li-
brary of Manchester
Bibl.: P? 2663, Z 80, D 197
Prov.: Unknown Date: III AD
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 7.3 x 7.8 cm.
Cont.: Four lines of writing, partially preserved, with some personal names. Another line is
written 90 degrees and contains two names of numbers.
Hand.: “Alphabetic,” the letters are heavy and are sometimes traced twice.

110
Ed.pr.: O.Mich. 1 657 O.Mich.inv. 9010
Photo: XI
Bibl.: P*? 2686, Z 84, D 188; V. Tcherikover, Scripta Hierosolymitana 1 (1954) 85, 88-93,
and CPJ Ill (1964) no. 496 and pp. 47, 50-52; K. Latte, Festschr.Zucker (1955) 245-
50; H. Youtie, 1973, 467-77
Prov.: Karanis Date: Late I[I-early IV AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 11.7 x 12.6 cm.
Cont.: List of Greek deities which opens with an oriental goddess, Sambathis.
Hand: Capable and even, with epigraphic letters, perhaps a teacher’s, but a few erasures.

111
Ed.pr.: P.Lund V1 11 P.Lund inv. 9
Photo: X Bibl.: P? 2744, Z 190, D 94
Prov.: Unknown Date: III-IV AD
Mat.: Coarse, dark papyrus, 5.5 x 15.3 cm.; Back blank.
Cont.: ~ Unusual list of fifteen nouns, arranged without any apparent order, which concern
mainly religion and geography. Eight of them represent abstract ideas.
Hand: “Evolving,” writes with a thick pen that makes it appear clumsier. Epsilon and alpha
are cursive.

112
Ed.pr.: W.E. Crum, CO nr. 435 O. London UC 31896
Photo: XII, courtesy of the Petrie Museum, University College London
Bibl.: D 85; MPER NS XVIII 104
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 19.3 x 10.6 cm.
200 LISTS OF WORDS

Cont.: List of incomplete names, beginning with zeta in lines 3-7 (and probably in epsilon
before and in eta after them), divided into syllables by dashes. The different groups are
separated by horizontal lines.
Hand: Capable and fluent, “rapid” or teacher’s hand, with large upright letters all separated.

113

Ed.pr.: MPER NS XVIII 238 O.London UC D 15

Photo: XII Bibl.: Crum, CO 525
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 23 x 11.5 cm.; originally quite large.
Cont.: Lists of mythological names mostly separated by double dots. Most of them come from
the Iliad. They are in alphabetical order and three lists can be distinguished, one after
the other. Diaeresis is used.
Hand: Probably teacher’s, fluent and proficient even if a little rough because of the material.

114
Ed.pr.: O.Bodl. II 2193 O.Bod1.Gk.Inscr. 2925
Photo: XIII, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Bibl.: P* 2676, Z 32, D 78
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV-V AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 5.9 x 6.5 cm.
Cont.: List of words in alpha, beta, theta in two cols., divided into syllables by dots.
Hand: Capable and fluent in spite of the rough surface, perhaps a teacher’s.

115
Ed.pr.: O. Theb. iv 48 Ashmolean Museum, Coptic Inscr. 207
Photo: XIII, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Bibl.: MPER NS XVIII 232
Proy.: Unknown Date: IV-VI AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 13.5 x 8.2 cm. ;
Cont.: List of Greek words written on both sides: on one side nouns in beta, gamma, and
delta, divided into syllables. More letters appear on the recto on the right, in a space
divided by a vertical line. In the other side names in mu, some unknown.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” with letters of various size and shape.

116
Ed.pr.: P.Amst. 13 P.Amsterdam U.
Photo: Tafel VI Bibl.: D 102
Prov.: Unknown pate V AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 7.2 x 13.1 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: > List of birds, mostly unknown, in two cols. not in alphabetical order.
Hand: Proficient, slanting to the right, with letters mostly separated, perhaps a teacher’s.
 LISTS OF WORDS 201

117
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 115 P.Vindob.G. 1090
Photo: Tafel 53
Prov.: Unknown Date: V AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 6 x 6.2 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: — List of months out of order, six names are preserved. Ample margin on the left.
Hand: “Evolving,” with difficulty in alignment, but fluent enough.

118
Ed.pr.: A.E.R. Boak, CP 16 (1921) 191-92 T.Mich.inv. 764
Photo: None published, faded Bibl.: P? 2709, Z 17, D 4
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV AD (ed.pr.); but V-VI AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet, 36.6 x 15 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Across short dimension, list of proper names in one col. The writing is very
faded. There are two drawings of stick figures on the right side. A paragraphos at the
end of the writing.
Side 2: Across long dimension, numbers from 1 to 10,000.
Hand: “Evolving,” some irregularities, but at times very fluent.

119
Ed.pr.: C. Pasqual, Lanx Satura (Genova 1963) 310-14 PUG inv. 1111
Photo: Tav. VI Bibl.: D 120, 121; P.Genova 19; SB 9894
Prov.: Unknown Date: Byzantine
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 9.2 x 6.2 cm.
Cont.: Front: ~ Four proper names, ample margins on every side. Corrections: in line 1
"Axtr€oc (for “AxtA€wo), 2 Lodiac, 4 perhaps the name meant Aivéa with nu repeated
twice, which appears sometimes as genitive of Aivéac. TaBfc is indeclinable. This
was perhaps an exercise of declension in the genitive (cf. 108).
Hand.: “Evolving,” slightly leaning to the right, forms some letters fluently, others clumsily.

120
Ed.pr.: G. Ioannidou, ZPE 72 (1988) 263-66 P.Berol. 21293
Photo: Tafel VII b, c
Prov.: Hermopolis? Date: VI AD
Mat.: Fragment of parchment codex, brown ink, 3.9 x 4.5 cm.
Cont.: List of words of five syllables, sets divided by horizontal lines and words divided into
syllables by blank spaces. The words are somewhat rare.
Hand: Formal round bookhand, thin and thick strokes. A school manual.

121
Ed.pr.: Pap.Flor. XVIII 22 Ashmolean Museum inv. 1982.1119
Photo: Tav. XXXJI-XXXIII
Prov.: Unknown Date: 544-545 AD
202 LISTS OF WORDS

Mat.: Wooden tablet, written on both sides, 43.3 x 21.4 cm.

Cont.: Tables of multiplication and lists of words (bisyllables on one side, trisyllables on the
other) divided into syllables. Vertical and horizontal lines divide the groups; diple
obelismene. The dates are not completely sure. There are many phonetic errors.
Hand: Proficient and fluent, a teacher’s, written in very large letters. Many of the initials are
enlarged. A few ligatures, especially after alpha and epsilon. Some features, as lambda
with well developed second diagonal, the high crossbar of epsilon met by the semi-
circular top, and delta in a slanting position, point to a date in the sixth century.

122

Ed.pr.: Mon. Ephiph. I 618 O.MMA.14.1.214

Photo: Plate XIV Bibl.: P? 2334, Z 275, D 100; MPER NS XVIII 252
Prov.: Thebes Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 6.3 x 11.1 cm.
Cont.: Front: Divided in two by a diple obelismene. On top days of the week starting with
Saturday and ending with the “Preparation.” Below, days from Monday to Friday with
equivalents from the planetary week. Mistakes of every kind, e.g., genitive Zidc.
Back: Planetary days from Monday to Friday.
Hand: “Evolving,” pretentious with separated capitals decorated by serifs or roundels. Some-
times cursive elements intrude.

123
Ed.pr.: Mon. Epiph. I 621 P.MMA 14.1.549
Photo: XI Bibl.: P? 2134, Z 276, D 102; MPER NS XVIII 247
Prov.: Thebes Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Coarse papyrus fragment, 6.5 x 2.8 cm.
Cont.: ft List of bird names. There are some phonetic mistakes. A rough breathing and
diaeresis in line 11. An exercise, not a glossary (as in ed.pr. and MPER XVII).
Hand: “Alphabetic,” with some multistroke letters whose size varies (see kappa and tau).

124
Ed.pr.: Pap.Flor. XVIII 6 P.Vat.Gr. 54
Photo: Tav. VII
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet, 45 x 14 cm.
Cont.: On both sides lists of words divided into syllables, many Biblical names. They look like
an extension of a syllabary, consonant followed by each of the vowels in turn. Many
mistakes of every kind, crosses, and a date. Short horizontal dashes define the
exercise.
Hand: A teacher’s; the letters are very large and written in an informal sloping majuscule
Some ligatures or some strokes are drawn out. Bera is particularly large with a found
base. Eta, theta, sigma are very narrow and show tapered, pointed lower ends.
 LISTS OF WORDS 203

125
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 60 HT Moen 5
Photo: Tafel 16
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet, 13.5 x 38 cm.
Cont.: Trisyllabic words beginning in delta and gamma divided into syllables on both sides.
Crosses. Dates on the right. Questionable spelling of some words. Faulty division in
line sl3.
Hand: A teacher’s, with very large letters that slope slightly. Contrast in the width of the let-
ters. The base of delta is quite drawn out, /ambda with trailing tail and the very wide
mu are typical of the VII century. Epsilon, sigma, theta are narrow, with tapered ends.

126
Eda -pr.. H.R: Hall_CGT plel2 nor 3513 no; | O.BM inv. 27432
Photo: XII Bibl.: P2 2692, Z 101, D 106
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII AD
Mat.: Stone ostracon, 12.8 x 9 cm.
Cont.: On both sides a list of words in upsilon, phi, and chi in alphabetical order. All the
words are rare and unusual, with many errors. Some words seem coined for the occa-
sion.
Hand: “Rapid,” bilinear except for phi, writes well-formed, separated letters with a thick pen.

127,
Ed.pr.: HR Hall? CGF ple 32 no:1 O.BM inv. 26210, 26211, 26215
Photo: VI Bibl.: P? 2699, Z 373
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 21.6 x 10.8 cm.
Cont.: On both sides lists of words, not in alphabetical order, in many cols. separated by verti-
cal lines. In the convex part some horizontal lines separate groups. Nouns are either
Biblical or geographical or rare words concerning anatomy. Diaeresis and mistakes of
every kind.
Hand: “Rapid,” writes with a thick pen in mostly separated capital letters.

128
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XVIII 231 O.BM 33110
Photo: XIII Bibl.: Crum, CO 432v
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon
Cont.: Side 1: List of Coptic verbs
Side 2: List of names (mostly proper names) in alpha and beta divided into syllables.
Hand: Perhaps a teacher’s, writing both sides, fluent and bent to the right. It shows some
irregularities that may be due to the rough surface.
 204

Writing and Copying Exercises

129
Descriptum, P.Tebt. MI.2 901 PUC20TS
Photo: XIV Bibl.: P? 384, Z 62
Prov.: Tebtunis Date: II Bc?
Mat.: Four papyrus fragments, 6 x 3, 6.1 x 3.5, 3.7 x 1.6, 5 x 6 cm.
Cont.: First half of Euripides’ Bacchae line 1, repeated five times in all.
Hand 1: Traces the line once rather elegantly with some serifs and a ligatured alpha.
Hand 2: “Evolving,” in the other fragments, with a poorly sharpened pen.

130
Ed.pr.: G. Manteuffel, JJP 3 (1949) 102-103 Not found
Photo: Pl. L
Bibl.: P? 1934; O.Edfu Ill 326; TrGF II F 279f; M.W. Haslam; GRBS 16 (1975) 149-74; W.
Peek, Philologus 121 (1977) 306; M.L. West ZPE 32 (1978) 1-5 and ZPE 91 (1992)
8-9; SH 989
Prov.: Apollinopolis Date: II-I Bc
Mat.: Ostracon
Cont.: Two or three fragments of poetry (Euripides? and fragment of a narrative from an
Archilochean epode?) together with Euripides’ Phoin. 3 repeated twice. It was previ-
ously considered a hymn to the sun or to the king.
Hand: “Evolving,” with the last line written with larger letters, perhaps by a second hand.

131
Ed. pr.z. FP. Oxy. If 285 BL. P.Lond. 796 r + v
Photo: XVI, by permission of The British Library
Bibl.: P? 2748, Z 49
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos : Date: I AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 24 x 9.6 cm.
Cont.: Front: Three lines at the bottom of a petition of 50 AD, some words and letters.
Back: Two more lines and one upside down.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” hesitant; many of the letters are serifed.

132
Ed.pr.: W.G. Waddell, Et. Papel (1932) 17 P.Cairo, Journal d’entrée no. 56225
Photo: XIV Bibl.}-P2 556, Z 71, D.10g
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: I-III AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 8 x 6 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: — Part of the first line of the Iliad written twice. Much space is left unused.
Hand: “Rapid,” elegant, and serifed, maybe an advanced student practicing “book hand.”
 WRITING EXERCISES 205

133
Ed.pr.: P. Fay. 19 P.Chicago O.I. 8349
Photo: XV, courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
Bibl.: P? 2116, Z 60, D 314
Prov.: Bacchias Date: II AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 22 x 10.3 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Tax list
Back: 1 Fifteen lines of an unknown letter of the emperor Hadrian to Antoninus, five
lines are then copied by another hand. The subject is death and the way Hadrian
intends to meet it (cf. 350).
Hand 1: Clear and cursive, different from the usual hand of a model.
Hand 2: “Alphabetic,” mostly separate, serifed letters, which degenerate toward the end.

134
Ed.pr.: A. Erman, F. Krebs, Aus den Papyrus der Koniglichen Museen (Berlin 1899) 233
T.Berol.inv. 13234
Photo: Bonner, 1977, 61 fig. 10; W. Schubart, Das Buch 3rd ed. (Heidelberg 1962) 41 fig.;
Miiller 1977, 87
Bibl.: P? 2736, Z 113, D 115
Prov.: Unknown Date: No date (ed.pr.), Roman
Mat.: Waxed tablet
Cont: Maxim written by the teacher and copied four times underneath between ruled lines.
Hand 1: Model, large-sized letters in formal round with the loop of phi lozenge-shaped and
with no finials. Omicron, sigma, and epsilon could be inscribed in a square.
Hand 2: “Alphabetic,” variable letter size, trouble with omega. The student already knew cur-
sive letters and found it hard to imitate the model. Mu is formed in four movements.

135
Ed.pr.: P.Ross.Georg. 1 12 T.Hermitage Museum, not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: P? 1610, Z 70, D 110, 143; CGFP 315
Prov.: Unknown Date: II-III AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet, 31 x 17.5 cm.
Cont.: Two maxims in iambic trimeters written as a model (two oblique lines as verse divi-
sion), then copied three times underneath. Words transcribed in scriptio plena. The
student has difficulty understanding the colometry. Phonetic mistakes.
Hand 1: Described as regular and proficient.
Hand 2: Described as uncertain about letter shape, size, and inclination.

136
Ed.pr.: R. Cribiore, ZPE 107 (1995) 263-70 T.Phoebe Hearst Museum 6-21416
Photo: Tafeln VIII-IX
Prov.: Tebtunis, Roman cemetery Date: II-III ap
Mat.: Wooden tablet, 14.4 x 30.7 cm.
206 WRITING EXERCISES

Cont.: Side 1: Ruled with 23 guide-lines, written parallel to the short dimension. On the first
four lines a teacher wrote a model consisting of a hexameter on the necessity of using a
beautiful hand (cf. 222) and an exhortation to imitate the writing. The model is defined
by oblique dashes at the beginning and what appear to be line fillers at the end. A pupil
then copied the model five times with increasing mistakes and omissions that indicate
that he could not read it.
Side 2: Written by a different student, parallel to the long dimension. Maxim repeated
ten times. Only the beginning corresponds to Menander Monost. 487 Jaekel. The
maxim is in choliambic verse.
Hand 1: Teacher’s, affected and artificial, without the gracefulness of other teachers’ hands.
The hand is slow and elaborate with well differentiated strokes. The letters tend to be
tall and narrow with angular alpha, delta with the third diagonal stroke prolonged in a
crest, and kappa with the terminal part of the first stroke bent.
Hand 2: “Evolving,” becoming less beautiful and regular and more crowded as it proceeds.
Hand 3: “Alphabetic,” with some multistroke letters. On each line the letters are bigger and
better written in the first half, then become smaller with some confusion between nu
and mu.

137
Ed.pr.: O.Bodl. II 2190 O.Bodl.Gk.Inscr. 911
Photo: XVII, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Bibl.: P? 2673, Z 109, D 124
Prov.: Unknown Date: No date (ed.pr.), II-III AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 6.8 x 5.5 cm.
Cont.: Three proper names written twice, the third means “son of Lolous.”
Hand: “Alphabetic,” epsilon with elongated crossbar.

138
Ed.pr.: R.W. Daniel, ZPE 49 (1982) 43-44 P.Mich.inv. 4953
Photo: Tafel 1 :
Prov.: Unknown Date: III AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 11.5, x 9.3 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Account
Back: > Three mythological hexameters. The first is then copied by another hand which
signs at the bottom.
Hand 1: Teacher’s, fluent and semicursive with adequate legibility. Letters are medium to
large and slope slightly to the right. The initials of every line are enlarged.
Hand 2: “Evolving,” attempts to imitate everything in the model, even size and ductus.

139
Ed.pr.: P.Ross. Georg. I 13 T.Hermitage Museum, not found
Photo: None published Bibl.? P?"18822.2.79. la 143; CGFP 316
Prov.: Unknown Date: III AD
 WRITING EXERCISES 207

Mat.: Waxed tablet, 15 x 17.7 cm.

Cont.: Two maxims of moralistic content, separated by oblique strokes, then duAomévet.
Hand: Described as teacher’s, clear and fluent.

140
Ed.pr.: O.Mich. I 661 O.Mich.inv. 9249
Photo: XIV Bibl.: P? 2688, Z 74, D 118
Prov.: Karanis Date: III AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 6.3:x 9.9 cm.
Cont.: A name, probably “Babylonians” rather than the genitive of Babylon.
Hand: “Rapid,” quick, fluent, cursive letters. Probably an older student.

141
Ed.pr.: C. Wessely, Stud. Pal. II p. LIV, 11 P.Vindob.G. 26011k
Photo: MPER XV, Tafel 9 Bibl.: P? 2735, Z 92, D 121; MPER NS XV 43
Prov.: Arsinoite / Heracleopolite Date: III AD
Mat.: Two fragments of coarse papyrus, 7 x 23.5 and 3.5 x 7 cm.
Cont.: One fragment ~ and the other t with two mythological names, Eipaémn and Taowdcn,
written several times.
Hand: The names are first in block, versal letters (pupil or teacher?), and then in fluent,
upright semicursives with few ligatures, written by a teacher who knew the chancery
style.

142
Ed.pr.: E.J. Goodspeed, Mél. Nicole (Géneve 1905) 181-82 T. Brooklyn 37.1724e
Photo: Pap.Flor. XXIl p. XX
Bibl.: P? 1884, Z 106, D 128; G. Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca ex Lapidibus Conlecta (Berlin
1878) xxiii no. 1117b; J.M. Edmonds, The Fragments of Attic Comedy (Leiden 1961)
416; CGFP 314; Pap.Flor. XXII 27.
Prov.: Abousir Date: III? HI-IV in Pap. Flor.
Mat.: Wooden tablet, 13.5 x 30 cm.
Cont.: Written across short dimension, two unidentified gnomic iambic trimeters written in
four lines, separated by an oblique stroke. Then a decorative design and the pupil’s
copy, interrupted the fourth time around. Two oblique strokes separate the copies.
Hand 1: Teacher’s, with informal, round, serifed letters of very large size, all separated.
Hand 2: “Evolving,” calligraphic, epsilon with elongated crossbar, many erasures, and defi-
cient alignment. Letters more serifed than the model’s and sometimes with roundels.

143
Ed.pr.: O.Mich. 1 662 O.Mich.inv. 9067
Photo: XVII Bibl.: P? 2689, Z 75, D 119
Prov.: Karanis Date: III-IV AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 5.7 x 4.8 cm.
208 WRITING EXERCISES

Cont.: Two names of populations with misspellings. The rest is empty.

Hand: “Rapid,” well-developed cursives. Probably an older student.

144
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 32 P.Vindob.G 28930
Photo: Tafel 7
Prov.: Heracleopolite? Date: III-IV AD
Mat.: Papyrus fragment, 7.4 x 20 cm.
Cont.: Series of cai on both sides.
Hand: Practiced, probably an apprentice scribe.

145
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 39 P.Vindob.G 13804
Photo: Tafel 8
Prov.: Hermopolite Date: III-IV AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 10.5 x 6.5 cm., only bottom margin preserved; back blank
Cont.: ~ A few words are repeated in five lines. Horizontal line at the end.
Hand: Fluent and practiced, probably a scribe in training.

146
Ed.pr.: M. Froehner, Annales Société Francaise Numismat.Archéol. 3 (1868) 76-77
T.Borelly inv. 1568
Photo: XVII
Bibl.: P? 2731, Z 189, D 370; TrGF 2 734e; R.S. Bagnall and K.A. Worp, BASP 17.1-2
(1980) 17
Prov.: Unknown Date: April 24 327 AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet, 18 x 31 cm.
Cont.: The story of Agamemnon and Iphigenia in four lines repeated three times (neither a dic-
tation nor a paraphrase). In the first line the name of the student, Aurelius Theodoros
son of Anoubion (cf. 389), and a planetary date. On the second line the consular date.
Hand: “Rapid,” small, capable, leaning to the right. The letters touch most of the time.

147
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 73 P.Vindob.G 15574
Photo: Tafel 20
Prov.: Hermopolite Date: IV-V AD
Mat.: Coarse papyrus, 10.5 x 13.4 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: > Two students: one practices the beginning of a letter to a brother, the other a name
over and over. Many phonological mistakes.
Hand |: “Zero-grade,” with letters mostly separated.
Hand 2: “Alphabetic,” sometimes with serifs at the end of the vertical strokes.
 WRITING EXERCISES 209

148
Ed.pr.: W. Brashear, Enchoria 14 (1986) 11-12 T.Wutrzburg K 1023
Photo: None published, the writing is too faint
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV-V AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet broken lengthwise, covered by coating, 12 x 29 cm.
Cont.: Defined by horizontal and vertical lines all around. Horizontal guidelines. A maxim
written by the teacher is then copied by the student (cf. 158, 160, line 1 of 319 and
393).
Hand 1: Described as experienced.
Hand 2: Described as not too clumsy.

149
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 33 P.Vindob.G 40381
Photo: Tafel 7
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV-V AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 8.6 x 13.2 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: t Traces of writing by a different hand.
Side 2: f A series of kai.
Hand : Fluent, an apprentice scribe.

150
Ed.pr.: W. Brashear, Enchoria 14 (1986) 8-9 T.Wiirzburg K 1020
Photo: Tafel 6
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV-V AD
Mat.: Fragment of wooden tablet covered with grey coating, 29.2 x 7 cm.
Cont.: A maxim, Jaekel 269 (cf. 393, p. VIII) written by the teacher and copied by the student
on guidelines. Underneath another student wrote a list of months. On the back three
rows of a syllabary, barely visible.
Hand 1: Teacher’s, leaning to the right. Beta with rounded bottom and kappa enlarged.
Hand 2: “Zero-grade,” very large letters, severely multistroke, does not follow the model.
Hand 3: (writes the list), “Evolving.”

151

Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 34 P.Vindob.G 40579

Photo: Tafel 7
Prov.: Unknown Date: V AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 5.5 x 12.5 cm.; other side blank.
Cont.: t Two words, xai and 70d, are repeated over and over.
Hand: Fluent, an apprentice scribe.

152
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 37 P.Vindob.G 26274
Photo: Tafel 8
210 WRITING EXERCISES

Prov.: Arsinoite-Heracleopolite Date: V AD

Mat.: Papyrus, 13.5 x 6 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: > A word is repeated several times, together with other writing.
Hand: Practiced, probably an apprentice scribe.

153

Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 41 H.T.Vindob.G 5

Photo: Tafel 8
Prov.: Unknown Date: V AD
Mat.: Fragment of wooden tablet, 15.8 x 1.7 cm.
Cont.: Parts of six lines, the same words are repeated in the first five. Then blank space.
Hand: Fluent, probably an apprentice scribe.

154
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 45a P. Vindob.G 38722
Photo: Tafel 85
Prov.: Unknown Date: V AD?
Mat.: Papyrus, 5.2 x 10 cm.
Cont.: ~ Difficult to say if the student copied just letters or words. Two rough breathings.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” poor eye-hand coordination, distorted image of alpha, rho, and zeta.

155
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 38 P.Vindob.G 15645
Photo: Tafel 8
Prov.: Hermopolite Date: V-VI AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 7.5 x 11.5 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: > Two words repeated many times.
Side 2: t Accomplished scribe’s writing exercise.
Hand: Overall clumsy appearance, but most letters are fluent, perhaps an apprentice scribe.

156
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 31 P.Vindob.G 3860
Photo: Tafel 7
Prov.: Arsinoite-Heracleopolite Date: V-VI AD
Mat.: Papyrus of bad quality, 4 x 5.5 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: > Account.
Side 2: > A word and a letter a few times.
Hand: Probably an apprentice scribe.

157
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 35 P.Vindob.G 39585
Photo: Tafel 7
Prov.: Heracleopolite? Date: V-VI AD
 WRITING EXERCISES 211

Mat.: Strip of papyrus, two pieces glued against each other, 3.5 x 17.8 cm.
Cont.: > On both sides, letters and words repeated. Cross.
Hand: Apprentice scribe, probably.

158
Ed.pr.: P. van Minnen, ZPE 93 (1992) 209-11 T.Mich.inv. 29974
Photo: Tafel IX
Bibl.: M.L. Allen and T.K. Dix, The Beginning of Understanding. Writing in the Ancient
World (Ann Arbor 1991) 56-57, no. 10, fig.1.
Prov.: Unknown Date: V-VI AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet, white coating, 17 x 32 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Mathematical tables
Side 2: Across short dimension, framing lines, a maxim (cf. 148, 160, line 1 of 319 and
393). Then the leftover space is ruled with 20 horizontal lines.
Hand: Teacher’s, fluent, upright with a few ligatures. Upsilon is v-shaped and alpha has the
loop open at the top. Eta has an ascending middle bar linked to the top of the vertical.

159
Ed.pr.: P.Jouguet, G. Lefebvre, BCH 28 (1904) 208-209 T. Cairo, Not found
Photo: None published
Bibl.: P? 1341, 1843; Z 102, 196; D 131, 371; Jaekel, 1964, Pap. XV
Prov.: Unknown Date: Byzantine
Mat.: Tablet written on both sides.
Cont.: Side 1: Menander’s maxim copied four times.
Side 2: Seven epic hexameters, in the style of Nonnus: a speech of Achilles’ shade.
Scriptio plena.
Hand: Not described, but considered a student’s hand.

160
Ed.pr.: P. Cauderlier, RA (1983) f. 2, pp. 276-79 T.Louvre inv. AF 1195
Photo: Pl. 6, 7 Bibl.: D 114
Prov.: Antinoopolis Date: Byzantine (not earlier than V AD)
Mat.: Wooden tablet, 27 x 16 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Across the short dimension, a maxim (cf. 148, 158, line 1 of 319, line 1 of 393)
written by the teacher and followed by his name, Flavius Collouthos son of Isakios, is
then copied several times in two cols. by the pupil.
Side 2: Across the long dimension, series of incomplete alphabets. Traces of previous
writing: letters of the alphabet.
Hand 1: Teacher’s, proficient, semicursive, extra-large letters, close to the upright pointed
majuscule. The letters’ size is not uniform, and there is a contrast in their width. Some
letters are bent backward and some are ligatured.
Hand 2: “Alphabetic,” gamma and iota copied as eta (not pi as in ed.pr.), mu and nu hardly
can be identified on both sides. Imitates teacher’s inclination.
212 WRITING EXERCISES

161
Ed.pr.: O. Petr. 413 O.London UC. 31900
Photo: XVIII, courtesy of the Petrie Museum, University College London
Bibl.:P2 2672, Z 104, D 127
Prov.: Unknown Date: Byzantine
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 9.2 x 8.4 cm.
Cont.: "Apoevcxév repeated three times, perhaps a pensum for a mistake in the gender.
Hand: “Rapid,” somewhat fluent, even though the exercise is not neat.

162
Ed.pr.: O. Petr. 411 O.London UC. 31903
Photo: XVIII, courtesy of the Petrie Museum, University College London
Bibles P22670; Z 103.°D 326
Prov.: Unknown Date: Byzantine (V or later)
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 10.9 x 10.7 cm.
Cont.: A name written seven times.
Hand: “Rapid,” cursive alpha and epsilon with extended crossbar.

163
Ed.pr.: Phoebammon II p. 124 no. 33 Not found
Photo: None published
Prov.: Thebaid Date: Byzantine
Mat.: Ostracon, 12.5 x 14 cm.
Cont.: A name, “Avdpéac. The rest of the space is empty.
Hand: Described as being “large, unskilled.”

164
Ed.pr.: Phoebammon II p. 149 no.122 Not found
Photo: None published ,
Prov.: Thebaid Date: Byzantine
Mat.: Ostracon of white stone, 5.5 x 7.5 cm.
Cont.: A name, Lipapxoc.
Hand: Large, not described further.

165
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 45 P.Vindob.G 40213
Photo: Tafel 11
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 6 x 8.5 cm.
Cont.: ~ A name repeated twice.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” nu appears four times, always different.
 WRITING EXERCISES 213

166
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 40 P.Vindob.G 40217
Photo: Tafel 8
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 7.9 x 5.3 cm.
Cont.: > A date is repeated eight times.
Hand: “Evolving,” alpha cursive and ligatured. Letter size varies.

167
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 71 P.Vindob.G 22401
Photo: Tafel 20
Prov.: Arsinoite Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Papyrus of bad quality, 3.5 x 15.5 cm.
Cont.: — Blasphemous invocation to Jesus Christ and Apa Ol, with phonetic mistakes. The
nomen sacrum is not abbreviated.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” bad alignment.

168
Ed.pr.: Mon. Epiph. I 611 O.MMA 14.1.140, not found
Photo: Plate XIV Bibl.: P? 555, Z 94, D 134
Prov.: Thebes Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Ostracon
Cont.: Iliad 1.1 partially repeated four times. Then Coptic text by different hand.
Hand: Very proficient, a scribe.

169
Ed.pr.: C. Préaux, CdE 10 (1935) 361-70 T. Brux. Musées Royaux E. 6801
Photo: Plate Bibl.: van Haelst 129
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet, white coating, 30 x 12 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Horizontal guidelines and blank space in correspondence to the holes. Verse 3
of Psalm 28 (29) written six times. A chrism, diaeresis, and two accents.
Side 2: Greek alphabet followed by the vowels written six times and the Coptic letters.
An amulet (ed.pr.). The repeated writing and the tablet’s size point to an exercise.
Hand: Experienced, practicing Alexandrian majuscule.

