The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity

Oliver Nicholson Publisher:Oxford University Press Print Publication Date:2018


Print ISBN-13:9780198662778 Published online:2018

Current Online Version:2018 eISBN:9780191744457

Bodmer manuscripts
A group of nineteen codices dating from the 2nd to the 5th centuries,
containing 54 literary works in Coptic, Greek, and Latin, now housed at the
Bodmer foundation in Cologny, Geneva. The corpus includes fifteen biblical
papyri (two-thirds of which bear the oldest witnesses of the texts preserved),
two codices of aprocryphal works including the Nativity of Mary, the Gospel of
James, a correspondence between S. Paul and the Corinthians, the eleventh
Ode of Solomon, and the Acts of Paul, and also the Vision of Dorotheus, a 4th-
century bilingual (Gk./Lat.) codex, a 3rd-century copy containing three
(otherwise lost) plays of Menander: and the martyr Passion of S. Phileas of
Thmuis. J. M. Robertson argues that the manuscripts, discovered near Nag
Hammadi, may have belonged originally to a monastic library or a private
school in the area of Panopolis.

MARCO PERALE
Bibliography
CoptEnc, vol. 8 s.v. Bodmer Papyri 48–53 (R. Kasser). :

P. Schubert, ‘Contribution à une mise en contexte du codex du visions’, in A. Hurst and
J. Rudhardt, eds., Le Codex des visions (2002), 19–25. :
Chester Beatty manuscripts
A group of Greek and Coptic biblical and extra-biblical papyri, mostly dating to
the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, purchased in 1929/30 by Sir Alfred Chester
Beatty (1875–1968) for his private collection of books and manuscripts in
Dublin.

They include a 3rd-century Greek copy of the Book of Revelation, a bilingual

Greek–Latin glossary on S. Paul, and Greek and Coptic versions (in the
Sahidic and sub-Akhmimic dialects) of various books of the Old Testament, the
Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Pauline epistles. Non-biblical works
include a 4th/5th-century Greek copy of the Book of Enoch from the Ethiopic
Bible, the Apocalypse of Elijah, the martyr Passion of S. Phileas of Thmuis,
and the Book of Jannes and Jambres. Manichaean texts include the
Manichaean Psalm Book. Among the most recent identifications are fragments
from a late 2nd/3rd-century Coptic codex preserving an early Christian homily
(P. Chester Beatty 2026 + P. Crosby-Schøyen 193), and possibly an Eastern
lectionary composed in the Pachomian monastery at Phbow (mod. Fāw Qiblī)
(Phbow has been indicated by J. M. Robertson as the place of provenance of
both the Chester Beatty and the Bodmer manuscripts).

MARCO PERALE
Bibliography
CoptEnc vol. 2 s.vv. Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri and Chester Beatty Coptic Papyri,
cols. 518a–519a (B. M. Metzger). :

ABD I s.v. Chester Beatty Papyri, cols. 901–3 (Pietersma).

J. M. Robertson, The Pachomian Monastic Library at the Chester Beatty and the
Bibliothèque Bodmer (OPIAC 12, 1990). :

A. Pietersma and S. Comstock, ‘Two More Pages of Crosby-Schøyen Codex MS 193: A
Pachomian Easter Lectionary’, BASP 28 (2011), 27–46. :
libraries
The earliest surviving use of the Greek term bibliotheke (literally ‘book-
container’) is from the Hellenistic period and alludes to the Royal Library of
Alexandria. Other great Roman cities had public libraries. Some of these were
free-standing institutions, such as the twin libraries which flanked Trajan’s
Column in Rome or the Library of Celsus at Ephesus, damaged probably in an
earthquake in the 3rd century and transformed into an architectural water
feature c. AD 400. Others were associated with temples, such as those at the
Serapeum, Claudianum, and Caesareum in Alexandria, or with bathhouses,
including the Baths of Diocletian at Rome.

Constantinople had a public library from at least the reign of Constantius II.
Zosimus states that Julian deposited all his books there (III, 11, 3); these may
or may not have included the substantial library of George of Cappadocia,
Patriarch of Alexandria, which Julian claimed as his own after George was
lynched by an Alexandria mob (Julian, ep. 22 Wright 378C). In 372 Valens
ordered that the Constantinople library should be staffed by four Greek and
three Latin copyists as well as conservators and custodians (CTh XIV, 9, 2). It
was said to have contained 120,000 volumes when it was destroyed by a fire in
475 (George Cedrenus, 1, 616; Zonaras, XIV, 2). A second fire in 726 under
Leo III the Isaurian allegedly caused an additional loss of 36,500 books
(Constantine Manasses, Compendium chronicon, 4262–3).

