DCLP

Introduction

Pharmacological manual. The papyrus consists of three fragments (frag. 1: 14 x 13 cm; frag. 2: 2.4 x 4.5 cm; frag. 3: 1.5 x 3.5 cm), and of two insignificant scraps, written on the back of a document. Frag. 1 preserves the upper, left, and right margins of a single column, with four vertical folds at approximately 2.5 cm intervals; the scribe seems deliberately to have left spaces in the text to avoid areas of poor quality on the surface of the papyrus, indicating that they were present when the text was copied. Traces of seven, more incomplete lines, with a portion of a right margin, are visible on frag. 2; the text of frag. 3 is even more lacunary. Supplementation for fragg. 1-2, as well as a comparison of their interlinear spacing and the measures/quantities mentioned, render it unlikely that they can be closely associated. All these fragments preserve sections of a pharmacological manual that contained multiple columns of recipes, each written out in continuous prose line by line (see e.g. P.Ryl. 3.531, P.Oxy. 8.1088, and PSI 10.1180). Recipes are separated by paragraphus and arranged to a limited degree according to the affected part which they are intended to treat: thus ll. 3-12 (and perhaps also ll. 1-2) deals with the area of groin, while the immediately following recipes are for difficulty of breathing, thereby also overturning the more general a capite ad calcem arrangement. The hand resembles an official cursive, roughly bilinear and assignable to the 2nd cent. AD, most probably the second half.

Apparatus

Notes

• 1.

  We expect the ingredient with which the raisin is to be pounded.

• 3.

  Of the first letter after the break, only a faint trace survives high in the line; of the putative alpha, the beginning of a rising diagonal. Linen is mentioned at ll.11-12 in a recipe for a complaint also affecting the genitals; it is possible that his entry describes a comparable recipe.

• 6.

  An aorist participle such as λαβών would be expected before the imperative, but the sequence οις seems certain. Of the preceding traces, a curving descender is visible, followed by faint marks which would be consistent with the end of a horizontal meeting a vertical mid-line. The use of the second person singular in such contexts is rare but attested: see P.Acad. inv. 4r. 9-14 [= Fournet 2004, 185-7]

• 7.

  If the inner thighs are meant, the condition affecting them may be left understood (e.g. l. 11: αἱμορροῦντα). Alternatively, παρὰ μηρία (“in the area of the thighs”) could be read in which case the affection may be that mentioned in the previous recipe (πόνος καὶ φλεγμοναί). The extended trait of alpha serves to distinguish the recipe proper from its application.

• 8.

  The diminutive ἐντεροκελίδιον, little inguinal hernia, is an hapax.

• 12.

  τ̣[ρ{ε}ί]ψ̣̣ας seems unavoidable. Of the first letter, only a small trace remains high in the line; after the break, the extreme of a horizontal, rising slightly, almost touches alpha above mid-height, and would appear to be consistent only with epsilon or psi.

• 13.

  αὐθημερεί is an extremely rare form of the adverb, found in inscriptions (e.g. IG. 2.471.71 and IG. 3.73.24-5).

• 14.

  The absence of quantities provided for the individual ingredients listed here suggests the supplementation of a word such as ἴσα in the lacuna at the end of this line, i.e. ‘equal amounts of…’.

• 15-6.

  For the preparation and administering of this recipe, cf. e.g. P.Oxy. 8.1088.ii.41-5.

• 16.

  δί[δου πίνειν] is a common formula used in medical recipes for orally ingested medicaments, and apparently warranted here by the direction to give the prepared drug ‘in honey and wine’.

• 17.

  The decoction may have been intended to be ingested orally. The liquid in which the hyssop was to be soaked was presumably specified at the end of l. 18, and therefore another ingredient may have been mentioned at the end of l. 17. A parallel may be identifiable in Dsc. 3.25.1 [2.35-6 W.].

• 20.

  ἀβρότονον is the standard spelling (even if not attested on papyrus), but that found here appears to be a genuine variant among the papyri, attested also at P.Oxy. VIII 1088, col. iii l. 68.

• 4.

  The genitive form δαύκους is also attested at P.Oxy. 8.1008.ii.50, 53 (the third reference at col. iii 65 may conceal an instance of haplography).

• 3.

  A small blank space after β here suggests that it is a numeral, specifying a quantity, followed perhaps by a form of λεαίνω, λειόω or λείος.