170

Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 70 P.Vindob.G 40408

Photo: Tafel 20
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 8.5 x 5.5 cm.
Cont.: > Partial invocation, then blank space. The nomen sacrum is not abbreviated.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” cursive and very multistroke.
214 WRITING EXERCISES

171

Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 36 P.Vindob.G 12042

Photo: Tafel 8
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 4 x 11.3 cm.
Cont.: > Letter and part of a word repeated, on the back a few crosses.
Hand: Fluent, probably an apprentice scribe.

172

Ed.pr.: MPER NS XVIII 95 O.Vindob.K 772

Photo: Tafel 35
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 6.8 x 6 cm.
Cont.: A name (four times with the sign of abbreviation) is practiced five times.
Hand: “Evolving,” with letters that sometimes touch.

173
Ed.pr.: H.R. Hall, CGT pl. 34 no. 2 O.BM inv. 33187
Photo: XVI Bibl.: P? 2700, Z 100, D 123
Prov.: Deir-el-Bahari Date: VII-VIII AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 11.2 x 10.5 cm.
Cont.: The name "Ayapépuvwy without final nu written in two lines.
Hand: “Rapid,” alpha and mu with cursive appearance, but separated.

174
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XVIII 107 O.Berol.inv. P.19699
Photo: Tafel 38
Prov.: Unknown Date: VIII AD?
Mat.: Ostracon, 9.2 x 6.8 cm. .
Cont.: A few Greek and Coptic letters on the first line, then two names are repeated several
times.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” with a thick pen, uneven letters of varying size.

Short Passages: Maxims, Sayings, and Limited Amount of Verses

175
Ed’ pr:sPCair. Zen. TV 59535 P.Cairo, Jounal d’entrée no. 51534
Photo: PI. II Bibl: P2. 1794, DATS
Prov.: Philadelphia Date: III BC
Mat.: Papyrus, 8.5 x 6 cm.
Cont.: Playful hexameter on Achilles and the words ® &vdpec duxaoraié underneath.
 SHORT PASSAGES 21S

Hand: “Rapid,” first in a plain literary hand, then in epigraphic, serifed letters. An advanced
student.

176
Ed.pr.: O.Edfu II 305 Not found
Photo: Pl. XLIX Bibl.: P? 2681, Z 364, D 116
Prov.: Apollinopolis Date: Ptolemaic
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon
Cont.: Six lines of writing, perhaps an obscure riddle. Probably omega at the beginning of line
5 is part of the previous word: ’A@énvaiw.
Hand: Accurate, proficient letters.

177
Ed.pr.: BKT V.1 pp. 78-79 O.Berol.
Photo: Schubart, PGB, 8a Bibl.: P? 1758, Z 42, D 177; SH 973 b
Prov.: Thebes Date: II BC
Mat.: Ostracon
Cont.: Epigram on towns’ rivalry to be Homer’s birthplace, written in continuous lines. Para-
graphos under the last line.
Hand: “Rapid,” fluent, but not very uniform.

178
Ed.pr.: O.Bodl. If 2172 O.Bodl. Not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: P? 1759, Z 45, D 179, 387; SH 971
Prov.: Unknown Date: I BC
Mat.: Ostracon
Cont.: Epigram on a lame, proud Spartan soldier written in continuous lines. Mistakes of
every kind.
Hand: Described as “large, rude, uncial.”

179
Ed.pr.: O.Bodl. II 2173 O.Bodl.Gk.Inscr. 1205
Photo: XVIII, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Bibl.: P? 1760, Z 46, D 179, 387; SH 971
Prov.: Unknown Date: I BC
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 12.5 x 8.5 cm.
Cont.: Beginning of epigram on Spartan soldier. Many mistakes.
Hand: “Rapid,” serifed and fluent, but clumsy erasures.

180
Ed.pr.: R. Cribiore, Tyche 9 (1994) 1-8 P.Harvard Houghton SM 4371
Photo: Tafel 1
Bibl.: P2 780, Z 48, D 149; P. Oxy. IV 761
216 SHORT PASSAGES

Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: I BC

Mat.: Papyrus, 21 x 11 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Traces of document.
Back: > Iliad 6.147, 148, then 147 and the first half of 149 repeated twice.
Hand: “Evolving,” varying in size. The letters are all separated except epsilon and alpha.

181
Ed.pr.: O.Bodl. 1 280 O.Bod1.Gk.Inscr. 643
Photo: XVIII, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Bibl.: P? 2668, Z 47, D 195
Prov.: Thebes? Date: Late Ptolemaic
Mat.: Ostracon, 14.4 x 11.8 cm.
Cont.: Words traced with care.
Hand: Epigraphic, with finials and roundels, perhaps a model.

182
Ed.pr.: BKT V.2 XVII no. 6 T.Berol.inv. AM 17651
Photo: XIX
Bibl.: P? 430, Z 44, D 180; M.W. Haslam, ZPE 20 (1976) 55-57
Prov.: Unknown Date: I AD
Mat.: Wax tablet
Cont.: Side 1: Euripides, Troades 876-79, each verse divided between two lines at the caesura,
words separated into syllables.
Side 2: Random letters of the alphabet, especially chi and xi.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” very slow, with letters varying in size and inclination, and sometimes in
shape (e.g., omega). Some confusion between alpha and delta.

183
Ed.pr.: PST VIII 1000 . O.Biblioteca Laurenziana
Photo: XIX
Bibl.: P? 2463; L. Salvadori, Civilté Classica e Cristiana 9 (1988) 259-62
Prov.: Thebes Date: IV AD (ed.pr.); I-II
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 17 x 13.9 cm.
Cont.: Iliad 13.217, with the beginning of a comment (Mythographus Homericus) that is inter-
rupted: a writing exercise, a note, or a model.
Hand: Proficient book hand, with finials and letters mostly separated. A teacher or an ad-
vanced student.

184
Ed.pr.: W.G. Waddell, Et. Pap. 1 (1932) 17 P.Cairo, Journal d’entrée no. 56226
Photo: XX Bibl.: P? 1340, Z 72, D 139; CGFP 208
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: I-III AD
Mat.: Rough papyrus, 6.7 x 6.6 cm.; back blank.
 SHORT PASSAGES PA yi|

Cont.: > Philemon PCG 93.1, then blank space.

Hand: “Evolving,” with serifed letters of variable size almost all separated.

185
Ed.pr.: W.G. Waddell, Et. Pap. 1 (1932) 16 P.Cairo, Journal d’entrée no. 56227
Photo: XX Bibl.: P2 1887, Z 252, D 140
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: I-III] AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 9 x 8.3 cm.
Cont: Side 1: > A maxim with a fusion of Christian and pagan moralizing (7rGF 2 F 476). At
the end of line 2 there is a misdivision, but then the writer tried to erase omicron.
Side 2: tf Fragmentary account
Hand: “Alphabetic,” with a thick pen, letters all separated, but epsilon has a long crossbar.

186
Ed.pr.: A. Henrichs, ZPE 1 (1967) 45-53 O.K6ln.inv. 0.4
Photo: P.K6éln 66, Tafel Ila Bibl.: P.K6éln II 66; CPF 18, 1T
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: II AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 10 x 7.5 cm.
Cont.: Two maxims about education, the first adespoton, the second attributed to Antisthenes.
Hand: “Evolving,” fluent, with varying letter size. Only epsilon iota are ligatured.

187
Ed.pr.: P. Rein. II 84 O.Rein.inv. 2188
Photo: XIX Bibl.: P? 2653, Z 61, D 183
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 8.5 x 8.5 cm.
Cont.: A riddle about the bat with a few phonetic mistakes. At the end a decorated line.
Hand: “Rapid,” mostly cursive and fluent enough.

188
Ed.pr.: P.Mil. Vogl. V1 263 P.Mil.N.cat. 261 verso
Photo: Tav. I
Prov.: Tebtunis Date: II AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 8.6 x 9.9 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Accounts.
Back: t Two sayings, one about Demosthenes and the other about Epaminondas,
divided by space and an extended paragraphos. Many phonetic mistakes, but they do
not guarantee a dictation. Aeschines’ death is wrongly put before Demosthenes’. This
either represents a mistake by the teacher or testifies to a different tradition.
Hand: “Evolving,” informal, round with some letters ligatured and varying size.

189
Ed.pr.: J.G. Milne, JHS 28 (1908) 126 no. VII O.Bodl.Gk.Inscr. 2935
218 SHORT PASSAGES

Photo: None published, too dark Bibl.: P2 2720, Z 58, D 136; Jaekel 1964, XVII
Prov.: Upper Egypt Date: II AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 6.6 x 9.8 cm.
Cont.: Maxim, Antiphanes 281 PGC written in three lines.
Hand: “Evolving,” irregular letters decorated with roundels and a few corrections.

190
Ed.pr.: P.Collart, CRAI (1945) 249-58 O. Clermont-Ganneau, not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: P? 2656, Z 201, D 202
Prov.: Elephantine Date: II AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 8 x 7 cm.
Cont.: Saying of Chaeremon on Tyche, wrongly attributed to Euripides, with phonetic mis-
takes (7rGF 1 F 2).
Hand: Described as uneven and clumsy.

191
Ed.pr.: O.Bodl. II 2179 O.Bod1.Gk.Inscr. 163
Photo: None published, almost illegible now Bibl.: P? 1230
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 9.4 x 6.2 cm.
Cont.: It mentions “the poet Homer.”
Hand: “Rapid;” it seems fluent, but uneven.

192
Ed.pr.: MPER NS Ill 32 P.Vindob.G. 19766
Photo: Gallo 1980, Tav. XIII no. 1
Bibl.: P? 1989, Z 59, D 313; G. Bastianini, W. Luppe, Analecta Papirologica | (1989) 31-36
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 8 x 6 cm. ~

Cont.: Front: ~ Document.

Back: t A saying of Diogenes and the beginning of the hypothesis of a satyr play of
Euripides, the Av7téAvkoc Ipa@roc.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” only epsilon ligatured. Variable space between letters and lines.

193
Ed.pr.: O.Bodl. II 2170 O.Bodl.Gk.Inscr. 2454
Photo: XXI, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Bibl.: P?.657, Z 371, D 152
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD?
Mat.: Ostracon, 6.8 x 6.7 cm.
Cont.: Beginnings of Iliad 2.527, 536, 546, 581, 557, 591, 559, 569, 484; probably an aid to
the memory (cf. 201 and 291). There are many phonetic mistakes.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” written with a thick pen, uneven and irregular.
 SHORT PASSAGES 219

194
Ed.pr.: O. Claud. 1 184 O.Claud.inv. 236
Photo: Pl. XXXII
Prov.: Mons Claudianus Date: II AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 6.7 x 4.5 cm.
Cont.: Menander’s sententia (Jaekel IV 1).
Hand: Clear, practiced, and elaborate, probably the same apprentice scribe of 195.

195
Ed.pr.: O. Claud. 1 185 O.Claud.inv. 948
Photo: Pl. XXXII
Prov.: Mons Claudianus Date: II AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 5.1 x 7.6 cm.
Cont: Menander’s sententia (Jaekel IV 1).
Hand: Probably same apprentice scribe of 194.

196
Ed.pr.: O. Claud. 1 186 O.Claud.inv. 234
Photo: Pl. XXXIII
Prov.: Mons Claudianus Date: II AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 5 x 2.4 cm.
Cont.: Menander’s maxim (Jaekel IV 1).
Hand: Confident, but with some flaws; probably an apprentice scribe.

197
Ed.pr.: O. Claud. 1 187 O.Claud.inv. 80
Photo: None published, writing is smudged.
Prov.: Mons Claudianus Date: II AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 5 x 4.5 cm.
Cont.: Menander’s maxim (Jaekel IV 1).
Hand: Not described

198
Ed.pr.: O.Bodl. Il 2174 O.Bodl.Gk.Inscr. 2105
Photo: XVIII, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Bibl.: P? 1946; SH 972
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 7.9 x 7.7 cm.
Cont.: Fragment of epigram on the fatherland of Homer: three very corrupted verses written
continuously, without separation, by a student, without much understanding.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” with some ligatures. The alignment is bad and there are a few erasures.
220 SHORT PASSAGES

199
Ed.pr.: P. Jouguet, G. Lefebvre, BCH 28 (1904) 207-208 T.IFAO, not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: P? 834, Z 154, D 157
Prov.: Unknown Date: Roman
Mat.: Wooden tablet
Cont: Side 1: A few Coptic words
Side 2: Iliad 9.1-7; lines 4 and 5 are written twice, therefore not a dictation.
Hand: Not described

200
Ed.pr.: D.C. Hesseling, JHS 13 (1892-93) 296 T.Bodl.Ms.Gr.class.d159 (p)
Photo: None published, hardly visible Bibl.: P? 2710, D 193
Prov.: Unknown Date: No date (ed.pr.), Roman
Mat.: Wax tablet in bad condition, 12.3 x 16.5 cm.
Cont.: Maxim, difficult to see (cf. 209),“Homer was a god, not a man,” and some letters.
Hand: “Alphabetic.”

201
Ed.pr.: O.Bodl. II 2169 O.Bodl.Gk.Inscr. 1506
Photo: XXI, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Bibl.: P? 656
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD?
Mat.: Ostracon, 11.4 x 8.3 cm.
Cont.: Beginnings of Iliad 2.483, 494, 511, 517 (cf. 193 and 291). Four other lines, smudged
and illegible, are written perpendicularly to the first. Many phonetic mistakes.
Hand: “Evolving,” quick with some cursive elements. Epsilon with lengthened crossbar.

202
Ed.pr.: H. Diels, Sitz. Berl. Akad. (1898) 857-58 = P.Lond.Lit. 63 T.BM 29527
Photo: Tafel IV Bibl.: P? 1765, Z 68, D 182
Prov.: Unknown Date: II-III AD
Mat.: Wax tablet, 22.5 x 12 cm.
Cont.: Adespoton epigram: a riddle. Some of the verses are divided in two at the caesura. At
times they are written continuously. Traces of letters of previous writing.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” shaky strokes, letter size and spacing vary considerably.

203
Ed.pr.: R. Pintaudi, P.J. Sijpesteijn, ZPE 76 (1989) 91-92 no. 7 OMM inv. 625
Photo: Tafel X Bibl.: OGN I 131
Prov.: Narmouthis Date: II-III Ap
Mat.: Ostracon, 7.2 x 9 cm.
Cont.: Two unknown iambic trimeters about Tyche, separated by oblique stroke (cf. 221).
Large margin left blank.
 SHORT PASSAGES 220

Hand: Proficient, clear cursive letters, a model perhaps.

204
Ed.pr.: J. Lenaerts, CdE 50 (1975) 195-96 O.Berol.inv. 10747
Photo: XX Bibl.: D 189; M. Gronewald, ZPE 22 (1976) 19-20
Prov.: Elephantine Date: II-III AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 7.8 x 10.2 cm.
Cont.: Five lines of Isocrates, Ad Demonicum I, 28, about how wealth is not to be prized.
Hand: Teacher’s with informal, round, medium to large letters. Initials greatly enlarged.
Sometimes letters with cursive forms, but still exemplary clarity. Margins visible only
on top and left. Perhaps this was a large model which contained a long passage.

205
Ed.pr.: R. Pintaudi, P.J. Sijpesteijn, ZPE 76 (1989) 88 no. 4 OMM inv. 956
Photo: Tafel IX Bibl.: OGN 1 128
Prov.: Narmouthis Date: II-III AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 9.6 x 10.5 cm.
Cont.: Five lines of writing, probably a riddle. Large blank space.
Hand: “Rapid,” cursive and fluent. Probably an advanced student.

206
Ed.pr.: H. Henne, BIFAO 27 (1927) 79-82 O.Wadie Hanna, not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: P? 680, Z 146, D 154
Prov.: Unknown Date: II-III AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 12 x 13 cm.
Cont.: liad 3.1-5, part of a simile, in two uneven cols. Verses cut at the caesura. Diaeresis.
The oblique strokes described by the editor probably served for a metrical reading.
Hand: Described as fluent.

207
Ed.pr.: P. Oxy. III 425 P.Brux. Musées Royaux inv. 5928
Photo: Turner, 1987, Plate 5 Bibl.: P? 1927, Z 69, D 184
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: II-III AD
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 9.5 x 11.4 cm.
Cont.: Unknown lyric, a song of boatmen written out without distinction into cola. At the end
a paragraphos and some decorations. Then a large blank space.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” some difficulty with upsilon, alpha, delta, and pi.

208
Descriptum: P.Oxy. V1 966 P.Cairo, Journal d’entrée no.47419
Photo: XX Bibl.: P? 1879, Z 78, D 144; CGFP 307
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: III AD
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 12.7 x 10.5 cm.
222 SHORT PASSAGES

Cont.: Front: > Official document.

Back: > A line and the beginning of another, separated by an oblique dash. Probably
corrupt gnomic iambics.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” mostly separated letters, except epsilon.

209

Ed.pr.: P.Mich. VIII 1100 P.Mich.inv. 9353

Photo: Plate XIa Bibl.: P? 2746, D 118 bis
Prov.: Karanis Date: III AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 6.6 x 7.8 cm.
Cont.: Some words, mostly proper names. Underneath a maxim: “A god, not a man was
Homer” (cf. 200).
Hand: “Evolving,” only epsilon is ligatured.

210
Ed.pr.: P. Oxy XLIV 3174 | Ashmolean Museum
Photo: Plate IV J. Bingen, CdE 51 (1976) 314
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: 8 March 243 AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 5.5 x 15 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Tax document.
Back: - Unknown iambic trimeter, date, and two drawings (abacus and a figure,
Midas?). The date is by year, month, and planetary week.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” seems to imitate a model written in a formal mixed hand, with broad and
narrow letters. Many inkblots. Epsilon ligatured or with crossbar lengthened.

211
Ed.pr.: P. Rein. II 85 P.Sorb.inv. 2150
Photo: Gallo, 1980, Tav. XIII no. 2 Bibl.: P? 1990, Z 251; Gallo, 1980, 349-54
Proy.: Unknown - Date: End of III AD
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 7 x 4.cm.
Cont.: Four lines of writing and then a large empty space. One or two sayings, the first from
Diogenes, then perhaps a saying of Aristotle (CPF 24 62T).
Hand: “Alphabetic,” with a thick pen. Epsilon ligatured or with crossbar lengthened.

212
Ed.pr.: P.Lund V1 12 P.Lund inv. 45
Photo: XXIV Bibl.: P2 704
Prov.: Unknown Date: III-IV Ap
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 15 x 9.8 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: > Iliad 3.407, divided in two lines at the caesura. Then large blank space.
Hand: “Rapid,” with elaborate, unattractive letters.
 SHORT PASSAGES 223

213
Ed.pr.: O.Mich. 1 693 O.Mich.inv. 9222
Photo: XXII Bibl.: P2 2691, Z 86
Prov.: Karanis Date: III-IV AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 6.2 x 6.8 cm.
Cont.: A few words can be read in four lines.
Hand: “Evolving,” very large, with a badly sharpened pen.

214
Ed.pr.: O.Mich. 1 658 O.Mich.inv. 9011
Photo: XX
Bibl.: P? 2686, Z 84, D 188; Youtie 1973, 467-77.
Prov.: Karanis Date: Late III- early IV AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 10 x 9.4 cm.
Cont.: A common phrase, “For the good of all.”
Hand: Capable, same as 110, perhaps a model.

215
Ed.pr.: H. Thompson, Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. 34 (1912) 97 = SB 15730
O. property of H. Thompson
Photo: Plate XXII
Bibl.: P? 1988, Z 255, D 205; Gallo 1980, 369-75
Prov.: Thebes Date: IIJ-IV AD
Mat.: Ostracon
Cont.: Two sayings of Diogenes the Cynic. The first also appears in notebook 393, VII; the
second concerns education.
Hand: “Rapid,” with quick, semicursive letters.

216
Ed.pr.: L. Koenen, ZPE 13 (1974) 97-103 T.Colon. 21
Photo: Taf. VI
Bibl.: D 145; G.B. Philipp, ZPE 24 (1977) 54 and Gymnasium 85 (1978) 151-59.
Prov.: Unknown Date: IIJ-IV AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet, originally a book cover, 16.7 x 27.8 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Two dates by different hands, referring to subsequent uses or to the scribe’s
activity in writing the book.
Side 2: The line 7&\o¢ &xer “IAuckdoc¢ X repeated entirely or partially in regular or block
letters. Then the name ‘Hpaxdf¢ written twice by a different, capable hand. Then a
gnome (Jaekel 9) with some mistakes and a frequently occurring Homeric formula.
Hand: “Rapid,” an older student, who had already reached the end of Iliad 22.

217
Ed.pr.: O. Wilck. II 1226 Formerly Wilcken’s, not found
224 SHORT PASSAGES

Photo: None published Bibl.: P? 2076, Z 155, D 203

Prov.: Unknown Date: Late Roman

Mat.: Ostracon with traces of color

Cont.: Saying of Aesop not completely deciphered.
Hand: Described as being written by two hands, one smaller and more fluent than the other.

218
Ed.pr.: O. Wilck. II 1310 Not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: P2 2081, Z 194, D 204
Prov.: Unknown Date: Late Roman
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon
Cont.: The beginning of a saying of Isocrates.
Hand: Not described

219
Ed.pr.: BGU VII 1688 P.Berol.inv. 11609, not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: P? 2741, Z 87, D 192
Prov.: Philadelphia Date: IV AD
Mat.: Papyrus
Cont.: Fragment with parts of four lines, the second possibly Sophocles’ (7rGF 2 F 715 and 4
F 833)
Hand: Described as clumsy and crude.

220
Ed.pr.: G. Nachtergael, CdE 66 (1991) 221-25 O.Musée du Périgord inv. 2382
Photo: Fig. 1
Prov.: Hermopolis Date: IV AD (ed.pr.), but probably later
Mat.: Ostracon, 5.2 x 12.7 cm.
Cont: Menander’s maxim (Jaekel 455). The text helps emend the manuscript tradition. On the
last line the exhortation g:Ao76ver surrounded by lines.
Hand: Teacher’s, elaborate, accentuates thick and thin strokes, with wedge-shaped finials.

221
Ed.pr.: PSI TV 280 P.Biblioteca Laurenziana
Photo: XXI Bibl.: P? 1881, Z 146; CGFP 298
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: IV-V AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 9 x 13 cm.
Cont.: > Three unidentified iambic trimeters on Tyche (cf. 203), written without distinction of
the verses (IrGF 2 F 717). Three very short and obscure lines are added by the same
hand turning the papyrus 90 degrees.
Hand: Fluent and practiced, perhaps a teacher’s.
 SHORT PASSAGES 225

222
Ed.pr.: P.Bad. IV 111 T.Heidelberg UL, not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: P? 2733, Z 125, D 148
Prov.: Unknown Date: No date (ed.pr.), but after TV AD
Mat.: Fragment of wooden tablet, 9.6 x 51.5 cm
Cont.: In the left part, which is framed by lines, there are small crosses. In the right part a
hexameter, an exhortation to write well (cf. 136), divided into syllables, and then the
same words are written in a different order, surrounded by crosses. The pupil had to
fit the words into the hexameter.
Hand: Not described.

223
Ed.pr.: O.Bodl. Il 2565 O.Bod1.Gk.Inscr.inv. 82
Photo: None published, too faint now Bibl.: P? 2679, Z 112, D 201
Prov.: Unknown Date: Byzantine
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 5.6 x 7.8 cm.
Cont.: Part of a verse with iambic rhythm (7rGF 2 F 719), practically invisible now.

224
Ed.pr.: O. Wilck. II 1149 O.Louvre 8741, not found
Photo: None published Bibl.:' P?.587)'Z 157; DA72
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon
Cont.: Iliad 1.206 partially preserved.
Hand: Described as competent and slanting to the right.

225
Ed.pr.: Mon.Epiph. I 612 O.MMA.14.1.139
Photo: Plate XIV Bibl.: P? 557, Z 95, D 173
Prov.: Thebes Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon
Cont.: Iliad 1.1 and 2, beginning.
Hand: “Rapid,” competent and well developed cursive letters.

226
Ed.pr.: Mon.Epiph. Il 613 O.MMA, not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: P2 586, Z 96, D 174
Prov.: Thebes Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Ostracon
Cont.: Iliad 1.201 (formulaic verse) and “passim” (according to ed.pr.).
Hand: Described as cursive and fluent.
226 SHORT PASSAGES

220

Ed.pr.: Mon. Epiph. II 614 O.MMA, not found

Photo: None published Bibl.: P2 563, Z 97, D 174 bis
Prov.: Thebes Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Ostracon
Cont.: Iliad 1.22 and “passim” (ed.pr.).
Hand: Described as written in a cursive hand.

228
Ed.pr.: Crum 1921, no. 403 O.Vindob.K. 674
Photo: MPER XVIII Taf. 94
Bibl.: P2 1322; W.C. Till, Die koptischen Ostraka der Papyrussammlung der Osterreichischen
Nationalbibliothek (1960) 4 no. 9; Jaekel, 1964, Pap. XII; D. Hagedorn, M. Weber,
ZPE 3 (1968) 15-50; A. Grilli, Paideia 24 (1969) 185-94; MPER NS XVIII 268
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 13.2 x 17 cm.
Cont.: Menander’s maxim (Jaekel Pap. XII), translated then into Coptic by the same scribe.
Hand: Teacher’s or older student’s, with a thick pen and letters mostly separated.

229
Ed.pr.: P.J. Sijpesteijn, ZPE-S2 (1983) 291-92 T.Moen inv. 78
Photo: Tafel X a
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet, 37.5 x 14 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Part of Isocrates, Ad Demonicum 9, with words divided into syllables. Some
words are also separated by strokes: a model for reading, followed by the date.
Side 2: Menander’s maxim (Jaekel Pap. II and VIII), probably copied, and not very suc-
cessfully, from a model. Then the pupil signs. There are some erasures.
Hand 1: A teacher’s, extra-large, capable, informal sloping letters with prominent ornamental
circlets and roundels. The letters are often ligatured and some are made cursively.
Hand 2: “Alphabetic,” even if elaborate and serifed. The first letters are more careful, but then
the hand deteriorates. The name is less formal.

230
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 118 P.Vindob.G. 16778
Photo: Tafel 54
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Piece of parchment, 8.3 x 5.3 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: One col. on the hair side. Part of the story of the son who murdered his father
(cf. 231, 232, 314, 323, 409, and 412), which perhaps was not continued. Full of mis-
takes of every kind. Diaeresis.
Side 2: A chrism and probably the name of the pupil, Liwy.
 SHORT PASSAGES 27).

Hand: “Alphabetic,” round and irregular with cursive delta and letter size strikingly uneven.

231
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 121 P.Vindob.G. 41265
Photo: Tafel 55
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Scrap of papyrus cut from a bigger piece, 10.5 x 8 cm.
Cont.: Front: ~ Beginning of the story of the son who murdered his father (cf. 230, 232, 314,
323, 409, and 412). Decorated initial. Diaeresis. Remains of a decorative design.
Back: t Continuation of the story by a different hand.
Hand 1: “Zero-grade,” difficulty with letter shape and variable inclination. Many inkblots.
Hand 2: “Alphabetic,” letter size and spacing leaves much to be desired.

232
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 132 P.Heid.inv. G 565
Photo: Tafel 55
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Parchment on the flesh side, 6.7 x 13.4 cm.
Cont.: On the left, letters are practiced. Then the beginning of the story of the father’s mur-
derer (cf. 230, 231, 314, 323, 409, and 412), with decorated initial. At the bottom not
a decorative design (ed.pr.), but a series of beta’s inserted in a grid. Bad orthography.
Hand: “Zero-grade,” with some letters too similar (e.g., alpha and delta). Difficulty with let-
ter size, orientation, and alignment.

Long Passages: Copies or Dictations

233
Ed.pr.: E. Kiihn, Ber. Berl.Mus. 42 (1921) 101-104 P.Berol.inv. 12318
Photo: XXIV
Bibl.: P? 2603, Z 241, D 380; Miiller 1977, 70-71
Prov.: Philadelphia Date: III Bc
Mat.: Ostracon, found together with the three following, 20 x 16 cm.
Cont.: Unknown passage honoring parents, divided into several parts by paragraphoi and
almost free of mistakes. Impossible to determine if it was an original composition.
Hand: Fluent and regular (same as in 234, 235, and 236) with some cursive elements, like the
literary hands of the period. A teacher or an older student.

234
Ed.pr.: U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Sitz. Berl. Akad. (1918) 742-43 — P.Berol.inv. 12319
Photo: XXII Bibl.: P2 1567, Z 250, 261, D 213
Prov.: Philadelphia Date: III Bc
Mat.: Ostracon
228 LONG PASSAGES

Cont.: Anthology of literary passages generally about wisdom: Ps.-Epicharmus CA pp. 222-23
fr. 5-6; three unidentified comic fragments CGFP 306 a-b-c; Euripides, Electra 388-
89, Hecuba 354-56; Theognis, lines 25 (end) and 26 West JEG; Homer, Odyssey
18.79; Hesiod, Works and Days 287; two prose maxims.
Hand: Same as in 233, 235, and 236: a teacher or an older student.

235
Ed.pr.: P. Viereck, Raccolta di Scritti in Onore di G. Lumbroso (Milano 1925) 254-55
P.Berol.inv. 12310
Photo: XXIII Bibl.: P? 1498, 1697
Prov.: Philadelphia Date: III Bc
Mat.: Ostracon
Cont.: Two passsages separated by paragraphos: Theognis lines 434-438 West JEG and verses
from unknown comedy CGFP 317, all written continuously without observing the
colometry.
Hand: Same as in 233, 234, and 236.

236
Ed.pr.: P. Viereck, Racc.Lumbroso pp. 255-57 P.Berol.inv. 12311
Photo: Gallo, 1980, Tav. IX Bibs P2t575,4Zal27. D207
Prov.: Philadelphia Date: III Bc
Mat.: Ostracon
Cont.: Remains of previous accounts, and an anthology: Euripides, Aegeus fr. 11 Nauck, the
paraphrase of a sententia of Socrates, and two comic fragments, CGFP 318 1-2, in
continuous lines.
Hand: Same as in 233, 234, and 235.

237
Ed.pr.: U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Sitz. Berl. Akad. (1918) 739-42 P.Berol. 12605
Photo: XXV :
Bibl.: P? 2131, Z 277, D 276; S. West, The Ptolemaic Papyri of Homer (K6\n 1965) 260-63
Prov.: Arsinoite Date: III Bc
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon
Cont.: Several glosses. The texts quoted are: Antimachus, Lyde 6, vi p. 250 CA, Hipponax fr.
49 West JEG, Homer Odyssey 11.311 and 21.390-91.
Hand: Even, practiced literary hand, a teacher or an older student.

