Dioscorus of Aphrodito
Encyclopedia
Flavius Dioscorus lived during the 6th century A.D. in the village of Aphrodito, Egypt, and therefore is called by modern scholars Dioscorus of Aphrodito. Although he was an Egyptian, he composed poetry in Greek
Byzantine literature
Byzantine literature may be defined as the Greek literature of the Middle Ages, whether written in the territory of the Byzantine Empire or outside its borders...

, the cultural language of the Byzantine Era
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

. His poems are the oldest surviving poems written by the hand of a known poet. The manuscripts, which contain his corrections and revisions, were discovered on papyrus
Papyrus
Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....

 in 1905, and are now held in museums and libraries around the world. Dioscorus was also occupied in legal work
Roman law
Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve...

, and legal documents and drafts involving him, his family, Aphroditans, and others were discovered along with his poetry. As an administrator of the village of Aphrodito, he composed petitions on behalf of its citizens, which are unique for their poetic and religious qualities. Dioscorus was a Christian (a Copt) and lived in a religiously active environment
Coptic monasticism
Coptic Monasticism is claimed to be the original form of Monasticism as Saint Pachomius the Cenobite, a Copt from Upper Egypt, established the first communal living in the Monastery of Saint Anthonyin the Red sea area. St...

. The collection of Greek and Coptic
Coptic language
Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...

 papyri associated with Dioscorus and Aphrodito is one of the most important finds in the history of papyrology
Papyrology
Papyrology is the study of ancient literature, correspondence, legal archives, etc., as preserved in manuscripts written on papyrus, the most common form of writing material in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, and Rome...

 and has shed considerable light on the law and society of Byzantine Egypt.

Papyrus

The papyri of Dioscorus were discovered by accident in July 1905 in the village of Kom Ashkaw (also called Kom Ishgau, Kom Ishqaw, etc.), which was on top of the ancient site of Aphrodito. An inhabitant was renovating his home when a wall collapsed and revealed a chasm below. Papyrus rolls and fragments were seen in the crevice, but by the time the Antiquities Service
Supreme Council of Antiquities
The Supreme Council of Antiquities is the branch of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture responsible for the conservation, protection and regulation of all antiquities and archaeological excavations in Egypt...

 was notified and arrived, most of the papyrus was gone. During subsequent excavations, a large jar filled with papyrus was discovered in a Roman-style house. Important fragments of Athenian Comedy
Ancient Greek comedy
Ancient Greek comedy was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece . Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy...

, both Old and New, were discovered among these papyri, including fragments of the famous comedy writer Menander
Menander
Menander , Greek dramatist, the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy, was the son of well-to-do parents; his father Diopeithes is identified by some with the Athenian general and governor of the Thracian Chersonese known from the speech of Demosthenes De Chersoneso...

. There were also fragments of Homer’s Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...

 and other literary works and reference works.
Most importantly, the excavator Gustave Lefebvre unearthed an archive of sixth-century legal, business, and personal papers, and original poetry. These were turned over to the young scholar Jean Maspero, son of the Director of the Antiquities Service of Egypt, who edited and published the documents and poems in several journal articles and two volumes of the Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire: Papyrus grecs d’époque byzantine (Cairo 1911, 1913). Jean was killed in the battle at Vauquois on the Lorraine during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, and his father Gaston completed the third volume of Dioscorian papyri in 1916. Other Dioscorian papyri, obtained by antiquities dealers through sales and clandestine excavations, were published in Florence, London, Paris, Strasbourg, Princeton, Ann Arbor
University of Michigan Papyrus Collection
The Papyrology Collection of the University of Michigan Library is an internationally respected collection of ancient papyrus and a center for research on ancient culture, language, and history...

, the Vatican, etc.

Aphrodito

The village of Kom Ashkaw is in Middle Egypt
Geography of Egypt
The Geography of Egypt relates to two regions: Southwest Asia and North Africa.Egypt has coastlines on both the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. The country borders Libya to the west, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east, and Sudan to the south...

, south of Cairo and north of Luxor. It was originally an Egyptian city, but after Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 B.C., it was given the Greek name Aphroditopolis
Aphroditopolis Nome
The Aphroditopolis Nome was a nome, an administrative region in Ancient Egypt. It was the tenth nome of Upper Egypt. The capital city was Aphroditopolis....

