Trouble in Alexandria in a Letter of the Sixth Century Maehler, Margaret Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Summer 1976; 17, 2; ProQuest pg. 197
Trouble in Alexandria in a Letter of
the Sixth Century
Margaret Maehler
A MONG THE PAPYRI from Hermoupolis now in the papyrus col
lection of the Egyptian Museum in West Berlin, l a fragment
of a letter has come to light which, although found at Her
moupolis, must have been written in or near Alexandria: P.Berol.
25009 measures 14.7 cm. by 31.7 cm. and is incomplete at the top and
the bottom. The text of the letter is written across the fibres in a
handwriting which can be compared with R. Seider, Paliiographie der
gnechischen Papyri I nos. 55 (probably written in A.D. 551) and 57 (A.D.
595) and appears to belong to the second half of the sixth century (see
PLATE 2). Apart from diacritical marks on initial iota and upsilon, the
writer uses no lectional signs and does not write iw'TCX aV€K¢>wVT}'TOV.2
The surface of the other side of the papyrus has been partially rubbed
away, but the beginning of the address of the letter is still legible. It is
written roughly in the middle of the fragment parallel to the fibres
in the narrow, stylized uncials often used for addresses and runs:
+LlEEII(OTHI) M(OY) TA II( ANTA) MErAAOIIP(EIIEETA
TQI) KO¥!TI ..... As the addressee is called comes, he must belong
to the 'upper class', presumably of Hermoupolis where the papyrus
was found, and might be, for instance, an official in the adminis
tration or the owner or steward of an estate.
Above and below the address are, in all, eight lines of what appears
to be a draught written later than the letter and in a different hand.
The few phrases of this badly preserved text which can be read are:
1 Agyptisches Museum, Schloss-Str. 70, 0-1000 Berlin 19. For another letter from this
collection see GRBS 15 (1974) 305-11. I am indebted toOr Herwig Maehlerfor a photograph
and a transcript of the papyrus and the permission to publish them, and I thank him,
Professor Gustav Karlsson and Herr Hansjorg WOlke, for an interesting and useful dis
cussion of the text. Professor Karlsson and Dr Maehler will be publishing more Byzantine
letters from Berlin in ZPE andJOBG.
I For a letter of the same period with accents and mute iota see P.Cair.Masp. 077.
197
198 TROUBLE IN ALEXANDRIA IN A VI-CENTURY LETTER
~ (line 1) Kat 7TpOC TOV 7TaVEVcpTJ/.LOV SOVKa- - -I 20/.LO LWC V7TaVE'!T [ ] - --I
3' • , '\' , i:. ' " "J. ~J. ''\ 1 1TaVTEC OL EV I\oycp as LW/.LaTLKOL TE KaL KTTJTOpEC E'fJacav U(JEVTa pap.
5 leg. XopTacw 6 {Jpa8,a pap.
9 ihrEA£tt/>(JTj pap. 1 0 ~:, ii1TocTfJE'!ia, pap.
"--- 2and he (it) filled the warehouses in the New Town with water,
and Alexandria is a strange sight to see today. Well, after the Most
Honourable Consul sailed up to Chortaso the next day, that is, on the
first of the current month, Choiak, to inspect the places I mentioned,
we for our part came into Alexandria on the second of the same cur
rent month, late in the evening and in disguise so that we should not
MARGARET MAEHLER 199
be caught, and with a lot of trouble and a lot of expense (or loss) we
managed to ... only our cloaks which in fact were left, since nothing
else of ours was left because of the number of days we had spent on
the river (or canal). And on the sixth of the current month, Choiak,
after the return of the - - - "
NOTES ON THE TEXT
LINE 1. €tC~[. ]r.?]: The subjunctive €lCXWpfi is the most probable reading, but
the verb is not common. After that, £lc 'AA£tavOP£LaV with a proper name,
e.g. 'Povo/[tv]o[c. 'POVo/[H]O[C or 'POVT[tAL]O[C, or 'A>.£taVOp£La(V) 1TPOC T[ . . Jo[
are possible. If a proper name is to be read, this person may have been helped
to enter or prevented from entering Alexandria by the subject of E1TA~pWC£V in
line 2. I cannot tell whether R. could be identical with the consul in line 3, nor
can I identify him, but it may be worth mentioning a Rufinus who was mili
tary commander in Africa and, apparently, dux Tripolitanae around A.D. 540.3
LINE 2. E1TA~PWC€V may be governed by a human or by a natural agent: for
instance a tidal wave after an earthquake or torrential rain; see infra p.20l.