There were large private libraries in senatorial houses, though Ammianus

complained that those in Roman mansions were kept for ostentation rather
than for use (XIV, 6, 18). That could not be said of the learned senator Boethius
(c.480–524), who, summoned by the Lady Philosophy to search for her in his
heart, not in his book cupboards, describes his own library as surrounded by
walls ornamented with ivory and glass (Consolation of Philosophy, I, 5, 6).

Evidence from Egypt about private libraries (as distinct from archives) recorded
in finds of papyri includes a substantial number of book-lists, each pointing to
private collections of varying dimensions. The largest of them (listed in P.Oxy.
2659, 2nd cent.) must have numbered several thousands of Greek volumes.
Two lists from the not less lively 4th–5th-century Hermopolis (P.Turner 9;
P.Berl. inv. 21849), mostly containing rhetorical papyri, may been inventories of
private collections of scholars or lawyers. In the Greek East, no major Greek
library has been found in situ to compare with that found in the Villa of the
Papyri at Herculaneum in Italy—which possibly belonged to the philosopher
Philodemus and was abandoned after his death (c.35 BC).
Book production was expensive, and the price of books was high. Neither
papyrus not parchment was cheap, and neither lasts for ever. Parchment
appears to have been thought (not necessarily correctly) to be more durable
than papyrus, and both were more permanent than wax tablets, but natural
decay was a surer threat to the preservation of texts than the chances of
violence or fire. The process of copying also posed difficulties. Scholars might
lend one another books to copy for the fair love they had of learning, but, as
Longinus complained to Porphyry, good copyists were hard to find—even in
Athens (Porphyry, VPlot 19). Augustine admired the integrity of his former pupil
Alypius because even though he had a good job in the imperial administration
he did not make use of government scribes to copy literary texts for his own
use (Conff. VI, 10, 16).

It was indeed the availability of copyists which made possible the creation of
one of the most impressive private libraries of Late Antiquity. Origen at
Caesarea of Palestine was provided by his patron Ambrosius with at least
seven shorthand writers and the same number of copyists as well as girls
trained in writing (Eusebius, HE VI, 23). Late Roman codices were stored lying
on their sides in book cupboards (armaria), sometimes numbered (HA Tacitus,
8, 1), like those depicted holding Gospel books on the mosaics of the building
at Ravenna known as the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. The manuscripts in the
cupboards of Caesarea made possible the scholarly work of Origen, of his
pupil Pamphilus, and of Pamphilus’ pupil Eusebius. At the same time that
Origen’s library was being assembled, a similar library, also used by Eusebius,
was being put together for the church at Jerusalem by Alexander the bishop
(HE VI, 20).

Churchmen in the Latin-speaking world continued to take such initiatives into

the Middle Ages. A library gathering and indexing the works of Augustine was
assembled by Eugippius (c.460–535) at the Castellum Lucullanum at Naples.
The monastic school called Vivarium founded at Squillace by Cassiodorus
(Inst. 1, 29), which included a scriptorium as well as a library, helped
perpetuate classical culture long after his death in c.585, and may have served
as a model for the library of Isidore of Seville. In the kingdom of Northumbria, a
devout Anglo-Saxon called Benedict Biscop assembled a large library at the
double monastery he founded at Wearmouth-Jarrow which comprised the
broad range of scientific, historical, and theological works which made possible
the work of the Venerable Bede.

Monasteries in Egypt also had libraries. The most important discovery

associated with them has been the collection of early Christian Gnostic
treatises found in 1945 in a jar at the foot of a cliff by the Nile near the town of
Nag-Hammadi. According to J. M. Robertson, these 3rd-/4th-century codices
along with the Bodmer and the Chester Beatty papyri all come from a single
monastic library established by Apa Pachomius (c.292–348) at Phbow (mod.
Faw al-Qibli). In the Sohag region, some 100 km (c.62 miles) north-east of
Phbow, a large collection of Coptic manuscripts stored in the cells of the White
Monastery of Shenoute escaped the attacks of the Mamluks in the 14th century
and were acquired by the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 1885–7.

