The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part 62

2 β[ο]υληϲετ[.
3 Probably ē mēn sy indeed you with the future, a threat, as at Aristoph. N. 865, 1242, V. 1332, cf. Eccl. 1034, Plu. 608 (so ē mēn egō indeed I at V. 643, Eup. fr. 192.151 KA).
6 graphais hin' with indictments that... or graphaisō? nomōn graphaisin with indictments of laws in anonymous trochaic tetrameters, CGFPR 292.13.
7 The traces would allow all' ouchi Dēmarat[ but not Demarat[. But if so, who? The Spartan king might be linked with treachery (cf. 8): but does one expect such an historical allusion? Of Athenians (LGPN II 103), only the commander mentioned at Thuc. 6.105.2 is remotely of the right period. Nothing is known of him except for this raid (summer, 414); but his colleague Laispodias made many appearances in comedy (Aristoph. Av. 1569 with schol.; Eup. fr. 107 KA). All references are or may be ten to fifteen years later than Prospaltioi.
8 prodōi[ might betray looks possible: with ouk an not would before? (an=ean if is transmitted at Aristoph. Th. 154 and 1187, Pher. fr. 125 KA); or hous an whom? But prodoiē[ would betray may not be excluded.
9 ō mōre O fool likely (Aristoph. Equ. 162 etc, fr. 402.1).
9-10 Any paragraphos between these lines will be lost in a hole in the papyrus.
10 Perhaps hōs chaun[- how empty/spongy (we owe the reading to Dr J. R. Rea); c seems to suit the traces better than i or n.

4302. NEW COMEDY

Fr. 1, here published for the first time, preserves to full height the line-beginnings of a single column, written in a handsome Biblical Uncial script. The twenty two lines of the column occupy 12.5 cm; the surviving upper margin measures 5.5 cm, the surviving lower margin 7.5 cm. The left-hand margin survives to 2.8 cm (possibly a trace from the preceding column on the edge to the left of line 7). Punctuation by paragraphos (added by a shakier hand) and double point (perhaps also by the shakier hand; in 7 certainly squeezed in between letters already written; in other places it seems that a gap had been left by the first hand). In 17 an acute accent on ti. Crasis contraction of two vowels into one marked in 10?

Fr. 2 is one of a group of ten pieces published by E. W. Handley in Proc. XIV Int. Congr. Pap. (1975) 133–148, with plates. These pieces make up the remains of three columns, not necessarily consecutive, of New Comedy. The columns have 22 lines; column height 12.5 cm, upper margin at least 6.3 cm, lower margin at least 7.2 cm. Handley considered whether another spacious Biblical Uncial manuscript, PryL I 16 (CGFPR 248), might belong to the same roll, and decided against (especially since PryL 16 was found at Theadelphia, not at Oxyrhynchus). But in a later article (BICS 24 (1977) 132–4, with plate) he argued that another handsome manuscript from Oxyrhynchus, IV 678 (CGFPR 269), might well belong to the same roll: format and script are very similar.

The new fr. 1 and Handley’s fr. B (here renumbered as fr. 2) contain line-beginnings and line-ends from the same column: that is shown by the coincidence of subject matter, and the coherent supplements which offer for 14 and 17, as well as by the exact match of formats. The new piece confirms that 678 belongs to the same play, therefore to the same roll: the repeated aischron shameful/Aischron (fr. 1.4, 18) will be the proper name preserved, with distinctive accent, at 678 7, and to be read in fr. 2.6; forms of prostatis patron/protector occur at fr. 1.5 and 678 5.