238
Ed.pr.: M.G. Tsoukalas, “Avéxdoro. didodoyeKoi Kai iduwriKoi m&mupor (Diss. University of
Athens 1962) P.Athen. Univ.Bibl. 2782
Photo: Oikonomides, 1987, Fig. 2
Bibl.: A.N. Oikonomides, ZPE 37 (1980) 179-83, CB 63 (1987) 66-76
Prov.: Unknown Date: III Bc (perhaps later)
 LONG PASSAGES 229

Mat.: Coarse papyrus, 8 x 12 cm.

Cont.: > Col. of writing with two paragraphoi, some of the Delphic commandments, 7 max-
ims (Stobaeus 3.1.173 Wachsmuth-Hense) with one more unknown (cf. 239, 285,
286). Large blank space.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” with a badly sharpened pen and a few erasures. Letters formed separately
and slowly with inclination and interlinear space varying.

239
Ed.pr.: U. Wilcken,, Festschrift G. Ebers (Leipzig 1897) 142-46
Egypt Exploration Fund, not found
Photo: None published
Bibl.: M. Totti, Ausgewdhlte Texte der Isis und Serapis—Religion, Subsidia Epigraphica XII
(Hildesheim 1985) nr. 46.
Prov.: Deir el Bahri Date: III Bc
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, probably originally of large size.
Cont.: One incomplete col. with “the commandments of Amenotes”; 3 maxims (Stobaeus
3.1.173 Wachsmuth-Hense) and others unknown (cf. 238, 285, and 286). The maxims
are separated by horizontal lines and there are some paragraphoi.
Hand: Only described as an informal bookhand. It was perhaps a teacher’s model.

240
Ed.pr.: P. Yale 1 20 P. Yale inv. 2191
Photo: XXVIII Bibl.: P? 378; Rees, AJP 82 (1961) 176
Prov.: Hibeh Date: Ca. 250 BC
Mat.: Papyrus scrap from mummy cartonnage, cut for the exercise, 8 x 5.7 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: ~ Closing chorus of Euripides, Alcestis 1159-63, Andromache 1284-88, Bacchae
1388-92, Helen 1688-92, and Medea 1416-19 (but the first line is different), written
in continuous lines.
Hand: “Evolving,” varying in letter size, crudely bilinear, untrained, and coarse.

241
Ed.pr.: H.R. Hall, CR 18 (1904) 2 = P.Lond.Lit. 75 O.BM inv. 18711
Photo: XX VI Bibl.: P? 416; D.J. Mastronarde, ZPE 49 (1982) 7-14
Prov.: Unknown Date: II Bc
Mat.: Ostracon written on both sides, 13 x 9.5 cm.
Cont.: Euripides, Phoenissae 106-118 and 128-140, a mixture of trimeters and lyric verses.
Interesting variant in line 132. Text written from dictation in continuous lines, full of
mistakes, not only phonetic. There is confusion about case endings and some lines are
irremediably garbled.
Hand: “Rapid,” fluent and smooth, similar to some of the literary hands of the period.

242
Ed.pr.: O. Wilck. II 1147 P.Berol.inv. 4758
230 LONG PASSAGES

Photo: Front too faint; XXV of the back Bibl.: P? 396, Z 130, D 296
Prov.: Thebes Date: II BC
Mat.: Ostracon written on both sides.
Cont.: Euripides, Hippolytus 616-624, the beginning of Hippolytus’ speech against the femi-
nine sex, written as if in prose.
Hand: “Rapid,” fluent with epsilon and alpha in cursive form, but very faint now.

243
Ed.pr.: O. Wilck. II 1488 BL, O.Lond. inv. 25736, not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: P? 1596, Z 43, D 130, 227; SH 976
Prov.: Thebes Date: II BC
Mat.: Ostracon
Cont.: 12 lines of writing by two different hands on both sides: Leonidas, Ant.Gr. XXV and
XLVI Gow-Page HE (incipit) with some unidentified epigrams.
Hand: Fluent on the side called verso with variation in letter size. The text on the recto is very
hard to see. .

244
Ed.pr.: P.Didot. pp. 16-28 P.Louvre inv. E 7172
Photo: Plate in ed.pr.
Bibl.: P? 31, 401, 1320; M.M. Kokolakis, Athena 66 (1962) 9-114; L. Koenen, ZPE 3 (1968)
138; D. Del Corno, CB 9 (1980) 69-77; Nardelli 1986, 179-88; Thompson 1988,
259-60
Prov.: Memphis Date: II BC
Mat.: Papyrus roll, 16.5 x 108 cm.
Cont.: > After the first 3 cols., which contain 44 verses of new comedy copied by a scribe,
Apollonios son of Glaukias, who was not more than fifteen years old, copies a personal
anthology that occupies the fourth and fifth cols., and a few lines of the sixth:
Euripides, Medea 5-12; a fragment from Aeschylus Kapec 7 Eipaan, TrGF 3 99, 1-
23; and a fragment from a comedy of Menander, Koerte I p. 145, b. There are several
paragraphoi, sometimes arbitrarily placed. Apollonios presents the pieces at the end as
“the lessons of Aristhon the philosopher.” The Medea fragment does not start at the
beginning of the speech and ends abruptly. Words are in scriptio plena. There are mis-
takes of every kind, which occasionally betray a lack of understanding.
Hand: “Evolving,” rather fluent, but with letters of varying size that sometimes touch each
other and are occasionally ligatured (same hand as 78, 245, and 246). Epsilon and
alpha appear in three different forms.

245
Ed.pr.: C. Leemans, Papyri Graeci (Lugduni Batavorum 1843) 122-29 P.Leid
Photo: Boswinkel and Sijpesteijn 1968, plates 6a, 6b; Raven 1982, pl. 48 | |
Bibl.: P? 2476; U. Wilcken, Mél. Nicole pp. 579-96, UPZ 1 81; B. Perry, TAPA 97 (1966)
327-33; K. Gaiser, Gymnasium 75 (1968) 193-219, T. xxiv; M.J. Raven, Papyrus
 LONG PASSAGES 231

(Terra, Zutphen 1982) 58-59; W. Clarysse, Schrijvend Verleden (Leiden 1983) 367-
71; L. Koenen, BASP 22 (1985) 171-94; Nardelli 1986, 179-88; D.J. Thompson,
1988, 262-63.
Prov.: Memphis Date: II Bc
Mat.: Papyrus roll, 17 x 80 cm.
Cont.: > Remains of 6 lines of documentary notes by another hand, then Apollonios son of
Glaukias copies “The dream of Nectanebos,” or, better, according to the first line, the
defense of Petesis before the king, of which only the part about the dream is copied.
He copies from a Greek translation of an Egyptian exemplar. The story, part of the
Egyptian literary genre of the Kénigsnovelle, is pro-Greek. There are many mistakes,
which occasionally betray a lack of understanding. It is impossible to know if the story
was copied at the suggestion of a teacher or on Apollonios’ initiative. At the end there
is a drawing of a head of a man.
Hand: “Evolving,” same as in 78, 244, and 246.

246
Ed.pr.: A. Calderini, Aegyptus 15 (1935) 239-45 P.Mil. UC
Photo: P. Mil. If Tav. II, Montevecchi, 1988, tav. 20
Bibl.: P? 447; P.Mil. II 15; Nardelli 1986, 179-88; M. Heath, CQ NS 37 (1987) 272-80;
Thompson 1988, 261
Prov.: Memphis Date: II Bc
Mat.: Papyrus, 51 x 19 cm.
Cont: Front: = Accounts by Ptolemaios son of Glaukias on the right (P. Mil. II 27); on the left
the beginning of the Prologue of Euripides’ Telephus (Fr. 102 Austin NFEP) copied by
Apollonios in two cols. of different width: in the right he writes one verse per line, but
in the left col. he writes the verses in continuous, shorter lines separated by spaces.
Words are in scriptio plena. There are mistakes of every kind. On line 10 of the sec-
ond col. Apollonios writes in minute cursives, “Apollonios the Macedonian....a
Macedonian, I mean.”
Back: t Letter by Apollonios, P. Mil. II 28.
Hand: “Evolving” (same as in 78, 244, and 245), with a badly sharpened pen and a general
look of clumsiness.

247
Ed.pr.: M. Norsa, Ann. Pisa Ser. II, 6 (1937) 8-15 O.Biblioteca Laurenziana
Photo: Tav. II; PS XIII Tav. Il; Norsa, SLG tav. 5b
Bibl.: P2 1439; M. Norsa, La scrittura letteraria greca dal secolo IV a.c. all’VIII d.c. (Firenze
1939) 11-12; PST XIII 1300; E. Voigt, Sappho et Alcaeus (Amsterdam 1971) 2; A.
Malnati, Analecta Papirologica 5 (1993) 21-22
Prov.: Unknown Date: II Bc
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 11.5 x 16 cm.
Cont.: Sappho, book 1 Voigt 2, written as in prose. A few new verses and a true reading at the
beginning of the fourth strophe. A grave accent to indicate the recessive accent; spaces
232 LONG PASSAGES

between strophes. There are considerable mistakes and some omissions. Some of the
mistakes (e.g.,line 7 6s6voxwy) point to a dictation.
Hand: “Rapid,” careful initially, then more cursive.

248
Ed.pr.: P.Freib. 1 1b P.Freib.inv. 12
Photo: Tafel A
Bibl.: P? 1577, Z 352, D 228; E. Fraenkel, K/.Betr. 1 489; H.J. Mette, Lustrum 10 (1965) 10;
D. Hagedorn, ZPE 32 (1978) 35; G. Huxley, GRBS 10 (1969) 25-26
Prov.: Unknown Date: II-I Bc
Cont.: Front: > Remains of some mathematical operations; these were washed out and then an
anthology was copied: 8 comic trimeters copied in continuous lines (CGFP 297); an
epic simile in hexameters with the verses divided half per line; Certamen Homeri et
Hesiodi 205-206 Rzach; Iliad.5.387-91, divided half per line. Many paragraphoi.
Back: ft Lexicon.
Hand: “Evolving,” irregular, roughly bilinear, quick. Letters often touch, sometimes cursive.

249
Ed.pr.: D.L. Page, JHS 67 (1947) 134-35 Ashmolean Museum GO 546
Photo: XXIV, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Bibl.: P? 1982
Prov.: Naucratis Date: II-I Bc
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 5 x 4.3 cm.
Cont.: Four partially preserved lines with a few very rare words: literary text, probably poetic.
Hand: “Rapid,” fluent, with round and well-formed letters, usually separated, except for
epsilon.

250
Ed.pr.: P.K6ln WI 125 ‘ P.K6ln inv. 7963
Photo: Tafel I
Prov.: Oxyrhynchite? Date: II-I Bc
Mat.: Fragment of papyrus roll washed and erased, 40 x 12 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Traces of previous writing. Then two cols. written by different students fol-
lowed by a large blank space. Col. 1: Iliad 10.305-306 (interesting variant) and three
unidentified iambic trimeters, with the verses written one per line. Col. 2: anapestic
dimeters from a chorus of Aeschylus’ Wuxaywyoi (fr. 273a TrGF lines 1-13), a
necromantic sacrifice and invocation in the underworld, written like prose. Line filler
and a critical sign, probably at the beginning of a new strophe. Diaeresis and scriptio
plena. Underneath, there is the name of the pupil: Mépwyr.
Back: Two names, part of an address by a different hand.
Hand 1: “Alphabetic,” problems of alignment and letter size, a few ligatures.
Hand 2: “Evolving,” larger and more careful, separate letters. Only epsilon with crossbar
drawn out. Problems with alignment.
 LONG PASSAGES 233

251
Ed.pr.: A. Hurst, Proceed. XX Int.Congr. Pap. (Copenhagen 1992) 317-21 P.Gen. 432
Photo: Plate 27 Bibl.: P.Gen. Ill 118, pl. I
Prov.: Heracleopolite Date: II-I BC
Mat.: Papyrus fragment, part of mummy cartonnage, 15.5 x 12.5 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Part of the first Homeric Hymn to Dionysus: lines 2-9 correspond to what is
known from the indirect tradition; lines 1 and 10-23, which are new, are gravely muti-
lated. Line 4 of the hymn does not appear in our text and the order of a few verses is
different. Probably written down from memory by a student. Testifies to the Ptolemies’
interest in Dionysos.
Back: t Multiplication table.
Hand: “Evolving,” serifed, not consistent, but sometimes writes well.

252
Ed.pr.: P. Rein. 1, pp. 5-12 O.Sorb. Inst.Pap.
Photo: Planche I Bibl.: P2 1746; CA 3.14
Prov.: Thebes Date: II-I Bc
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 14 x 12 cm.
Cont.: Dialogue between a man in love and another trying to bring him to reason, a mixture of
prose and verse. Double and single dots, and spaces are used to separate parts.
Hand: Fluent and graceful with some ligatures, perhaps a teacher’s.

253
Ed.pr.: PSI XI Congr. 3 P Istituto Vitelli
Photo: Tav. 1 Bibl.: D. Hagedorn, ZPE 2 (1968) 68; PSI XV 1481; SH 996
Prov.: Tebtunis Date: I BC
Mat.: Papyrus, 19 x 11.5 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: ~ Mutilated col. with 17 lines: 7 iambic trimeters and 2 hexameters, each verse
preceded by some kind of title. The trimeters start and end with the same letter. Some
were perhaps composed for the occasion. There is a paragraphos without apparent
reason. The hexameters can be read also starting from the end. The second was well-
known in antiquity (Ant.Gr. XVI 387c Beckby).
Hand: “Evolving,” fluent enough, with a heavy pen and letters generally separated and serifed.

254
Ed.pr.: P.K6ln II 70 P.KO6ln inv. 5138
Photo: XX VII
Prov.: Unknown Date: I BC
Mat.: Papyrus, fr. abc 12 x 14, fr. de 8.6 x 8 cm.
Cont.: Front: ~ Document.
Back: t Iliad 1. 108-117, 119-131, 137-152, 154, transcribed from memory (3 half
lines are replaced with other formulaic verses). Diaeresis. At the end of line 120 the
teacher added a few missing words.
234 LONG PASSAGES

Hand: “Evolving,” writes fast enough, but overall effect is poor. Imitates teacher’s hand where
also characteristic cursive, and angular epsilon appears. When possible, every letter is
angular and pointed. Some contrast between narrow and wide letters.

255
Ed.pr.: P.Oxy. XLII 3004 Ashmolean Museum
Photo: PlateI Bibl.: D 210
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: I AD
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 9.5 x 7 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Gnomic acrostic from alpha to nu in iambic trimeters, Jaekel 337, 362, 468
and other maxims (lines 1-7, 10-11, 13) put together by a teacher or a student. A few
mistakes and an obscure line (13).
Back: t Another maxim not related to the series.
Hand: “Evolving,” round, bilinear. Epsilon with crossbar detached. Some clumsy erasures.

256
Ed.pr.: MPER NS Ill 31 P.Vindob.G. 29812
Photo: XXVIII Bibl.: P? 2494, Z 368
Prov.: Unknown Date: I AD
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 12 x 8 cm.; other side blank. iA

Cont.: t Obscure text that mentions Souchos, Helios, Hermes, and Tyche. Large blank space
at the bottom.
Hand: “Evolving;” writes slowly serifed, multistroke letters. Difficulty with alignment.

257
Ed.pr.: MPER NS Ill 25 P.Vindob.G. 19999 B
Photo: Tafel I Bibl.: P? 1590, Z 246; S. Jaekel, Eos 73 (1985) 247-51
Prov.: Soknopaiou Nesos (?) Date: I AD
Mat.: Fragment of papyrus roll already worn out, 38 x 23 cm,
Cont.: Front: > Document
Back: t Three cols.: Menander’s maxims (Jaekel Pap. V); then prose, perhaps a his-
torical piece. Space and quasi-paragraphos to separate the different parts. The badly
abraded surface sometimes makes the reading difficult. The message of the maxim
selection is contradictory.
Hand |: First col. “evolving,” perhaps the same as in 262. Calligraphic and formal, it shows
at the end of the vertical strokes heavy blobs or left-oriented serifs.
Hand 2: “Evolving,” similar, but worse than the other, writes with a poorly sharpened pen.

258
Ed.pr.: MPER NS Ill 27 P.Vindob.G. 29248 A
Photo: XXVIII Bibl.: P? 2863, Z 50, 196
Prov.: Soknopaiou Nesos(?) Date: I AD
Mat.: Strip of coarse papyrus, 15 x 5 cm.; other side blank
 LONG PASSAGES 235

Cont.: tf Prose text. Space and paragraphos define a new section.

Hand: “Evolving,” close to hand 2 of 257. Large round letters occasionally serifed.

259
Ed.pr.: P. Oslo II 66 P.Oslo University
Photo: XXX, courtesy of the University of Oslo Library, The Papyrus Collection
Bibl.: P? 646, Z 366
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: I AD
Mat.: Strip of papyrus, 10.7 x 3.1 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Account
Back: ? Iliad 2.299-312, the beginning of a col. The exercise could start here.
Hand: “Evolving,” irregular, round, epsilon ligatured. Some letters are serifed.

260
Ed.pr.: O.Edfu II 306 Not found
Photo: Planche XLIX
Bibl.: Pack? 2647, Z 173, D 384; D. Hagedorn, ZPE 13 (1974) 110-11
Prov.: Apollinopolis Date: I AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon
Cont.: A passage from the novel of Ninus or a progymnasma based on it, containing a letter
(probably not a documentary letter, as Hagedorn argues). Cf. 281.
Hand: Proficient, a teacher’s or an advanced student’s, but certainly not a documentary hand.

261
Ed.pr.: MPER NS Ill 28 P.Vindob.G. 29248 B
Photo: XXXII Bibl.: P? 1935, Z 51
Prov.: Unknown Date: Late I AD
Mat.: Papyrus scrap of bad quality, 13 x 10 cm.
Cont.: Front: ~ Accounts.
Back: ~ Hymn to Bacchus and Sarapis in lyric meter. At the end of lines 4 and 9 there
is the sign %, probably to indicate a pause.
Hand: “Evolving,” large, serifed letters.

262
Ed.pr.: MPER NS Ill 24 P.Vindob.G. 19999 A
Photo: XXIX
Bibl.:; P? 1584, Z 245; Jaekel, 1964, Pap. IV; A. Borgogno, Hermes (1971) 374-75; S. Jaekel,
Eos 73 (1985) 247-51
Prov.: Soknopaiou Nesos(?) Date: Late I AD
Mat.: Coarse and rough papyrus, 28 x 25.5 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Account.
Back: t Acrostic from omega to alpha of Menander’s yv@pou povdotixor. Phonetic
mistakes. At the end of each line the sign % to show clearly the division into kola.
236 LONG PASSAGES

Hand: “Evolving” (perhaps the same as in 257), heavily serifed, multistroke, problems with
alignment and proportion.

263

Ed.pr.: MPER NS III 30 P.Vindob.G. 29813, 29814

Photo: XXXI Bibl.: P? 2652, Z 175, D 223, 390
Prov.: Unknown Date: Late I AD
Mat.: Papyrus fragments, 10 x 6; 12x 5; 10x 4;9x1 cm; other side blank
Cont.: t Fragmentary dialogue between a mouse and a weasel.
Hand: “Evolving,” large serifed letters, thick strokes, variable space between letters and lines.

264
Ed.pr.: F. Montanari, SCO 22 (1973) 41-43 = Pap.Lett.Gr. (Pisa 1978) 37-40
P.Gen.inv. 249
Photo: Tav. I nr.2 Bibl.: P? 1030
Prov.: Unknown Date: I-II AD
Mat.: Papyrus fragment, 17.5 x 9.7 cm.; on the back traces of writing.
Cont.: > Odyssey 2.127-140 and 152-166. Some phonetic mistakes. Two omitted words are
mistakenly added to line 136. In the margin two critical signs (an antisigma and an
ancora?) are visible.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” uses a thick pen and leaves inkblots everywhere. Problems with align-
ment, letter size, space between letters. Some lines protrude more than others.

265
Ediprs-sP.Oxyr il 213 P.Yale inv. 34
Photo: Plate IV
Bibl.: P? 1700, Z 141, D 298; E. Keuls, ZPE 30 (1978) 41-68
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: Early II AD
Mat.: Papyrus fragments, 8 x 11.3; 7.8 x 8 cm. .
Cont.: Front: > Account
Back: t A tragic speech of someone, probably the father Tantalus, lamenting the
destiny of Niobe (7rGF 2 Fr. 700). Originally at least three cols. Many mistakes, some
phonetic, some due to unfamiliarity with difficult poetic words. Line 5 with its
misunderstandings makes it likely that the text was dictated.
Hand: “Evolving,” round, informal, with some cursive elements. Diaeresis indicated twice.

266
Ed.pr.: P. Jouguet, G. Lefebvre, BCH 28 (1904) 201-205
Photo: Pl. X Bibl.: P? 1876, Z 54, D 378
Prov.: Thebes Date: 140-141 ap
Mat.: Ostracon, almost complete, 20 x 10 cm.
Cont.: A short story of a young man and his father consulting the philosopher Anacharsis, not
brought to conclusion. The response of the philosopher is not given. After an empty
space a date. Perhaps a composition.
 LONG PASSAGES 237

Hand: “Evolving,” with a thick pen and many inkblots. Informal round hand, very strictly
9

bilinear. Alignment is well observed. The last two lines are more cursive.

267
Ed.pr.: J.G. Milne, JHS 28 (1908) 126, VII, 130-31, XV; JHS 43 (1923) 40-42
O.Bodl.Gk.Inscr. 2941 + 2942
Photo: None published, too dark
Bibl.: P? 2721, Z 287, D 308; E. Fraenkel, Hermes 59 (1924) 362-68 = KI. Betr. I 511-17;
CGFP 296
Prov.: Thebes Date: II AD
Mat.: Almost complete ostracon, 20.7 x 13.14 cm.
Cont.: Part of a speech of New Comedy (Philemon, maybe). Same text as 268. According to
the editor a composition, but more likely a text copied from a teacher’s model that did
not reproduce the entire original text, but merely what the teacher remembered. This
would explain the omissions. The metre is faulty. Some corrections.
Hand: “Evolving,” not entirely even, only epsilon is ligatured.

268
Ed.pr.: J.G. Milne, JHS 43 (1923) 40-43 O.Bodl. Not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: P? 2721, Z 288, D 308
Prov.: Thebes Date: I] AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 14.2 x 8.8 cm.
Cont.: A copy of the same text as 267.
Hand: Described as more even than the hand of 267, round and strictly bilinear.

269
Ed.pr.: J.G. Milne, JHS 28 (1908) 127, Ix O.Bodl.Gk.Inscr. 2936
Photo: None published, too dark. Bible P7127227 ZA 77, Deel
Prov.: Upper Egypt Date: II AD
Mat.: Largely incomplete ostracon, badly stained, 10.6 x 6.9 cm.
Cont.: Unidentified prose text.
Hand: “Evolving,” round, bilinear.

270
Edipe PO NyLiie 712 Ashmolean Museum
Photo: XXX, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: II AD
Mat.: Strip of papyrus of inferior quality, 5.5 x 17.5 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: ~ Col. with Euripides, Phoenissae 50-69, part of the prologue. Oblique line, which
seems to have to do with colometry, at the end of 56 and 68 (misdivision between 56
and 57).
Hand: “Evolving,” heavy and irregular, variable letter size, epsilon often ligatured.
238 LONG PASSAGES
271
Ed.pr.: P.Haun. III 46 P.Haun.inv. 323 b
Photo: Pl. I
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD

Mat.: Scrap of papyrus, 7.5 x 6.5 cm.; back covered, presumably blank.
Cont.: > Bottom of a very narrow col. with a variation of the Aesopic fable Tuv7 Mayoc.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” variable letter size and stance, only epsilon sometimes ligatured.

Die,
Ed.pr.: J.G. Milne, JEA 8 (1922) 156-57 O.Bodl. Not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: P? 1586, Z 247, D 211
Prov.: Thebes Date: II AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 18 x 27 cm.
Cont.: Gnomic acrostic, 12 lines that can be supplemented with the help of the Menander
Monostichoi (Jaekel 1964, Pap. VIID. It is not an original composition. There are two
minor mistakes.
Hand: Described as fairly proficient. It was probably a model.

273
Ed.pr.: J.G. Milne, JHS 28 (1908) 129, XI O.Bodl.Gk.Inscr. 2937
Photo: XXXII, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Bibl.: P? 2724, Z 178, D 363
Prov.: Upper Egypt Date: II AD
Mat.: Very incomplete ostracon, 12.2 x 8.2 cm.
Cont.: Homeric theme in prose, 7 very fragmentary lines, underneath the text a long horizontal
line. Then large blank space.
Hand.: “Rapid,” round and bilinear, only epsilon is ligatured.

274 7
Ed.pr.: J.G. Milne, JHS 28 (1908) 129 XII, XIII; 43 (1923)42-43
O.Bodl. not found, formerly Toronto, Royal Ontario Museum
Photo: None published Bibl? P22725"Z 179, D93
Prov.: Upper Egypt Date: II AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon
Cont : Prose paraphrase of the argument of Iliad 20 with a catalogue of deities. It is impossible
to determine if it was an original paraphrase or a text copied or dictated.
Hand: “Evolving,” capable of writing very even lines, but fluctuating in letter size.

275
Ed.pr.: J.G. Milne, JHS 28 (1908) 130 XIV O.Bodl.Gk.Inscr. 2938
Photo: XXXII, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Bibl.: P? 2726, Z 180, D 393
Prov.: Upper Egypt Date: II AD
 LONG PASSAGES 239

Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 13.5 x 14 cm.

Cont.: Letter of Alexander to the Carthaginians. There is no way to tell if it was really a com-
position, as the editor claims.
Hand: “Evolving,” irregular, round with letters all separated.

276
Ed.pr.: Pap.Lugd.
Bat. XXV 5 PWeiden inva?
Photo: Plate II
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD
Mat.: Incomplete papyrus scrap of bad quality, 6.5 x 4.5 cm.; other side blank.
Cont.: t Part of the prose version of a fable that appears also in Babrius and in Phaedrus with
some variations. On the first line is the motto “with good fortune” (cf. the subscription
at the end of 393). Oblique strokes mark off the words and indicate that the exercise
was used for reading. It was probably not an original paraphrase, but was copied from
a teacher’s model that also carried the strokes to divide the words. Diaeresis is used.
Hand: “Evolving,” some letters well-formed and others coarse and retraced. Some finials.

pig |
Ed.pr.: O. Claud. 1 183 O.Claud.inv. 2979
Photo: Pl. XXXII
Prov.: Mons Claudianus Date: II AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 11.5 x 10.5 cm.
Cont.: Trimeters; line 9 reflects a phrase in Aeschylus, Persae 483 or Euripides, Hypsipyle fr.
60,i1,60; and line 11 is similar to Sophocles, Antigone 166. The rest of the lines resem-
ble Menander Monostichoi. Two paragraphoi and blank spaces between some verses.
Hand: Upright, regular, round hand that is fairly proficient. A teacher or an older student.

278
Ed.pr.: O. Claud. 1 188 O.Claud.inv. 4180
Photo: Pl. XX XIII
Prov.: Mons Claudianus Date: II AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 13 x 13 cm.
Cont.: Elegiac couplets, 13 lines (cf. 396, t. 552L). Lines 4-7 are deleted. There are blank
spaces between the verses.
Hand: Proficient, with quick, clear, ligatured letters. A teacher or an older student.

279
Ed.pr.: O. Claud. 1 189 O.Claud.inv. 718
Photo: Pl. XX XIII
Prov.: Mons Claudianus Date: II AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 8.5 x 4 cm.
Cont.: Three lines of trochaics or iambics, “Carmen Populare”?
Hand: Fairly proficient and cursive.
240 LONG PASSAGES

280

Ed.pr.: J. Schwartz, BIFAO 61 (1962) 174 P.Stras.inv. 1352

Photo:XXXIII Bibl.; P? 2651, D 284
Prov.:Unknown Date: Roman
Mat.:Papyrus scrap written on both sides, page of a small codex, 4 x 5 cm.
Cont.:Narration of an unidentified episode of the Trojan war with a few mistakes. Diaeresis.
Hand 1: “Alphabetic,” writes the recto and the last three lines of the verso with a badly shar-
pened pen. Problems with alignment and regular letter size and spacing.
Hand 2: “Evolving,” writes the first three lines of the verso and accentuates the contrast
between narrow and large letters. Epsilon is always ligatured.

281
Ed.pr.: O.Bodl. 11 2175 O.Bodl.Gk.Inscr. 2722
Photo: XXXIII, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Bibl.: P? 2782; M. Gronewald, ZPE 24 (1977) 21-22; S.A. Stephens and J.J. Winkler, Ancient
Greek Novels: The Fragments (Princeton 1995) 93-94
Prov.: Unknown Date: Roman
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 7.5 x 10.8 cm.
Cont.: Part of the novel of Methiochos and Parthenope, perhaps from a soliloquy, or a rhetori-
cal exercise based on the novel (cf. 260).
Hand: “Rapid,” with some finials. The alignment is bad. An older student.

282
Ed.pr.: P.Mert. 11 54 P.Chester Beatty Library
Photo: Plate Bibl.: P? 422, D 294
Prov.: Arsinoite? Date: Late II AD
Mat.: Papyrus tragmentss(9:51x0l5.2;SrlexiS239 2: 8ixili9s2.9 x5:9, 5.3% 14:6 cm.
Cont.: Front: > List of names concerning villages in the Arsinoite.
Back: t Euripides, Phoenissae 768-89, 793-806, .part of a speech of Eteocles and
chorus. Some phonetic mistakes.
Hand: “Evolving,” slow and accurate, generally upright, except for some letters. Strictly
bilinear and adorned by finials. Alpha has the epigraphic form and twice the cursive.

