far older than anything yet published | ten by scores of hands at this remote by the Vienna savants. Moreover, the date, ranging from the small, neat, proPetrie papyri from Gurob are only in fessional character of the bookseller's Greek or demotic-only perhaps half-adozen in hieratic — and, strange to say, there is hardly a bilingual piece among them. The Coptic texts now being published by Mr. Crum were not found in this place, and were not all found, but purchased, by Mr. Petrie.

scribe to the large scrawl of the private man; from the precision of the official clerk to the untidiness of the unlettered servant. All sorts and conditions of men have left us their correspondence, their contracts, their family papers, even scraps of the books they read, in I am here only concerned with the this wonderful collection. Had the special group resulting from the excava- coffin-makers used these papers whole, tion of a small cemetery at Gurob, in there is no estimating the knowledge the Fayyum, containing not more than they would afford us; a whole society thirty coffins, or, rather, mummy cases, of Greeks of this remote date would for the human figure is rudely modelled rise in all its detail into the light of the in these receptacles. But owing to the nineteenth century. But, alas! the scarcity of wood, they were constructed papers were all torn into patches of from a mass of waste papers, by laying moderate size, the surfaces of many of and gluing together these papers in lay- them daubed with mud which effaced ers, and were then coated within and the ink, the whole mass confused and without with clay, and painted with de-mixed up, as it were by deliberate insigns. The case, when complete, rep- tention. The task, therefore, of cleanresented a swathed mummy with its ing, deciphering, guessing, combining, face exposed, the whole richly colored. is one of great patience, and the results It now appears, from the fact that parts often barren after weeks of toil. Most of the same text are found in divers of of the smaller fragments, generally some these cases, that they were made up at items in a private account, are of no use the same time, and probably by trades- or interest, but one can never tell that men who acquired this mass of papyri even such stray words will not fill a gap for the purpose. As four or five of the in a larger text, which remains uninteltexts are dated in the year 186 B.C. we ligible till that gap is supplied. Somemay not assume that any of the cases times a hopelessly effaced scrawl will were made earlier. But the great mass suddenly yield its secret, and afford a of the dated papers range from 260 B.C. veritable triumph to the decipherer; to 223 B.C., and none at all from the sometimes an apparently easy hand will interval between the later date and 186. conceal puzzles that baffle all his ingeThey are, therefore, a collection from nuity. It is in these alternations of the palmiest days of Greek Egypt, when hope and despair that I have been exerthe second and third Ptolemies had cised ever since I was introduced to the made their kingdom prosperous, ad- subject, and taught my first lessons by mired, and respected by all the nations Mr. Sayce, at Oxford. In another year I of the civilized world. may hope the task will be accomplished, so far as my efforts can do it. But there will be an ample harvest for other men in adding to my results and

When the reader reflects that most of our Greek MSS. date from the later Middle Ages; that the age of even the Egyptian fragments of the classics hith-correcting my errors. erto known in no case ascend with cer- The substance of these papyri may be tainty above the Christian era; that a dated Greek handwriting of the third century B.C. was hitherto an unheard-of thing, he will appreciate the fascinating position in which good fortune has placed me. For I have now for two years been daily handling papers writ

briefly classified as follows: (1) A small number of classical texts, which were books carried by the Greek settlers into the Fayyûm. These texts may be considerably older than the dated papers, and some of them probably ascend above the year 300 B.C. Most of them

were easily identified. There was the of them are copies of public records. conclusion of the "Antiope" of Eurip- The subjects of these are so various ides, a play often praised and quoted by that it is hard to classify them. There the ancients, notably by Plato, but from are a few letters from sons to fathers, which nothing more than isolated lines or of recommendation; a few from stewhad been preserved. We now have the ards giving an account of their farms whole concluding scene, tolerably com- to the master. Many more are from plete, for the second fragment pub- subordinate officials giving reports, or lished in facsimile has since been fitted making complaints, or quoting letters to the third, so giving us almost three sent to them. In some cases we have columns of continuous text. A few the answers, with rescripts from the other short extracts from plays were governor of the province, or even a royal found, but too mutilated to tell us more than the fact that such extracts were then in use.