 (“The City of Aphrodite”) and was made the capital city of its nome (an administrative district, like a US county). Before the 6th century, however, Aphroditopolis
Aphroditopolis Nome
The Aphroditopolis Nome was a nome, an administrative region in Ancient Egypt. It was the tenth nome of Upper Egypt. The capital city was Aphroditopolis....

 lost its status as a city, and the capital of the nome was moved across the Nile River to Antaeopolis. The village of Aphrodito and the city of Antaeopolis were part of a larger, merged administrative district called the Thebaid
Thebaid
The Thebaid or Thebais is the region of ancient Egypt containing the thirteen southernmost nomes of Upper Egypt, from Abydos to Aswan. It acquired its name from its proximity to the ancient Egyptian capital of Thebes....

 (similar to the US states of East and West Virginia), which was under the jurisdiction of a Duke, appointed by the Emperor. The Duke had his administrative center in Antinoopolis
Antinopolis
Antinopolis was a city founded at an older Egyptian village by the Roman emperor Hadrian to commemorate his deified young beloved, Antinous, on the east bank of the Nile, not far from the site in Upper Egypt where Antinous drowned in 130 AD...

 on the east bank of the Nile River
Nile
The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...

.
Aphrodito was situated in an environment that was highly poetic and religious. Nonnus
Nonnus
Nonnus of Panopolis , was a Greek epic poet. He was a native of Panopolis in the Egyptian Thebaid, and probably lived at the end of the 4th or early 5th century....

, the most influential poet of the Early Byzantine Era (A.D. 300-700), had come from Panopolis, 42 km. southeast of Aphrodito. Other poets from the Thebaid
Thebaid
The Thebaid or Thebais is the region of ancient Egypt containing the thirteen southernmost nomes of Upper Egypt, from Abydos to Aswan. It acquired its name from its proximity to the ancient Egyptian capital of Thebes....

 had not only become celebrities—such as Musaeus Grammaticus, Colluthus, and Christodorus—but also were part of a poetic revolution of that time. These poets, though Egyptians, wrote their verses in the Greek dialect of Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

, who had composed his Iliad and Odyssey more than a thousand years before them. Perhaps one of the reasons for this movement was to usurp the pagan vocabulary and style of the most honored ancient poet for Christian purposes. Dioscorus continued and developed this revolution by writing encomiastic poems
Encomium
Encomium is a Latin word deriving from the Classical Greek ἐγκώμιον meaning the praise of a person or thing. "Encomium" also refers to several distinct aspects of rhetoric:* A general category of oratory* A method within rhetorical pedagogy...

 (poems of praise) in an Homeric style. The community was also active religiously. According to the New Testament, Egypt was the first home of young Jesus and his family
Flight into Egypt
The flight into Egypt is a biblical event described in the Gospel of Matthew , in which Joseph fled to Egypt with his wife Mary and infant son Jesus after a visit by Magi because they learn that King Herod intends to kill the infants of that area...

. And according to Patristic literature
Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were early and influential theologians, eminent Christian teachers and great bishops. Their scholarly works were used as a precedent for centuries to come...

, Egypt was the birthplace of Christian monasticism
Christian monasticism
Christian monasticism is a practice which began to develop early in the history of the Christian Church, modeled upon scriptural examples and ideals, including those in the Old Testament, but not mandated as an institution in the scriptures. It has come to be regulated by religious rules Christian...

. In Northern Egypt, the areas of Nitria, Kellia, and Wadi Natrun
Wadi El Natrun
Wadi El Natrun is a valley located in Beheira Governorate, Egypt, including a town with the same name. The name refers to the presence of eight different lakes in the region that produce natron salt. In Christian literature, the region is also referred to as the Nitrian Desert...

 contained large monastic centers that attracted devout followers from both the Eastern and Western halves of the Byzantine Empire. In Southern Egypt, one of the first Christian monasteries was established at Pbow
Pachomius
Saint Pakhom , also known as Pachome and Pakhomius , is generally recognized as the founder of Christian cenobitic monasticism. In the Coptic churches his feast day is celebrated on May 9...

, 127 km. southeast of Aphrodito. Less than 40 km. south of Aphrodito was the White Monastery
White Monastery
The Coptic White Monastery is a Coptic Orthodox monastery named after Saint Shenouda the Archimandrite. It is located near the Upper Egyptian city of Sohag, and about four kilometers south east of the Red Monastery. The name of the monastery is derived from the color of the white limestone of its...