For the NI.a floALC in Alexandria see A. Ausfeld in Philologus 63 (1904) 481-97,
who comes to the conclusion that this name was given to the part of the city
on the eastern harbour which had to be rebuilt after the fire in the civil war of
48 B.C. It is known from papyrus documents of the first to fourth centuries
that the grain levied in Egypt was brought by boat via the canal connecting
Alexandria with the Nile to the public granaries in the 'New Town', where it
was stored before being shipped to Rome or, later, Constantinople. 4 These
granaries are usually referred to as 07JfLOCLOL 87JcaVpOL or 07JfLoCUX oppux, so
a1T08~Kac in line 2 may be a general term for public and private warehouses:
cpo Casso Dio 42.38.2 (on the civil war) WCT£ liMa T£ Kat TO v£wpWV TaC T£
a1ToO~Kac Kat TOU dTOV Kat TWV f3tfJAWV ... KavOijvaL.
To 81.afLa cpo Procop. Aed. 1.1.27 (on the Haghia Sophia) Ol.afLa TOLVVV TJ
• '\' \'\ , , ~ \ ,~ , .J.' A ~\ £KKI\7JCLa K£KaI\l\LCT£VfL€VOV Y€Y€V7JTaL, TOLC fL£V 0pwCtV V1T€P'!'V€C, TOLC O€
aKovovCL 1TaV7£Awc a1TLcTov (cp. Pind. Pyth. 1. 26f).
LINE 3. C~fL£pov: The warehouses were still flooded when the letter was written,
that is, sometime after the sixth of Choiak (see line 10), so if the narrative at
this point follows the order of events and the flooding took place the day
before the consul left Alexandria, they will have been under water for a week
or more. It does seem a little strange, however, that the consul should leave
town immediately after a catastrophe, and it is possible that the flooding
actually took place after his departure and that TOU ovv resumes a narrative
which the writer interrupted before line 1 in order to describe the flooding:
see LSJ S.V. ovv II.
3 See RE lA (1914) 1198, S.V. RUFINUS 35.
f. See A. Calderini, 9H£AYPOI (Milan 1924) 26£ and 57 (plus P.Oxy. 2408, 3 and 9).
200 TROUBLE IN ALEXANDRIA IN A VI-CENTURY LETTER
V7TlXTOV: With the exception of the emperors themselves, there are no more
regular consuls after the year 541; if, therefore, the assignment of the papyrus
to the second half of the sixth century is correct, this consul will be an ex
consule ordinario or an honorary consuL "Y7TaToc is used loosely instead of a7TI)
WeXTWV op8Lvaplwv in P.Oxy. 1911, 148 (A.D. 557); 1913,8; 1917,2 and P.KI.Form.
I 86, 2 (Stud. Pal. III) of Flavius Strategius Apio, who was consul ordinarius of
the eastern empire in 539, and of people of consular rank in P.Oxy. 1991, 8
(A.D. 616, of Apio's greatgrandson, Strategius); in P.Cair.Masp. 002 III 24; 004,
21; 097v B 20; P.Fuad 86, 10; SB 9616, 15 (of the dux Thebaidis); cpo SB 4671v, 2.
LINE 4. Choiak 1st= Nov. 27th, in the Gregorian calendar Dec. 10th. The level
of the water in the Nile and in the canal to Alexandria would have started to
sink by this date.
LINE 5. Xopraco is written with final omicron also in SB 9590, 22 (seventh
century), but with omega, ibid. 5 and 11 and in Stud. Pal. X 233 ii 5 (fifth century).
It was a village near Heracleopolis in Arcadia. After the coming into force of
Justinian's thirteenth edict, issued probably in 539,5 according to which
Arcadia and Alexandria with Northern Egypt became separate administrative
units placed directly under the control of the praefectus praetorio Orientis, the
'consul' presumably would have needed special authorization from the
emperor or the p.p.O. to act in an official capacity at both Alexandria and
Chortaso.8 If his private interests were involved, it may be worth noting that
the consul Apio mentioned above owned land in the vicinity of Hera de opolis. 7
E7TlClcet/sw: The regular official land inspection of Roman times seems to
have been discontinued in the Byzantine period,8 so presumably something
unusual, perhaps a natural disaster, had occurred at Chortaso and was
described in the missing part of the letter. For E7TlclCet/ste in a non-technical
sense see SB 9397,2 (sixth/seventh century) Egij>..80V elc E7TlclCet/sLv Tijc ... a8eAc/>ijC.
LINE 6. EV 'AAegav8p( elf!.): In line 1 the writer apparently remembered to
write elc 'AAegeXv8peLav, but here he has lapsed into normal late Greek usage:
cpo PSI 953, 68 and 78; P.Amh. 157, 1; 158, If; P.Oxy. 151 and 1904,2.
flpa8elf!. wpf!. also occurs in P.Cair.Masp. 077, 8.
