Formulaic Differences

As mentioned above, the protocol and the signature of the agoranomos had different variants. The variants seem to be, for the most part, notary-specific, that is, certain variants were used in the documents of certain notaries. Sometimes we can also detect another writer under the name of one notary on the basis of formulae. For example, in documents of Hermias, the long dating formula was always in the form of A+C3+D (see Appendix C). But once, in document 63, it was A+B+C4+D. This document was not written by the "Hermias-hand" (see above). However, we cannot be sure that the use of A+B+C4+D was due to a different writer, or to orders from above (i.e., from the main office). During Heliodoros' and Sosos' terms, A+B+C4+D prevailed in documents written by Areios and Ammonios. Document 63 was written in Sosos' agoranomic term (agoranomos1), and all instances of Hermias' A+C3+D were written in Paniskos' term as agoranomos1. In Paniskos' own documents, written in Krokodilon polis, the long dating formula was always the same as Hermias' (A+C3+D), and that same variant also prevailed in the period of Hermias II. In the second period of Ammonios, after Hermias, there is more variation.⁹⁷

The signatures and the name of the agoranomos in the protocol was also indicated in a couple of different ways (see above, 4.1). The habit of using formula 2, indicating both the agoranomos1 and agoranomos2 in the protocol, is used for the first (securely dated) time in 74 (106 BCE).⁹⁸ It was used by Hermias, and after him, also by Ammonios. In 60 and 63, both written when Sosos was the agoranomos1, formula 1 has been used. Again, the practice of using formula 2 may be caused by orders from

96 Photographs have also been published of 61, 70, 73.

97 132: A+D, 133, 134, 137: A+C3+D, 136: A+C4+D.

98 It is also used in in 71 (107–101 BCE) and 72 (109–98 BCE).

CHAPTER 4

98

above. In the notarial signature, formula 4, which states the names of both agoranomos1 and agoranomos2, was already used in the period of Areios, and more often by Ammonios and Hermias. It is interesting that formula 3 is used in two documents under Hermias' name (86, 124), although other Hermias' texts have formula 4. I have not been able to see the handwriting of these two texts; they could have been written by someone in Hermias' office other than Hermias himself.

4.3.3 Copies

Some of the texts from the corpus can be identified as copies. One clear external identification criterion is the word "copy" (ἀντίγραφον) at the beginning of the text.

However, the identification of copies is not always unambiguous and the regulations and practices concerning originals and copies can only be suggested. The agoranomic contracts were registered and, thus, the contents of every document were copied into a register (see above, 4.1) and kept in the office. The holder of the original contract probably varied according to the document type. It seems reasonable that the sale contract was important to the buyer, who had the onus of proof (onus probandi) in case of a dispute. In cases where the purchasing party consisted of several people, it is possible that they all received a copy of their own.⁹⁹ In the case of a loan, the lender was in need of the written document. Several repayments of loans, however, refer to the loan contract as "set to the archeion."¹⁰⁰ That would suggest that the original contracts were kept in the office. A similar practice also applied to provisory sales (see, for example, 93). The wills were probably kept by a certain appointed keeper of a contract (trustee).¹⁰¹ The question remains: did the second party always receive a copy of the contract? If so, one contract would have been written out at least three times: the original (to the first party or the keeper of the contract), a copy (to the second party) and the copy into the register. However, from the legal point of view, the contents of the contract could always be checked from the official register, if suspicions of treachery might arise. Morever, the longer format of the agoranomic contract had the sealed scriptura interior for the same reason.

We have four contracts that are preserved in duplicate, see Table 8.¹⁰² In all these cases, there seemed to be two different scribes at work. The original and the

99 For example, a sale contract where the buyers were Phibis and Horos, sons of Nechoutes. It has been suggested that Phibis kept the original contract 83A and the copy 83B was kept by Horos in his own archive (see above, 3.3.2), VANDORPE &WAEBENS 2009, 129.

100 60: κατὰ συνγρα(φὴν) δα(νείου) [τὴν] τεθεῖσαν ἐπὶ τοῦ ἐν Παθύ(ρει) ἀρχε[ίο]υ.

101 Cf. the question of an epitropos as a "testamentory executor" or "guardian" of minor children, V^ANDORPE, P. Dryton2002,29–30.In private six witness -contracts, the keeper of the document (syggraphophylax) was commonly used. This person was named in the contract.

102 One will has been preserved in duplicate copies: an agoranomic copy and a private copy (18A+18B). This item is not included in Table 8 as we do not have the original.

NOTARIES AT WORK

99 copy were written by different hands.¹⁰³ There were several orthographic differences between 15A and 15B and also between 37A and 37B.¹⁰⁴ The pair 37A+B is curious because it had no signature in the original either. It also has other odd features, for example, A and B were written on the same papyrus. However, the tax receipt indicates that the sale and division of inheritance were executed. In 37, the copying was perhaps done visually, since all the Egyptian personal names are written almost identically. The copy, 37B, has many more abbreviations than the original, but that does not exclude the possibility of visual copying. The orthography in 83 is quite similar in both the original and in the copy. Thus, there may have been different ways to perform the act of copying; in 15, dictation may have been used whereas in 37 and 83, the copying was perhaps done visually.

