DCLP

Introduction

Two recipes for eye-salves (kollyria). Written on the back of a report of judicial proceedings. The papyrus itself was cut to provide the surface on which they were written. Left (2 cm) and bottom (3 cm) margins are preserved. The papyrus was broken along its top margin and it lost a vertical strip at the right margin. In the first recipe, the three ingredients preserved are among the seven materials that distinguish acharista. The second recipe contains but three ingredients out of seven: the recipes seem to follow a pattern juxtaposing an achariston of greater strength with one of lesser potency, achieved through a drastic reduction of the ingredients to three. The scribe of the medicinal recipes wrote large and carefully articulated letters, more than twice the size of characters on the front; the individual letters are regularly formed and their rounded shapes present a rough bilinearity. Two sets of elaborate, wavy lines mark the end of each recipe, and the writer's orthography is correct by Koine standards.The text itself slips gradually to the left, although even by line 9 the left margin has moved leftward no further than a letter space.

(This papyrus has been digitally edited by Vincenzo Damiani 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 edition (A.E. Hanson, GMP I 13).)

Apparatus

Notes

• 3.

  For καρπός in the meaning 'seed-pod', see LSJ, s.v.; Stadler (RE) 1907, 411-2; OLD, s.v. 'erice'.

• 5.

  The total serves as a guarantee to the accuracy of the alphabetic numerals employed in the quantities of ingredients. Cf. Hanson 2001, 142-143 (CMP I 13).

• 6.

  The term ἐρικηρόν, 'made from erica', occurs only in Aet. 7.104 (CMG 8.2 361.1; 364.17-365.4; 365.7-13 and 13-23 Oliv.).