From the Fayyum area (Arsinoite Nome) came the Hamouli codices, which
most probably belonged to the library of the Monastery of the Archangel
Michael at Phantoou. Seven codices from Medinet Madi, also in the Fayyum,
dating from the late 3rd to the 5th century AD contain Manichaean texts,
including letters and liturgical works attributed to Mani and his disciples. The
latter suggest the presence of a Coptic library belonging to a 4th-century
Manichaean centre on the south-west edge of the Fayyum.

The library of the Syrian Monastery in Egypt, Deir as-Suriani, contained

numerous important manuscripts, largely now in London, but the original core
of this collection was itself brought to Egypt from Mesopotamia in the early 10th
century. Information about libraries in the Syriac-speaking world itself is sparser
than it is for those in Egypt. There must have been extensive collections at the
learned 6th-/7th-century Syrian Miaphysite monasteries of Qenneshre,
Eusebona, and Tel ‘Ada, though it is possible that some of these were more
personal than institutional property; when Jacob of Edessa resumed his
episcopal see at Edessa in 708 he apparently planned to take his books with
him from the monastery of Tel ‘Ada. Similarly in the Church of the East, there
was a library at the School of Nisbis, and Thomas of Marga makes frequent
allusions to the libraries of the monastery of Beth ‘Abhe and of the Great
Monastery of Mar Abraham of Kashkar on Mount Izla. But books were also
personal; when the scholar Narsai migrated from Edessa to Nisibis he travelled
light, but he insisted on taking his books with him, for they were ‘his whole
treasure’.

MARCO PERALE; OLIVER NICHOLSON

Bibliography
H. Blanck, Das Buch in der Antike (1992), 133–222, 232–8. :

A. Carricker, The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea (VigChrist supplements 67, 2003). :

L. Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (2001). :

G. Cavallo, Le biblioteche nel mondo antico e medievale ( 1989). :

2

S. Emmel and C. E. Römer, ‘The Library of the White Monastery in Upper Egypt’, 5–14,
and A. Maravela- Solbakk, ‘Monastic Book Production in Christian Egypt’, 25–7, both in
H. Froschauer and C. E. Römer, Spätantike Bibliotheken. Leben und Lesen in den
frühen Klöstern Ägyptens (2008). :

G. W. Houston, ‘Papyrological Evidence for Book Collections and Libraries in the
Roman Empire’, in W. A. Johnson and H. N. Parker, eds., Ancient Literacies: The
Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome (2009). : Janin, CPByz 161–3. :

M. Lapidge, The Anglo-Saxon Library (2005). :

L. D. Reynolds and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of
Greek and Latin Literature ( 2013). :
4
shorthand and shorthand writers
Shorthand writers (see NOTARII, EXCEPTORES) used a system of writing (also
known as stenography or tachygraphy) which, in the interests of speed,
employed a system of abbreviated symbols to record the spoken word,
generally onto wax writing tablets. Ausonius (Ephemeris, 7), was amazed how
fast his secretary could follow his dictation. Augustine reassured readers that
stenography was a skill permissible to Christians (De Doctrina Christiana, II,
26, 40).

Shorthand writers recorded official business in the imperial administration and

made reports of proceedings in courts of law (e.g. Ammianus, XIV, 9, 2 notarii;
Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers, 489: Themis). John Lydus states that
1,000 were enrolled in the imperial service every year. They also worked for
private individuals (cf. P.Oxy. III, 724 and XLI, 2988, contracts of
apprenticeship; Jerome, ep. 118, 1: letter of consolation).

The Church also employed shorthand writers. They were recording Christian
sermons from the 3rd century onwards (Eusebius, HE VI, 36, on Origen, who
employed a team of seven stenographers: HE, VI, 23). Their presence is
attested at the church council of Carthage (AD 411).

Eusebius (Jerome, Chron. 168f Helm) and Isidore (Etymologiae, I, 22) attribute
the origins of Latin shorthand to Cicero’s secretary M. Tullius Tiro; it probably
derived from an earlier Greek system (cf. Plutarch, Cato Minor, 23) dating
perhaps to pre-Hellenistic times (Diogenes Laertius, II, 48 and IG II 2783).
2

Isidore stated that Seneca had assembled a collection of 5,000 signs.