Then there was a miserable scrap of an Iliad, giving us only the ends of the lines in one column and the beginnings of the next, in all thirty-five ends and openings, sufficient to identify it as from the eleventh book of the Iliad, but containing five or six not known in any of our texts; and this is far the oldest copy of the Iliad ever yet found! | It is a text earlier than those of the great critics, notably than that of Aristarchus, and we may well ask, did these critics expunge one-seventh of the older current texts ? The discussion of this problem is now occupying the Germans, who send me every month a pamphlet concerning it.

Among the prose classical texts the most important is that of the "Phædo" of Plato -two or three pages are preserved, in a beautiful hand, archaic even in comparison with the other papers, and containing variants from our current texts, not indeed anything so violent as those of the Iliad papyrus, but still sufficient to excite a similar controversy in Germany. The "edition" is certainly older, but is it better than the famous Oxford MS. of the ninth century A.D.? I may also here announce that I have just found, in a hand somewhat similar, a considerable passage from the "Laches" of Plato, which will soon be published. The rest of those just enumerated are facsimiled in my "Cunningham Memoir." There are, besides, fragments of prose texts, of which the author is not yet identified. We may pass on to (2) the private, or rather every-day documents, for some

decree. Some of these documents are the actual copy sent, with the address on the back, and are written in more or less formal or easily read hands (where not effaced or broken). Others are only the rough drafts, scrawled in a most untidy way, or full of erasures and corrections written over the lines. Some are from Egyptians to Greeks, some even from Egyptian officials to one another; and they show plainly that the red-tape of office was as rife then as it now is in the departments at Whitehall. The official who makes a report always quotes the letters sent to him verbatim, and the replying authority rehearses the facts with explicit care. These documents are dated, but merely by the current year of the reign and the month, without giving the king's name. Hence it is only from the dates to companion documents, the character of the writing, the analogy of the subjects, and the identity in site that we can make sure that they come from the very early date which I have asserted for them. Moreover, when we find all the letters to and from Cleon, the architect of the province, dated year 30, or year 31, there can be no doubt that the king was the second Ptolemy (Philadelphus), for the next king who reigned so long was Euergetes II., a century later, and not a single one of the fully dated papers mentions his name.

These fully dated papers are: (1) Wills, of which we have a large group, giving us the dispositions of property made by various landholders in the Fayyûm, and accordingly among the most interesting in the whole collection. (2) There are also receipts and contracts, all dated carefully after this

a

fashion: "In the reign of Ptolemy, the | are led round the circular basin of land, son of Ptolemy and Arsinoe, Brother as it were, in concentric circles, till at Gods, the 10th year; the priest of Alex-last the water finds its way into the ander, of the Brother Gods, and of the central cavity of the district, where Beneficent Gods, being Apollonides, son there has been for thousands of years of Moschion, the priestess of the [dei- a great lake, in its level far below the fied] Queen Arsinoe Philadelphus, being Mediterranean, and therefore only Menekrateia, daughter of Philamenon; drained by evaporation. As the irriin the month Payni, the 26th day, in gation comes from the higher level, and the City of the Crocodiles, of the Arsi- not from the lake, the efforts of man noite nome "" -a formula which we have always been to reduce its size, and knew long ago from the famous Rosetta the early Egyptian kings, who underinscription, and again from the Cano- stood the problem perfectly, did by a pus inscription, which is dated the very great dyke confine the lake towards the same year (238 B.C.), and in the very south, and build a large city (of the same words (just cited) as many of our Crocodiles), the metropolis for a most documents. Lastly, I may place in this fertile district, which rose in slopes very imperfect enumeration com- from its centre. The fish of the lake plete one would weary the reader were by ancient precedent the queen's very numerous accounts; some those pin-money, so that the duty paid by of tax-gatherers, giving the sums paid fishermen afforded her a large income. to them; some those of contractors, In the times of decay, before the consuch as what we should call livery-stable quest of Alexander, the embankment men, or vetturini, for the supply of fod- of the lake seems to have been negder for horses, food for drivers, and lected, and a large part of the Fayyûm medicaments for curing hurts or lame-covered with water, which may no ness; many more are mere private ac-doubt have increased the fishing area counts, generally scrawled on the back and the queen's pin-money, but had of some other document, and quite un- withdrawn a large area from cultivation. intelligible where they are mutilated, It may be conjectured as highly probawhich is almost always the case. ble that the able and enterprising Queen If this mass of various documents Arsinoe, second wife and full sister of were in any degree undamaged; if even | Ptolemy II. (Philadelphus), when that one-tenth consisted of complete texts, king had attained secure peace, and however short, the gain to ancient his- desired to disband and provide for his tory would be enormous. As it is, we large army, offered to clear the subshall have the daily life of a large soci-merged ground and provide farms for ety brought before us with much detail, the king's veterans. Certain it is that when some of the many riddles are a large number of veterans, whose pasolved which each of these fragments pers are now before us, were settled presents. In this rough sketch, which I now put together from the isolated facts which are emerging daily from the decipherment, there may be many inaccuracies; the general outline is, I think, definite, and will hereafter be established by ample evidence.

