Year: 1980
Type: article
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.
Author: James G Keenan
Language: English
Topic: Classical Antiquity Studies
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W753474303