ID no. Type Word

"copy" script.

int. protocol notarial signature tax receipt 15A Donation

(original) x long x x (diff. hand)

15B Donation (copy) ? – long x x (? hand)

37A Sale+division

(original?) – long – x (diff. hand)

37B Sale+division (copy)

x – short – x (same

hand)

83A Sale (original) – long x –

83B Sale (copy) x – long [x] –

Table 8. Elements present in originals and their copies.

Five other documents are copies but their originals have not been preserved, see Table 9. ¹⁰⁵ Tables 8 and 9 show that no clear pattern exists for identifying a copy from the original, by any other external criteria than the word "copy" (ἀντίγραφον) itself.

However, that part of the papyrus could be lost, and in the original, the word "copy,"

of course, was not present. Wills, with their witness statements, form an exception (see below). It was probably reasonable that an official copy of the document included all the elements that made a document legally valid, so that the owner of the copy could go to court with it. Therefore, at least the signature of the agoranomos was needed, and, as we see from the tables, it usually was present in the copies. It is not clear why the signature was missing in 90.

103 In 15, the original, the scriptura interior (col. I) was written by a different hand than the contract (columns II and III), the agoranomic signature was written by a third hand and the tax receipt by a fourth hand. No changes of handwriting are mentioned for the copy, 15B, and I have not seen a photograph of it. 83A+83B were clearly written by two hands; 83A presents the "Hermias-hand, (see below). The handwriting in 37A is said to be "eine sehr ausgeshriebene Kursive" and in 37B "eine große Kursive" (Wilcken in UPZ). Thus, they are not explicitly stated to be the same handwriting.

104 For example, the copy used a lot more abbreviations.

105 I have not included text 24 in Table 9, see note 74.

C^HAPTER 4

100

ID no. Type Word

"copy" script.

int. protocol notarial signature tax receipt

20¹⁰⁶ Loan (x) short x (Heliodoros)

21 homological

apostasion x short x (Areios)

90 Sale x x long – –

119 Sale x – long x (Paniskos) –

143 agreement x – short not preserved –

Table 9. Elements present in copies. Wills excluded.

Of the six wills preserved in the corpus, at least four have survived as copies, mostly "agoranomic copies."¹⁰⁷ It means that they are identified as copies because the witness statements were written by the same hand as the will itself. In other words, they do not have the word "copy" written in them. The original will would have had the autographs of the witnesses. Otherwise, we could not tell whether we have an original or a copy, since the agoranomic copies also had the signature of the agoranomos.¹⁰⁸

In sum, we cannot always identify copies, and copies were often written by a scribe other than the one who wrote the original. Therefore, when analyzing the text linguistically, one has to take into account the possibility that the text is a copy, and that there may be features from the original author as well as from the copyist.

4.4EGYPTIAN BACKGROUND OF THE NOTARIES

All agoranomoi in the Theban region used Greek or Hellenized names when on duty.

Pestman's study ("L'Agoranomie" 1978) proved, however, that three notaries from Pathyris and one from Krokodilon polis belonged to one single family and that this family was Egyptian. In the same study, he showed that the family of the agoranomos Aniketos was also Egyptian. These notaries had Egyptian names in Egyptian documents and the key to connecting two names to one person was the use of both names side by side in some documents (Greek/Egyptian). I present and discuss the background of these notaries in this section.

106 Document 20, a loan of wheat and money, was written on an ostracon. The word "copy" was not written at the beginning of the text, but a note at the end of the document says that a "copy must be given to the epistates" (ἀντίγραφον ανή(ου) | ἀπο οῦναι τ ι ἐν αθύρει ἐπι τ τει). It is not ostracon already makes it likely that it is a copy.

107 The term "agoranomic copy" used by VANDORPE, P.Dryton 2002, 61. Remnants of six wills have see below.

108 3 and 22; the signature has not been preserved in 2 and 18A. The only private copy of a will, 18B, had no signature nor the witness-statements.

necessarily true that this ostracon is the copy in question, but the fact that the text is written on an

been preserved: 2, 3, 6, 18A+B, 22, 106. For the possibility of document 6 being a model document, The term agoranomic copy is used by VANDORPE, P.Dryton 2002, 61. Remnants of six wills have

NOTARIES AT WORK

101 Aniketos (notary in Krokodilon polis 129 BCE) appears as agoranomos1 in two documents, 12 and 13. Document 12 was written by Areios in Pathyris (129 BCE).¹⁰⁹ However, document 12 gives more details on the family of Aniketos because he himself, together with his wife, is the borrower in that particular loan.¹¹⁰ Aniketos himself also had an Egyptian name, Nechoutes (spelled Νιχούτ[ης] in the document proper, but Νεχού(της) on the back of the papyrus), and his father is called Ptolemaios alias Panobchounis.¹¹¹ His wife was called Nikaia alias Nechoutis.

Aniketos had a brother called Kephalon, who had two sons with Egyptian names, Panobchounis and Psennesis.¹¹² The family members of Aniketos had double names:

the Greek/Hellenized names (Aniketos, Nikaia and Ptolemaios) are of the dynastic or army type, i.e., the type that a Hellenized Egyptian would most likely take. The name Kephalon is, on R. S. Bagnall's list, a "common Greek name,"¹¹³ but Kephalon's sons had Egyptian names. Therefore, the family seems to consist of Egyptians who were Hellenized to some degree. Aniketos, at least, was literate in Greek.

4.4.1 The Family of the Agoranomoi: Asklepiades, Areios, Ammonios and Hermias