DCLP Transcription [xml]
Introduction
Title tag. Small strip of a papyrus (9.5 x 3.3 cm) written on the recto (verso is blank). Its shape and dimensions, as well as its message, classify it as one of the sillyboi (‘title tags’), originally attached to the outside of a roll of papyrus in order to identify the contents when the papyrus was rolled up and stored with similar rolls. The text (‘Of the Kathemerina of Olympios, 3rd Book’) raises many questions: the literary, or sub-literary genre in which a work bearing the title Daily Things (Καθημερινά) might appear is by no means obvious, and while a number of men named Olympios are known to have authored texts of various kinds, no work by a writer named Olympios is an immediate and compelling candidate for the Kathemerina. If the contents were medical and/or cosmetic in nature, however, as it seems more plausible, the work would have concerned therapeutic procedures to be followed in daily routine in order to preserve health and perhaps even to enhance beauty. Given the scant testimony for the name Olympios and its occasional association with slaves once ordinary mortals bore the name, the court physician and retainer of Cleopatra VII (mentioned twice in Plu. Ant. 82-6) seems a possible candidate for author. The text was copied in an informal round hand assignable to the late 2nd - early 3rd cent. AD.
Notes
- 1.
The adjective καθημερινός appears occasionally in documentary papyri of the late Empire, referring for the most part to items of clothing and bedding, and is intended to mark their ordinariness (e.g. P.Cair.Masp. 1.67006v.84; P.Prag. 2.78.2. 7; P. Wash.Univ.2.104.3). It also strongly suggests a medical context as a referent to fevers of daily occurrence (Gal. Diff.febr. 2 [7, 354.4-18 K]), to a prophylactic regimen and/or to daily practices that lie close to the intersection between medicine and cosmetics (Dsc. 5.6.13 [3.9.25-10.3 W]; Aet. 9.6). See Hanson 2004, 212ff.
- 2.
The name Olympios seems by no means to have been met frequently at the time when the title tag was produced (see Hanson 2004, 217-8). Olympios appears in Gal. Comp.med.sec.loc. 9 (13, 261.5-15 K), where he was credited as “one who made use of the softener from seeds”, a malagma compounded from some twenty-two ingredients. Olympios “a sophist” is credited with a medicament to relieve ulcerations of the bladder in Aet. Iatr., 11.29, 579 D-R. Olympios was also the court physician to Cleopatra VII and mentioned by name in Plu. Ant., 82-6: he was adviser and confidante for Cleopatra’s plan to starve herself to death after Antonius’ suicide and he subsequently published an account of Cleopatra’s death. For a possible, intriguing link between this work and the Καθημερινά, see Caroli 2007, 206-7.