Many of them, the texts of which are of a philosophical nature, are written in literary hands, and are conjectured to have possibly formed part of the library of their author, the philosopher Philodemus; they are therefore placed about the middle of the century. To the same time are assigned the remains of a roll containing the oration of Hypereides against Philippides and the third Epistle of Demosthenes (Brit. Mus. papp. cxxxiii., cxxxiv.). But the most important addition to the period is the handsomely written papyrus containing the poems of Bacchylides (fig. 8), which retains in the forms of the letters much of the character of the Ptolemaic style, although for other reasons it can hardly be placed earlier than about the middle of the century:—
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| Fig. 8.—Bacchylides, 1st century B.C. | ||||||||||||
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With the latter half of the 1st century B.C. we quit the Ptolemaic period and pass to the consideration of the literary papyri of the Roman period; and it is especially in this latter period that our extended knowledge, acquired from recent discoveries, has led to the modification of views formerly held with regard to the dates to be attributed to certain important literary MSS. As in the case of non-literary documents, the literary writing of the Roman period differs from that of the Ptolemaic in adopting rounded forms and greater uniformity in the size of the letters.
Just on the threshold of the Roman period, near the end of the 1st century B.C., stands a fragmentary papyrus of the last two books of the Iliad, now in the British Museum (pap. cxxviii.), which is of sufficient extent to be noted. Then, emerging on the Christian era, we come upon a fine surviving specimen of literary writing, which we have satisfactory reason for placing near the beginning of the 1st century. It is a fragment of the third book of the Odyssey (fig. 9), the writing of which closely resembles that of an official document (Brit. Mus. pap. cccliv.) which happens to be written in a formal literary hand, and which from internal evidence can be dated within a few years of the close of the 1st century B.C. There can be no hesitation, therefore, in grouping the Odyssey with that document. The contrast between the round Roman style and the stiff and firm Ptolemaic hands is here well shown in the facsimiles from this papyrus (fig. 9) and the Phaedo and Bacchylides:—
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| Fig. 9.—The Odyssey, beginning of 1st century. | ||||||||||||||||||
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In a similar style of writing are two fragments of Hesiodic poems recently published, with facsimiles, in the Sitzungsberichte (1900, p. 839) of the Berlin Academy. The earliest of the two, now at Strassburg, may be assigned to the first half of the 1st century; the other, at Berlin, appears to be of the 2nd century.
At this point two MSS. come into the series, in regard to which there is now held to be reason for revising views formerly entertained. The papyrus known as the Harris Homer (Brit. Mus. pap. cvii.), containing portions of the eighteenth book of the Iliad, which was formerly placed in the 1st century B.C., it is thought should be now brought down to a later date, and should be rather assigned to the 1st century of the Christian era. The great papyrus, too, of Hypereides, containing his orations against Demosthenes and for Lycophron and Euxenippus, which has been commonly placed also in the 1st century B.C., and by some even earlier, is now adjudged to belong to the latter part of the 1st century A.D.
Within the 1st century also is placed a papyrus of great literary interest, containing the mimes of the Alexandrian writer Herodas, which was discovered a few years ago and is now in the British Museum. The writing of this MS. differs from the usual type of literary hand, being a rough and ill formed uncial, inscribed on narrow, and therefore inexpensive, papyrus; and if the roll were written for the market, it was a cheap copy, if indeed it was not made for private use. Of the same period is a papyrus of Isocrates, De pace (Brit. Mus. pap. cxxxii.), written in two hands, the one more clerical than the other; and two papyri of Homer, Iliad, iii.-iv. (Brit. Mus. pap. cxxxvi.), and Iliad, xiii.-xiv. (Brit. Mus. pap. dccxxxii.), the first in a rough uneducated hand, but the latter a fine specimen of uncial writing. To about this period also is the Oxyrhynchus Pindar to be attributed, that is to the close of the 1st or beginning of the 2nd century. Then follows another famous papyrus, the Bankes Homer, containing the last book of the Iliad, which belongs to the 2nd century and is also written in a careful style of uncial writing. To these is to be added the beautiful papyrus at Berlin, containing a commentary on the Theaetetus of Plato, written in delicately formed uncials of excellent type of the 2nd century; and of the same age is the Panegyricus of Isocrates from Oxyrhynchus, in a round uncial hand. Three important papyri of the Iliad, written in large round uncials, of the 2nd century, are noticed below.
With regard to the later literary works on papyrus that have been recovered, the period which they occupy is somewhat uncertain. The following are, however, placed in the 3rd century, during which a sloping literary hand seems to have been developed, curiously anticipating a similar change which took place in the course of development of the uncial writing of the vellum MSS., the upright hand of the 4th to 6th centuries being followed by a sloping hand in the 7th and 8th centuries: a MS., now in the British Museum, of portions of bks. ii.-iv. of the Iliad, written on eighteen leaves of papyrus, put together in book-form, but inscribed on only one side; on the verso of some of the leaves is a short grammatical treatise attributed to Tryphon; portion of Iliad v., among the Oxyrhynchus papyri (No. ccxxiii.); a fragment of Plato's Laws (Ox. pap. xxiii.); a papyrus of Isocrates, in Nicoclem, now at Marseilles; a fragment of Ezekiel, in book-form, in the Bodleian Library; a fragment of the “Shepherd” of Hermas at Berlin; and a fragment of Julius Africanus, the Hellenica of Theopompus or Cratippus, and the Symposium of Plato, all found at Oxyrhynchus.
