People were mentioning their love of papyrology in the welcome sub-forum. For all such papyrus lovers (and the rest of us too) I found this while researching something else, and thought I’d share it here:
Horus gave the deposit of nine drachmas (on behalf of Apion) to Lampon the mousehunter so that he’d kill the young brood? No doubt I’m misreading. To me it looks like he’s paying the exterminator.
κέκρηκα a spelling variant of κἐχρηκα (frequent type of variant in the papyri from my limited experience), from κἰκρημι/κιχράω, = lend.
I said "exterminator above, “mouse catching” is probably the better sense. What did they do with the mice after catching them? The papyrus is dated “late first century” so could they possibly be dormice? Getting a pregnant mouse gives lots more of the little guys if you get them alive. Not sure if the custom is popular in Egypt or not during that time period.
καλῶς ποιήσεις πέμψεις, yes, literally, "you will do well if you send… But the idiom = please, “please send…”
Any insights from our resident papyrologist more than welcome.
I love the idea of hunting down pregnant mice so as to fatten up the litter!
But no, εντοκα would mean interest-bearing, not pregnant, but actually it must be “in Toka”—the name of a local village. “Mouse-hunters” were hired to kill the rodents that infested crops. We’re in June (Παυνι not ΙΙαυνι); the vineyards will have needed protecting. Sorry to spoil the fun.
8 drachs not 9.
μυοθηρεuσει written for -ση.
Joel’s ει gives the sense, but doesn’t need to be added.
Interesting. For the record, Grenfell and Hunt supply this translation:
‘Horus to his esteemed Apion greeting. Regarding Lampon the mouse-catcher I paid him for you as earnest money 8 drachmae in order that he may catch the mice while they are with young. Please send me the money. I have also lent Dionysius, the chief man of Nemerae, 8 drachmae, and he has not repaid them, to which I call your attention. Good-bye. Payni 24.’
Grenfell, B. P., & Hunt, A. S. (Eds.). (1899). The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. London; Boston, MA: The Offices of the Egypt Exploration Fund; Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.; Bernard Quaritch; Asher & Co.; Henry Frowde.
And they read ἔντοκα as I copied above. However, from the Duke Database:
Barry, That first publication was in 1899, in the earliest days of the Oxyrhynchus discoveries, and that interpretation of εντοκα was untenable even then. There are now dozens of mentions of the village of Toka (and of the nearby village of Nemerai) in the Oxyrhynchite papyri. There can’t be any doubt about it. It’s disheartening to see these long superseded preliminary readings exhumed and resurrected.
Thanks. I’m sure they “resurrected” them because they are public domain, and the cost was free through the software package that I use. I’ll be sure to vet them a bit more carefully from now on. I recently participated in an online reading group where we looked at various papyri (the actual papyrus) figuring out the readings and translating them (it was conducted by James Aitken of Cambridge). I appreciated the value of the papyri before, but now I’m hooked, and always stop to try to get through an entire papyrus, usually when looking it up for some other reason. Even the “boring” ones are interesting and fun!