there as landholders, that the nome was renamed the Arsinoite, after the queen, and that there is no evidence of any existing native population being dispossessed. The largest owners, probably soldiers who had done special service under the first Ptolemy, were Let us first gain a clear idea of the "hundred-acre men;" and they apfamous district which is the scene of pear in the wills to which I have so many discoveries. The Fayyûm is referred as very old men, who might an oasis in the desert, caused by a great have been the sons of the actual solnatural depression, or series of depres-diers of Alexander. But we have sions, so that a large tract of country, lying lower than the high Nile, can be irrigated from the river by canals, which

lesser amounts of land, down to twenty acres, mentioned.

This colony occupied the heart of the

Though I have met with many instances of natives calling their sons by Greek names, I have not yet found one of a veteran marrying a native woman; the wife so often mentioned as sole heiress to her husband being always of Hellenistic extraction. But we may not dogmatize.

Fayyûm, and greatly enlarged or rebuilt the City of Crocodiles, where they dwelt, surrounded by the fellahs, who may have occupied the higher slopes and probably poorer land, but appear in the papyri as laborers and stewards. Thus the Fayyûm, by this new enterprise, was restored to its ancient fertility, and became the flourishing country As might be expected in a society which Strabo saw and admired. The formed from a mercenary army, with slopes are the only hilly country culti- no clan traditions and few restraints of vated in Egypt, and Mr. Cope White- kinship, there existed the utmost freehouse, the most intimate student of dom of bequest. We do not find any that district, showed me a photograph part of a man's property disposed of by he had taken there of a waterfall tum- the law. Women could inherit on an bling through a wooded glen, which I equality with men. Very frequent is guessed to be a view in Syria. Here the brief formula: "I leave all I poswine and oil, flowers and unguents, sess to my wife X, or my son Y, and were produced for the consumption of nothing to anybody else." As a will Memphis and Alexandria; quantities with details is far more interesting, I of corn and green fodder were exported shall here give a specimen, of which by the canal which ran from Ptolemais, near the heart of the district, to the Nile. And here the traveller in Strabo's day could not only admire the Ptolemaic industry introduced by the new colony, but the ancient wonders of the land; the great lake covered with sails, the famous labyrinth, and the great temples of the central city, which dated from the twelfth dynasty, long before the days of Abraham.

most part has been published (plate XII.) in the " Cunningham Memoir," but which the recent discovery of the missing strip on the left side now enables me to give in a much more correct and intelligible form. The opening formula or date, already described, is lost, but from a just-found fragment in the very same peculiar hand, which must have been the next column on the same roll, we can restore it literally, and determine it to be the ninth or tenth year of the third Ptolemy, viz., 238-7 B.C.