283
Ed.pr.: C. Babington, The Funeral Oration of Hyperides (Cambridge 1858) P.BM inv. 98
Photo: Cat.Anc.Mss. British Museum pl. 4
Bibl.: P? 1236; P.Lond.Lit. 133; C.C. Jensen, Hyperides Epitaphios (Leipzig 1917); E.J. Bick-
erman, Athenaeum N.S. 41 (1963) 70-85; L. Braccesi, Athenaeum N.S. 48 (1970)
276-301
Prov.: Thebes Date: II AD?
Mat.: Papyrus roll of mediocre quality, 23 x 102 cm.
Cont.: Front: - Horoscope and prognostication of fortune with date between 95 and 150 AD.
 LONG PASSAGES 241

Back: t The text claims to be the Epitaphios of Hyperides. Vertical lines separate the
13 cols. of text. Line fillers are used (angular and horizontal lines), diaeresis, para-
graphoi (often placed wrongly). Punctuation by paragraphos and space in the line with
high point or a short oblique stroke. Rough breathings and two smooth breathings
added by a second hand.
Hand: “Evolving,” lacks evenness. The letters are usually separated, but epsilon has the
crossbar extended. As the writing proceeds, the letters become more cramped and
irregular. Problems with alignment. An apprentice scribe or a student copying a text.

284
Edipg P. Oxy 1124 P.Winchester College Library
Photo: XXXIII, by permission of the Warden and Scholars of Winchester College
Bibl.: P? 2649, Z 188, D 376
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: II-III] AD
Mat.: Papyrus slip, 8 x 13.7 cm.
Cont.: Front.: > Account.
Back: ?t Short narration about King Adrastus and his daughters. It is unclear whether
the exercise was complete or continued on another col. It is not a composition.
Hand: “Alphabetic,” letters are shaky and spidery and drawn very slowly. Epsilon is ligatured.
Some serifs. Problems with alignment and even spacing between letters.

285
Ed.pr.: R. Pintaudi, P.J. Sijpesteijn, ZPE 76 (1989) 88-90 no. 5 OMM inv. 779
Photo: Tafel X Bibl.: OGN I 129
Prov.: Narmouthis Date: II-III AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 4.5 x 11.8 cm.
Cont.: Short moral maxims in acrostic from alpha to iota (but not in epsilon). Many cor-
respond to the sententiae of the Seven Sages (cf. 238, 239, and 286). Some horizontal
lines are used as fillers. Diaeresis.
Hand: A teacher’s, same as in 286, with rounded capitals of informal type. Size approximates
to large. Some of the letters are formed cursively, but maintain an exemplary clarity.

286
Ed.pr.: R. Pintaudi, P.J. Sijpesteijn, ZPE 76 (1989) 88-91 no. 6 OMM inv. 1197
Photo: Tafel X Bibl.: OGN I 130
Prov.: Narmouthis Date: II-III AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 7 x 3.5 cm.
Cont.: Maxims in alphabetical order (cf. 238, 239, and 285). The maxims and the words are
separated by spaces.
Hand: A teacher’s, same as in 285.

287

Ed.pr.: G.M. Parassoglou, Hellenika 27 (1974) 242-43 P. Yale inv. 1253

242 LONG PASSAGES

Photo: Plate 8 Bibl.: P. Yale II 135

Prov.: Aboutig Date: II-III AD
Mat.: Coarse papyrus of bad quality, 12 x 11 cm.
Cont.: Front.: ~ Accounts.
Back: t Remains of a col. and traces of a second one. Three small passages separated
by spaces: Demosthenes, Olynthiac 1,1; Ant.Gr. 9, 538 Stadtmiiller (cf. 48, 56, 61,
and 66); Odyssey 8.1-2; and the beginning of another citation. Apostrophe is
occasionally marked. There are a few spelling mistakes, not enough to consider the
text a dictation (as in ed.pr.).
Hand: “Evolving,” round, formal, bilinear, serifed, unsure about the basic form of the letters.

288
Ed.pr.: A.F.C. Tischendorf, Notitia editionis codicis bibliorum Sinaitici auspiciis imperatoris
Alexandri susceptae (Lipsiae 1860) 69-73
P.Hermitage Museum
Photo: Gallo 1980, Tavola XVI
Bibl.: P? 2083, Z 267; P.Ross.Georg. I 17; I. Gallo, Quaderni istituto Filologia Classica
Université di Salerno 1 (1979) 5-43; Gallo 1980, 395-429
Prov.: Unknown Date: II-III AD
Mat.: Fragment of a papyrus roll, 17 x 52 cm.; back presumably blank.
Cont.: — Three irregular cols. with uneven intercolumniations: part of the Bio¢c Lexoivdou
gtdkooddov up to the encounter with the emperor Hadrian. The story then stops
abruptly leaving a large blank space. There are many phonetic spelling mistakes and
sometimes it seems that the writer did not understand well what was dictated (see e.g.
line 30). Two mysterious signs are perhaps only decorative elements.
Hand: “Evolving,” informal round with uneven letter size and spacing. The letters are much
bigger and clumsier in the third col. because the writer was getting tired.

289
Ed.pr.: L. Feinberg, BASP 8 (1971) 27-28 ‘ P.Col.inv. 178g]
Photo: Pl. 2 in P.Col. VIII Bibl.: P.Col. VIII 193
Prov.: Unknown Date: II-III ap
Mat.: Papyrus scrap in bad condition, 6.2 x 7 cm.
Cont.: Front: - One line written by a documentary hand.
Back: ? Iliad 1.159-167, part of Achilles’ speech. The col. begins in mid-sentence.
Perhaps there was a previous col.
Hand: “Evolving,” with a thick pen and some ligatures. Problems with alignment.

290
Ed.pr.: B. Boyaval, ZPE 6 (1970) 1-5 P.IFAO i
Photo: Tafel I | a
Bibl.: E.G. Handley, ZPE 6 (1970) 97-98 and ZPE 8 (1971) 198; L. Koenen, ZPE 6
(1970)
99-104, 283-84 and ZPE 8 (1971) 141-42; A. Borgogno, Riv.FC 99 (1971) 410-17:
W. Kraus, RAM 114 (1971) 285-86; Turner, 1973, 15-21: CGFP 147
 LONG PASSAGES 243

Prov.: Unknown Date: III AD

Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 7.4 x 10 cm.
Cont.: > Documentary register
t Parts of 16 lines of the beginning of the prologue of Menander’s Misoumenos (lines
Al-A16 P. Oxy. XLVIII pp. 9-10), the opening monologue of Thrasonides the soldier
and the entrance of Getas. Some mistakes, corrections, and clumsy erasures. The two
superlatives in lines 4 and 5 should be comparatives. Diaeresis, apostrophe, and wrong
elision in line 11.
Hand: “Evolving,” in the so-called “mixed style.” Sigma is particularly small.

291
Ed.pr.: P.Ryl. I 545 P.Rylands UL
Photo: XXXIV, courtesy of the Director and University Librarian, the John Rylands
University Library of Manchester
Bibl.: P? 1078, Z 151, D 246
Prov.: Unknown Date: III AD
Mat.: Papyrus scrap, 12.4 x 9 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: > Two crowded cols. separated by a thick wavy line. Another line on the extreme right.
At the end of the second col. a large blank space. Odyssey 9.122-150, first half of
lines. According to ed.pr. an exercise in the use of caesura, but the lines are not
exactly divided at that point. Perhaps the student had to write down from memory the
half-verses, and the beginning of the second part of the verse proved that he remem-
bered the whole line (cf. 193 and 201, and see the words and lines that the student
introduced). Before line 130 there is a line that does not appear in the Mss.
Hand: “Evolving,” informal, round, bilinear with a thick pen.

292
Descriptum: F.G. Kenyon, JHS 29 (1909) 39 BL, T.Lond. Add.Ms. 33293
Photo: XXXV, by permission of The British Library
Bibl.; P* 694, Z 115, D 159
Prov.: Unknown Date: III AD
Mat.: Wooden board painted white, written on both sides, 33 x 17.7 cm.
Cont.: Written across the long dimension, on one side Iliad 3.273-277, with the words sepa-
rated by oblique lines. On the other Jliad 3.278-285, with words and syllables distin-
guished with small markings, then large blank space. There are a few insignificant
variations from the Mss. Apostrophe is always marked.
Hand: A teacher’s, with large letters and some of the initials further enlarged. Slightly slanting
to the right, a mixture of large, angular letters and small, round ones. Some ligatures
(especially epsilon, theta, alpha, tau) and cursive elements at the end of lines.

293
Ed.pr.: P.Lund 1 3 P.Lund Inv. 11
Photo: XXXVI Bibl.: P? 1243
244 LONG PASSAGES

Date: III AD
Prov.: Unknown
Mat.: Papyrus fragment, 9 x 8 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Document.
Back: * Bottoms of two cols., Isocrates, Ad Demonicum 12.14, moral precepts of
behavior towards gods and parents. Twice a word is wrongly divided at the end of a
line. There are several corrections, a particularly clumsy erasure in line 7, and a cir-
cumflex accent added by a second hand.
Hand: “Rapid,” small, round, uneven. Many of the letters are coarsely formed. The hand of
the second col. seems slightly different, with larger, more graceful letters.

294
Ed.pr.: A. Bataille, P. Collart, Aegyptus 11 (1931) 169-70 P.Sorb.inv. 2089
Photo: XXXVI Bibl.: P? 558, Z 116, D 232; P. Rein. I 65
Prov.: Unknown Date: III
Mat.: Papyrus, 6 x 9.5 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Official letter.
Back: ? Iliad 1.1-8, the ends of the verses. Diaeresis once. The syllables are separated
with one or two dots placed either between or above the lines, vertically or obliquely.
Hand: Probably a teacher’s. Informal round hand with a few cursive elements, fluent, grace-
ful, and very legible. Mostly separated capitals, sometimes decorated by finials.
Epsilon is always ligatured.

295
Ed.pr.: R. Pintaudi, ZPE 38 (1980) 259-60 PL II/34
Photo: Tafel XII Bibl.: P.Laur. TV 140
Prov.: Unknown Date: III AD?
Mat.: Fragment of papyrus roll, 4.6 x 3.9 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: > Remains of five lines of writing preserving part of Psalm 1.1-2 in the LXX version.
The words are divided into syllables by middle dots and observe scriptio plena. The
nomina sacra are contracted. ‘
Hand: Proficient book hand, an example of Biblical Majuscule; probably a school book.

296
Descriptum: BKT V 1.6 + Schubart, 1918, 508 T.Berol.inv. AM 13839
Photo: Schubart, 1918, Tafel III of side B, XXXVI for side A
Bibli: P? 6364637> Z 120,117" 239" 158
Prov.: Unknown Date: II-IV ap
Mat.: Wooden tablet written on both sides, 30.7 x 15.8 cm.
Cont.: On both sides written across the long dimension, and with two unequal cols. of writing
the one on the right with only two verses written in four lines. On one side of the
tablet Iliad 2.132-146, on the other the continuation of the passage, 2.147-162. Obli-
que strokes and sometimes spaces divide the words. There are occasional apostrophes
and breathings, and diaeresis. Jota adscript is normally added. There is a profusion of
 LONG PASSAGES 245

diplai obelismenai dividing the two verses of the second cols.: at the end of each verse,
and many at the end of the passage. A few minor mistakes and variants.
Hand: A teacher’s, with large letters and initials further enlarged. On the front the model is
written in a more stylized chancery hand, vertical and elegant. Some letters show
decorative hooks and circlets. Delta is crested, omicron is sometimes tiny, and omega
is high above the baseline. Serifs often decorate the letters’ feet. The same teacher
wrote the back of the tablet much faster and in a more cursive style. The hand is not so
stylized and often slopes to the right.

297
Ed.pr.: Athenaeum Sept. 8 1894, pp. 319-21 BL. P.Lond. inv. 230 r
Photo: Plate; F.G. Kenyon, Facsimiles of Biblical Manuscripts in the British Museum (London
1900) pl. 1. Bibl.: D 185; P.Lond.Lit. 207; van Haelst 109
Prov.: Arsinoite Date: I-IV AD
Mat.: Papyrus fragment, 25.7 x 24.5 cm.
Cont.: ~ On the front of 298. Two cols. of writing each of 37 lines, Psalm XI 7-XIV 4. The
text is not very accurate. Diaeresis appears often and also apostrophe to divide double
letters. The nomina sacra are abbreviated. Dots appear over the lines to mark the syll-
ables up to Psalm XIII. They were written after the text was completed, perhaps by the
same writer or by someone who used the text to teach reading.
Hand: Writes in a large chancery hand, with omicron and alpha very small and omega written
over the line. Beta and kappa are tall and elaborate, and delta displays a crest. The let-
ters are all upright and some are especially narrow. Some of the initials are enlarged.
A teacher may have been the writer, or the text was in any case used as a model.

298
Ed.pr.: P.Lond.Lit. 255 BL, P.Lond. inv. 230 v
Photo: XXXVIII, by permission of The British Library
Bilt: P200245% Zl 81D S15
Prov.: Arsinoite Date: III-IV AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 25.7 x 245 cm.
Cont.: t On the back of 297. Two incomplete cols.; the second contains only six lines. After
that a large blank space. Isocrates, Ad Demonicum 26-28 with words divided into syll-
ables by medial dots. Several corrupted lines make it likely that the writer was jotting
it down from memory and had in mind other passages of the Ad Demonicum as well.
Generally he could render the sense and the result was acceptable (see lines 2-8).
Hand: A teacher’s, with large letters and some influence of the chancery style. It is upright and
vertical with some letters narrow. Beta is typically chancery and delta is crested. Some
letters present roundels and hooks, but the hand is much less elaborate than 297.

299
Descriptum: P.Ant. Ill 156 Ashmolean Museum
Photo: XXXIX, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford Bibl.: D 237
246 LONG PASSAGES

Prov.: Antinoopolis Date: I-IV AD

Mat.: Papyrus fragments already in bad condition, 3 x 2.5, 225 HS axel lem:
Cont.: Front: > Remains of 5 lines, one reads didaoxddry.
Back: 1? Iliad 2.1-3, 7-15, 21-40.
Hand: “Evolving,” small, heavy, and unpracticed. Epsilon is ligatured.

300
Ed.pr.: P.Schub. 20 Not found
Photo: None published
Bibl= P2 1691, Z 152; D 305: TrGF 2 F 713; .CGEP 299
Prov.: Unknown Date: III-IV AD
Mat.: Papyrus
Cont.: Front: > Document of III AD
Back: t At the top the remains of 12 lines, perhaps of literary content. Underneath part
of Iliad 9.1 and some unidentified iambic trimeters of gnomic character. The juxtaposi-
tion of the texts confirms that this is a school exercise.
Hand: Described as upright, but later becoming more inclined to the right and looser.

301
Ed.pr.: Pap.Lugd.
Bat. XVII 18 P.Mich.inv. 1319
Photo: Plate XII-XIII and Luppe, 1977, Tafel III
Bibl.: W. Luppe, ZPE 27 (1977) 89-99 and 89 (1991) 18; A. Harder, ZPE 35 (1979) 7-14;
J.S. Rusten, ZPE 40 (1980) 39-42
Prov.: Unknown Date: IIJ-IV AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 10.4 x 16 cm.
Cont.: Front: > The same narration on both sides, part of the hypothesis of Euripides,
Temenos or Temenidae (see P.Oxy. XXVII 2455 fr. 107, Austin, NFEP Appendix, pp.
23-24). Two cols. with several mistakes of phonetic spelling, at the end of the second
the word mpeoBiTaTo¢ seems to trigger a repetition..
Back: t The same, with more spelling errors and omissions. The title is written by a
third hand. It is likely that on both sides the students wrote from memory.
Hand 1: “Evolving,” graceful and leaning to the right with contrast between narrow and broad
letters. Letter size and spacing fluctuate and alignment is irregular.
Hand 2: “Alphabetic,” slower and full of hesitations. Contrast in letter width.
Hand 3: “Alphabetic.”

302
Ed.pr.: P. Oxy. II 209 P.Harvard, Semitic Museum inv. 2218
Photo: Plate II Bibl.: van Haelst 490; Cavallo and Maehler, 1987, Plate la
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: Early IV AD
Mat.: Single sheet of papyrus, 25.1 x 19.9 cm.
Cont.: The first seven verses of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans in 11 lines. After a space two
unrelated lines in cursive by a different hand. Hand 1 wrote also a few words on the
 LONG PASSAGES 247

other side. The papyrus was found tied with a document of 316 AD. There are several
spelling errors and omissions. The nomina sacra are abbreviated.
Hand: “Evolving,” with letters almost always separated. Difficulties of alignment.

303
Ed.pr.: MPER V pp. 74-77 and VI 1-8
Photo: Tafeln I-II; Lloyd-Jones and Rea, 1968, Plates
Bibl.: P? 227, 425; Z 167, D 295; R. Kassel, RhMus. 106 (1963) 301-302; H. Lloyd-Jones
and J. Rea, HSCP 72 (1968) 125-45 = H. Lloyd-Jones, Greek Comedy. Hellenistic
Literature. Greek Religion and Miscellanea: the Academic Papers of Sir Hugh Lloyd-
Jones (Oxford 1990) 131-51; C. Meillier, Rev. Et.Anc. 72 (1970) 12-21; J.M. Bremer,
Mnemosyne 36 (1983) 293-305; SH 288
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV-V AD
Mat.: Incomplete wooden tablet, 52 x 10 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Callimachus, Hecale fr. 260 lines 1-43, 55-68 Pfeiffer (Hollis fr. 69, 70, 73,
74 lines 14-28) written in 4 cols. separated by vertical lines. Lines also make a border.
Some errors, mostly due to phonetic spelling. Diaeresis and apostrophe. Written by
one hand only, not two (as in ed.pr.).
Side 2: Euripides, Phoenissae 1097-1107 and 1126-1137, by a different hand.
Hand 1: “Evolving,” changing pen or just sharpening it in the second and third cols. The let-
ters’ shape, size, and spacing are uneven.
Hand 2: “Evolving,” with a thick pen enlarging some letters.

304
Ed.pr.: M. Papathomopoulos, Rech. Pap. 2 (1962) 113-16 P.IFAO inv. PSP 172
Photo: Plate
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV AD
Mat.: Coarse papyrus of bad quality, 6.4 x 12 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: Probably a single sheet, with a red border around it. Three iambic distichs of gnomic
character. The second almost reproduces Euripides, Medea 14-15, but the negative
particle makes it misogynistic. Diaeresis and an abbreviation.
Hand: “Evolving,” irregular, round, strictly bilinear, with serifs and roundels. Writes slowly
and with care, but with much hesitation. Some letters are multistroke.

305
Ed.pr.: Pap.Lugd.
Bat. XXV 16 P.Leiden Pap.Inst.inv. V 11
Photo: Plate XV Bibl.: F.A.J. Hoogendijk, Bibliologia 12 (1992) 159-61
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV AD
Mat.: Tablet with one side coated with wax, 15.3 x 17.7 cm.
Cont.: On the wooden surface only some kind of decorations formed by concentric circles. On
the other side 12 lines of Greek, an alphabetic acrostic (cf. 99) on Prometheus’ creation
of mortals. This myth appears also in 184, 267, and 268, but here it is expanded. The
story is split into nine verses (perhaps anapestic tetrameters catalectic) written con-
248 LONG PASSAGES

tinuously, but separated by oblique lines. The text cannot be entirely deciphered, but
there seem to be many mistakes of every kind.
Hand: “Rapid,” experienced cursives, but a little uneven, without the fluency of a model.

306
Ed.pr.: J. Lenaerts, CdE 64 (1989) 210-15 T.Brux. E. 8507
Photo: Fig. I
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV-V AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet, 28.8 x 13.8 cm.
Cont.: On one side hardly visible traces of two texts and on the other ten lines of Isocrates, To
Nicocles 15-16. Twice high dots are used and twice diaeresis. The text observes scrip-
tio plena. A few phonetic spelling errors. At the end a subscription, c6A(Anua) 57.
Hand: A teacher’s, running large hand sloping to the right. Jota, rho, and upsilon escape the
rough bilinearity. The ligatures are many, but the model is also extremely clear
because of the large interlinear space. Some letters are formed cursively.

307
Ed.pr.: P.Mich. Il 134 T.Mich.inv. 768
Photo: None published, too faint Bibl.: van Haelst 255
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV-VI AD
Mat.: Wax tablet, 18 x 17 cm.
Cont.: On one side a name, Ischyrion and other illegible letters. On the other there is a pas-
sage from Proverbs VII 3-13, the warning against the harlot, written with many omis-
sions and errors. The tablet had been used before and the previous writing was erased
many times.
Hand: “Rapid,” but deteriorates toward the end. Difficulty with alignment. Some letters are
linked, but most are separated.

308
Ed.pr.: F. Maltomini and C. R6mer, ZPE 75 (1988) 297-300 T.K6ln, private property
Photo: Tafel X
Prov.: Arsinoite Date: V AD
Mat.: Fragment of wooden tablet, 27 x 6 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Part of Isocrates, Ad Demonicum 24, with an incomplete date above. Then an
exercise with numbers, separated by vertical lines.
Side 2: Pairs of mostly proper names for each letter from iota to xi (maybe originally
more than two names). On top a name, Aurelius Theodoros son of Ioustos, written
rather fluently in what seems to be the hand of the exercise.
Hand: A teacher making a writing model, large and flexible. The letters, upright or slightly
slanting, are ligatured, but they are more rigid on side 1. Lambda has the second
diagonal protruding below the baseline. Some letters are made cursively.
 LONG PASSAGES 249

309
Ed.pr.: W. Brashear, Enchoria 14 (1986) 12-13 T.Wiirzburg K 1025
Photo: Tafel 8
Prov.: Unknown Date: ca. V AD
Mat.: Wooden board broken lengthwise, 36.5 x 10.7 cm.
Cont.: The back (unwritten) and the unwritten part of the front are partitioned by single and
double lines that form rough rectangles. On the front are the remains of 9 lines of writ-
ing inscribed across the short dimension. Except in the last line, the words were writ-
ten in lighter ink by one hand and then traced again in darker ink by another. The
nomina sacra are contracted.
Hand: “Rapid,” the writing that is visible appears practiced, with letters formed individually
and sometimes linked.

310
Ed.pr.: R. Cribiore, CdE 68 (1993) 145-54 T.BM GR 1906.10-20.2
Photo: Fig. 1 Bibl: P* 611, Z 124; D161
Prov.: Unknown Date: V AD
Mat.: Incomplete wooden board with iron handle, 41.3 x 10.8 cm.
Cont.: Iliad 1.468-473, with the right part of the lines damaged. The words are separated by
oblique dashes. There are apostrophes, signs of quantity, two accents, and a rough
breathing. The passage is mostly correct.
Hand: “Evolving,” difficult alignment, letters mostly separated and at times quite clumsy.

311
Ed.pr.: O. Petr. 449 O.London UC
Photo: Spinelli, 1988, Tav. I-II
Bibl.: P? 1685, Z 260, D 218; Jaekel, 1964, Pap. X; E. Spinelli, Studi Acc. Tosc. XCI (1988)
49-57; W. Luppe, ZPE 75 (1988) 51-52
Prov.: Unknown Date: V-VI AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 14.6 x 10 cm.
Cont.: On one side, the remains of 9 gnomai monostichoi in theta, iota, and kappa, and on the
other, ends of lines of 7 monostichoi in lambda. On both sides traces of other lines that
do not correspond to the gnomai left by tradition. Two dots separate the different
entries. They were probably part of a larger collection.
Hand: A teacher’s, with very large letters, confident and graceful, upright or slightly slanting
to the right. Alpha, high above the baseline, has the loop open at the top. Beta is tall
with an horizontal base and delta has the left diagonal joined to the base. The different
features point to the end of the fifth century or the beginning of the following one.

312
Ed.pr.: O. Petr. 405 O.London UC, not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: P? 1587, Z 259, D 217; Jaekel, 1964, Pap. IX
Prov.: Unknown Date: V-VI AD
250 LONG PASSAGES

Mat.: Incomplete ostracon

Cont.: Remains of 13 gnomai monostichoi written on both sides.
Hand: Not described

313

Ed.pr.: Pap.Flor. XVIII 79-80 Fordham inv. T 1/82

Photo: Tav. XCII-XCIII
Prov.: Unknown Date: V-VI AD
Mat.: Wooden board painted an ochre color, 50.5 x 24.4 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Iliad 7.21-28, with the words separated by oblique lines. The Homeric passage
starts in the middle of a sentence and ends with some suspension. There are some cor-
rections and erasures, but at the end the text was correct. It was probably a model writ-
ten from memory. Diaeresis, rough breathing, apostrophe, and interaspiratio (line 5).
On the right side a long line, forked like an ornate paragraphos, runs all the way down
and then, becoming a broken line, horizontally across.
Side 2: Across the short dimension, Iliad 2.244 repeated 19 times, with the same verti-
cal line on the right. Written by a student. s
Hand 1: A teacher’s, with an informal sloping script and extremely large letters (some reach 2-
3 cm.). Delta with the left-hand diagonal fused with the base and the large beta written
in four movements point to the end of the fifth century or the beginning of the sixth.
Hand 2: “Evolving,” deteriorates visibly as it goes on, problems with letter size, spacing,
alignment, and general unevenness.

314
Ed.pr.:P. Grenf. II 84 P.Bodl.Gk.class.e.72 (P)
Photo: MPER XV Tafel 53; Cavallo-Maehler, Plate 36b
Bibl.: P? 51, Z 195, D 395; TrGF 2 F 498; MPER NS XV 117; J. Kramer, ZPE 64 (1986)
246-52; Cavallo and Maehler, 1987, 80
Prov.: Arsinoite Date: V-VI (ed.pr.), end of VI (Cavallo-Maehler)
Mat.: Piece of coarse papyrus, 19 x 7.4 cm. :
Cont.: Story of the son who murdered his father, a modification of Aesop, Fable 48 (cf. 230,
231, 232, 323, 409, and 412). The story occupies the first 17 lines, and the last 5 are
taken by the moral, two iambic trimeters. A chrism starts and ends the exercise. A few
orthographic mistakes. Three dots are used for punctuation and sometimes a dot
appears Over vowels.
Hand: “Evolving,” with some letters drawn with fluency. Difficulty with alignment and with
even letter size and spacing. Sometimes the letters are decorated with serifs.

315
Ed.pr.: Crum, CO 523-524; O. Petr. 399-404, 406-408, 471-472
O.London UC 31893-94-95, 3220-21; and 472 not found
Photo: XL-XLI-XLII-XLIII, courtesy of the Petrie Museum, University College London
Bibl.: P*? 561, Z 158-166, D 163-171
 LONG PASSAGES 251

Prov.: Unknown Date: Byzantine

Mat.: Series of ostraca probably belonging together.
Cont.: Iliad 1.1-36, 49-52, 58-60, 69-82, 89-127
Hand: Teacher’s or advanced student’s, with a thick pen, fluent and regular. Equal space is left
between the lines.

316
Ed.pr.: P.Ryl. 1 41 P.Rylands UL
Photo: XXXIV, courtesy of the Director and University Librarian, the John Rylands
University Library of Manchester
Bibl.: P? 2662, Z 93, D 220; Jaekel, 1964, Pap. XVI
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI AD
Mat.: Papyrus fragment, 8.5 x 9.5 cm.
Cont.: Front: ~ Beginnings of four lines starting with the last four letters of the alphabet,
probably part of an originally complete gnomic acrostic.
Back: t Some lines in Coptic.
Hand: A teacher’s, with large letters all separated. The hand further enlarges the first letter of
each line. A few letters (e.g., phi and rho) send down long, pointed descenders, which
suggests a late date.

317
Ed.pr.: BKT VIII 10 T.Berol.inv. 10501
Photo: XLII Bibl.: van Haelst 155
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet, 14 x 35 cm.
Cont.: Written on both sides. On one side traces of cursives that were not deciphered. The
writing, moreover, is at times difficult to see. Psalm 50, 14-20 with many errors
(some orthographic, but some indicating a lack of sensitivity to case and gender).
Sometimes there is a total lack of understanding, which makes it likely that this was a
dictation. The nomina sacra are contracted.
Hand: “Rapid,” fluent and practiced, revealing a long familiarity with writing. Roundels at
the end of horizontal and vertical strokes. Many letters project below the line. The
lines keep on starting a little more to the left as the writing proceeds.

318
Ed.pr.:MPER NS XV 133 P.Vindob.G. 25733
Photo: Tafel 60
Bibl.: T.K. Stephanopoulos, ZPE 66 (1986) 72-76; J. Diethart, Tyche 6 (1991) 45
Prov.: Unknown Date: 582—602 a
Mat.: Two papyrus fragments, 11.5 x 10, 8 x 10 cm.
Cont.: > Series of short sentences in alphabetical order separated by double dots. They could
be short riddles, and many are not hard to solve. The text was probably dictated by the
teacher without the answer. According to the ed.pr. the lines 12-13 allude to the
252 LONG PASSAGES

emperor Maurikios (582-602 AD), but the hand looks later (late seventh or eighth
century AD).
Hand: “Rapid,” cursive and proficient.

319

Ed.pr.: Mon.Epiph. Il 615 O.MMA.11.1.210

Photo: XLIV Bibl.: P? 1582, Z 285, D 221; Jaekel, 1964, Pap. XIII
Prov.: Thebes Date: VI—VII AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon in bad condition, 20.7 x 23 cm.
Cont.: 27 monostichoi, often separated by a space. Some spelling mistakes. From alpha to
epsilon several maxims appear under each letter, but only one from zeta to rho.
Hand: Probably a teacher’s, with large letters sloping to the right, usually separated except for
epsilon and sometimes alpha and mu. Kappa has the diagonals detached from the verti-
cal and mu has a particularly ample central curve.

320
Ed.pr.: P.J. Sijpesteijn, Stud. Pap. 21 (1982) 11-14 T.Moen inv. 601
Photo: Plates
Prov.: Cheikh Fadl Date: VI—VII AD
Mat.: Wax tablet, 21.5 x 11.5 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Contract of loan, with real names, but unfinished and with many errors. Perhaps
the writer was composing it, as some confusion of formulae seems to indicate.
Side 2: Exercises of multiplication separated by vertical lines and, turning the tablet 90
degrees, another exercise, writing words in kappa or simply practicing letters.
Hand: “Evolving,” perhaps an apprentice scribe’s. Fluent enough in tracing single letters, but
still shows some problems of alignment and varying letter size.

321
Ed.pr.: R. Pintaudi, ZPE 48 (1982) 97-104 : P.Vat.gr. 56
Photo: Tafel III, Pap. Flor. Tavv. X-XI Bibl.: Pap.Flor. XVIII 9
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet written on both sides, painted a light color, 28.5 x 16.3 cm.
Cont.: Psalm 28 and the first seven verses of 29 in the LXX translation with a few minor mis-
takes. Short oblique strokes separate the words: a text for reading prepared by the
teacher. Diaeresis. On side B the text is framed by lines. Vertical and horizontal lines
mark insertions. The numerals at the end of both sides perhaps indicate a date.
Hand: A teacher’s, with large letters, informal, pointed majuscule with a pronounced and
artificial contrast in the thickness of the strokes. Upsilon is V-shaped or has its left arm
slightly curved, a feature that does not appear before the second half of VI AD.