Seventeen Carolingian manuscripts transmit a collection of over 13,000 signs,
and there are also Latin shorthand copies of the Psalter, of complete sermons,
and of shorter texts and glosses.

Greek shorthand manuals containing word lists and their corresponding

abbreviated entries are transmitted on papyrus from the 2nd century AD.
Shorthand word lists were probably intended both for teaching and for scholarly
use (P.Oxy. XV 1808; P.Westm.Coll. Inv. 19r; P.Brit.Libr. 2561–2). Shorthand
also survives on wax tablets such as BL Add. ms. 33,270. Greek shorthand
continued in use in the Byzantine Empire until the 11th century.

DAVID GANZ; MARCO PERALE

Bibliography
H. Boge, Griechische Tachygraphie und tironische Noten (1974). :

G. Menci, ‘Echi letterari nei papiri tachigrafici’, in I. Andorlini, G. Bastianini, M. Manfredi,
and G. Menci, eds., Atti del XXII congresso internazionale di papirologia (2001), 927–
36. :

N. Lewis, ‘Shorthand Writers’, Comunicazioni dell’istituto papirologico G. Vitelli 5 (2003),
19–27. :

Teitler, Notarii. :

K. A. Worp and S. Torallas Tovar, eds., To the Origins of Greek Stenography (P. Monts.
Roca I) (2006). :
tablets, writing (Gk. deltos, Lat. tabula, pugillar)
Late Roman writing tablets might be made of ivory, like the diptychs sent out by
Symmachus to celebrate his son being Quaestor at Rome (ep. II, 81, 2), of
wood inscribed in ink, like the Albertini Tablets, which record business
transctions in Vandal Africa, or the lime-wood tablets favoured by Commodus
(Herodian I 17, 1; HA Commodus, 9, 3), or more commonly of wax set in a
frame and written on with a metal stylus. Sidonius composed his letters on wax
tablets and had them copied onto papyrus to be sent (ep. IV, 3, 1). Prudentius
(Peristephanon, IX) describes the martyrdom of a cruel Christian schoolmaster,
stabbed to death by the styluses of his students. Curse tablets were generally
made of lead.

MARCO PERALE; OLIVER NICHOLSON

Bibliography
É. Lalou, ed., Les Tablettes à écrire de l’Antiquité à l’ époque moderne (1992). :

P. Degni, Usi delle tavolette lignee e cerate nel mondo greco e romano (1998). :

K. A. Worp, A New Survey of Greek, Coptic, Demotic and Latin Tabulae Preserved from
Classical Antiquity, Trismegistos Online Publications (no. 6), Version 1.0 February 2012
http://www.trismegistos.org/top.php. :
Taurinos archive (426–513)
Private archive consisting of 56 papyrus documents found in Hermopolis (mod.
al-Ashmunein). The archive, called after the eldest member of a 5th-century
dynasty, concerns five generations of landowners. It includes contracts of lease
addressed to members of the families of Taurinos, Sarapodoros, and Kyra, and
copies of receipts for tax paid by Taurinos I and Sarapodoros’ sister Eucharistia
for their plots of land. It provides detailed information on Taurinos and his
descendants’ careers as soldiers and officers, illuminating the background of
military administration in 5th-century Egypt.

MARCO PERALE
Bibliography
BGU XII = ed. H. Maehler, Papyri aus Hermupolis (1974), XIX–XXVI. :

J. G. Keenan, ‘Soldiers and Civilians in Byzantine Hermopolis’, in A. Bülow-Jacobsen,
ed., Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Papyrologists (1994), 446–51. :

G. Poethke, ed., Griechische Papyrusurkunden spätröm. und byzantinischer Zeit aus
Hermupolis Magna (2001), XXXIV–XXXVI.
Library of Alexandria
Founded alongside the place of study called the Museum (Gk. Mouseion) by
Demetrius of Phalerum, most likely under Ptolemy I (323–83 BC), the Library
was established with the aim of creating a universal collection of the extant
literary and scientific works from the Greek, Egyptian, Jewish, and Near
Eastern worlds. Ancient sources credit the Ptolemies with the collection of
hundreds of thousands of scrolls (Aristeas Judaeus, 9–10; Gellius, VII, 17, 3;
Tzetzes, Prolegomena de Comedia, p. 32.2-12 Koster). The actual figure,
however, should settle at around 10,000 to 15,000.