It is convenient to call the Ptolemaic colony Greeks, as contrasted with the natives, because they used Greek At this date then: "there made the as their tongue, and were gradually following will, deliberately and in his moulded into Hellenistic ways. But right mind, Peisias the Lycian, one of the descriptions of the men who made those settled in the new colony [age and witnessed the wills and signed the lost], a man of crooked figure, of midcontracts show us that the veterans of dle height, with a high forehead, and a Ptolemy were a population mixed in a scar under the jaw [they are fond of most extraordinary way, being in fact enumerating their scars]. May it be the descendants either in blood or in my good fortune to keep in good health habit of the soldiers of Alexander, who and manage my own affairs, but should gathered under his standard all the en- anything human happen to me, I beterprising spirits of his wide domains. queath my property in Alexandria [the Thus there lived side by side in the capital, ninety miles away] to my son Fayyûm, speaking good Greek, and Peisicrates, viz., my house and all its using Greek customs, not only Mace- furniture, together with my slaves Diodonians, the most privileged of all, nysius and Eutychus, and my slave-girl but Thessalians, Thracians, Arcadians, Abisila and her daughter Eirene, all Illyrians, Carians, Persians, Lycians, Syrians. But to Axiothea, daughter of Campanians, Etolians, all remember- Hippias, of Lycia, my wife, I bequeath ing and specifying their original homes, my Syrian slave-girl- and the house which they had permanently abandoned. I which I own in Bubastos in the Arsin

oite nome; the rest of my property in | nians of the Guard, several officers of Bubastos I leave in common to my son the rank of our captains or majors. We and my wife. But whatever property | hear, to our surprise, not only of the my wife Axiothea brought me in her bequest of horses, which were, theredowry, and still exists, I direct that she fore, not provided for the cavalry by shall have it, and Peisicrates have no the crown (though we hear of inspecshare in it; but as regards whatever of tors of horses), but of chariots of five it is gone or spoilt, let Peisicrates pay horses, as well as of three, in which to Axiothea the subjoined values, officials made their visits to the provwherever they find a deficit: a female ince. The same officials made requisiwoollen tunic and summer wrap, 6 tions from the natives, among other

drachmæ ; a man's tunic, 12dr.; a man's belt, 1dr.; a new summer wrap, 12dr.; a cloak, Sdr.; a bronze cup, 4dr.; a bronze cooler, 6dr.," etc., etc. The remainder is mutilated, but female slippers, knives, earrings, etc., are specified. The drachmæ mentioned are silver drachmæ, and nearly equal to the modern franc in value.

things, of geese, for their hospitalities, for we have a formal complaint of the "royal gooseherds - all Egyptians that they cannot bear this burden and do their duty to the king. There is long since well-known an inscription from Phile regarding a similar complaint of the priests there, that the burden of entertaining passing officials was too grievous to be borne.

This brings us to consider what evidence there is of the oppression of the natives, who were obliged once more to receive a dominant race of strangers and share with them, or rather surrender to them, the wealth of the country. When the demotic documents, found among the Greek ones I am now describing, shall have been deciphered, we shall probably learn much more concerning the affairs of the natives. so far there is no clear evidence that the Ptolemaic rule was not considerate to them. We cannot, moreover, be always sure of the nationality of the illtreated persons who make complaint in our papers. For the natives very soon began to call their children by Greek names. But there are, no doubt, cases

But

Prayers to the gods or religious expressions are unknown in these documents, and, except the cult of the reigning house, which may be called official royalty, no worship seems to have formed a part of these people's lives. Here, again, their traditions as mere soldiers in a moving camp must have destroyed their habits of religion, which among the Greeks was almost exclusively local, and bound up with the history of each particular city. Mention of the land (Kλnpot) is so rare in bequests the only occurrence of it has its context destroyed that it may have been secured to the legal heir, and not left in the testator's power. But that these settlers were deprived of their lots, either for debts to the State or other misconduct, is distinctly stated. In one case the owner only farmed one-of assault where the complainant was third of his land, and let the rest to two neighbors, who farmed it with him, and sold their produce in common with his. The olive and the vine-which they probably imported from Greece or Pal

certainly Egyptian. Imprisonment for debt appears to have been common, but not confined to the natives, and they were certainly cited as witnesses in the quarrels of the Greeks. They also held inferior offices or magistracies, and were invaluable in the collection of the taxes from a population whose few proper names were so oft repeated as to make identification by strangers very difficult. But though we hear of natives in these positions of trust, there is not a word concerning the higher classes of older days, the priestly and the warrior castes.