322
Ed.pr.: A. Passoni Dell’ Acqua, Aegyptus 60 (1980) 107-109 T.Louvre MND 552B
Photo: Tavv. 4, 5
 LONG PASSAGES 253

Bibl.:S. De Ricci, REG 15 (1902) 452-53; van Haelst 349

Prov.: Antinoopolis Date: VII AD
Mat.: Fragment of wooden tablet, perhaps part of a notebook (see holes), 15.5 x 1.8 cm.
Cont.: Beginning of Our Father (Matthew 6,9) which was presumably continued on the rest of
the tablet. There is a chrism at the start. On the back there are a few words that are
difficult to read. There are a few phonetic mistakes.
Hand: “Rapid,” in “Alexandrian Majuscule,” not completely even and with faulty alignment.

323
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 120 P.Vindob.G. 26127
Photo: Tafel 54
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Papyrus of bad quality, 19.5 x 10 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: ~ Story of the son who murdered his father (cf. 314, 230, 231, 232, 409, and 412), 13
lines of text, probably framed on all sides by a decorative design of which there are
only remains. The initial letter is much enlarged and decorated. The words are all writ-
ten as they are pronounced.
Hand: Proficient and fluent, not in keeping with the orthography. Narrow and broad letters.
Probably someone who knew the Coptic script and was learning Greek.

324
Ed.pr.: W. Brashear, Enchoria 17 (1990) 1-8 T.Wirzburg K 1019
Photo: Tafel 2
Prov.: Unknown Date: VIII-IX AD
Mat.: Incomplete wooden board, yellowish coating, broken in antiquity, 53 x 12.5 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: The end of a hymn to Christ and a hymn to Mary in Greek, many mistakes.
Side 2: Coptic version of the two hymns written by a different hand.
Hand: "Rapid," writes quickly and seems rather experienced.

Scholia Minora

325
Ed:pr.. 1. Renner, ASCP 83(1979) 313-21 P.Mich.inv. 1588
Photo: Fig. I Bibl.: Raffaelli 1984, 002
Prov.: Unknown Date: I-II AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 17.7 x 15 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Two cols. (the second incomplete) of lemmata and glosses to Iliad 1.1-9, sepa-
rated by spaces. The glosses are very detailed, as usually happens at the beginning of
the poem. A few minor mistakes.
Back: t Grammatical text, 359.
Hand: "Rapid," small, careful documentary hand that separates many letters.
254 SCHOLIA MINORA

326
Ed.pr.: A. Calderini, Aegyptus 2 (1921) 306-307 T.Berol.inv. 10508
Photo: XLV-XLVI
Bibl.: P2 1198, Z 283, D 254; descript. BKT V.1.6; Raffaelli 1984, 053
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD
Mat.: Waxed tablet written on both sides.
Cont.: Written across the short dimension. Scholia Minora to Hiad 14.227-521. Lemmata and
interpretations separated by high dots. More than one lemma is written on the same
line, and the different sets are divided by short horizontal or oblique lines. Very few
mistakes. At the end a forked paragraphos and a blank space.
Hand: “Rapid,” fluent but irregular, with many cursive elements and variable letter size.

327
Ed.pr.: A. Calderini, Aegyptus 2 (1921) 307-308 T.Berol.inv. 10509
Photo: XLVII
Bibl.: P? 1199, Z 284, D 255; descr. BKT V.1.6; Raffaelli 1984, 054
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD
Mat.: Waxed tablet written on both sides.
Cont.: Written across the short dimension. Scholia Minora to Iliad 15.17-180 separated by
high dots. A long horizontal line marks the end of the exercise and then more than one
fourth of the space is left unwritten.
Hand: “Rapid,” more cursive and irregular than 326, but still quite practiced.

328
Descriptum: BKT V.1.6 T.Berol.inv. 10510
Photo: None published
Bibl.: P? 1196, Z 285, D 256; Raffaelli 1984, 052
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD
Mat.: Fragment of waxed tablet. -
Cont.: Written on both sides across the short dimension. Scholia Minora to Iliad 13.634f. On
side 1 a long horizontal line may separate different parts.
Hand: “Rapid,” fluent, but uneven letter size, spacing, and alignment.

329
Ed.pr.: A. Calderini, Aegyptus 2 (1921) 308-309 T.Berol.inv. 10511 + 10512
Photo: XLVIII
Bibl.: P? 1191, Z 286, D 257; Descr. BKT V.1.6; C. Gallazzi, ZPE 56 (1984) 27; Raffaelli
1984, 048
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD
Mat.: Waxed tablet. |
Cont.: Written across the short dimension. Scholia Minora to Iliad 11.136-263. A long
horizontal line divides the exercise.
Hand: “Rapid,” fluent, but with crowded lines and variable letter size and spacing.
 SCHOLIA MINORA 255

330
Ed.pr.: P.Oslo II 12 O.Oslo University
Photo: XLIX, courtesy of the University of Oslo Library, The Papyrus Collection
Bibl.: P? 1160, Z 289, D 248; Raffaelli 1984, 005
Prov.: Theadelphia Date: II AD
Mat.: Fragment of papyrus roll, 31.5 x 15 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Four cols., the first and the last very fragmentary. Scholia Minora to Iliad
1.5-24. The Homeric text is quoted in full. The exercise is called "Ovopaorixdy
‘Opnpov.
Back: tT Grammatical text copied by a student (see 362).
Hand: “Rapid,” (a teacher in ed.pr.): there are definite problems with alignment and letter
size, even though the letters indicate a long familiarity with writing.

331
Ed.pr.: T. Vlachodimitris, ZPE 11 (1973) 65-68 T.Hamb.inv. 736
Photo: Tafel Ib Bibl.: D 247; Raffaelli 1984, 023
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 12 x 4 cm.
Cont.: Front: ~ Unidentified text
Back: *t Scholia Minora to Iliad 2.61-222.
Hand: “Evolving,” heavy and irregular, with separated letters except for alpha and epsilon.

332
Ed.pr.: P. Mil. Vogl. Ii 120 P.Mil.N.cat. 613
Photo: L
Bibl.: P? 1168; A. Henrichs, ZPE 7 (1971) 255-57; Raffaelli 1984, 020; A. Moretti, Tyche 8
(1993) 96-97
Prov.: Narmouthis Date: II AD?
Mat.: Two papyrus fragments, 5 x 1.6, 7.5 x 2.6 cm.
Cont.: Front: ~ Document
Back: ? Scholia Minora to Iliad 1.525-530 and 536-551. The end of the lemmata and
sometimes the beginnings of the glosses are preserved.
Hand: “Evolving,” heavy and irregular with letter size, spacing, and alignment not uniform.

333
Ed.pr.: M. Hombert and C. Préaux, Mél. Grégoire (1951) 161-68
T.Bodl.Gk.Inscr. 3017
Photo: LI, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Bibl.: P? 1176, Z 291, D 262; Raffaelli 1984, 031
Prov.: Unknown Date: II-III] AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet painted white, written on both sides, 36.5 x 13.5 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: On both sides surface ruled, vertical lines to define margins, and two parallel
lines dividing each side. Close paraphrase of Iliad 4.349-363, each verse is rendered
256 SCHOLIA MINORA

with slightly different words and occupies one line. Only rarely do the Homeric terms
occur. A few mistakes, not only phonetic ones. Accent and diple obelismene.
Side 2: Guidelines traced more carelessly and disregarded. Iliad 4.364-373 and on the
right col. the Scholia Minora to the passage. Interesting mistake: dipac (yedvpac)
defended and even explained in the glosses. Apostrophe is indicated several times as an
oblique stroke. Diple obelismene at the end and then a large blank space.
Hand: “Rapid,” with fast letters sometimes separated, still maintaining their cursive form.

334
Ed.pr.: A. Henrichs, ZPE 7 (1971) 259-60 P.Mich.inv. 6619
Photo: LII Bibl.: D 261
Prov.: Unknown Date: II-III AD
Mat.: Papyrus fragment, 5.5 x 9 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Document
Back: t End of a col. with the lemmata to liad 21.163-186. Sometimes the Homeric
words and the glosses are separated by high dots.
Hand: “Rapid,” with a heavy pen. Hand of the mixed type, particularly heavy and with letters
that are not well formed.

335
Ed.pr.: J. Schwartz, ZPE 4 (1969) 175-76 + P.Oxy. XLIV 3160 P.Stras.inv.gr. 1401
Photo: Luppe, 1977, Tafel IV
Bibl.: D 288; W. Luppe, ZPE 27 (1977) 101-107; F. Montanari, Pap.Flor. VII pp. 273-79
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: II-III AD
Mat.: Two fragmentary papyri, 4.6 x 3.7, 16 x 17 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Register
Back: t Remains of Scholia Minora to Odyssey 1.441-444, hypothesis and some
Scholia Minora of 2, and part of the hypothesis of 3. Paragraphoi are used, diaeresis,
diastole twice, and marks of long quantity. Considerable problems with clarity and
syntax (see, e.g., line 8 with the omission of the subject or the too detailed paraphrase
of Telemachus’ speech).
Hand: “Rapid,” gives the impression of being cursive, but the letters are usually separated.

336
Ed. pr.) P. Oxy 2X Iv 3159 Ashmolean Museum
Photo: L Bibl.: D 267; Raffaelli 1984, 041
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: III AD
Mat.: Papyrus fragment, 13 x 12.5 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Accounts
Back: t Two cols.: part of the hypothesis of Iliad 7 and of Scholia Minora that do not
follow immediately, but start in the second col. A few mistakes. The hypothesis does
not agree with that transmitted by the manuscript tradition.
Hand: “Rapid,” capital letters with many cursive elements. It is possible that the hand of the
second col. is different or that the exercise was done at a different time.
 SCHOLIA MINORA 257

337
Ed.pr.: P-Haun. 13 P.Haun.inv. 314
Photo: LII
Bibl.: P? 1182, Z 294, D 266; Raffaelli 1984, 040
Prov.: Arsinoite? Date: II] AD
Mat.: Papyrus fragment, 11.5 x 7.2 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Document
Back: t Two cols. of Scholia Minora to Iliad 6.1-48. The glosses correspond to the D
Scholia except in lines 3 and 21.
Hand: “Evolving,” heavy and unpracticed with capitals usually separated. The letter size and
inclination varies considerably.

338
Ed.pr.: A. Henrichs, ZPE 7 (1971) 257-58 P.K6ln inv. 53
Photo: Tafel XII c Bibl.: Raffaelli 1984, 024
Prov.: Unknown Date: HI AD?
Mat.: Papyrus, 5.5 x 15 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Document
Back: ft Partially preserved col. with Scholia Minora to Iliad 2.93-104 difficult to
read, especially in the bottom part. The bottom margin of 5.5 cm. (ed.pr.) is a blank
space, left after the exercise was finished.
Hand: “Evolving,” with careless, ill-formed letters and variable line spacing.

339
Paipr er, yale i125 P. Yale inv. 1245
Photo: LIT
Prov.: Unknown Date: Late Ill-early IV AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 5.5 x 8.3 cm.
Cont.: Front: ~ Account
Back: t Scholia Minora to Iliad 1.66-74. The lemmata and what is there of the glosses
were copied by a student, syllable by syllable, only up to line 5. Then the exercise was
interrupted, leaving the second col. incomplete. Many mistakes in the first col., proba-
bly because of lack of attention. Sometimes the lemmata invade the adjacent space.
Corrections: in the col. of the glosses the first letter is probably eta and not alpha-tau.
Hand: “Evolving,” with fluctuating letter size and alignment and letters mostly separated.

340
Ed.pr.: G. Plaumann, Ber. Berl.Mus. 34 (1913) 219-20 T.Berol.inv. 11636
Photo: Abb. 101 (one side) and Raffaelli 1990, Abb. 1-2
Bibl.: P2 742, 1180; Z 297; D 238, 263, 297; L. Raffaelli, Archiv 36 (1990) 5-12
Prov.: Unknown Date: III-IV AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet painted white, 21 x 46 cm.
258 SCHOLIA MINORA

Cont.: Written on both sides: Iliad 5.265-289, followed by Scholia Minora to lines 265-286.
On the other side Iliad 5.287-317 and then the rest of the tablet is blank. All
remarkably correct, with accents, smooth and rough breathings, hyphen, apostrophes,
diaeresis, and some signs of quantity. Diple obelismene. In the Scholia three more
forgotten lemmata and glosses are added by a second hand, probably the teacher’s.
Hand: “Rapid,” smooth and somewhat graceful, with letters separated or touching each other.

341
Ed.pr.: P.Ryl. I 537 P.Rylands UL
Photo: LI, courtesy of the Director and University Librarian, the John Rylands University
Library of Manchester
Bibl.: P? 1178, Z 299; Raffaelli 1984, 033
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: IV AD
Mat.: Papyrus, probably an isolated sheet and not part of a codex (ed.pr.), 9 x 6 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: t Scholia Minora to Iliad 5.5-11 then large blank space.
Side 2: ~ Scholia Minora to Iliad 5.37-53. A previous text was washed off. On both
sides lemmata and glosses separated by dots. Often the glosses do not correspond with
others of the same kind.
Hand: “Rapid,” clear and easily readable, with initial letters slightly enlarged.

342
Ed.pr.: H. Riad and J. Schwartz, CdE 43 (1968) 114-21 T.Alexandria, G.R. 28759
Photo: None published, unclear photo Bibl.: D 242; Raffaelli 1984, 047
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV-V AD
Mat.: Wooden tablet broken along the width, 52 x 12 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Four cols.: Iliad 11.10-23, 35-47, then Scholia Minora to lines 31-46 and 46-
48 with two fragmentary lines. Rest of the space blank. On the top edge a name.
Side 2: Lines 49-60 and 71-81. On both sides various errors of transcription.
Apostrophe, diaeresis, twice the rough breathing, and once a circumflex accent. Words
sep-arated by oblique strokes. Many hands (ed.pr.), but only two with certainty.
Hand 1: “Rapid,” at times sloppy and careless, although capable of writing fairly well.
Hand 2: A teacher’s or a proficient student’s, leaning to the right and completely fluent.

343
Ed.pr.: U. Wilcken, Sitz. Berl. Akad. (1887) 818-19 P.Berol.inv. 5014
Photo: LIV-LV
Bibl.: P? 1158, Z 301, D 268, 272; Raffaelli 1984, 001
Prov.: Panopolis? Date: V AD
Mat.: Isolated sheet of papyrus, 23.9 x 16.8 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: + Scholia Minora to Iliad 1.1-6
Side 2: t Scholia Minora to Iliad 1.8-12. On both sides an uneconomical use of space
with large areas blank. A few mistakes mostly due to phonetic spelling. )
Hand: “Rapid,” with mostly separated letters and fluent enough. At times it becomes crude and
awkward with some multistroke letters (see, e.g., delta in line 19, side We
 259

Compositions, Paraphrases, Summaries

344
Ed.pr.: J.W.B. Barns, CQ 43 (1949) 1-3 no. 1 Ashmolean Museum
Photo: LVI Bibl.: P? 2655, Z 169, D 373
Prov.: Arsinoite Date: II Bc
Mat.: Papyrus, 14.2 x 13.7 cm.
Cont.: + Two incomplete cols. with a narration about the labors of Hercules. Several episodes
are mentioned. A paraphrase of an epic poem (ed.pr.), but perhaps a di%7ynarc of a lost
drama or a paraphrase of a drama composed for school.
Hand: “Rapid,” with capable letters decorated by finials and roundels, although letter size and
Spacing varies considerably and the whole text lacks uniformity.

345
Ed.pr.: T. Renner, HSCP 83 (1979) 331-37 P.Mich.inv. 4832c
Photo: Fig. 3
Prov.: Karanis Date: II-I Bc
Mat.: Papyrus fragment, 11.5 x 8.6 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: ~ Two incomplete cols.: Iliad 18.45-49 followed by a prose summary of Thetis’ visit
to her son and her departure to get the arms, then in col. 2 two verses from 19.38-39,
followed by a summary of the assembly, a quotation of line 19.176, and prose with the
lament of Briseis. The verses quoted are written continuously as prose. Nothing indi-
cates the transition from prose to verse. Sometimes blank spaces are used to mark a
break in sense. Twice (col. 2 lines 4-5 and 11-13) it is possible that the Homeric text
that the student used had eccentric verses. A line filler, col. 1 line 14.
Hand: “Rapid,” with well-formed letters adorned by finials and roundels. Letter size, spacing,
alignment, and intercolumniations vary greatly. A thicker pen in col. 2.

346
Ed.pr.: MPER NS1 18 P.Vindob.G. 29790
Photo: LVII Bibl.: P* 2650, Z 171, D 283
Prov.: Hermopolis Date: I AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 9.5 x 9.5 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: > Previous text washed. Prose narration about the antecedents of the Trojan war, the
war itself, and the gods who are on the side of the Trojans.
Hand: “Evolving,” with slow letters decorated by finials, roundels, and crude thickenings at
the bottom of the vertical strokes. Uneven alignment and letter spacing.

347
Ed.pr.: MPER NS Ill 29 P.Vindob.G. 26747 + 29747
Photo: LVII Bibl.: P2 2509, Z 172, D 377
Prov.: Soknopaiou Nesos (?) Date: I AD
Mat.: Two papyrus fragments with surface badly rubbed, 14 x 14, 6 x 5 cm.
260 COMPOSITIONS

Cont.: Front: > Prose concerning Alexander, perhaps a speech pronounced by one of the
generals. It is not certain that the text was not simply copied.
Back: t A few lines probably written by the same hand.
Hand: “Rapid,” large letters, sometimes very clumsy, adorned by finials.

348
Ed.pr.: P.Freib. 2a P.Freib.inv. 8v
Photo: None published
Bibl.: P2 2101, Z 181, D 392; TrGF 2 F 733 = FGrHist 153 F7
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 32 x 16 cm.
Cont.: Front: > List of objects in Latin
Back: t remains of two cols. defined by vertical lines. A prose dialogue between dif-
ferent personages about Alexander’s succession and his divinity. Larger space between
the lines when the speaker changes. The mistakes do not support the theory of a dicta-
tion (ed.pr.). The text is suddenly interrupted, leaving a large blank space. Perhaps the
student who was copying or better composing (given the unevenness of the piece), lost
interest.
Hand: “Evolving,” informal round with a general lack of uniformity and individual letters
coarsely formed. It is possible that two hands were at work since up to line 12 the let-
ters are bigger and the writer seems to know only capital angular alpha and the same
hand writes in col. 3. The rest of the text is written with more compressed letters, also
using the round loop alpha.

349
Ed pr Riereibe2b P.Freib.inv. 7v
Photo: Tafel 2 Bibl P22 LOIRAHS82, 1392
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 14 x 29 cm.
Cont.: Front: ~ Traces of writing
~

Back: t Remains of 3 cols. defined by vertical lines (the third is interrupted, leaving a
large blank space). Dialogue about the situation after Alexander’s death and his
divinity. A copy or a composition, less successful and duller than the previous one.
Space in the line for pause and space and paragraphos (wrongly placed on the right in
col. 1) for a change of speaker.
Hand: “Evolving,” with an appearance of speed and fluency, but the individual letters are
coarsely formed and uneven. They touch and at times are decorated by serifs.

350
Bape aesOxryel 79 BL. P.Lond. 756 verso
Photo: LVIII, by permission of the British Library
Bibl.: P? 2588, Z 187, D 379
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: III AD
 COMPOSITIONS 261

Mat.: Papyrus, very worn when inscribed, 13 x 7 cm.

Cont.: Front: > Declaration of death, dated between 181 and 192 AD.
Back: t Draft of some kind of composition alluding to the death of a regal figure
(Alexander the Great? Cf. 133). Corrections, erasures, words added above the line.
Hand: “Rapid,” large, irregular, with cursive elements and varying letter size.

351
Ed.pr.: J.G. Milne, JHS 28 (1908) 128, X O.Bodl. Not found
Photo: None published
Bibl.: P? 2723, Z 186, D 375; TrGF 2 734d
Prov.: Upper Egypt Date: III AD
Mat.: Ostracon, 9.5 x 13.3 cm.
Cont.: Composition on the events after Achilles’ death when Philoctetes was brought to Troy.
Faulty grammar in line 4 (relative pronoun wrongly used) and 5 (lack of subject).
Hand: Not described.

352
Edipr Pbon tr6 P.Bologna B.U.inv. 122820
Photo: Montanari, 1982, Tav. III
Bibl.: P? 1157, Z 207, D 286; F. Montanari, Anagennesis 2 (1982) 273-84
Prov.: Unknown Date: III-IV AD
Mat.: Papyrus fragment, 5 x 7 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: > One incomplete col. framed by coarsely drawn lines. Hypothesis of Iliad 1, probably
an original summary made with awkwardness and lack of clarity (see lines 5-6).
Hand: “Evolving,” irregular and round, sometimes separating all the letters. Letter size, spac-
ing, and alignment vary. The letters are often coarsely formed.

Sod
Ed.pr.: G. Parthey, AbABerl, 1865, 139-40 T.Staatsbibl.Preuss. Ms.graec.qu. 36
Photo: Turner 1987, suppl.pl. Ie; Cribiore 1992, Plate 1
Bibl.: P2 1883, Z 192, D 394; R. Cribiore, GRBS 33 (1992) 247-63
Proy.: Athribis Date: IV? Close to V AD (Cribiore)
Mat.: Wooden tablet
Cont.: Composition on farmers’ joys and miseries, with many poetic words but only a vague
iambic rhythm. A cross sign at the end of each line, probably to emphasize the end of
the poetic cola. Two accents and an expunging dot.
Hand: “Rapid,” round, flattened, slanting to the right. Fluctuating letter size and spacing.

354
Ed-pr*Gevitelli, SIC 12 (1904) 320 P.Biblioteca Laurenziana
Photo: P.Laur. Il Tav. XLIX
Bibl.: P2 1945; P.Laur. II 49; A. Saya, Papyrologica Lupiensia | (1992) 309-17
Prov.: Hermopolis Magna Date: V AD
262 COMPOSITIONS

Mat.: Papyrus fragment, 11.4 x 9.8 cm.; back blank.

Cont.: Remains of 15 lines of a schoolboy’s poem in anacreontics, perhaps for the feast at the
end of the year. A paragraphos divides the composition. Apostrophe is used once.
Hand: “Rapid,” irregular, enlarging some letters and making others much smaller.

355
Ed.pr.: O. Crusius, Mél. Nicole (Géneve 1905) 615-24 P.Heid.inv. 1271 v
Photo: Seider, 1967, Taf. XXXIV
Bibl.: P2 1611, Z 273, D 302; R. Keydell, Jahresber.Bursian 272 (1941) 49; Seider 1967,
162-64
Prov.: Unknown Date: V-VI AD
Mat.: Papyrus, probably part of a codex, 28.5 x 20 cm.
Cont.: Front: ~ Text still undeciphered.
Back: t Mythological hexameters making up five mediocre epigrams, each introduced
by a line of prose, a rhetorical exercise of ethopoiia. Diaeresis, middle dot for
punctuation, some accents. Long paragraphos separates each scene, a paragraphos
then marks the division of prose and poetry and underlines a pause.
Hand: “Evolving,” careless capitals occasionally ligatured, varying alignment and line spacing.

356
Ed.pr.: M. Lallai, Nuovi Papiri Letterari Fiorentini presentati al “XIII Intern. Papyrologen-
kongress” (Pisa 1971) 27-28. P.Pis.inv. 1 (A. Carlini)
Photo: Montanari, 1982, Tav. II
Bibl.: A. Carlini, Papiri Letterari Greci (Pisa 1978) 163-64; F. Montanari, Anagennesis 2
(1982) 273-84
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI AD
Mat.: Papyrus fragment, 12.8 x 7.9 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: > Document
Side 2: + Hypothesis of /liad 3: Agamemnon asks the Trojans to return Helen and her
treasures. Two marks of abbreviation. In the last liné the émvypa¢7 in the accusative,
perhaps depending on a preposition. Isolated hypothesis, without Scholia Minora.
Hand: Fluent, large and inclined to the right, an advanced student or a teacher.

357
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 134 _ P.Vindob.G. 26186
Photo: Tafel 60 .
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 14.2 x 9 cm.; back blank.
Cont.: > Two titles for essays, a comparison between Heracles and the emperor and some kind
of cosmogonic theme, starting with a chrism and followed by a large blank space.
Hand: Perhaps a teacher’s, leaning to the right, with some oversized letters.
 263

Grammar

358
Ed.pr.: H.M. Hubbell, CP 28 (1933) 189-98 P. Yale inv. 446 v
Photo: Plate III
Bibl.: P? 2138, Z 209; P. Yale I 25; A. Wouters, Orbis 24 (1975) 217-23, Handelingen XXX
der koninklijke Zuidnederlandse Maatschappig voor Taal-en Letterkunde en Ges-
chiedenis (1976) 291-307, and Wouters 1979, 47-60
Prov.: Arsinoite? Date: Mid-I AD
Mat.: Papyrus, considerably worn before use, 19 x 22 cm.
Cont.: Front: > List of tax-payers mentioning the years from 9 to 12; it was cut before the
back was used.
Back: t Grammatical manual that shows considerable discrepancies from the Techne of
Dionysius. At the end a sudden interruption in mid-sentence, leaving a blank space.
Mistakes due to lack of care and phonetic spelling.
Hand: “Evolving,” with intercolumnar space almost totally occupied by writing and with some
cursive elements and ligatures (especially epsilon). Not completely inexperienced, but
certainly not a teacher’s. The overall impression is quite poor.

359
Descriptum: T. Renner, HSCP 83 (1979) 313 P.Mich.inv. 1588 v
Photo: None published
Prov.: Karanis Date: I-II AD
Mat.: Worn papyrus, 17.7 x 15 cm.
Cont.: Front: ~ 325.
Back: t Remains of 3 cols., probably a grammatical treatise drawing examples from
poetic texts. Short horizontal supralineations on some terms.
Hand: “Evolving,” fluent with occasional calligraphic pretensions, but varying letter size and
spacing. After the first, all the lines slant increasingly downward.

360
Ed.pr.: P.Haun. 48 P.Haun.inv. 323 ¢
Photo: Plate I
Prov.: Unknown Date: I-II AD
Mat.: End of papyrus roll, 6.5 x 10.1 cm.; back covered
Cont.: Front: ~ A student writes two participles with the corresponding morphological labels
in the space between the end of a col. and the title (Logoi of Isocrates). A long
horizontal line separates the verbs from the title.
Hand: “Rapid,” with a few ligatures.

361
Ed.pr.: MPER NS Ill 33 B P.Vindob.G. 29815 B
Photo: LIX
264 GRAMMAR

Bibl.: P2 2167, Z 53, D 338; Wouters 1979, 242-43 note 10

prov.: Arsinoite Date: If AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 11 x 10 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Accounts from the late first-early second centuries.
Back: *? Middle-passive imperatives of 7éa7w with a proliferation of nonexistent
forms, a whole series of future imperatives, perhaps devised by a teacher in search of
symmetry and order. Similarities and differences with the Kavévec of Theodosius, as
one would expect at such early date.
Hand: “Rapid,” irregular, but fluent enough with few ligatures.

362
Ed.pr.: P. Oslo II 13 P.Oslo University
Photo: Plate
Bibl.: P? 2148, Z 215, D 318; Di Benedetto 1958, 189-90 and 1959, 88-89; G. Morelli,
Ricerche sulla tradizione grammaticale latina (Roma 1970) 112-30; Wouters 1979,
141-55
Prov.: Theadelphia? Date: II AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 15 x 31.5 cm.
Cont.: Front: > 330.
Back: t Remains of 5 cols. of a grammatical manual: definitions and etymological
explanations of o7ovxetov and yeaa, vowels and consonants defined and divided.
The general treatment is less technical and more literary than in the Dionysian treatise.
Paragraphoi, horizontal supralineations on some words, abbreviations.
Hand: “Evolving,” with problems with alignment and letter proportions and spacing. The
phenomenon called Maas’s Law is visible. Uneven bottom margins and cols. Written
by one hand only, sometimes with a poorly sharpened pen.

363
Ed.pr.: G. Zalateo, Aegyptus 20 (1940) 8-11 Istituto Vitelli PSI inv. 204
Photo: LX > te.Bible P252162082Z 220 6195339
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: III AD
Mat.: Coarse papyrus sheet, maybe part of codex, 7.7 x 12.8 cm.
Cont.: On both sides, > 1, conjugation of yoddw in the indicative; all the forms are labeled.
Marginal abbreviations to indicate singular, dual, plural. Horizontal lines of demarca-
tion (sometimes curls or barbed dashes), a little irregular. Spelling irregularities and
minor morphological mistakes especially in the dual, confusion about the principal and
historical tense endings. General lack of symmetry and some clumsy erasures.
Hand: “Rapid,” irregular, but fluent with letters separated except for epsilon.

364
Ed.pr.: F.G. Kenyon, JHS 29 (1909) 29-31 T.BM.add.MS. 37516
Photo: XLI Bibl. P? 271le 72220 aa 336, 342
Prov.: Unknown Date: III AD
 GRAMMAR 265

Mat.: Wooden tablet with white coating written on both sides, 41.5 x 13.5 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: Ruled with uneven lines that are disregarded, vertical lines on one side. Opta-
tives and participles of mxdéw in all moods, with some forms morphologically
incorrect. Sometimes there are purely artificial formations.
Side 2: Declension of a chria on the philosopher Pythagoras with minor errors and cor-
rections (cf. 385 and 388).
Hand: “Rapid,” irregular, of small size, with many ligatured letters.

365
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 136 P.Vindob.G. 40382
Photo: Tafel 60
Prov.: Unknown Date: III AD
Mat.: Two papyrus fragments, 4.3 x 4, 4.3 x 3.6 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Document
Back: ? Partial conjugations of GAérw and BaaTw with omission of lambda in Bdr\é7w
(according to ed.pr.). It is preferable to think of Jambda being omitted in both cases
(thus also BATH).
Hand: Probably a teacher’s (although the mistakes are considerable), large, fluent, and regular,
influenced by the chancery style. The letters are tall and narrow, and in beta one
single, sinuous line defines the two protruding parts.

366
Ed: pir -Peryl. TIL 533 P.Rylands UL
Photo: LXII, courtesy of the Director and University Librarian, the John Rylands University
Library of Manchester
Bibl.: P? 2166, Z 227, D 346
Prov.: Unknown Date: III-IV AD
Mat.: Papyrus of poor quality written on both sides, 6.3 x 13.3 cm.
Cont.: Partial conjugation of wovéw with the double tense labels used in Theodosius’ Kavévec.
Some clumsy erasures, dittography, and some abbreviations (see especially line 11).
Horizontal lines divide the sections.
Hand: “Rapid,” larger on the front, but probably the same throughout. Sprawling uneven
lines, variable spacing, general coarse thick look.