Myths about the Library abound. Aristotle is alleged to have been responsible
for its design and arrangement, Ptolemy is credited with inheriting Aristotle’s
private library, and Cleopatra is said to have acquired for Alexandria the rival
library of the kings of Pergamum. The Royal Library is said to have been
damaged in 48 BC during the Alexandrian War between Julius Caesar and
Ptolemy XIII (Plutarch, Caesar, 49, cf. Strabo, II, 1, 5); Ammianus deems the
number of books then destroyed to be 700,000 (XXII, 16, 13), Orosius (not
unproblematically) says 400,000 (VI, 15, 31–2). The disappearance of the
Library and Museum have been connected with sieges of Alexandria by the
Emperor Aurelian fighting Palmyrene forces in 273 and by the Emperor
Diocletian fighting the usurper Achilleus in 298, though references to the
Museum in the 5th century suggest that it may have been re-established
elsewhere in the city.

The Royal Library was not the only library in Alexandria. There were important
libraries at the Caesareum and Claudianum. Epiphanius of Salamis refers to
the Library at the Serapeum, itself a Hellenistic foundation, as ‘the daughter
library’ (On Weights and Measures, 11); this may or may not be identical with
the Outer Library mentioned by Tzetzes. The tale that libraries at Alexandria
were destroyed on the orders of the Caliph ’Umar during the Arab invasion
cannot be traced further back than Bar ‘Ebroyo in the 13th century.

MARCO PERALE; OLIVER NICHOLSON

Bibliography
R. S. Bagnall, ‘Alexandria: Library of Dreams’, PAPS 146 (2002), 348–62. : Butler, Arab
Conquest of Egypt, 401–26. : L. Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (2001), 31–47. :

M. Clauss, Alexandria. Schicksale einer antiken Weltstadt (2003), 92–8. :

M. El-Abbadi, ‘The Alexandria Library in History’, in A. Hirst and M. Silk, eds.,
Alexandria. Real and Imagined (2004), 167–83. :

Watts, City and School, 148–51. :
papyrus and papyrology
Papyrus is a writing surface derived from the plant Cyperus papyrus, and
papyrology the discipline which studies texts preserved on papyrus artefacts.
The term ‘papyrus’ conventionally refers to all writing materials constituting the
object of study of papyrology, including parchments, potsherds, wooden tablets
and labels, leather, metal, bone, or linen. The term papyrology is not primarily
applied to inscriptions on stones or coin legends, which constitute the area of
research of epigraphy and numismatics.

Papyrus, commodity and formats

The aquatic papyrus plant, still present in several Mediterranean locations and
in tropical Africa, grew abundantly in the region of the Nile delta and the
Fayyum, serving a variety of uses. The plant’s lower part was edible, while its
root could be used as fuel in the extraction of iron and copper; papyrus fibres
could be interwoven, to create baskets and plaited products, as well as rope,
coverlets, and boat caulks.

The writing material itself underwent a peculiar manufacturing process (Pliny,

Historia Naturalis, XIII, 74–82). According to H. Ragab’s reconstruction, the
triangular stem was cut along its length into five or six strips, which were
subsequently laid crossways in two layers on a flat surface. The plant’s own
natural juices, serving as an efficient glue between the layers, guaranteed the
solidity of the artefact. Sheets (Gk. κολλήµατα) were glued together
horizontally, forming a roll (χάρτης).

For brief texts, such as letters, payment receipts, libelli, or school exercises, a
small section could be cut off the original scroll. Standard rolls normally
consisted of no more than twenty sheets (Historia Naturalis, XIII, 77), the
number of exceptions decreasing in the Late Antique period (cf. P.Cair.Masp. II
67151, from the archive of Dioscorus of Aphrodito). Short documents could be
joined together and numbered in sequence for archival purposes (τόµος
συγκολλήσιµος).

