This thesis presents an edition of eighteen previously unedited texts from the papyri excavated at Oxyrhynchus by Grenfell and Hunt. All are documentary and range in date from AD 55 to 387. The subject matter of these documents covers a range of activities which ostensibly reflect the day-to-day business of town and country, but on closer inspection give a deeper insight into broader topics concerning Roman and Byzantine Egypt. Although the documents seem diverse, the theme which links them is that which Lewis called “the silent majority, the men, women and children in the middle and bottom strata of society in their daily lives.” It reveals that which constitutes ‘the ordinary’ in this society and the everyday challenges faced by them: people find themselves in financial difficulty and take out a loan (001 and 013, both eranos loan contracts, a rarely attested type); a male and a female slave are sold to yet another master (002 and 012); an abandoned child is given a reprieve (007); two slaves are emancipated (003 and 006, the latter being the only Greek example of the payment of tax on a manumissio inter amicos); farmers hope for a good inundation (004 and 009); and ship-owners and skippers receive and transport tax grain along the Nile (010 and 014-018). All the documents present philological and prosopographical information which is new or can serve to consolidate or amend previous theories. The thesis contains a number of appendices which amend or update currently available information on a number of topics (e.g. Appendix III, Alexandrian Phyle-Deme pairings) and highlight some new thoughts on previously held opinions (e.g. Appendix VIII, Neo-natal Exposition in Roman Egypt).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:746127 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Fogarty, S. |
| Contributors | Gonis, N. |
| Publisher | University College London (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1476752/ |
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