, founded by the vigorous Coptic monk Shenoute. The father of Dioscorus himself, Apollos, established and later entered his own monastery. In fact, Aphrodito and its vicinity “boasted over thirty churches and nearly forty monasteries.”

Early Years

There is no surviving record for the early years of Dioscorus. His father Apollos was an entrepreneur and local official. The commonly accepted date for the birth of Dioscorus is around A.D. 520. Although there is no evidence, it is likely that Dioscorus went to school in Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

, where one of his teachers might have been the Neoplatonic
Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism , is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists, with its earliest contributor believed to be Plotinus, and his teacher Ammonius Saccas...

 philosopher John Philoponus
John Philoponus
John Philoponus , also known as John the Grammarian or John of Alexandria, was a Christian and Aristotelian commentator and the author of a considerable number of philosophical treatises and theological works...

. Although Alexandria was not the most prominent place for a legal education - that was the city of Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...

 - young men did travel there for rhetorical training preliminary to the study of law. These included the celebrated poet Agathias
Agathias
Agathias or Agathias Scholasticus , of Myrina , an Aeolian city in western Asia Minor , was a Greek poet and the principal historian of part of the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian I between 552 and 558....

, a contemporary of Dioscorus, who at an early age had published a successful collection of poems called the Cycle and who later became the center of a circle of prominent poets in Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

.

Back in Aphrodito, Dioscorus married, had children, and pursued a career similar to his father’s: acquiring, leasing out, and managing property, and helping in the administration of the village. His first dated appearance in the papyrus is 543. Dioscorus had the assistant of the defensor civitatis of Antaeopolis examine the damage done by a shepherd and his flock to a field of crops owned by the Monastery of Apa Sourous but managed by Dioscorus.

Constantinople

Dioscorus also became engaged in legal work. In 546/7, after his father Apollos had died, Dioscorus wrote a formal petition to Emperor Justinian
Justinian I
Justinian I ; , ; 483– 13 or 14 November 565), commonly known as Justinian the Great, was Byzantine Emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the Empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the classical Roman Empire.One of the most important figures of...

 and a formal explanation to Empress Theodora about tax conflicts affecting Aphrodito. The village was under the special patronage of the Empress, and had been granted the status of autopragia. This meant that the village could collect its own public taxes and deliver them directly to the imperial treasury. Aphrodito was not under the jurisdiction of the pagarch, stationed in Antaeopolis, who handled the public taxes for the rest of the nome. Dioscorus’s petition and explanation to the imperial palace described the pagarch’s violations of their special tax status, including theft of the collected tax money.

The communications to Constantinople seem to have had little effect, and in 551 (three years after the death of Theodora), Dioscorus travelled with a contingency of Aphroditans to Constantinople to present the problem to the Emperor directly. Dioscorus may have spent three years in the capital of the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

. In poetry, the city was very active. Not only was Agathias
Agathias
Agathias or Agathias Scholasticus , of Myrina , an Aeolian city in western Asia Minor , was a Greek poet and the principal historian of part of the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian I between 552 and 558....

 now writing there, but also Paul the Silentiary
Paul the Silentiary
Paul the Silentiary, also known as Paulus Silentiarius , was an epigrammatist and an officer in the imperial household of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, responsible for the silence in the imperial palace....

 and Romanus the Melodist. In respect to the Aphroditans' tax problems, Dioscorus was able to obtain an imperial rescript, three copies of which have survived in his archive. The Emperor instructs the Duke of the Thebaid to investigate and, if justified, to stop the aggressions of the pagarch. There is no evidence of further tax violations by the pagarch until after the death of Justinian in 565.

Antinoopolis

In 565/6 Dioscorus left Aphrodito for Antinoopolis
Antinopolis
Antinopolis was a city founded at an older Egyptian village by the Roman emperor Hadrian to commemorate his deified young beloved, Antinous, on the east bank of the Nile, not far from the site in Upper Egypt where Antinous drowned in 130 AD...