The Latin term for ‘scroll’, volumen (from volvere = to roll), expresses the
perspective of a reader ‘(un)rolling’ the papyrus with his right hand while
holding the left extremity with the other hand. Because the text on a scroll was
written only on one side (the recto) the reverse side of old scrolls (the verso)
was frequently reused for other writing. The scroll was not the only format for
papyrus books. Papyrus was also used to make codices, books which
consisted of multiple sheets folded, bound, or stitched together, like a modern
book, and normally preserving a single text copied on both sides. The origins of
the codex as a book form is probably not connected with the spread of
Christianity, and may go back to the Roman codex of writing tablets, i.e. a book
composed of a group of wooden panels strung together (a pugillar), the surface
of the wood either being written on directly or coated with wax which might be
written on using a stylus.

Papyri and ancient history

Papyri are important not only for what they say about the individuals associated
with them, but also for the reconstruction of the historical milieu of Late Roman
Egypt. For instance, the archive of the landholder and farm tenant Aurelius
Isidorus (AD 267–324) not only sheds light on Isidorus’ possessions, but
provides evidence about the fiscal administration in Egypt after Diocletian’s tax
reform of 297 (P.Cair.Isid. 9, 95).

Papyri tell us about individuals and also about the inner workings of specific
Egyptian communities. They illuminate, for instance, the extent to which
women communicated in writing; their use of petitions and private letters
drastically decreased after the end of the 3rd century. The extent of Christian
naming practices on papyri from Aphrodito at the turn of the 8th century reflects
the extent of Egyptian Christianity.

The peculiarities of individual areas of life in Egypt at particular times are often
known only from papyri. The recently published P.Lond.Herm. documents the
use of copper coinage for tax payments in the Hermopolite Nome in the 6th
century rather than the gold solidi used to pay taxes elsewhere.

Other languages
Papyri survive in Egypt in languages other than Greek. The disappearance of
Latin from private correspondence from the 4th century onwards indicates the
decline of Greek–Latin bilingualism in Egypt. After Diocletian, Latin survived as
a juridical language used by the highest officials of the military and civil
administrations, such as the chief financial officer Vitalis (ChLA IV 253 and XIX
687, of AD 317–24), and the Dux Aegypti Valacius (P.Abinn. 2 of AD 344), and
remained in use in reports of proceedings of courts of law alongside Greek,
introducing the speeches of such presiding officials as the Dux Aegypti (e.g.
P.Oxy. LXIII, 4381 of AD 375) and the Praeses Arcadiae (XVI 1878–9, of AD 461
and 434).

Papyri indicate also the various uses of Coptic. There are Coptic literary texts.
In addition, the archive of the Melitian monastery of Hathor (P.Lond. VI and
P.Neph.), the archive of the anchorite Apa John (P.Ryl.Copt. 268–74, 276), and
the Kellis private and business accounts (c. AD 355–80, P.Kellis V) all show
Coptic being used in everyday documents. The archive of Dioscorus of
Aphrodito (AD 506–85, P.Aphrod.Lit.) is the first to attest the use of Coptic in
judicial settings (AD 569, P.Cair.Masp. III 67353; c.AD 570, P.Lond. V 1709).

From the decade of Persian rule (619–29) and the brief period following the
Roman reconquest, there survives a total of 199 ostraca and 124 Pahlavi
papyri (CII III, IV–V 1).

Late Antique papyri discovered outside Egypt include the Petra Papyri and the
Nessana Papyri, groups of 228 Greek documents of the 6th and 7th centuries
from the province of Palaestina Tertia (P.Petra; Sammelbuch III 7011, V 8073–
6; P.Ness. III 14, 16–44, 46–54, 79, 85, 89–91, 95, 97–157, 160–95).

MARCO PERALE
Bibliography
R. S. Bagnall, Reading Papyri, Writing Ancient History (1995). :

R. S. Bagnall, Early Christian Books in Egypt (2009). :

R. S. Bagnall, Everyday Writing in the Græco-Roman East (2011), 75–94. :

A. Bülow-Jacobsen, ‘Writing Materials in the Ancient World’, 3–29, and J.-L. Fournet,
‘The Multilingual Environment of Late Antique Egypt: Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Persian
Documentation’, 418–51, both in R. S. Bagnall, ed., Oxford Handbook of Papyrology
(2009). :

N. Lewis, Papyrus in Classical Antiquity (1974). :

S. J. Clackson and A. Papaconstantinou, ‘Coptic or Greek? Bilingualism in the Papyri’,
in A. Papaconstantinou, ed., The Multilingual Experience in Egypt, from the Ptolemies to
the ‘Abbāsids (2010), 73–104. :