LINES 8-10. The writer and his companions had spent so long on the river that
their resources were exhausted and they had only their personal clothing left:
5 Or, less probably, in 554: see G. Rouillard, L'administration civile de l'Egypte byzantine!
(Paris 1928) 20-24; G. Matz, BYZantion 16 (1942-43) 135-41; E. R. Hardy, Christian Egypt,
Church and People (New York 1952) 226 n.52, and "The Egyptian Policy of Justinian," 00
Papers 22 (1968) 35.
• For a doubtful parallel see Dioscorus' eulogy of Athanasius, P.Cair.Masp. 0979 B 18 yi1c
fPapt.,.,c Kpa:rlwv ~a' 'ApKaat.,.,C JUTa 91jfhlc (cp. ibid. 0559 , 2), regarded by Maspero as a poet
ical exaggeration.
7 See E. R. Hardy, The Large Estates of BYZantine Egypt (New York 1931) 82.
a See D. Bonneau, "La disparition de l'episkepsis offidelle des terres au IV· s. ap. J-c.,"
Acres du xe Cortgres into de Papyrologues (Warsaw 1964) 142-48.
MAEHLER PLATE 2
MARGARET MAEHLER 201
to av,.a=' only' see Kuhner-Gerth, Ausfuhrliche Grammatik der griechischen
Sprache3 11.1 652f § 468, Anmerk. 2.
€Lcl[.] .. €LV: -€LV is preceded by a letter on the line followed by one with a tail,
e.g. rho or tau; €lnpEp€LV would fit, and Professor Rudolf KeydeU has suggested
that the writer and his companions had to leave their own clothes on the ship
when they stole into Alexandria in disguise. Afterwards, they managed to
bring them (or have them brought) into town with a lot of trouble and
expense (i.e. they probably had to bribe someone to help them).
Ka'Ta TOV 1TOTaJLov could mean either travelling by boat to Alexandria or hiding
among the rushes on the Nile or the canal: cpo John of Nikiu's account of the
insurrection of Heraclius, cap. 108, 15,9 during which the adherents ofPhocas
concealed themselves in their boats on the canal after failing to take Alex
andria; and Justinian, Edict 13, cappo 17 and 22, which mention that insurgents
from Alexandria often took refuge in the Mareotes. As the writer and his
companions entered Alexandria in disguise, it is likely that they had been
obliged to escape from the city and lie low.
LINE 11. .f!-.~.CPT/( . . r: 1TaV€tkp7][JL]o(v)? "y]1TaTov cannot be read at the begin
ning of the line.
The flooding of the warehouses can have been the result of a natural
catastrophe which might also have caused damage at Chortaso, or of
an act of sabotage. The latter is perhaps more likely, considering
Alexandria's reputation for riots10 and the precautions taken by the
writer to avoid detection in the city. The main causes of the unrest in
Alexandria during the sixth century were the taxation policy of the
imperial government and its attempts to bring the Monophysite
church of Egypt into conformity with the Melkite or imperial church
by imposing patriarchs of its own choosing upon it.ll justinian's main
concern in Edict 13 (see supra on line 5) is to safeguard the supply of
corn to Constantinople: the augustalis of Alexandria and Northern
Egypt is made a military governor and authorized to use his troops
against people who instigate disturbances to avoid paying taxes.12
His troops, however, do not seem always to have had the situation in
Alexandria under control, and sometime before 560 when Procopius
wrote his work On Buildings, the place in Alexandria where the corn
II See The Chronicle of John , Bishop of Nikiu, transl. R. H. Charles (London 1916) 174, or
Chronique deJean, Eveque de Nikiou, publie par M. H. Zotenberg, Notices et extraits des mss.
de la Bibliotheque Nationale 24 (Paris 1883) 548.
10 Cpo John of Ephesus, Lives of the Eastern Saints, ed. E. W. Brooks, PO 18.4 (Paris 1924)
528: "and severe fighting and much slaughter took place, as is common in that great city."