, the capital city of the Thebaid and the residence of the Duke. He remained there for about seven years. His motivation for the move is nowhere made clear. But surmising from the surviving documents, one can conclude that he was attracted by the opportunity to advance his legal career in the proximity of the Duke and likewise was compelled by the increasing violence of the pagarch against Aphrodito and his own family. The legal documents from that period show that Dioscorus wrote the final will for the Surgeon General (Phoebammon), arbitrated in family property disputes, composed marriage and divorce contracts, and continued writing petitions about the offenses of the pagarch. One such petition, P.Cair.Masp. I 67002, describes how a group of Aphroditans on their way to the annual cattle market were ambushed. They were eventually put into a prison in Antaeopolis, under the control of the pagarch Menas, where they were tortured and robbed and their animals were seized. Menas and his men then attacked the village of Aphrodito itself: he blocked the irrigation
Bahr Yussef
The Bahr Yussef, which roughly translates from Arabic as "the waterway of Joseph", is a canal which connects the Nile River with Fayyum in Egypt. This was originally in prehistoric times a natural offshoot of the Nile which created a lake to the west during high floods. Beginning with the 12th...

, extorted money, burned down homes, and violated the nuns. All these crimes were committed in the name of collecting the public taxes, although Aphrodito had never failed a payment and Menas had no right to collect them. A formal explanation, P.Lond. V 1677, describes the attacks by Menas on Dioscorus himself and his family. He seized property owned by Dioscorus and transferred it to his assistants, leaving Dioscorus with only the tax liability. Menas proceeded to pillage the home of Dioscorus’s brother-in-law and to seize his land too, reducing him and his family to poverty. He then arrested Dioscorus’s own son.

Before May of 574, Dioscorus left Antinoopolis
Antinopolis
Antinopolis was a city founded at an older Egyptian village by the Roman emperor Hadrian to commemorate his deified young beloved, Antinous, on the east bank of the Nile, not far from the site in Upper Egypt where Antinous drowned in 130 AD...

. The reason for his departure is not explained. It might have been related to domestic affairs, to his career, or to the changed situation in Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

. The violent crimes against Aphrodito and Dioscorus (described above) were committed under the reign of Justin II
Justin II
Justin II was Byzantine Emperor from 565 to 578. He was the husband of Sophia, nephew of Justinian I and the late Empress Theodora, and was therefore a member of the Justinian Dynasty. His reign is marked by war with Persia and the loss of the greater part of Italy...

, who had launched a savage persecution of Christians that did not adhere to Chalcedonian
Council of Chalcedon
The Council of Chalcedon was a church council held from 8 October to 1 November, 451 AD, at Chalcedon , on the Asian side of the Bosporus. The council marked a significant turning point in the Christological debates that led to the separation of the church of the Eastern Roman Empire in the 5th...

 dogmas, including Egyptian Copts
Monophysitism
Monophysitism , or Monophysiticism, is the Christological position that Jesus Christ has only one nature, his humanity being absorbed by his Deity...

. But Justin went completely insane and abdicated, and in 574, Tiberius
Tiberius II Constantine
Tiberius II Constantine was Byzantine Emperor from 574 to 582.During his reign, Tiberius II Constantine gave away 7,200 pounds of gold each year for four years....

 and the wife of Justin took over the management of the Byzantine Empire.

Return to Aphrodito

Back home in Aphrodito, it seems that Dioscorus withdrew from legal affairs and administrative responsibilities. Much of his poetry was composed during his stay in Antinoopolis
Antinopolis
Antinopolis was a city founded at an older Egyptian village by the Roman emperor Hadrian to commemorate his deified young beloved, Antinous, on the east bank of the Nile, not far from the site in Upper Egypt where Antinous drowned in 130 AD...

 or after he had returned to Aphrodito. His documents now focus on mundane, rural activities. His last dated document, a land lease written by his hand in an account book, is April 5, 585.