367

Ed.pr.: P.Col. VIII 206 P.Col.inv. 492c

Photo: Pl. 15
Prov.: Unknown Date: III-IV AD
Mat.: Papyrus fragment, 5.3 x 6.2 cm.
Cont.: Front: ~ Two fragmentary cols. of middle-passive participles of movéw. Extensive can-
cellation of an intrusive word, possibly a mistake, and a lack of symmetry and
homogeneity in the forms point to student’s work.
Back: t Traces of an account and the word pjyata with the syllable on below, written
in a good book hand.
266 GRAMMAR

Hand: “Rapid,” letter orientation varies, mostly separated letters with only a few ligatures.
Many letters touch. Sometimes there are cursive letter forms. Overall a sloppy look.

368
Ed.pr.: P.Amh. II 21 Pierpont Morgan Library, P.Greek 21
Photo: Wouters 1979, Plate VIII
Bibl.: P#*2142,Z 225 °D 32lWoutersi979 1338-97
Prov.: Hermopolis Magna Date: III-IV AD
Mat.: Papyrus roll fragment, 22.7 x 12.5 cm.
Cont.: Front.: > Copy of an official letter of 288-289 AD.
Back: t Grammatical manual treating the mpoowdia, the parts of speech and the noun.
The treatment of some parts is very confused. The definitions of the different genders
of the nouns are noteworthy, since they are elementary. Dicolon is used, apostrophe,
diaeresis, and two curved strokes to separate a section. There are many mistakes due to
phonetic spelling, dittography, and haplography (many are corrected, some hastily).
There is a large blank space before the treatment of the parts of speech.
Hand: “Evolving,” irregular and round, capable of forming individual letters, but unable to
produce an attractive text. Uneven letter size and spacing, and difficult alignment.

369
Ed.pr.: P.Ant. II 68 Ashmolean Museum
Photo: Wouters 1979, Pl. IX a, b Bibl.: P? 2140; Wouters 1979, 198-203
Proy.: Antinoopolis Date: IV AD
Mat.: Fragment of papyrus codex written on both sides, 15.8 x 8.8 cm.
Cont.: Brief outline of grammatical terms without an apparent order. The corrections are
many, some by another hand. Double dot indicates emphatic punctuation. Rough
horizontal supralineations randomly mark some words and numbers.
Hand: “Rapid,” irregular, clear, and round, with letters written quickly, but usually separated.
On both sides there are two very uneven cols. which, on one side, are separated by a
wavering line. 5

370
Ed.pr.: P.K6éln IV 176 P.K6ln.inv. 5128
Photo: Tafel [Xx
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV AD
Mat.: Worn papyrus sheet, 8 x 10.5 cm.
Cont.: Written by two different students. A previous literary text was washed off. Commentary
on the Techne of Dionysius Thrax with some variations explained in ed.pr. as students’
notes and comments (but perhaps Dionysius’ manual was not the leading text in the
fourth century). Diaeresis, horizontal lines above examples. On the back the text is
abruptly interrupted.
Hand |: “Evolving,” slow, with variable space between letters and lines.
Hand 2: “Evolving,” with such a thick pen that the outline of some letters is smudged off.
 GRAMMAR 267

371
Bdipr--P2KOInTV 177 P.K6ln inv. 36v
Photo: Tafel Xa
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 7.2 x 12.4 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Business letter
Back: ft Part of a grammatical treatise on vowels and consonants, more detailed than
the Dionysian Téxvn, with poetic exempla, copied by a student. The text is interrupted
before it gets to the address of the letter written on the same side. There are a few
spelling mistakes.
Hand: “Rapid,” leaning slightly to the right, with letters separated except epsilon and alpha.

372
Ed.pr.: G. Zalateo, Aegyptus 20 (1940) 12-14 Istituto Vitelli PSI inv. 479
Photo: LXII-LXIV Bibl? P* 2706929232) DB27
Prov.: Antinoopolis Date: V-VI AD
Mat.: Papyrus of poor quality, possibly part of a codex, 21 x 7.2 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: + Declensions of the nouns 6 IIpiapoc, 7 “Ex&@n in all numbers.
Side 2: tT Declension of the adjective oodéc in all genders and numbers. In both sides
there are no mistakes and horizontal lines separate the different parts.
Hand: “Rapid,” careful and clear, but still with a coarse look and letters mostly separated.

373
Ed.pr.: PSI VII 761 P.Biblioteca Laurenziana
Photo: Wouters 1979, Plate X
Bibl.: P? 2139, Z 234, D 324; Di Benedetto 1959, 109-11; Wouters 1979, 204-10
Prov.: Oxyrhynchos Date: V-VI AD
Mat.: Worn-out parchment fragment, presumably part of a codex, 14 x 12 cm.
Cont.: Written on both sides. Definition of noun, verb, participle, article, pronoun, and
preposition. Evidence of the influence of Apollonius Dyscolus and Dionysius Thrax.
Many mistakes, not all due to phonetic spelling, mostly corrected by a second hand.
Hand: “Rapid,” with variable inclination and letter size (see especially line 11).

374
Ed.pr.: G. Zalateo, Aegyptus 20 (1940) 7 Istituto Vitelli PSI inv. 2052
Photo: LXV Bibl.: P? 2705, Z 323, D 328
Prov.: Antinoopolis Date: V-VI AD
Mat.: Papyrus fragment of inferior quality written on both sides, 6.2 x 5.3 cm.
Cont.: Side 1: ~ Declension of 6 matc.
Side 2: t Declension of 6 kadéc.
Hand: Proficient and clear: a school manual or a teacher’s model.
268 GRAMMAR

a5
Ed.pr.: C. Wessely, Stud. Pal. Il pp. LVI P.Vindob.G. 2318
Photo: MPER XV Tafel 61
Bibl.: P2 2735, Z 237, D 340; MPER NS XV 137
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI AD
Mat.: Fragment of coarse papyrus, 8.5 x 15 cm.; other side blank
Cont.: t Partial conjugation of yoc¢w in the aorist passive, with many mistakes that betray a
confusion between the aorist and the perfect forms.
Hand: “Rapid,” cursive, fluent, and regular.

376
Ed.pr.: P.Hamb. II 166 P.Hamb.inv. 175
Photo: LXVI, courtesy of Staats-und Universitatsbibliothek Hamburg
Bibl.» P? 356, 2165, Z 235, D 347
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 31 x 74 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Document
Back: > Three very long cols. written lengthwise with the papyrus turned 90 degrees,
an almost complete conjugation of wovgéw. At the end a large blank space. According to
ed.pr. it was meant to be hung on the wall. There are minor scribal and phonological
mistakes, many rough breathings, and one accent. Horizontal lines of demarcation.
Hand: “Rapid,” quick semicursive with some irregularities, probably a student’s. It cannot be
ruled out that the papyrus was the property of a scholar who used it for reference.

377
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 139 P.Berol.inv. 22141
Photo: Tafel 64
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Papyrus, 22 x 30.5 cm.
Cont.: Front: > Coptic letter
Back: ? Partial paradigm of the verb yovoédw. Mistakes were made in the dual of the
perfect imperative (still practiced in school), in the perfect optative (with the non-
periphrastic forms), and especially in the aorist optative. Horizontal lines of demarca-
tion with marginal abbreviations to indicate singular, dual, and plural.
Hand: “Rapid,” practiced and clear, probably a student still unsure of his conjugations.

378
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XVIII 280 O.BM inv. 14222
Photo: LXV Bibl.: P? 2698, Z 238, D 341
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII-VIII AD
Mat.: Incomplete ostracon, 13.5 x 11 cm.
Cont.: Reverse: Coptic letter of religious content
 GRAMMAR 269

Obverse: The only ostracon with grammatical material, the verb du6céoxw conjugated in
the present indicative singular and plural and in the aorist indicative singular, with its
Coptic equivalents. On the left the Greek present indicative was repeated, but only the
Coptic equivalents are preserved. The different sections are neatly separated by con-
tinuous or broken horizontal lines.
Hand: Uniform, practiced capitals slanting to the right. Perhaps a teacher’s model.

Notebooks

519
Ed.pr.: O. Guéraud and P. Jouguet, Un livre d’écolier (Cairo 1938)
Cairo, Journal d’entrée no. 65445
Photo: Plates I-X
Bibl.: P? 2642, Z 351, D 40, 53, 57, 65, 68, 80, 86, 89, 95, 98, 226; H. Grégoire and R.
Goossens, Byzantion 13 (1938) 396-400; B. Schweitzer, Ein Nymphdum des friiheren
Hellenismus (Festgabe z.Winckelmannsfeier d.arch.Seminars d.Universitaét, Leipzig
1938) 1-4; S. Settis, SCO 14 (1965) 247-57; A. Barigazzi, Atti XI Congr. Pap. (Milano
1966) 69-85; I. Cazzaniga, La Parola del Passato 21 (1966) 487-93; G. Ronchi, SCO
17 (1968) 56-75; W.G. Arnott, BICS 16 (1969) 67-69; Fraser, 1972, I 609 ff.; G.
Giangrande, Eranos 71 (1973) 68-83; E. Livrea, ZPE 40 (1980) 27-31; B. Boyaval,
CdE 57 (1982) 105-106; Th.K. Stephanopoulos, ZPE 62 (1986) 41; SH 978, 979;
CGFP 219, 289 a, b; PCG fr. 1.4-50
Prov.: Arsinoite? Date: III Bc
Mat.: Bottom half of cheap papyrus roll, fr. a, 66 cm. long + b, 176 cm. long.
Cont.: Book of school exercises that served a schoolmaster teaching different levels, since the
second part of the anthology is geared to students of a higher level. It starts with a syl-
labary (probably preceded originally by an alphabet), then a list of Macedonian
months, a series of numbers, a list of monosyllables, names of divinities, and polysyl-
labic nouns. A short poetic anthology follows: Euripides, Phoenissae 529-534 and Ino
fr. 420 Nauck? (with some variants in comparison with the citation of Stobaeus) with
words divided into syllables. Then Odyssey 5.116-124 (variant at line 22, probably the
right reading), which forms the transition to harder material: two epigrams (SH 978-
979), the first on a fountain, the second for a monument dedicated to Homer by
Philopator, and 3 fragments in elegiac distichs (CGFP 289 a, b and 219). The first
two are monologues of cooks, probably from new comedy, and the third is a fragment
of Straton’s Phoinicides ridiculing the language used by a cook (PCG fr. 1.4-50),
which differs significantly from the citation of Athenaeus, Deipn. IX 382c ff. The
handbook ends with some mathematical exercises.
Hand: Clear and legible, with very few ligatures at the beginning, then showing many linking
strokes: a teacher’s or a professional scribe’s. It shows characteristics very similar to
later teachers’ hands. Letter size is large, up to the anthology, where it becomes
medium-sized. Still influenced by the Alexandrian chancery hand of III BC, it is not
developed horizontally as much, and resembles well-written documentary hands.
270 NOTEBOOKS

380
Ed.pr.: U. Wilcken, Sitz. Berl. Akad. (1923) 160-83 + H. Diels, Abh. Berl. Akad. (1904) II 3-16
P.Berol.inv. 13044 recto
Photo: Abh. Berl Akad. and LXVIT-LX VII-LXIX Bibl.: P? 2099, 2068
Prov.: Abousir Date: II-I Bc (probably I BC)
Mat.: Cartonnage papyrus
Cont.:> The beginning of the papyrus is missing. Cols. 1 to 6.9 contain the Dialogue of
Alexander with the Gymnosophists (cf. Plutarch, Alex. 64 and Hermeneumata Stephani,
CGL III 385-86, Responsa Sapientium). Presumably the beginning of the story with the
capture of the wise men is missing. The papyrus seems to contain the oldest version of
the story, a copy of an ancient Greek exemplar. Cols. 6.10 to 12 preserve the so-called
Laterculi Alexandrini, a \ist of famous men, the Seven Wonders, largest islands,
highest mountains, rivers, and springs. The titles of the different sections have the first
letter underlined. Within the largest sections, which are separated by diple, there are
small sections divided by paragraphoi. The names in the list are generally separated by
spaces.
Hand: Perhaps a teacher’s, regular and graceful with a few ligatures that do not impair the
legibility. Horizontal finials at the end of the vertical strokes and sometimes thicken-
ings. The hand is upright, but the vertical stroke of rho is bent to the left. The central
strokes of mu are joined in a curve.

381
Ed.pr.: H. Diels, Sitz. Berl. Akad. (1898) 847-56 T.Berol.inv. 14283
Photo: Schubart 1911, Plate 17, Lloyd-Jones 1963, Pl. IV-V
Bibl.: P? 1436; W. Schubart, Symbolae Philologicae O.A. Danielsson Dicatae (Uppsala 1932)
290-98; H. Lloyd-Jones, JHS 83 (1963) 75-99 = Greek Comedy. Hellenistic Litera-
ture. Greek Religion and Miscellanea: The Academic Papers of Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones
(Oxford 1990) 158-95; A. Barigazzi, Hermes 96 (1968) 190-216; D.L. Page, Further
Greek Epigrams: Epigrams before AD 50 from the Greek Anthology and other Sources
(Cambridge 1981) 116; SH 705; T. Dorandi, ZPE 87 (1991) 21
Prov.: Unknown Date: I AD
Mat.: Two waxed tablets, now in disastrous condition, 24 x 10 cm.
Cont.: The first cover shows only some letters and the second some barely legible numbers.
The two inner sides of the tablets contain an elegy of 25 verses, probably by
Posidippus of Pella, about the hardships of old age. In the first the surface is divided in
two unequal parts by a vertical line. The writer struggles in the left smaller half, some-
times writing on the border. After line 15 he switches to cursives, which intrude also
in the second side. The text of the tablets is crossed by lines traced randomly. There
are several mistakes. Some are omissions or are due to confusion of cases. Some are
phonological mistakes caused by the Egyptian pronunciation (this rules out Page’s
hypothesis, also inconceivable on chronological grounds, that the poet Posidippus him-
self wrote the poem). There are no compelling reasons for thinking that the poem was
 NOTEBOOKS o71

composed at the moment of writing. All the corrections can have been made later on.
No serious poet would make such mistakes. The poem is likely to be Posidippus’, and
an advanced student had learned it by heart and then transcribed it.
Hand: "Rapid," capital letters written quickly and in a capable way; the cursives are more
careless, and alignment leaves much to be desired. The work of an advanced student.

382
Ed.pr.: H. Oellacher, Et. Pap. 4 (1938) 133-35 P.Vindob.G. 26740
Photo: MPER NS XV Tafel 81
Bibl.: P? 791, Z 137, D 231; G. Nachtergael, CdE 46 (1971) 344-51; P.J. Sijpesteijn and K.A.
Worp, CdE 49 (1974) 309-31; for mathematical exercise, MPER NS XV 178
Prov.: Soknopaiou Nesos(?) Date: II AD
Mat.: Dark brown papyrus roll, perhaps complete, 13.8 x 124.5 cm.
Cont.: Front: > A previous text was washed off. Five mathematical problems, Jliad 6.373-410,
and two conversion problems. On the ed.pr. Oellacher misinterpreted the conversion
problems and argued that the Homeric text was followed by a paraphrase. In the
Homeric text Andromache’s speech is truncated abruptly at line 410, followed by a
paragraphos. The mistakes are many: some phonetic spellings, some omissions of
words or parts of words, and simple spelling errors. The text was not dictated, but
probably copied or written from memory (see line 398 whose second half is like 395).
Hand: "Evolving," with slow, careful letters decorated by serifs and very few ligatures. Align-
ment, line spacing, and letter size and stance leave much to be desired.

383
Ed.pr.: P.Lond.Lit. 253 + W. Brashear, ZPE 86 (1991) 231-32 BL. T.Lond. Add.MS. 34186
Photo: Pattie and Turner 1974, Pl. 9; Bonner 1977, fig. 20-21; Hengstl 1978, Abb. 6; Erler
1983, pl. 1; Tait 1986, Pl. 3; Turner 1987, Pl. 4; O.A.W. Dilke, Mathematics and
Measurement (London 1987) PI. 7.
Bibl.: P? 2713, Z 354, D 108, 142; Jaekel, 1964, Pap. XI; E.G. Turner, BJCS 12 (1965) 67-
69; T.S. Pattie and E.G. Turner, The Written Word on Papyrus (London 1974) no. 21;
Bonner, 1977, 175-76; J. Hengstl, G. Hage, H. Kiihnert, Griechische Papyri aus
Aegypten (Miinchen 1978) no. 96; Harvey, 1978, 64-69; M. Erler, Hermes 111 (1983)
221-26
Prov.: Unknown Date: II AD
Mat.: Two waxed tablets, 17.8 x 26 cm.
Cont.: Tablet 1: A teacher wrote two gnomai on two ruled lines. A student copied them twice
between ruled lines, always omitting the sigma that starts the first sententia. The last
two lines are written in a very narrow space.
Tablet 2: Divided in two by a vertical line. A proficient hand, which could be the
teacher’s, writes multiplications in the left portion. Apparently the same student of the
previous tablet writes five words divided into syllables after dividing the right part of
the tablet into rectangular spaces by means of horizontal and vertical lines.
Ze NOTEBOOKS

separated.
Hand 1: A teacher’s, large, formal, round, and strictly bilinear, with all the letters
The loop of phi is round and there are no finials. If the same hand wrote the multi-
plication tables, it is much quicker, informal, and with some cursive elements.
Hand 2: "Alphabetic," hesitant. The student was already exposed to cursives, gets only a gen-
eral idea of the model’s style, and continues to form the letters his own way. He tries
to ligature especially alpha and epsilon.

384
Ed.pr.: G. Plaumann, Ber. Berl. Mus. 34 (1913) 219 Tablets Blanckertz, not found
Photo: None published Bibl.: P? 2738, Z 355, D 326
Prov.: Unknown Date: II-III AD
Mat.: Four waxed tablets, 13 x 16.5 cm.
Cont.: Declension of the singular, dual, and plural of 6 xonoté¢ math, n ayabn Tapaiveae,
To diAcvopwrov HOoc with a few mistakes that point to a student’s work. Some sides
did not contain writing.
Hand: Not described

385
Ed.pr.: F.G. Kenyon, JHS 29 (1909) 32-39 T.BM Add.MS. 37533
Photo: Plate VI of last side, LXX-LXXI-LXXII
Bibl.: P? 2712, Z 358, D 222, 319, 322, 360; A. Brinkmann, RAM 65 (1910) 149-55; K.
Painter, Brit.Mus. Quart. 31 (1966-67) 101-10; A. Wouters, CdE 68 (1993) 168-77
Prov.: Unknown Date: III AD
Mat.: Notebook made of 8 tablets, 9.5 x 27 cm.
Cont.: The tablets are numbered on each side in the left-hand margin from A to II. Only 7 of
the sides are written on (A-A and H, 9, I). On the cover only traces of writing appear.
The first four sides contain a long list of verbs usually followed by forms of the pro-
noun ovtoc to indicate the case they govern. Paragraphoi separate the different groups,
usually divided according to meaning. Diaeresis is used. On side A the name of the
owner or user of the notebook, Epaphroditos, appears. On side H a phonetic classifica-
tion of the letters of the alphabet (see P. Oslo II 13) and some gnomic questions in the
form of riddles with their respective answers. These continue on side © and a para-
graphos separates them from some notes on conjunctions in the form of questions and
answers. On the same side a classification of the 6véuaTa (nouns, adjectives, interroga-
tive and indefinite pronouns), which at times are separated by the sign %. At the end
of the section there is a colophon inscribed in a rectangle and rules for the declension
of a chria (cf. 388 and 364).
Hand |: "Rapid," writes the first 3 tablets rather hastily and fluently, more neatly at the
beginning, then becoming more careless and drawing crooked paragraphoi but show-
ing the same characteristics, the large chi’s, and the frequent ligatures.
Hand 2: "Rapid," in tablets 4 and 5, ligaturing the letters less.
 NOTEBOOKS 213

386
Ed.pr.: D.C. Hesseling, JHS 13 (1893) 293-314 T.Leiden University Libr.Ms. BPG 109
Photo: Plates, XIII-XIX
Bibl.: P? 174 and 491, Z 357, D 113, 176, 224; M.J. Luzzatto and A. La Penna, Babrii
Mythiambi Aesopei (Leipzig 1986); Pap.Lugd. Bat. XXV, pp. 91-92
Prov.: Palmyra Date: III AD
Mat.: Seven waxed tablets, 14.5 x 12 cm.
Cont.: Traces of previous writing. Then tablets I (verso) and VII (verso) contain the same text
as model and. student’s copy: Hesiod, Works and Days 347. The name of the month
(Dios) appears on the master’s tablet to which is added the date (Tuesday) on the
pupil’s copy. Probably the same pupil copied on ruled lines 14 fables of Babrius (136,
137,978,°97, 138, 117, 91, 103, 107, 143,°139) 43, 123, '121Luzzatto-La’ Penna), all
in choliambics except three in prose. Spelling and meter are faulty and in the text there
are quite a few omissions and additions. Scriptio plena is used.
Hand 1: A teacher’s, on unruled tablet, bilinear, formal round with some letters decorated by
finials. The letters are very large and are all separated. The round ones can be
inscribed in a square. Mu starts with a little hook and has a central stroke reaching the
baseline.
Hand 2: "Evolving," disregarding the ruled lines, trying to imitate the model with careful flat-
tened capital letters, larger than they are tall, in the Hesiodic text. The hand is quicker
and more cursive in the rest of the tablets. The difference in the hand of tablet III
(recto), a repetition in cursives of II (verso) according to ed.pr., is due to the fact that
the tablet is not ruled and therefore the writing was more challenging.

387
Ed.pr.: P.Ant. II 54 Ashmolean Museum
Photo: Plate IV (verso) Bibl.: van Haelst 347
Prov.: Antinoopolis Date: III AD
Mat.: Papyrus double leaf of miniature notebook, 5.2 x 4 cm.
Cont.: Part of the Paternoster, Mt. vi 9-13. The codex probably consisted originally of two
double pages. The prayer is left unfinished, breaking off in the middle of a word and
leaving a blank space.
Hand: "Evolving," with letters of different size, some of which are multistroke, and a few liga-
tures. Epsilon has a straight back and phi a triangular middle part.

388
Ed.pr.: P.J. Parsons, ZPE 6 (1970) 133-49 T.Bodl.Gk.Inscr. 3019
Photo: Tafel VIII Bibl.: P? 2732, D 186, 333, 335, 345, 366
Prov.: Unknown Date: End III AD
Mat.: Notebook of seven wooden tablets, 11 x 23.8 cm. (cover 11 x 8.3 cm.; one missing)
Cont.: The writing is always across the long dimension. Traces of previous writing. On side la
a declension of pronouns in the singular, interrupted after two of the plural forms. It is
the only school exercise with a declension of pronouns. On side 1b and 4a a rhetorical
274 NOTEBOOKS

paraphrase of Iliad 1.1-21 that is four times as long as the original. The copying of the
paraphrase is interrupted after line 57, to be taken up again from the beginning for
only three lines. There are a few mistakes and omissions. The sign % marks pauses,
alone or in conjuction with space and paragraphos. Tablets 2 and 6 contain a Coptic
text (Psalm 46.3-10 and writing exercises), and tablets 5a and 3 carry tables of frac-
tions, written by a different, third hand. In 5b there is a set of formulae for the declen-
sion of a chria (cf. 385 and 364), and a paragraphos indicates that the exercise was
complete. Side 7a carries the conjugation of movety in the indicative active.
Hand 1: "Evolving," writing the conjugation, with varying letter size, stance, and spacing, and
mostly separated letters.
Hand 2: "Rapid," fluent, writing everything else, also the Coptic, but not the fractions. It is
irregular, with erasures and inkblots.

389
Ed.pr.: M. Froehner, Annales Société Francaise Numismat.Archéol. 3 (1868) 69-77
T.Borely inv. 1564, 1565, 1566, 1567
Photo: LXXITII-LXXIV
Bibl.: P? 2731, Z 82, D 132; Kaibel 1878, 1119; Edmonds 1961, 500; CGFP 312
Prov.: Unknown Date: III-IV AD, perhaps later
Mat.: Notebook of four waxed tablets, 15.6 x 19 cm.
Cont.: Unknown maxim in two iambic trimeters repeated several times. On tablet 1567, which
is the only one not ruled, the maxim appears only once, followed by the exhortation
giAoTover, written as a model. On the right, separated by an oblique line, there are
traces of writing, perhaps the date. On the other three tablets the maxim is copied 3
times, each followed by @Aomdver. On top of each tablet there is the name of the
owner (or user) followed by the planetary date. Perhaps the maxim was written by the
same pupil, but his hand appears different each time.
Hand 1: A teacher’s, fluent, clear, and extra-large, written in an informal round style. Some of
the letters appear in cursive form and many are ligatured. Sometimes connecting
strokes are drawn and the letters are broken up into their constitutive elements.
Hand 2: "Evolving," more fluent in 1565, slanting to the right. In the other tablets letter size
varies considerably and sometimes the letters are very large and are less even.

390
Ed.pr.: A. Wouters, Anc.Soc. 1 (1970) 201-35 P.Chester Beatty
Photo: Plates VI-X Bibl.: D 76, 83, 87
Prov.: Unknown Date: I-IV AD
Mat.: Three fragments of papyrus codex, 14.5 x 9, 14.5 x 12.5, 14.5 x 9.5 cm:; Originally at
least 3 folded sheets.
Cont.: End of a list of disyllabic words and a list of words of three and four syllables in
alphabetical order, divided into syllables. A diple obelismene separates the different
sections. The writer wrote the initial letter of the words in advance and then expanded
them into words, but he was forced sometimes to add others, or to leave some lines
 NOTEBOOKS 275

blank. The minor spelling mistakes are very few and certainly do not support the dicta-
tion theory (as in ed.pr.). The list was probably written by a teacher who copied all the
words of which he wanted to make use.
Hand: A teacher’s, large, flexible, influenced by cursive writing. It is mostly upright and
developed vertically and is slightly influenced by the chancery style. Hooks and
roundels decorate a few letters and beta is tall.

391
E.J. Goodspeed, Mél. Nicole (Géneve 1905) 182 + Pap.Flor. XXII 28-29
T. Brooklyn 37.473E, 37.1910E, 37.909E, 37.474E, 37.1908E
Photo: Pap. Flor. XXII Plates XXI-XXII
Bibl.: P? 1885, Z 107, D 129, 135; F.G. Welcker, RAM 15 (1860) 155-58; Kaibel 1878, xxiii
no. 1117a; E. Cougny, Appendix Nova Epigrammatum (Paris 1890) no. 57; Kock
1888, fr.adesp. 346; Edmonds 1961, 412-14; CGFP 313
Prov.: Abousir Date: IV AD (III Goodspeed)
Mat.: Notebook of five waxed tablets, 12.5 x 16 cm.
Cont.: The two covers do not contain writing, some sides show only faint traces or are totally
illegible. One tablet, 37.473E, is ruled and carries the model of a moral maxim (same
as in 392) of 3 iambic trimeters written continuously, which are copied by the student
on the following ruled tablet (only partly visible, the right part being obliterated). The
next tablet, 37.909, presents on one side (the other is illegible) quadrisyllabic words
starting with eta divided into syllables, which a teacher inscribed as a model after writ-
ing on the first line the name of the pupil for whom the model was prepared.
Hand 1: A teacher’s, strictly bilinear, with very large, separated letters sometimes decorated
by serifs; the vertical dimension is accentuated showing some influence of the chancery
style with a few hooks and circlets in iota and nu. The first initial is greatly enlarged.
The hand is more cursive and quick in the list of words, but still displays great clarity.
Hand 2: "Evolving," probably, and imitating carefully the model (see pi with serifed verticals).
Fluctuating letter size. It is difficult to be sure of the level of ability of the pupil.

392
Ed.pr.: E.J. Goodspeed, Mél. Nicole (Géneve 1905) 182-83 + Pap.Flor. XXII 30-31
T.Brooklyn 37.1912E, 37.1911E, 37.1913E
Photo: Pap.Flor. XXII plate XXIII
Bibl.: P? 1886, Z 108, D 129; CGFP 313
Prov.: Abousir Date: IV AD (III Goodspeed)
Mat.: Notebook of 3 waxed tablets, 11 x 17.5 cm.
Cont.: On the first tablet there is a teacher’s model of the same maxim of 391 with slight varia-
tions and by a different hand, which is then copied on side 2 by a pupil who wrote his
name on the first line. On tablet 37.1913E, side 1, which is greatly damaged, only the
words 6 mp@Toc¢ evpwy can be made out. Side 2 contains a short story about Achilles
and his vulnerable feet.
Hand 1: A teacher’s, with very large letters in a formal round style with no finials.
276 NOTEBOOKS

Hand 2: "Alphabetic," with striking variety in letter size and spacing, round and bilinear.

393
Ed.pr.: P. Jouguet and P. Perdrizet, Stud. Pal. 6 (1906) 148-61
P.Bour. 1 = P.Sorbonne 826
Photo: Plates of IV.1, V.2, X.1, XI; Gallo 1980, Tav. XIV.
Bibl.: P2 2643, Z 359, D 69, 77, 84, 88, 206, 214, 225; Lanowski 1950, 44; Jaekel 1964,
Pap. Il; H. Léon, L’Antiquité Classique 35 (1966) 436-38; J. Vaio, CP 64 (1969) 154-
61; G. Strohmaier, Archiv 22-23 (1974) 285-88; Gallo 1980, 377-90; A. Blanchard,
CdE 66 (1991) 211-20; CGFP 107
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV AD
Mat.: Papyrus codex of 11 leaves, probably incomplete, 9 x 8 cm.
Cont.: Alphabetical lists of monosyllables, bisyllables, trisyllables, and quadrisyllables; five
chreiai of Diogenes, written one word per line; 24 gnomai monostichoi each divided
by a paragraphos; verses of the first Prologue to Babrius’ Fables (lines 1-12 Luzzatto-
La Penna) each in two lines, divided by a paragraphos. The notebook, which bears on
the first page the word @e6c, ends with a subscription imitating the colophon of many
literary papyri (cf. the beginning of 276). The mistakes are very few considering the
length of the text, and are mostly due to phonetic spelling. On leaf X, line 9-10, the
error is not enough to prove that the notebook was dictated. An unusual quantity of
critical signs, considering the elementary level: diaeresis, rough breathings of different
shapes, accents, apostrophes, one abbreviation, and filler signs. Simple and forked pa-
ragraphoi divide sections and verses, and a chrism starts each page.
Hand: "Rapid," of a mixed type, slanting to the right, with some awkwardness that points to a
student’s copy. At the end it is less careful, but still fluent.

