Papyri.info

Introduction

List of books (P.Vars. 5v = CPF 1.1.1.4). Papyrus strip (6 x 31 cm) containing part of a list of books, written on the verso of a census list (P.Vars. 5r). It is a summary list recording only authors and numbers (of rolls), without any indication of titles, but providing an account of opistographs (cf. Manfredi 1983), perhaps as an indication of quality or value. This could lead us to think that the text was written by a librarian, being an inventory or a note related to an order. The indications of the opistographs are always marked with opening or closing parentheses and sometimes added as interlinear annotations. The list appears to be divided into thematic sections (then in alphabetic order): a series of philosophers (up to ll. 19-22, where the general total of 142 is followed by the partial account of opistographs) is followed by a group of physicians (ll. 23-27) for a total of 296 rolls (l. 28), of which 46 opistographs (l. 29). On the succession philosophers-physicians in Callimachus' Pinakes cf. O. Regenbogen, RE 20.2, 1960, 1419-21. The traditional interpretation, which looked at the authors recorded at ll. 20-22 as physicians (as of Manteuffel 1933 up to the CPF edition), has been recently challenged by Puglia 1996 and 1997, who demonstrated (also after re-calculating the numbers of rolls) that those names belong to philosophers. The medical authors mentioned by this text are therefore only Herasistratus, Thessalus, and Themison.

(This papyrus has been digitally edited by Nicola Reggiani as part of the Project "DIGMEDTEXT - Online Humanities Scholarship: A Digital Medical Library based on Ancient Texts" (ERC-AdG-2013, Grant Agreement no. 339828) funded by the European Research Council at the University of Parma (Principal Investigator: Prof. Isabella Andorlini). The digital edition is mostly based on the previous editions (ed.pr. = G. Manteuffel, "Aegyptus" 13, 1933, pp. 367-73, then P.Vars. 5v; ed.alt. = M. Manfredi - I. Andorlini - A. Linguiti, CPF I 1.1 4; ed.ter. = E. Puglia, PapLup 5, 1997, pp. 131-5; corr. E. Puglia, ZPE 111, 1996, pp. 27-30; R. Otranto, Liste 17).)

Notes

• 19.

  The total of the philosophers' rolls is far huger than the items listed in the extant column. Puglia 1997 reasonably argues that the missing philosophers' rolls must have been recorded in a previous column.

• 20-22bis.

  These four lines are grouped together by means of huge parentheses on their sides.

• 25.

  Νάρθηξ was quite a common title for pharmacological works. Manfredi-Andorlini-Linguiti 1989 argued that here it couldn't be so, since the list never provides actual titles, and they interpreted it as a common word for "container, box", resolving the previous word with a genitive indicating the author's name. Puglia 1997 suggested that this is unlikely, since it would have been rather inaccurate to count a box within a precise catalogue listing numbers of rolls. His re-calculation of the amounts makes it clear that it should have been the mention of one work, likely anonymous (thence the nominative proposed for the previous word, indicating just the genre, e.g. ἰατρι]κ̣ό̣(ς) or Ἐμπειρι]κ̣ό̣(ς) ).

• 26.

  This is the exact total of the medical works, followed by the sub-total of the opistographs.

• 26a-b.

  These two lines are grouped together to the right of l. 26, by means of parentheses on both sides.

• 27-8.

  This is the total of the "previous" (τὰ προκείμενα) rolls, including the 142 philosophers' ones and the 13 medical works. It is apparent, as Puglia 1997 argued, that more titles, belonging to different genres, must have been recorded in previous columns. The same applies to the general sub-total of opistographs (l. 29).