Publications

Dioscorus might have recited his poems and circulated them locally, but there is no evidence that they were ever published during his lifetime. Jean Maspero published the first collection of Dioscorian poems in 1911: “Un dernier poète grec d’Égypte: Dioscore, fils d’Apollôs.” This journal article included the texts of 13 poems, French translations, and an analysis of the style. Then between 1911 and 1916, Jean and Gaston Maspero republished the poems along with Dioscorian documents in three volumes of Papyrus grecs d’époque byzantine. These poems were all part of the papyrus collection owned by the Egyptian Museum
Egyptian Museum
The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display, the remainder in storerooms....

 in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

. In 1962, Ernst Heitsch published 29 Dioscorian poems that were among papyrus fragments held in a variety of museums and libraries. For over thirty-five years, this was the authoritative edition. The most comprehensive edition at the present time is by Jean-Luc Fournet, who in 1999 published 51 Dioscorian poems and fragments (including 2 that he considered of dubious authenticity). In addition to the texts and commentaries offered by Maspero, Heitsch, Fournet, and the initial editors of other poems, a comprehensive study of his poetry was published by Leslie MacCoull in 1988: Dioscorus of Aphrodito: His Work and His World (Berkeley). Clement Kuehn published a reinterpretation of his poetry in 1995: Channels of Imperishable Fire: The Beginnings of Christian Mystical Poetry and Dioscorus of Aphrodito (New York). A Critical Edition of one poem and a comprehensive biography are now available online: Cicada: The Poetry of Dioscorus of Aphrodito. The Critical Edition (www.ByzantineEgypt.com).

Interpretations

The reactions by modern readers to his poetry have varied widely. The papyrologists and historians that first examined them were not impressed. Influenced by their backgrounds in Classical poetry, they compared the Dioscorian verses primarily to Classical standards. The most frequent objection was that his verses were obscure: the editors thought that the lines did not make sense - or at least, were not saying what the editors expected them to say. A more positive assessment was offered by Leslie MacCoull, who insisted that a reader must take Dioscorus’s Coptic background into consideration when reading the poetry. Many of the poems seemed to be praising unknown dignitaries - including an Emperor and several Dukes - and some papyrologists concluded that Dioscorus wrote the poems to get favors from government administrators (whom the papyrologists vaguely and inconsistently identified). Clement Kuehn, however, proposed that the poems be viewed not from a Classical, Hellenistic
Hellenistic civilization
Hellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BCE to about 146 BCE...

, or even a strictly Egyptian
Culture of Egypt
The culture of Egypt has thousands of years of recorded history. Ancient Egypt was among the earliest civilizations. For millennia, Egypt maintained a strikingly complex and stable culture that influenced later cultures of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. After the Pharaonic era, Egypt itself...

 perspective, but through a lens of Byzantine culture
Byzantine literature
Byzantine literature may be defined as the Greek literature of the Middle Ages, whether written in the territory of the Byzantine Empire or outside its borders...

 and spirituality
Christian mysticism
Christian mysticism refers to the development of mystical practices and theory within Christianity. It has often been connected to mystical theology, especially in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions...

, in which Dioscorus and the Thebaid
Thebaid
The Thebaid or Thebais is the region of ancient Egypt containing the thirteen southernmost nomes of Upper Egypt, from Abydos to Aswan. It acquired its name from its proximity to the ancient Egyptian capital of Thebes....

 were so deeply immersed. Kuehn demonstrated that the poems fit neatly and masterfully into the allegorical style
Allegory in the Middle Ages
Allegory in the Middle Ages was a vital element in the synthesis of Biblical and Classical traditions into what would become recognizable as Medieval culture...

 that was pervasive in the pictoral art and literature of the Early Byzantine Era. That is: Dioscorus, influenced by allegorical commentaries on the Homeric epics
Homeric scholarship
Homeric scholarship is the study of Homeric epic, especially the two large surviving epics, the Iliad and Odyssey. It is currently part of the academic discipline of classical studies, but the subject is one of the very oldest topics in all scholarship or science, and goes back to antiquity...

 and Bible, and by the allegorical icons and church art of the 6th century
Byzantine art
Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....

, was praising Christ, Old Testament patriarchs, and the saints in heaven as if they were the Emperor, kings, and dignitaries in a Byzantine court.

General

  • Bagnall, Roger S.
    Roger S. Bagnall
    Roger Shaler Bagnall is an American classical scholar. He was a professor of classics and history at Columbia University from 1974 until 2007, when he took up the position of first Director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University...

    , ed. 2007. Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300-700. Cambridge.
  • ----- 2009. The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology. Oxford.

  • Bagnall, Roger, and Dominic Rathbone, eds. 2004. Egypt from Alexander to the Early Christians: An Archaeological and Historical Guide. Los Angeles.