394
Ed.pr.: Pap. Flor. XVIII 23-32 T.Louvre inv. MNE-911
Photo: Tavv. XXXIV-XLII
Bibl.: R. Cribiore, ZPE 106 (1995) 97-106; L. Battezzato, ZPE 111 (1996) 40
Prov.: Theadelphia? Date: IV AD
Mat.: Notebook of 5 waxed tablets, 17 x 13 cm.
Cont.: On the first cover only pen trials. On tablets I and II a poem in hexameters praising and
invoking the river Nile. It is not very original, and its interest lies mainly in the sub-
ject. The hypothesis (ed.pr.) of a dictation is not supported by the mistakes, especially
since the editor did not completely understand the text. The student succeeds in making
line and verse coincide up to line 11 by various expedients. Then he writes the
hexameters in continuous verses, separating them with oblique strokes or with a sign
such as %. On the top part of the wooden border of the tablet with the first part of the
poem there is the end of an alphabet by a different hand. On the rest of the tablets are
mathematical exercises and a list of contributors that has nothing to do with school (cf.
399 and 402). The second cover shows only a name, "Appovocg, in large letters
maybe by the same hand as the alphabet.
 NOTEBOOKS 277

Hand 1: (Poem) "Rapid," irregular, but fluent, with some letters ligatured.
Hand 2: (Alphabet) "Alphabetic," with large, clumsy letters.

395
Ed.pr.: E. Boswinkel, Actes XIV Congr. (1975) 25-28 T.Leiden Pap.inst.inv. V 16-20
Photo: Pap.Lugd. Bat. XXV Plates XI-XIV Bibl.: D 82; Pap.Lugd. Bat. XXV 15
Prov.: Unknown Date: ca. AD 350
Mat.: Notebook of 5 waxed tablets, 13 x 18 cm.
Cont.: No writing on the two covers. Some traces of previous writing remain. On all tablets,
except no. 4, a maxim appears, Isocrates, Ad Demonicum 1, copied 7 times. The
tablets are ruled and in the first line the pupil wrote his name, Aurelius Antonios son
of Nemesion. In tablet 1 the name appears also at the end of the exercise, together with
other names, probably schoolmates, and the planetary date. The tablet seems to have
been written by the same pupil (not the teacher, as in ed.pr., because the writing is not
very even: the letters start and end very large, but are considerably smaller in the mid-
dle). Tablet 4 is not ruled and contains a col. of 7 nouns starting in nu, divided into
syllables, and multiplications, separated by a wavy line. On the bottom right corner
appears the date of the exercise. It is the only tablet without the pupil’s name and
appears to have been written as a model by the teacher.
Hand 1: "Rapid," formal round, strictly bilinear, only epsilon is often ligatured. The name is
written more freely and sloppily.
Hand 2: A teacher’s, rather quick with cursive elements and less stiff than the pupil’s.
Generally upright, it follows an informal round style. The writing maintains through-
out a perfect legibility.

396
Ed.pr.: B. Boyaval, ZPE 17 (1975) 225-35 Louvre MND, MND 552 L-K-I-H
Photo: Tafel VII-VIII; Boyaval 1974, Tafel XII
Bibl.: P? 1619, Z 83, D 112, 191, 160, 216; B. Boyaval, ZPE 14 (1974) 241-47; RA 2 (1977)
215-29; van Haelst 239
Prov.: Memphis Date: IV AD
Mat.: Incomplete notebook of 5 waxed tablets, 18 x 13.5 cm.
Cont.: MND and MND 552L, side A, contain the model and Aurelius Papnouthis’ copy (he
signs and dates some of the tablets) of five verses of Menander (already known from
Comp. Menan. Philist. 1.105-108, IV.39-40 and Menandri Sententiae, Jaekel p. 133
line 7) and of some metrological signs. Tablet 552L (side B) contains ten distichs in
iambic trimeters on figures from history and mythology in acrostic, which were con-
tinued on a lost tablet. Tablets 552K and I (side A) preserve exercises on fractions and
measures (by a third hand). Tablets 552I (side B) and 552H carry Psalm 146.1-11, fol-
lowed by some iambic trimeters. All the verses were written continuously, separated
only by single or double oblique or horizontal strokes. Diaeresis is marked. The
nomina sacra are mostly abbreviated with carelessly drawn supralineations. The mis-
takes show that Menander’s verses were copied from the model, the Psalm perhaps
278 NOTEBOOKS

was written from memory, while the ten distichs were probably dictated because some-
times the pupil seems to have completely lost the sense of the text.
Hand 1: A teacher’s, with very large letters all separated, clearly influenced by the chancery
style. It is simple and elegant, and developed vertically; occasionally embellishments
such as loops and roundels decorate the letters. It slopes very lightly to the right.
Hand 2: "Evolving," quick, not very even, appears much more cursive than the model even
though the letters touch and are not truly ligatured. In tablet MND 552L the hand was
clearly influenced by the model’s style, but in the other tablets it is generally rounder.

397
Ed.pr.: B. Boyaval, ZPE 17 (1975) 145-50 T.Louvre MND 552 E, F
Photo: Planche V b Bibl.: D 190; van Haelst 205
Prov.: Antinoopolis Date: IV AD
Mat.: Two waxed tablets partially preserved, 19 x 7.5 cm.
Cont.: Psalm 92 written on badly ruled tablets with unevenly spaced lines. There are many
phonological mistakes, but not enough to prove a dictation. The verses are transcribed
continuously and are divided by two oblique lines, sometimes forgotten. The nomina
sacra are abbreviated with supralineations drawn carelessly.
Hand: "Alphabetic," with contrast between narrow and wide letters. Epsilon, mu, and alpha
are almost always ligatured. Some letters are drawn with a certain fluency.

398
Ed.pr.: Pap.Lugd. Bat. XXV 17 T.Leiden Pap.Inst.inv. V 12-13-14
Photo: Plate XVI
Bibl.: F.A.J. Hoogendijk, Bibliologia 12 (Brepols 1992) 159-61
Prov.: Unknown Date: Mid IV AD
Mat.: Two incomplete waxed tablets, 13.5 x 14.1, 14.1 x 17.7 cm.
Cont.: Written across the long dimension, all the sides bear writing, if only traces. On the
wooden border there is a name, Paulos. On tablet IB there is the outline of a rectangle
and a top panel in which nine letters are written, probably the exercise of a beginner
(see, however, the hypothesis of the ed.pr.: archaic Greek letters, symbols, cryp-
tograms). On side IIA there is a fictitious contract written by a second hand, the loan
of a hundred myriads of denarii with the names of two fictitious parties. The way in
which the amount of the loan is stated and the large amount place the document in the
second quarter of the fourth century.
Hand 1: "Zero-grade," with large, uncertain, multistroke letters.
Hand 2: "Rapid," leaning to the right, with mostly separated letters and some unevenness.

399
Ed.pr.: F. Lenormant, RA 8 (1852) 461-70 Not found
Photo: None published Bibl! P»2730) 7360) D'23
Prov.: Memphis Date: IV AD?
Mat.: Notebook of 8 waxed tablets
 NOTEBOOKS 279

Cont.: Only two of the tablets, nos. 2 and 3, have a scholastic content: alphabets. The rest of
the writing consists of accounts, written by a different hand (cf. 402 and 394).
Hand: Described as a beginner’s, with very similar delta’s and alpha’s.

400
Ed.pr.: Pap.Flor. XVIII 33-42 T.Louvre inv. MNE-912
Photo: Tavv. XLIII-LII
Prov.: Unknown Date: III-V AD
Mat.: Complete notebook of 5 waxed tablets, 22 x 15.5 cm.
Cont.: Notebook used by different individuals who took advantage of the space without erasing
the previous writing. The general level of the exercises is elementary. Some consist of
mathematical operations. On tablet 1 some kind of writing exercise (different formulas,
still partly visible) was written on top of divisions by a not completely fluent hand,
perhaps an apprentice scribe. On tablet 2 there is a teacher’s model with S trisyllabic
nouns divided into syllables (in line 3 one must read ITIa\\adec). The exercise was
terminated with a long quasi-paragraphos and a date. On tablet 4 there are different
levels of writing: letters practiced over and over, the word vmareia traced in experi-
enced cursives and by a less fluent hand. Then, turning the tablet, one sees other words
or partial words in crude capitals. On the other side the alphabet is written several
times and the name Ldppatoc appears inscribed rather clumsily. Tablet 5 displays pen
trials, letters of the alphabet, and a proper name in clumsy letters, hard to see.
Hand 1: A teacher’s, with clear, well-spaced, large letters. The hand is vertical, upright, and
influenced by the chancery style. Delta is crested and upsilon is drawn in one looped
sequence. The initial pi’s seem slightly enlarged. There are a few ligatures and alpha is
formed cursively.
Hand 2: "Alphabetic" on tablets 4B and 5; there are other hands, more or less practiced.

401
Descriptum: F.G. Kenyon, JHS 9 (1909) 39 T.BM Add.Ms. 33368
Photo: None published, photos illegible Bibl.: P? 2714, Z 229, D 323
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV-V AD
Mat.: Notebook made of 8 small waxed tablets
Cont.: Some of the tablets contained grammatical material, such as the names of the cases, and
a drawing appears on one of them.
Hand: Not described.

402
Ed.pr.: W. Brashear, Enchoria 13 (1985) 16-17 T.Wurzburg K 1013
Photo: Tafel 5-7
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV-V AD
Mat.: Five waxed tablets, all broken except one, 15 x 20 and 7.5 x 20 cm.
Cont.: Another example of a school notebook later used for more practical purposes (cf. 399
and 394). Tablets 2-4 contain mathematical exercises, divisions of words into syllables
280 NOTEBOOKS

by spaces (words in tau in 3A and in upsilon in 4), and alphabets (4B). The text of
tablet 5 consists of a record of properties written in cursives.
Hand 1: "Evolving," writing the list of words, with alpha and epsilon ligatured.
Hand 2: "Zero-grade" in the alphabet, with huge, tentative letters of varying size.

403
Ed.pr.: MPER NS IV 24 P.Vindob.G. 29274
Photo: LXXV-LXXVI Bibl.: D 24; van Haelst 136
Prov.: Arsinoite Date: IV-V AD
Mat.: Complete notebook made of 4 double papyrus sheets of bad quality, 5 x 9.5 cm.
Cont.: The first 5 pages are numbered in order (from alpha to epsilon) by the first hand, which
writes Psalm 32. 9-15 on pages 1-8. Then, turning the booklet around, a different hand
writes what could be a citation from the Bible in Coptic on page 16. A third hand
writes pages 15-10: an alphabet and exercises on the alphabet consisting of writing the
letters backwards, every other four, the first and the last, and other combinations
without an apparent system. This hand also starts copying Psalm 32 on the bottom part
of page 5 (lines 4-6) and on the empty page 9, and draws a stick figure on page 10.
There is a chrism at the start of each page. Long quasi-paragraphoi mark some kind of
pause. There are some line fillers or a word may be enlarged to fill the space.
Hand 1: "Evolving," in fairly even capitals of varying size. The letters, except in a few cases,
are not ligatured, but they often touch. The hand is more careful in the first pages,
with some kind of bilinearity trying to obtain a continuous middle horizontal line.
Hand 3: "Zero-grade," uncertain about the shape of some letters. Spidery and multistroke, it
often ligatures some letters, of which certain parts are elongated even in the alphabet.

404
Ed.pr.: G.Plaumann, Ber. Berl.Mus. 34 (1913) 214-19 T.Berol. 14000
Photo: Abb. 98, 99, 100 for tablets 1,4,8; Schubart 1921, 31 Plate 8; Widmann 1967, Abb. 8;
E.G. Turner, The Papyrologist at Work (Durham 1973) Plate 6 A; LXXVII-LXXVIII
Bibl.: P? 2737, Z 361, D 2, 79, 147; Widmann 1967, 545-640; K. Gaiser, Gymnasium 75
(1968) 205-206; Miiller 1977, 95-96; CGFP 319
Prov.: Unknown Date: IV-V AD (ed.pr.), but probably later
Mat.: Incomplete notebook made of 9 waxed tablets, 17.5 x 9.5 cm.
Cont.: On the first tablet bisyllabic words divided into syllables on the left, with additions and
multiplications on the right separated by a curved line. On tablet 2 and on side A of 3
there are only confused traces, while side B exhibits a combination of letters between
two crosses followed by the words d&c¢ and fo7 and by letters placed in the shape of a
cross forming the word eypovond. Only side B of tablet 4 is written with a maxim
inscribed as a teacher’s model. Tablet 5 shows rows of letters practiced by the pupil
tablets 6, 7, and 8 contain numbers, and tablet 9 a list of words in theta divided ths
syllables and more numbers. Many vertical lines separate the exercises, The spelling of
the words in theta is made to fit the pattern of combinations with the different vowels.
Hand 1: "Evolving," with letters formed with confidence, but always unevenly.
 NOTEBOOKS 281

Hand 2: A teacher’s, probably a calligraphic model, with very large letters almost all sepa-
rated. The letters are mostly tall and narrow and most of the time they are upright and
decorated with serifs. The shape of chi, mu with the first stroke starting well below the
baseline, and the V-shaped upsilon point to a late date.

405
Ed.pr.: PSE118 + PSI119 P. Biblioteca Laurenziana
Photo: Wouters 1979, Plate V of PS7 18 and LXXVIII
Bibl.: P? 344, 1207; Z 230, 271; D 311, 290; Di Benedetto 1958, 191; F. Montanari, Actes
XVII Congr. Grande Gréce (1977) 280-81, SCO 29 (1979) 175-76 and Montanari 1979,
57-64; Wouters 1979, 120-24
Prov.: Unknown Date: V AD
Mat.: Two sheets of papyrus written on both sides, part of a codex, 9.3 x 6.5 cm.
Cont.: On the first sheet part of the supplement De Pedibus and the beginning of the Techne of
Dionysius, with the title of the whole work or more probably the first section, Hepi
Toappatixns, surrounded by double short pen strokes. A few abbreviations and
horizontal strokes over two words. There are traces of decorations on the recto in the
left margin. The second sheet contains catechismal questions and answers on the
Trojan War. Horizontal supralineations are drawn carelessly on some words, maybe to
mark the most important notions. At the end of the recto there are elaborate decora-
tions. In general the text contains a few mistakes.
Hand: "Rapid," with an overall impression of fluency, particularly in the first sheet. It is more
careless in the second, which probably contained notes of the pupil. There is some
influence of the chancery style, with some letters oversized and others tiny.

406
Ed.pr.: J. Schwartz, Et. Pap. 7 (1948) 93-109 P.IFAO inv. 320
Photo: LX XIX
Bibl.: P? 2644, Z 362, D 289; F. Montanari, Actes XVII Congr.Grande Gréce (1977) 280-87,
SCO 29 (1979) 175 no. 11 and Montanari 1979, 57-64.
Prov.: Unknown Date: Byzantine (V-VI AD)
Mat.: Fragments of parchment notebook with 7 leaves, 10 x 6 cm.
Cont.: General considerations on the Trojan War, then catechismal questions on the Greeks
and the Trojans followed by a summary of the causes of the war with the judgment of
Paris. At the conclusion some brief rules of metrics about disyllabic nouns (as in the
Ilepi Ilo6@v of Dionysius Thrax) and a phonological classification of the letters of the
alphabet. The personal work of the pupil is evident in the summary, which goes back
ultimately to the Kypria, but reveals syntactical problems and many oddities. There are
some phonetic mistakes. In side IV a vertical line is used to insert something.
Hand: "Rapid," informal round capitals, roughly bilinear with only a few ligatures. Written
with a heavy pen. Some letters are smudged and there are a few inkblots.
282 NOTEBOOKS

407

Ed.pr.: Pap. Flor. XVIII 43-50 T.Louvre inv. MNE-913

Photo: Tav. LIII-LX
Prov.: Unknown Date: End of VI AD
Mat.: Incomplete notebook of 4 waxed tablets, 16.5 x 14.5 cm.
Cont.: Mostly arithmetical exercises. On the cover a cross and a few letters. On tablet 4 there
are some letters of the alphabet (especially gamma) and on the top a name, Papnoutis
son of Silvanos, not written completely fluently.
Hand: "Evolving," with semicursive letters; perhaps an apprentice scribe.

408

Ed.pr.: Pap. Flor. XVIII 51-70 T.Louvre inv. MNE-914

Photo: Tavv. LXI-LXXXI
Prov.: Kerkeeris Date: End of VI AD
Mat.: Complete notebook of 10 waxed tablets, 21.5 x 13.5 cm.
Cont.: On the two covers there are a nomen sacrum and a name between ornamented crosses
and two concentric circles and a sacred monogram. On many of the tablets there are
mathematical operations or accounts. On tablet 2, side 2, which contains fractions, a
different hand wrote, "Jesus Christ victor." At least two different hands worked on
tablet 3: a date, an invocation, and alphabets written by a practiced hand. On tablet 6,
side 1 a Christian invocation was repeated 3 times. On side 2 there is an alphabet writ-
ten with a certain fluency and remains of prayers. On tablet 7, side 1 a practiced hand
wrote exercises starting with chrisms and parts of prayers on the other side. Toward
the bottom of side 1 of tablet 8 a less experienced hand wrote an invocation to Christ
in large letters.
Hands: Several, probably apprentice scribes at different levels of ability.

409

Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 119 * P.Vindob.G. 26152

Photo: Tafel 54
Prov.: Unknown Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Small papyrus codex of poor quality made of one double sheet, 4.6 x 8.2 cm.
Cont.: The first two pages are written across the fibers and the third with the fibers, but to
write the last the pupil turned the booklet 90 degrees, maybe to obtain longer lines.
The codex contains the story of the son who murdered his father (cf. 230, 231, 232,
314, 323, and 412). The orthography is very poor.
Hand 1: "Alphabetic," crude and hesitant, showing many problems with alignment and letter
size and inclination.
Hand 2: "Evolving" only on page 3, with letters better formed and always slanting to the right.
It cannot be ruled out, however, that the improvement was only due to the better writ-
ing surface and that only one hand was responsible for the work.
 NOTEBOOKS 283

410
Ed.pr.: K. Treu, Archiv 18 (1966) 36 P.Berol. 3605
Photo: LXXX Bibl.: van Haelst 531
Prov.: Arsinoite Date: VI-VII AD
Mat.: Incomplete double parchment leaves, part of a notebook, 18 x 6 cm.
Cont.: Top part of the front and back of a leaf (the other is blank) inscribed with the first letter
of Paul to Timothy 1, 4-5, 6-7. In three places double oblique strokes are used. The
text of the page starts in the middle of a word and is the continuation of another page
which carried probably the beginning of the letter. A nomen sacrum is abbreviated.
Hand: "Evolving," uneven with varying letter size and only a few ligatures.

411
Ed.pr.: B. Rom and H. Harrauer, CdE 57 (1982) 303-308 WT Barbara
Photo: Fig. 1 Bibl.: MPER NS XV 171 for tablet 1
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Notebook of 3 waxed tablets, 27 x 16.5 cm.
Cont.: On tablet 1 mathematical operations. On the second a list of proper names written in
four cols. and on the back traces of numbers. The third tablet is blank. The list of
names is divided into 3 groups in alphabetical order.
Hand: A teacher’s, practiced with a few ligatures. The letters are upright, neat, and elegant. A
few letters are narrow, and the omicron’s are tiny. Delta has a long, drawn-out base.

412
Ed.pr.: MPER NS XV 122-131 P.Heid.inv.G. 321 d-e-c-b-a-f
Photo: Tafel 56-58
Prov.: Unknown Date: VII AD
Mat.: Papyrus notebook of 5 double and 2 single sheets cut from a bigger codex (see ink traces
in the margin of page 2), with stitching holes, 5.7 x 15, 6.7 x 15, 6.3 x 7.2, 6.4 x
[AS oe), 6.7 x 7-1-cm.
Cont.: The story of the son who murders his father (cf. 230, 231, 232, 314, 323, and 409),
usually only the beginning of it, repeated several times by at least four different hands
(according to ed.pr., but it is difficult to recognize exactly the work of each hand).
There are two sketches of a lion and the initials are sometimes elaborately decorated.
The mistakes due to phonetic spelling are extremely numerous and betray the great
influence of the Egyptian pronunciation. The hypothesis of the ed.pr. of a dictation is
difficult, because there are repetitions of lines and sometimes the text is very brief.
Perhaps the story, which was well known, was memorized in each case.
Hand 1: "Alphabetic" (probably from page 5 to 8), becoming more confused as it proceeds.
Hand 2: "Zero-grade" (probably page 9 and 17). It actually seems better than it is, but has
great difficulty in forming clear, individual letters.
Hand 3: "Alphabetic" (page 13), the general look is not too bad, but the single letters are prac-
tically unintelligible.
Hand 4: "Zero-grade" (probably page 21, 23, 26), extremely confused. Generally all these
hands betray the work of beginners who had just learned the basic letter shapes and
284 NOTEBOOKS

were making their first attempts to put them together. Sometimes the most daring liga-
tures are created, rendering the letters hardly recognizable. Some letters (e.g., efa, mu,
nu) are mixed up, others (e.g., phi, beta) are traced with extreme difficulty, and others
are so tentative that they cannot possibly be identified.
Items Excluded from the Catalogue

A brief discussion of the items of Debut’s list! that I excluded from this catalogue is necessary.
Although I often refer to Zalateo’s list,2 I do not discuss it systematically. Debut’s list was
intended to be not only a continuation of Zalateo’s but also a revision and correction of that
list. My catalogue includes almost exclusively school exercises.? As a rule, professionally pro-
duced school texts are excluded, but it is still necessary to give some reasons for this choice
and to indicate when a professionally produced text was likely to have been used in a school
context. Among the items included by Debut as exercises there are also many whose identifica-
tion is not entirely secure and others that have been misinterpreted. In addition, some items
originated in rhetorical schools, or they have been written by scribes at an advanced stage of
their training, or for various reasons cannot be securely considered school exercises.4

Items Misjudged
The items belonging to this category have been wrongly considered Greek school exercises.°
Some of them were identified in publications that appeared either before or after Debut’s list. I
identified others of these texts during the course of this study.®
Debut 29: “an alphabet in two columns.” It is, however, an exercise in multiplication.’
D. 51 and 61: Late Coptic school exercise (MPER NS XVIII 79).
D. 97, 356, 357, 361: “lists and grammatical exercises.” Identified as tachygraphic com-
mentary by D. Hagedorn, ZPE 42 (1981) 127-30.8
D. 105: list. The list of words is accompanied by tachygraphic signs (G. Menci, PSI
XVII Congr. 17).
D. 109: from the description it seems Debut did not refer to P. Vars. 8, but to 7. Both
are considered school exercises by Zalateo.? They are both fragments of documents, written by
uncertain hands. !°
D. 122: according to Debut, a schoolboy wrote the names of his classmates, but it
appears that the text contains a documentary list of names, which were very well written.

ISee Debut 1986.

2See Zalateo 1961.
3Sce, however, 81, 84, 97, and 120.
4There are errors in Debut’s list. I note here only those mistakes that are likely to cause problems for users of
her list. The following items are impossible to find (Debut nos. 22, 133, 138, 111, 162, 198, 279, 281, 355); other
items have been listed twice in the same section, but the duplication is hidden by the fact that the texts are cited in a
different manner (Debut nos. 120 = 121 bis, 143 = 110, 272 = 268, 263 = 273 = 238, 382 = 301, 386 = 308).
5One was an exercise, but mathematical.
They are generally considered school exercises by Zalateo and Pack.
7See Raffaella Cribiore, “A Table of Squares (P.Tebt. II 683 verso),” BASP 30 (1993) 23-25.
8See also Patrice Cauderlier, Pap.Flor. XIX, pp. 123-29.
%See Zalateo nos. 63 and 64.
l0See Raffaella Cribiore, “P.Vars. 7: Not a School Exercise,” BASP 30 (1993) 83-86.
286 EXERCISES AND TEXTS EXCLUDED

D. 287: “a school summary.” In actuality part of a collection of hypotheses of the Odys-

sey (W. Luppe, Archiv 27 [1980] 33-35).
D. 300: poetic exercise (verses in the style of Pindar), written carelessly. Identified by
B. Snell, in Hermes 67 (1932) 1-13, as a Paean of Bacchylides. From the photo the hand
appears informal, but fast and quite experienced.
D. 303: arguments of two plays of Menander from a collection of hypotheses written by
an informal, but quite experienced hand.
D. 358: “grammatical exercises.” Identified by D. Hagedorn, in ZPE 41 (1981) 287-88,
as part of a tachygraphic commentary.
D. 362: “paraphrase.” Identified by F. Montanari, in Rivista di Filologia e Istruzione
Classica 115 (1987) 24-32, as a fragment from Euripides, Hecuba 216-31. The hand is experi-
enced.
D. 364: “paraphrase of Iliad 11 written by a student.” Identified in ZPE 48 (1982) 89-
92 as part of a formal collection of hypotheses.
D. 388: “student’s composition.” It appears to have been a magical ostracon, containing
a race course curse. ;

Books
The items listed below are books that were produced by professional scribes, although they
have on occasion been cited by Zalateo and Debut as exercises or as texts used in school con-
texts.!! Only in very few cases!” are there any indications that such books might have been
used in schools at all. Books such as these were copied by professional scribes and sold to pri-
vate people, scholars, libraries, and of course sometimes to students and teachers. They contain
at times stichometric letters that indicate that they were the work of a paid scribe. They are
often copied on the back of a papyrus, and this must be the main reason why they were
included in Zalateo’s and Debut’s lists at all. They contain poetry, especially Homer and
Menander, works of mythography, grammatical treatises, and gnomic anthologies. The gnomic
anthologies in particular may have been used at times by teachers to select maxims and sayings
to dictate. I do not believe they were used and handled by students at an elementary level as
copy books. ;
The following items appearing as school books in Debut’s list are thus questionable:
D; 92,106 bis, 1515; 208,> 209, 212.215. 219,-2401% 245,252,024 1215 soos ee
299; 301, =" 382,309; 312, 317, 329,330 = 359,334, 337,343,349 435024525360. .

11 A : ; A 3
See, e. g-, in section 5 of Zalateo s list the many grammatical treatises that do not offer any guarantees that
they were used in schools. The same is true in section 6 (12) for gnomic anthologies. In section 6 (13) at least nos
rit a 264, 265, 266, 268, 269, and 273 do not provide any compelling indication that they were used in
schools.
x will indicate when this happens.
This anthology of gnomai of Chares of Lampsacus perhaps was used in elementary school (see rat [a] 1.3)
cay the collection does not seem suited to giving help with rhetorical compositions. -
ae ete NS I 3 (inv. 26469) was perhaps a book used in school, since the text presented many accents and
ireathings
g and sometimes word word separation.
ion. Unfortunately its whereabouts is
1 unknown and a photograph is i not avail-
i

\SThis Homeric tex t contains

i tre difficult
many accents. It is Ae to say whether they were mark
y arked by the same hand
or by another.
 EXERCISES AND TEXTS EXCLUDED 287

Indistinguishable Items
These items share the characteristic that they were written in fast hands, which were more or
less informal. In general Zalateo and Debut considered them school exercises. In most cases it
was the editor’s description of the hand and the fact that they were written on the back of a
papyrus that triggered a definition of school exercise. Some of these texts might be cheap
books or private copies, while the informally written passages out of grammatical treatises
might have been copied by scholars for their own use.
Among the items that I consider uncertain and therefore did not include in this
catalogue, there is a group of papyri containing Scholia Minora. These have been included by
Debut!® because she based her choices on the editors’ opinion, and especially in the past,
Scholia Minora were always considered students’ compilations. Nowadays scholars are more
cautious, since it is clear that not only students needed the kind of help in reading Homer that
these commentaries provided.
I consider indistinguishable the following items in Debut’s list:
D. 96, 104, 150, 153 = 234, 155, 187, 194, 229, 230, 233, 235, 236, 243, 244. 249, 250,
25536256, 200, 200, 2645-265, 209, 270) 271, 274, 275, 277, 278, 282; 304, 306, 307,325,
334, 343, 344, 348, 351, 353, 385.!7

Rhetorical and Scribal Exercises

Debut included in her list some rhetorical exercises that are very well written and do not pre-
sent particular mistakes or graphic characteristics that might justify the inclusion.!8 The same
items also appear in Zalateo who had included even more, in spite of his statement that he was
going to consider only elementary education.
Rhetorical exercises of this kind in Debut are:
Dye2 51 = 3574, 292, -316,-369, 367, 368, 3383.
In Debut’s list also appear some advanced scribal exercises that represent the work of
scribes with a considerable ability. Such items are:
DR Oe Ulsed 2), 10,7510:

Miscellaneous Items

Other items that appear in Debut’s list have been excluded from this catalogue for various
reasons: two originated in classical Greece (D. 28 and 52), some regard the learning of the
Latin language, which Debut intended to exclude from her study (D. 38, 99, 137, 332, 354).
For some items either it is not at all clear of what they consist, or their description is insuffi-
cient and a photograph is not available. Such items are: D. 57, 133, 141, 194, 199, 200.

167Z,Jateo included even more of them.

17 This papyrus fragment was also included by Zalateo as a composition. It is proficiently written, even if the
hand is informal and contains the description of a temple, which can hardly belong among exercises of the
elementary school.
184 few rhetorical exercises appear also in my catalogue on account of the hand, the mistakes, or graphic
and are interesting to follow in their development, e.g., the
characteristics which generally are typical of exercises
many horizontal lines of various length in No. 294. A collection of rhetorical exercises can be found in K. Jander,
Oratorum et Rhetorum Graecorum Fragmenta Nuper Reperta, Kleine Texte 118 (Bonn, 1913).
 She
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a - _ =
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al “ le aces =
: wey ira? ARs a > i
_ rn — a _ ite - 7 = I aera) =

| _ _ 2 _ s WAY = = a
. . nan hae — yi. = — a? ae = ~ _—_
1 . A

erly: ies bee ho avr m pied

bay a2 "emt, aay erie “and wT host jihe

- _ ay Gtk. 4 a
| on
: 7 Fact NNT a = ee “ = Pon i noie ic aon haan

Se thySaabs lisi) és1 : J dt va uN‘e)aa a he

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Concordances

Table of Concordance Zalateo - Cribiore

391 hy
392 180
15% 181
223 182
134 186
292 187
294 188
OMAIDNWNEN 296 189
298 190
296 192
310 194
222 195
eS
See
Bb
nA
CO
WN 236 196
241 201
242 207
382 209
265 ple)
206 220
101 oo Zoe
300 a23
199 22)
114 217 227
224 229
315 230
315 RYE
all) 234
315 235
177 S15 Zor
243 Sil) 238
182 315 241
178 315 245
Ihe) Si) 246
181 303 247
180 344 250
131 100 346 OB.
258 101 347 pny
261 102 260 220
nnn 361
HP
HB
BR
WY
WY
WN
WNNN
WW
PW 103 263 258
266 104 269 Zoy
105 106 273 260
 298

Table of Concordance Debut - Cribiore

D C D C D C D C D C
1 ile) 48 86 1025, t16 146 221 192773219
2 404 49 89 LO2.=, 123 147 404 19399200)
3 26 50'*4 82 LO3sa99 148 222 LOS 181
3 27 Se mesh 106 126 149 180 19685258
4 118 54. 79 LOT, 132 S24 193 [97a 109
5 60 = pal 108 383 154 206 PAU gePAs)
5 16 Bee) amels) ITO) Ssi es Lag o9 202= 190
6 9 Site 372 [ei 139 [5378296 20355 2A,
7 34 50am 3 Ub2s 396 150ne 22 204 218
8 68 625% 85 [See 386 160 396 205ae 215
9 49 3a S35 114 160 16 Lee 30 2068" 393
LOee 51 64 388 115 134 16395 S15 207 236
Lis 30) 652 379 116) 176 164 315 2A te2D
I2ey 63 66 8678 Lag e8, 106 Ieee oe 2 ee ee
1398.32 671a2 19 118 140 166 315 213 234
14 73 ope) ely 118b 209 Move * goals) 214 393
L5an 05 699 5398 bios 145 168:— 315 ZO 300
Korea Taw 101 120.9 119 169he 315 29 S12
17s 41 74 ~=100 [21h 4i 172 224 GHMare}
18 42 15i5e— 105 Wolo Mele ese 225 220, S16
Loa 79 102590 12358 175 174 226 22 ee oa
20pm 52 ae 395 124 137 174b 227 2220" 5O9
Z3me 399 78 =6114 12655 162 Wis) renGis) 223= 203
24 403 79 ~~ =404 Lis 16 176 386 224 386
Zot, 14 80 379 128 142 ee ae. 225t mnO0O
2695 67 Sieue 102 Iocan 394 L78F e250 220 =S10
ion Th S7aRy 39D 1295397 Loja 178 221 245
BOM 2 iohy epee) 130 243 179 178 228 248
Silay 79 84 393 13tec 159 180 182 Zola joe
j2uG SS 112 13258389 181 269 232,429"
336, 64 S68 379 134 168 18255 202 PHM Po ANS)
34 44 87 390 15a 39 183ey 137 238 340
3545.55 SSeires 9S 1368! 30 184 207 23955 290
40 379 892°) 379 139 184 1S5an 297; 242 342
41 78 90 108 140 185 186 388 246 291
42 80 93 274 142 383 188 110 2AT Moot
43 79 94 ill 143 139 188 214 248 267
44 96 O59 9 143 135 189 204 254 326
46 87 OS ee 379 144 208 1208) 397 20) 44320
BN~ \OO 106%% 122 [45> 216 TO tee 396 2965" 328
 CONCORDANCE DEBUT - CRIBIORE

C D C
529 340 375
334 341 378
333 342 364
340 345 388
337 346 366
336 347 376
343 356 376
343 360 385
Did 363 203
346 366 388
280 370 146
352 ofl 159
335 373 344
406 315 351
405 376 284
241 3/7. 347
282 378 266
303 380 233
242 384 260
340 387 179
265 387 178
Spy) 389 99
300 390 263
267 o92 349
405 B92 348
LOZ 595 275
133 394 353
298 395 314
362 379 350
385
368
385
401
B13
384
o12
374
103
104
388
388
364
361
363
 301

Table of Concordance Pack? - Cribiore

P C P C P C FE C P C
31 244 1160 330 1760 179 2334 122 2095795
a1ehs 314 1168 332 1 G3 202 2476 245 2694 72
174 386 11709353 1794 175 2494 256 2695 34
221 303 1178 341 1843 159 2509 347 2696 74
344 405 1180 340 1876 266 2588 350 2697 73
378 240 P1S2" 337 1879 208 26035 233 2698 378
384 129 Oe 329 1881 221 2642 379 2699 127
396 242 196" 328 1882 139 2643 393 Ze
401 244 1198 326 1883 353 2644 406 2701 52
416 241 1199327 1884 142 2647 260 2702 50
422 282 1207 405 1885 391 2649 284 2703 64
425 303 P2300 91 1886 392 2650 346 2704 65
430 182 1236 283 1887 185 2651 280 2705 374
447 246 1243 293 1927' 207 2652 263 2706 372
491 386 1245 298 1935. 261 2653 187 2708 83
Spo" 168 1320 244 1945 354 2654 99 2709 118
90132 1322-228 1982 249 2655 344 ZiOR 200
DIV aweZ5 1340 184 1988 215 2656 190 2711 364
558 294 1341 159 1989 192 2662 316 LIL 238)
S61 - "315 1436 381 19902 211 2663 109 PANEER 8)
p6se227 1498 235 2068 380 2668 181 2714 401
S86) 226 1567 234 2076 217 2669 62 2715 44
587 224 [575 236 2081 218 2670 162 ZILOAL0S
611 310 1577 248 2083 288 PASTA say) 2117 82
636 296 1582 319 2099 380 2672 161 2718 103
6379 296 1584 262 2101 348 PAHi). bey 2718 104
646 259 1985: St 2101 349 2674 42 2720 189
6567= 201 1586 272 ZANOM 135 2676 114 AP AGIA ST:
Gav 7 3193 1587 312 ZAG 25), PROes) PMI, 2721 268
680 206 159021257 2134 123 2681 176 ZI22 209
694 292 1596 243 2138 358 2682 101 ZIZS 2594
704 212 1597 66 23953515 2685 108 2724 273
742 340 1610 135 2140 369 2686 110 2725 274
780 180 iNeOh seisye) 2142 368 2686 214 ZIZ0 eat
TOP 382 [619 "396 2148 362 2687 57 2729 106
834 199 1691 300 2162 363 2688 140 2130-309
1030 264 1697 235 2165-376 2689 143 21315 S0e
1078 291 1700 265 2166 366 2690 49 2731 146
1157 352 Wey a 2167 361 PLO IAOs) 2732 388
1158 343 1759 178 2332 95 2692 126 2idd> Bed
CONCORDANCE PACK? - CRIBIORE
 303

Table of Concordance Publication — Catalogue

AbhBerl (1865) 139-40 353

AbhBerl (1904) II 3-16 380
Actes XIV Congr. (1975) 25-28 395
Aegyptus 2 (1921) 306-307 326
Aegyptus 2 (1921) 307-308 327
Aegyptus 2 (1921) 308-309 329
Aegyptus 11 (1931) 169-70 294
Aegyptus 15 (1935) 239-45 246
Aegyptus 20 (1940) 7 374
Aegyptus 20 (1940) 8-11 363
Aegyptus 20 (1940) 12-14 372
Aegyptus 60 (1980) 107-109 322
Aegyptus 65 (1985) 96-97 75
Aegyptus 68 (1988) 169-75 91
Anc. Soc. 1 (1970) 201-35 390
Ann. Numism.Arch. 3 (1868) 76-7 146
Ann. Numism.Arch. 3 (1868) 69-77 389
Ann. Ist. Univ. Or. Napoli NS 15 (1965) 285-87 84
Ann. Pisa Ser. II 6 (1937) 8-15 247
Archiv 18 (1966) 36 410
Athenaeum Sept. 8 1894 pp. 319-21 297
Aus Pap.K6n.Mus. 233 134
BASP 8 (1971) 27-28 289
BCH 28 (1904) 201-05 266
BCH 28 (1904) 207-08 199
BCH 28 (1904) 208-09 159
Ber. Berl.Mus. 34 (1913) 214-19 404
Ber. Berl.Mus. 34 (1913) 219 384
Ber. Berl.Mus. 34 (1913) 219-20 340
Ber. Berl.Mus. 42 (1921) 101-104 233
BGU VII 1688 219
BIFAO 27 (1927) 79-82 206
BIFAO 61 (1962) 174 280
BIFAO 90 (1990) 376 53
BJRL 51 (1968) 162-63 71
BKT V.1. pp. 78-79 177
BKT V.2.XVII No.6 182
BKT VIII 10 317
CdE 10 (1935) 361-70 169
CdE 43 (1968) 114-21 342
304 TABLE OF CONCORDANCE

CaE 50 (1975) 195-96

CdE 57 (1982) 303-308
CdE 64 (1989) 210-15
CdE 66 (1991) 221-23
CdE 68 (1993) 145-54
CGT pl. 29 inv.19082, 18816, 18798, 18972
CGT pl. 12-13 inv. 27432
CGT pl. 28 inv. 31663
CGT pl. 29 inv. 21247
CGT pl. 29 inv. 26739
CGT plu32 inv26210; 26211, 26215
CGT pl. 34 inv. 33187
Chrest. Wilck. No.139
CO nr. 435
CP 16 (1921) 189-91
CP 16 (1921) 191-92
CP 28 (1933) 189-98
CQ 43 (1949) 1-3 No.1
CR 18 (1904) 2
CRAI 1945, pp.249-58
CRIPEL 2 (1974) 270-71
CRIPEL 10 (1982) 108-109
CRIPEL 10 (1982) 108-109
CRIPEL 10 (1982) 108-109
Enchoria 13 (1985) 16-17
Enchoria 14 (1986) 3-5
Enchoria 14 (1986) 8-9
Enchoria 14 (1986) 11-12
Enchoria 14 (1986) 12-13
Enchoria 14 (1986) 14-16
Enchoria 17 (1990) 1-8
Et.Pap. | (1932) 17 No.2
Et. Pap. 1 (1932) 17 No.8
Et.Pap. 1 (1932) 18 No.10
Et. Pap. 3 (1936) 105
Et. Pap. 4 (1938) 133-35
Et. Pap. 7 (1948) 93-109
Festsch.Ebers pp. 142-46
Fouilles Fr-Suisses I p. 115 no. 4
Hellenika 27 (1974) 242-43
Hermeneus 42 (1971) 255
Hermeneus 42 (1971) 255
Hermeneus 42 (1971) 253-55
HSCP 83 (1979) 313-21
 TABLE OF CONCORDANCE 305
HSCP 83 (1979) 331-37 345
JEA 8 (1922) 156-57 272
JHS 13 (1893) 296 200
JHS 13 (1893) 293-314 386
JHS 28 (1908) 121 44
JHS 28 (1908) 127 269
JHS 28 (1908) 122 No. II 105
JHS 28 (1908) 123, 43 (1923) 43 82
JHS 28 (1908) 124 No.IV 103
JHS 28 (1908) 124 No.V 104
JHS 28 (1908) 126 No. VII 189
JHS 28 (1908) 128 No.X 351
JHS 28 (1908) 129, 43 (1923) 42-43 274
JHS 28 (1908) 129 273
JHS 28 (1908) 130 275
JHS 28 (1908) 126, 130-31; 43 (1923) 40-42 267
JHS 29 (1909) 29-31 364
JHS 29 (1909) 32-39 385
JHS 29 (1909) 39 292
JHS 29 (1909) 39 401
JHS 43 (1923) 40-43 268
JHS 67 (1947) 134-35 249
JJP 3 (1949) 102-103 130
Mél. Bernand pp. 143-48 92
Mél. Grégoire, pp. 161-68 333
Mél. Nicole, pp. 181-82 142
Mél. Nicole, p. 182-83 392
Mél. Nicole, pp. 615-24 355
Mél. Nicole, p. 182 391
Mon. Epiph. Il 611 168
Mon. Epiph. I 612 225
Mon. Epiph. Il 613 226
Mon. Epiph. I 614 227
Mon. Epiph. Il 615 319
Mon.Epiph. Il 616 66
Mon. Epiph. Il 618 122
Mon. Epiph. I 620 67
Mon. Epiph. I 621 123
MPER V, pp.74-77, VI, pp.1-8 303
MPER NS 1 18 346
MPER NS Ill 24 262
MPER NS Ill 25 257
MPER NS itl 27 258
MPER NS Ill 28 261
306 TABLE OF CONCORDANCE

MPER NS Ill 29
MPER NS Ill 30
MPER NS ill 31
MPER NS ill 32
MPER NS Ill 33 B
MPER NS IV 24
MPER NS XV 5
MPER NS XV 11
MPER NS XV 12
MPER NS XV 13
MPER NS XV 14
MPER NS XV 15
MPER NS XV 16
MPER NS XV 17
MPER NS XV 19
MPER NS XV 20
MPER NS XV 21
MPER NS XV 23
MPER NS XV 26
MPER NS XV 27
MPER NS XV 28
MPER NS XV 29
MPER NS XV 31
MPER NS XV 32
MPER NS XV 33
MPER NS XV 34
MPER NS XV 35
MPER NS XV 36
MPER NS XV 37
MPER NS XV 38
MPER NS XV 39
MPER NS XV 40
MPER NS XV 41
MPER NS XV 45
MPER NS XV 45a
MPER NS XV 58
MPER NS XV 60
MPER NS XV 70
MPER NS XV 71
MPER NS XV 73
MPER NS XV 115
MPER NS XV 118
MPER NS XV 119
MPER NS XV 120
 TABLE OF CONCORDANCE 307

MPER NS XV 121 231

MPER NS XV 122-131 412
MPER NS XV 132 232
MPER NS XV 133 318
MPER NS XV 134 357
MPER NS XV 136 365
MPER NS XV 139 377
MPER NS XVIII 98 12
MPER NS XVIII 10 31
MPER NS XVIII 20 32
MPER NS XVIII 37 36
MPER NS XVIII 38 37
MPER NS XVIII 40 38
MPER NS XVIII 42 39
MPER NS XVIII 96 40
MPER NS XVIII 57 76
MPER NS XVIII 77 93
MPER NS XVIII 73 94
MPER NS XVIII 238 113
MPER NS XVIII 231 128
MPER NS XVIII 95 172
MPER NS XVIII 107 174
MPER NS XVIII 280 378
Orientalia Suecana 31 (1982) 38-39 107
O.Amst. 1 87
O.Ashm. 105 62
O.Bodl. 1 280 181
O.Bodl. II 2169 201
O.Bodl. II 2170 193
O.Bodi. II 2172 178
O.Bodl. I 2173 179
O.Bodl. II 2175 281
O.Bodl. II 2179 191
O.Bodl. II 2190 137
O.Bodl. IJ 2191 42
O.Bodl. II 2193 114
O.Bodl. I 2565 223
O. Claud. 1 179 45
O. Claud. 1 180 46
O. Claud. 1 181 47
O. Claud. 1 182 48
O. Claud. 1 184 194
O. Claud. 1 185 195
O. Claud. 1 186 196
308 TABLE OF CONCORDANCE

O. Claud. 1 187 197

O. Claud. 1 183 277
O. Claud. 1 188 278
O. Claud. 1 189 279
O.Edfou I 305 176
O.Edfou I 306 260
O. Edfou Il 307 101
O.Leid. 332 55
O.Mich. 1 656 108
O.Mich. 1 657 110
O.Mich. 1 658 214
O.Mich. 1 659 OW
O.Mich. 1 661 140
O.Mich. 1 662 143
O.Mich. 1 672 49
O.Mich. 1 693 213
O. Petr. 399-404, 406-08, 471-72 315
O. Petr. 405 312
O.Petr. 411 162
O. Petr. 412 59
O. Petr. 413 161
O. Petr. 449 311
O. Stras. 1 805 52
O. Stras. 1 806 50
O.Stras. 1 807 64
O. Stras. 1 808 65
O.Theb. iv 48 115
O. Wilck. 11 1147 242
O.Wilck. II 1149 224
O. Wilck. II 1226 217
O. Wilck. II 1310 218
O. Wilck. II 1488 243
Pap.Flor. XVIII 6 124
Pap.Flor. XVII 22 121
Pap.Flor. XVII 23-32 394
Pap.Flor. XVI 33-42 400
Pap. Flor. XVIII 43-50 407
Pap.Flor. XVIII 51-70 408
Pap.Flor. XVII 79-80 313
Pap.Flor. X1X pp. 132-33 no. 8 69
Pap.Flor. XXII 28-29 391
Pap.Flor. XXII 30-31 392
Pap.Lugd. Bat. XVII 18 301
Pap.Lugd. Bat. XXV 5 276
 TABLE OF CONCORDANCE 309

Pap.Lugd. Bat. XXV 11 68

Pap.Lugd. Bat. XXV 16 305
Pap.Lugd. Bat. XXV 17 398
Phoebammon II p. 124 no. 34 19
Phoebammon II p. 137 no. 75 20
Phoebammon II p. 137 no. 77 21
Phoebammon II p. 136 no. 72 22
Phoebammon II p. 126 no. 40 61
Phoebammon II p. 124 no. 33 163
Phoebammon II p. 149 no. 122 164
Proceed.XX Int. Congr. Pap. pp. 317-21 251
Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. 34 (1912) 97 215
PSI1 18, 19 405
PSI TV 280 221
PSI VII 761 373
PSI VII 1000 183
PSI XI Congr. 3 253
P.Amh. I 21 368
P.Amst. 13 116
P. Ant. I 68 369
P.Ant. 11 54 387
P. Ant. Ill 156 299
P. Bad. TV 111 222
P.Bon. 16 352
P.Cair.Zen. WV 59535 175
P.Col. VIII 206 367
P.Didot. pp. 16-28 244
P. Fay. 19 133
P.Freib. 1b 248
P.Freib. 2a 348
P.Freib. 1 2b 349
P. Genova II 53 100
P.Grenf. Il 84 314
P.Hamb. Il 166 376
P. Haun. 13 337
P. Haun. Il 46 271
P. Koln. 11 70 254
P. Koln. TI 125 250
P.Kéln. IV 176 370
P. Koln. IV 177 371
Lanx Satura pp. 310-14 119
P.Lond.Lit. 253 383
P.Lond.Lit. 255 298
P.Lund. 13 293
310 TABLE OF CONCORDANCE

P.Lund. V1 12 212
P. Mert. I1 54 282
P. Mich. Il 134 307
P. Mich. VII 1099 41
P.Mich. VIII 1100 209
P.Mil. Vogl. Il 120 332
P.Mil. Vogl. V1 263 188
P.Oslo If 12 330
P-Oslo Ml 13 362
P. Oslo Ill 66 259
POxye V9 350
P. Oxy. 1124 284
P. Oxy. II 209 302
P. Oxy: I 243 265
P. Oxy. I 285 131
P. Oxy. Il 425 207
P. Oxy. V1 966 208
P. Oxy. XXXI 2604 56
P. Oxy. XLII 3004 255
P. Oxy: XLIV 3159 336
P. Oxy. XLIV 3160 355
P. Oxy. XLIV 3174 210
P Oxys LILA 712 270
P.Par. 4 98
P. Rein. I pp. 5-12 252
P. Rein. I 84 187
P. Rein. II 85 211
P. Rein. II 90 96
P. Ross. Georg. 112 135
P.Ross.Georg. 1 13 139
P.Ross.Georg. 117 288
P.Ryl. 1 41 316
P.Ryil. I 443 109
P.Ryl. WI 533 366
P.Ryl. WI 537 341
P.Ryl. Wl 545 291
P.Schub. 20 300
P.Tebt. I] 278 99
P.Tebt. 1.2 901 129
P.Wash. 1 61 63
P. Yale 1 20 240
P. Yale Il 125 339
RA 8 (1852) 461-70 399
RA (1971) f. 1, pp. 58-60 85
 TABLE OF CONCORDANCE 311

RA (1971) f. 1, pp. 60-61 60

RA (1971) f. 1, pp. 61 16
RA (1983) f. 2, pp. 276-79 160
Racc.Lumbroso, pp. 254-55 235
Racc.Lumbroso, pp. 255-57 236
SB 15730 215
SCO 22 (1973) 41-43 264
SIFC 12 (1904) 320 354
Sitz. Berl. Akad. (1887) 818-19 343
Sitz. Berl. Akad. (1898) 847-56 381
Sitz. Berl. Akad. (1898) 857-58 202
Sitz. Berl. Akad. (1918) 739-42 237
Sitz. Berl. Akad. (1918) 742-43 234
Sitz. Berl. Akad. (1923) 160-83 380
Stud. Pal. II p. xliv 1 15
Stud. Pal. Il pp. xlv 2, xlvi-xlvii 3-4, xlviii-xlix 5 79
Stud. Pal. Il p. liii 10 29
Stud. Pal. Il p. liii 9 30
Stud. Pal. II p. liv 11 141
Stud. Pal. Il p. lv 12 88
Stud. Pal. Il p. lviii 375
Stud. Pal. 6 (1906) 148-61 393
Stud. Pap. 6 (1967) 99-107 102
Stud. Pap. 21 (1982) 11-14 320
Stud. Calderini Paribeni Il, p.481 58
Tyche 9 (1994) 1-8 180
ZPE 1 (1967) 45-53 186
ZPE 4 (1969) 175-76 335
ZPE 6 (1970) 1-5 290
ZPE 7 (1971) 257-58 338
ZPE 7 (1971) 259-60 334
ZPE 11 (1973) 65-68 331
ZPE 13 (1974) 97-103 216
ZPE 17 (1975) 145-50 397
ZPE 17 (1975) 225-35 396
ZPE 37 (1980) 179-83 238
ZPE 38 (1980) 259-60 295
ZPE 40 (1980) 96-97 89
ZPE 46 (1982) 124-26 81
ZPE 48 (1982) 97-104 321
ZPE 49 (1982) 43-44 138
ZPE 5211983) 291-92 229
ZPE 72 (1988) 263-66 120
ZPE 75 (1988) 297-300 308
old TABLE OF CONCORDANCE

ZPE 76 (1989) 86 54
ZPE 76 (1989) 88 205
ZPE 76 (1989) 88-90 285
ZPE 76 (1989) 88-91 286
ZPE 76 (1989) 91-92 203
ZPE 86 (1991) 231-32 383
ZPE 93 (1992) 209-11 158
ZPE 106 (1995) 175-78 95
ZPE 107 (1995) 263-70 136
Index

abbreviations 86-87 Coptic: exercises 29; script 3-4

accents 48, 85 copying 10-11, 143-45, 154-55; in
Adrastus, story of 32 Egyptian, Mesopotamian schools
Aeschines 44 154-55
Aesop 46, 47 coronis 83
alphabets 37-40, 70; hands writing corrections 95-96
131; letters of 37-39; hands writing criteria of identification 30
letters of 131
alphabetical order 43 dates 88-91; planetary 89-90; written
Ambrose, St. 139, 141 by teachers 90-91, 126
Ammonios (lector) 155 dating: models 126-27; school hands
Anastasios (student) 25 117
Antonios, Aurelius (student) 152 Debut, Janine 27-28, 285-88
Apakire (student) 40 Demotic 3-4
Apion 45 deskalos 23-24
Apollonios, son of Glaukias 41, 80-81, diaeresis 83-84
114, 146 diastole 85
apostrophe 84-85 dictation 92-93
Arrian 54 didaskaleion 17
Augustine, St. 8-9, 24, 139, 148 didaskalos 21, 163-66
Didymos (teacher) 16-17
Basil, St. 24, 55 Dio Chrysostom 18
bilingualism 9, 148 Diocletian, edict of 21-22
blank spaces 59-60; as punctuation 83 Diogenes, the Cynic 46
book hands, see hands, book Dionysius of Halicarnassus 140
books, school, see school, texts Dionysius Thrax 52, 79
borders 78 Dios (student) 15, 128
breathings 86 diple obelismene 82
dots 83
Callias 42 drawing 80-81
Canons, see Theodosius
Cato 99 education, unchanged 37
chalinoi 39-40 educational levels 30-31
chamaididaskalos 13-14, 18, 163 erasures 95-96
chancery hands, see hands, chancery error, see mistake
Charite, Aurelia 15, 156, 158 ethopoiia 52
chria, see saying Euripides 46, 49
chrism 86-87 exercises: Coptic 29; distinguishing
Chrysippus 44 features of 32, 75-96; definition of
Clement of Alexandria 39 28; Latin 29-30; mathematical 29-
Collart, Paul 27, 70 30; rhetorical 28, 44, 52, 287-88
Colloquies, school 14, 17, 24, 89
composition 51-52; hands writing 135 fables 46-47
314 INDEX

finial, see serif Kollouthos, Flavius 14-15, 33

Galen 44 Latin, exercises, see exercises, Latin

glossaries 28 lectional signs 83-88
gnome, see maxim lemma 50-51
grammar 52-53; hands writing 135; Libanius 19, 24
grammarian 20-22, 58, 147, 167-69 lines: horizontal 76; ornamented 79;
grammatodidaskaleion 17 vertical 77-78
grammatodidaskalos 162 line fillers 78
Gregory of Nyssa 140, 149 lists of words 42-43; hands writing
guidelines 62, 67-68, 143-44 131, 133; in Mesopotamia and
gymnasia 19-20 ancient Egypt 42
literate, mentality: in Egypt 4-5, 10,
hands: book 5, 97-98; chancery 5, 156, 157-59; in Middle Ages 10,
101-102; cursive 5, 97-98; 157-57
documentary 5; epistolary 4-5, 100, Livre d’écolier 20, 53, 125-26
156 ; of hypomnemata 100 Lollianos 16, 100
hands, school: characteristics of 102- Lucian 149
18; in notebooks 54; multistroke
105; types of 33, 111-112; relation- Maas’ Law 77
ship with cursives 112-14, and with Makarios (student) 147
styles 114-16 Manilius 139, 140, 141
hands, teachers’: chancery 5, 101-102; margins 103, n. 43
characteristics of 8, 97-102; formal mathematical, exercises, see exercises,
round 100; informal round 100- mathematical
101; pointed majuscule 102; size of maxim 44-45; Greek and Coptic 45;
99 hands writing 133
Heraidous 16, 17 memorization 42, 44, 154
Hermione, grammarian 22 Menander 46; monostikoi 45
Heroninos 7 mentality, literate, see literate,
Homer 46, 49, 50, 64 mentality
Homeric: anthology 51-52; hypothesis Mesopotamia 146, 154-55
51; paraphrase 51 mistakes 32, 91-95; in syllabaries 41;
Horapollon, Flavius 17, 19 morphological 93-94; synctactical
Hypatia 22 94-95; phonological 92-93; slips of
hyphen 85 the pen 91-92
hypogrammos 122 models 8, 47, 121-128; characteristics
of 124-27; list of 123-24; literary
initials 79, 99 evidence for 122-23;
Isocrates 46, 49
name, writing 40, 45, 146-48
Jerome, St. 141 Neilos (student) 16
nomina sacra 86-87
Kametis (student) 114 notebooks 53-55; ownership of 54-55;
kathegetes 14, 16, 167 size of 72
 INDEX 315

Oldfather 60 Quintilian 37, 39, 40, 41, 44, 48, 51,

Onomastica 42 113, 122-23, 141-43, 154
ostraca 18, 63-64, 70; containing
models 64, 125; low cost of 63; reading 8-10, 148-52, 157; in
provenance of 63-64; Ptolemaic Christian schools 150; silent 150
Oxyrhynchos, schools 17; school reading and writing, interdependent 9-
papyri 61 10, 148, 157
recto, see papyrus, front
Pacatula 141 rhetor 13, 169
palaeography 7-8, 32, 97-118 rhetorical, exercises, see exercises,
Palladas, grammarian 22, 25 rhetorical
Paneu and Panine, Passio 149 ruling, see lines
Papnouthis, Aurelius 7, 114
papyrus, school 57-62; back 60-62; salt tax 21
characteristics of 58-60; cost of 59- Sarapion (student) 21
62; cutting 59; for models 125-26; saying 46
front 60-62; poor quality of 58-59; schole 17
provenance of 57-58; rotating 61- Scholia D 50-51, 77
62; washing 59 Scholia minora 20, 50-51, 71-72, 287;
paradigm 52-53 hands writing 135
paragraphos 81-82 scholion 17
paraphrase 51 school: age 13; definition of 6;
parchment 69 premises 6, 17-20; text 28, 41, 85,
parents 15-16 121, 286-87
passage: long 47-49, 71; hands writing scribes 10-11; education of 28-29,
133, 135; short 46-47; hands writ- 115; exercises of 287-88; trials of
ing 133 29 n. 13, 38, 44, 71
Passio, see Paneu and Panine script, basic 153-54
Paula 141, 143 scriptio continua 9, 48, 75, 148
pedagogue 16, 161-62 scriptio plena 84
Petaus 150-151 Seneca 44, 122, 142-43
philoponei 127-28 sententia, see maxim
Plato 42, 46, 49, 104, 146, 154; serif 115
Protagoras 143-44 Shepherd of Hermas 48, 149
Pompeii, teachers 18, 25 slow writers 6, 150-52; hands 116-17
praescriptum 122-23 sophistes 14, 169-70
progymnasma 52 stroke-sequence 106-11
Psalms 150 syllabary 40-42, 70-71; hands writing
Ptolemaios (student) 16 131; on ostracon 64
Ptolemy Philadelphos, edict of 21 syllabic: method 8-9, 144-46; sepa-
punctuation 81-83 ration 43, 47, 87, 126
punishment, corporal 24-26 syllable 47-48
Synphronios (student) 149
quantity, marks 86
question-and-answer form 53-54 tablets 65-69; Academy 146-47; cost
316 INDEX

of 65; for models 125; individual

66; notebook of 65-66, 68-69;
provenance of 69; ruled 67-68
teachers 13-26, 161-70; acting as
scribes 22; hands of, see hands,
teachers; income of 16; more than
one 19, 21; Ptolemaic 21; women
22-24
teaching, levels 13-14, 20
techne grammatike 52-53
Theodosius, grammarian 52-53
Thespis 39-40
Thonis (student) 19
Timaios 6-7
titles 79-80

verse: distinction 88; in continuous

lines 87-88
verso, see papyrus, back

word division 48-49, 87

word list, see list of words
writing: calligraphic 115-16; continuity
103-104; definitions of 10; difficul-
ties in 106; in Middle Ages 7, 153-
54, 156-57; in silence 150; learning
137, 144-48; methods of learning
143-44; preceding reading 148-50;
speed of 104-105; stages in learning
137; uniformity 103
writing exercises 43-45; hands in 133
writing materials 32, 57-72, 158; use
of 69-72
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