Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1980
Publication Title
Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists
Volume
17
Pages
145-154
Publisher Name
American Society of Papyrologists
Abstract
It has since the early days of papyrology been noted, and hardly needs repeating before this assemblage, that the documentary papyri bring the scholar closer to the common man of antiquity than can ever be possible through the literary sources that have been transmitted through the medieval manuscript tradition. The papyri provide numerous, if scattered, unselfconscious testimonies to the everyday activities of life, while the literature tends to focus on the deeds and to reflect the biases of men of power, wealth and literary culture. An example of that truism, striking (paradoxically enough) because probably so ordinary, is furnished by three Greek papyri of Byzantine Egypt. One (P.Michael. 43) is dated to A.D. 526, the other two (P.Mich. XIII 670 and P.Michael. 44) to A.D. 527. Taken together, they chronicle the economic advance of an Egyptian villager at the expense of an Egyptian soldier who was plunging ever more deeply into debt.
Recommended Citation
Keenan, JG. "Aurelius Phoibammon, son of Triadelphus: a Byzantine Egyptian land entrepreneur" in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 17, 1980.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright Statement
© 1980 James Keenan.
Comments
Author Posting. © James Keenan, 1980. This article is posted here by permission of the American Society of Papyrologists for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 17, 1980.