  • Bell, H. I. 1917. Greek Papyri in the British Museum, Vol. V. London. [P.Lond. V]
  • ----- 1944. “An Egyptian Village in the Age of Justinian.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 64: 21-36.

  • Bell, H. I., and W. E. Crum. 1925. “A Greek-Coptic Glossary.” Aegyptus 6: 177-226.

  • Cameron, Alan. 1965. “Wandering Poets: A Literary Movement in Byzantine Egypt.” Historia 14: 470-509.
  • ----- 2007. “Poets and Pagans in Byzantine Egypt.” In Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300-700, ed. by R. Bagnall, Cambridge, 21-46.

  • Cameron, Averil. 1970. Agathias. Oxford.

  • Cameron, Alan and Averil. 1966. “The Cycle of Agathias.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 86: 6-25.

  • Cavero, Laura Miguélez. 2008. Poems in Context: Greek Poetry in the Egyptian Thebaid 200-600 AD. Berlin.

  • Countryman, L. William. 1997. Review of Channels of Imperishable Fire: The Beginnings of Christian Mystical Poetry and Dioscorus of Aphrodito, by Clement A. Kuehn. In Church History 66 (4): 787-789.

  • Cribiore, Raffaella. 2007. “Higher Education in Early Byzantine Egypt: Rhetoric, Latin, and the Law.” In Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300-700, ed. by R. Bagnall, Cambridge, 47-66.

  • Dawson, D. 1992. Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria. Berkeley.

  • Gomme, A. W., and F. H. Sandbach. 1973. Menander: A Commentary. Oxford.

  • Emmel, S. 2004. Shenoute’s Literary Corpus. 2 vols. Leuven.

  • Feissel, Denis, and Jean Gascou, eds. 2004. La pétition à Byzance. Paris.

  • Fournet, J.-L. 1999. Hellénisme dans l’Égypte du VIe siècle. La bibliothèque et l’œuvre de Dioscore d’Aphrodité. MIFAO 115. 2 vols. Cairo.

  • Fournet, Jean-Luc, and Caroline Magdelaine, eds. 2008. Les archives de Dioscore d’Aphrodité cent ans après leur découverte: histoire et culture dans l’Egypte byzantine : actes du Colloque de Strasbourg, 8-10 décembre 2005. Paris.

  • Gagos, T., and P. van Minnen. 1994 . Settling a Dispute: Toward a Legal Anthropology of Late Antique Egypt. Ann Arbor.

  • Gascou, Jean. 1972. “La détention collégiale de l’autorité pagarchique.” Byzantion 43 (1972): 60-72.
  • ----- 1976. “P.Fouad 87: les monastères pachômiens et l’état byzantin,” BIFAO 76: 157-84.
  • ----- 1981. “Documents grecs relatifs au monastère d’Abba Apollôs.” Anagennesis 1 (2): 219-30.

  • Grossmann, Peter. 2002. Christliche Architektur in Ägypten. Leiden.
  • ----- 2007. “Early Christian Architecture in Egypt and its Relationship to the Architecture of the Byzantine World.” In Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300-700, ed. by R. Bagnall, Cambridge, 103-36.
  • ----- 2008. “Antinoopolis Oktober 2007. Vorläufiger Bericht über die Arbeiten”; and “Antinoopolis Januar/Februar 2008. Vorläufiger Bericht über die Arbeiten.” In Aegyptus: Rivista Italiana di Egittologia e di Papirologia, Milan, n.p.

  • Heitsch, Ernst. 1963. Die griechischen Dichterfragmente der römischen Kaiserzeit. Vol. 1, 2nd edn. Göttingen.
  • ----- 1964. Die griechischen Dichterfragmente der römischen Kaiserzeit. Vol. 2. Göttingen.

  • Keenan, James G. 1984a. “The Aphrodite Papyri and Village Life in Byzantine Egypt.” Bulletin de la Société d’Archéologie Copte 26: 51-63.
  • ----- 1984b. “Aurelius Apollos and the Aphrodite Village Élite.” In Atti del XVII congresso internazionale di papirologia, by the Centro Internazionale per lo Studio dei Papiri Ercolanesi, vol. 3, 957-63. Naples.
  • ----- 1985. “Village Shepherds and Social Tension in Byzantine Egypt.” Yale Classical Studies 28: 245-59.
  • ----- 1988. