I must correct myself: it’s not ψωλος but ψωλη that’s written on the papyrus. I really must improve my knowledge of sexual vocabulary.
The text of the “Indecent Proposal,” as translated by its editor (the Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, no less), reads:
“Apion and Epimas say to their very dear Epaphroditus: If you let us bugger you and it’s OK with you, we shall stop thrashing you — if you let us bugger you. Keep well! Keep well!”
The illustrative drawing is labelled ψωλη και φικις (“prick and bum”).
It’s POxy. 3070; you can see an image on the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Online site (just enter 3070).
As for the astrological text, I see there’s a critical apparatus, from which it emerges (if I’m reading it correctly) that the only manuscript to include this bit actually has λύπτας καὶ ψωγηστάς, editorially emended to λείκτας καὶ ψωγιστάς, where I’d accept λείκτας but propose ψωλιστας. (The accent should presumably be paroxytone.) The editor himself notes “sunt fellatores et cinaedi” (p.197.7-8 app.crit.) but it’s not clear how he gets from ψογιστας to cinaedi! A ψωλίστης would be the active partner.
A passage a few lines later (p.197.9) gives what I take to be confirmation—that’s really why I’m writing this follow-up post. There the printed text reads ψογιζομένους ἢ καὶ ἐπὶ ξένης διὰ γυναῖκα ἢ μετὰ γυναικὸς καὶ ἐν θαλάσσῃ δεινὰ ὑπομένοντας. That too is only in one manuscript (the same one as presents the earler phrase—they’ll be additions to the main text by the same guy?), and seems pretty well unintelligible. The manuscript actually has ψωγιζωμένους (and ξένοις not ξένης). This I take to represent ψωλιζομένους, i.e. the verb which I said was unattested, on which the noun ψωγιστης would be formed. I assume ψωλίζω means (in more polite language) to penetrate with a penis.
I’m not quite sure what the phrase as a whole is meant to mean. “being prick-penetrated, either with strangers [accepting the manuscript’s ξενοις] on account of a woman [a dominatrix?], or with a woman and submitting to dreadful things in sea(?!—should ἐν θαλάσσῃ be ἐν θαλάμῳ, in the bedroom?)"? (So a gay gang-bang, and anal sex from a dominatrix. x-rated is right.)
Might be worth searching for other hidden occurrences of these words. They’d have delighted David Bain.
Any views, anyone?