11 See the article of Hardy (supra n.5) and his p.l n.l for further literature.
12 See Edict 13, cappo 1 and 11, and supra on line 10 of the papyrus.
202 TROUBLE IN ALEXANDRIA IN A VI-CENTURY LETTER
barges were unloaded-and, presumably, where the state granaries
stood (see supra on line 2)-had to be fortified: bT€£8~ Tip 8~p.cp EC
CTaCtV 7TOAA&KLC KaO£cTap.lvLeXA7],13 which suggests that it may have been the former royal
harbour basin mentioned by Strabo at 17.1.9 cap. 794. (I suppose that
even after the fortification it may have been possible to flood this
area by diverting the water from the canal, or perhaps by opening
the sluices.H )
In 546-ca 551 Alexandria was governed by a competent augustalis
called Hephaestus, who reduced the amount of corn available to the
Alexandrians to ensure that the full quota might be sent to Constanti
nople and even so managed to "stop the riotS."15 After that, there
appears to be no more definite evidence for resistance to the grain
levy until 600, when a rebellion broke out in the Delta during which
the rebels intercepted the grain transport on the Nile.16 An attack on
the granaries in Alexandria is not mentioned explicitly in connection
with this rising, but both it and that on behalf of Heraclius in 609
would be likely occasions for oneP
On at least three occasions in the sixth century the arrival of a
patriarch nominated in Constantinople and escorted by a bodyguard
of soldiers led to fighting in the streets of Alexandria: a couple of
years before Edict 13 was drawn up, after the restoration of Patriarch
Theodosius in 536 ;18 in 546 when the Alexandrians drove out Patriarch
Zoilus19 and were brought to order by Hephaestus (see suprap. 202);
and in 551 or 552 when Justinian had Apollinarius, a former military
commander installed as patriarch.20 In 566 Belisarius' stepson,
13 See A. Adriani, Repertorio d'arte dell'Egitto greco-romano C I-II (Palermo 1966) 235 s.v.
14 Could the Portae PetTinae on the eastern branch of the canal in Alexandria have been
connected with a lock? On these see Adriani, op.dt. (supra n.13) 236 S.V., and P. M. Fraser,
Ptolemaic Alexandria II (Oxford 1972) 79f n.184.
15 See Procop. Anecd. 26.35-44; E. Stein, Histoire du Bas-Empire II (Paris 1949) 753f.
16 See John of Nikiu (supra n.9) cap. 97; J. Jarry, BIFAO 62 (1964) 187-206.
17 See John of Nikiu 97, 17 ("and John found that much devastation had been wrought in
the city of Alexandria") and 107, 17.
18 See Liberatus, Breviarium cap. 20, Migne PL 68, 1037B=Acta Cone. Oecum. U.5 (Berlin
1936) 135, and John of Ephesus (supra n.l0) 528.
18 See Severe, Bveque d'Achmounein, Refutation d'Eutyehius, publ. P. Chebli, PO 3.2
(Paris 1909) 197; and Stein,loe.dt. (supra n.15).
20 See the Jacobite authors, Severus (supra n.19) 203f, and Petrus Ibn Rahib, Chronicon
orientale, CSCO 46,128; and the Melkite, Eutychius, Ann., Migne PG 111, 1069B-0.
MARGARET MAEHLER 203
Photius, who had reached the vl7aTue6v a~twjJ-a before being obliged
to become a monk,21 was in Egypt with orders from Justin II to
"reconcile all its churches,"22 but it is not known \vhether this mission
provoked any serious disturbances.
The papyrus letter must be seen in the light of these events,
although it does not seem possible to connect it directly with any of
them. Apart from the absence of mute iotas, the spelling {3paoiq. and
the lapse into colloquial speech (Elc~fdJaJ.LEv €V 'A.:\E~avop(ELq.)) in line 6,
it is written carefully, and the chiasmus in line 7f CI-'era. 170.:\.:\00 KOl7OV
[Kat] 'TJI-'LaC 170.:\.:\*) and the elegant turn of phrase in zf (81al-'a
KatJlOV €cnv C~jJ-EPOV lOEtJl) show that its author is a man of some
education. Although he gives the consul the usual complimentary
epithet, l7avEvcPTJI-'OC, he does not appear to be a supporter of the
government: his description of the flooding gives the impression that
he was not particularly distressed about it, and iva I-'~ KpaTTJ8wjJ-EV
without an agent (line 7) is more naturally taken of arrest by the
authorities23 than of capture by insurgents. He might be a Monoph
ysite bishop, as they \vere forbidden by Apollinarius and his successors
to enter Alexandria,24 but the letter contains no pious expressions.
His education is not necessarily an argument against his being a
brigand.25 However, the most likely reason for him to write a letter
to a dignitary in Hermoupolis describing the plight he has been in
is that he is the steward or business partner of the addressee and must
explain to him why he has not been able to transact his business in
Alexandria.
BERLIN - LrCHTERFELD E
March, 1976
21 See Procop. Anecd. 2.7 and 3.29.
22 See Theophanes, Chron. A.6058, Migne PG 108, 525=de Boor 1, 242,4; cpo John of
Nikiu (supra n.9) 94, 17.
23 See Preisigke, WB S.v. KpaT£!1I 3.
24 See Severus' History of the Patriarchs of the CoptiC Church of Alexandria, ed. B. Evetts, PO
1.4 (Paris 1948) 469, cpo 478 and 501f.
25 For a freebooter from the upper class see John of Nikiu (supra n.9) 97, 10.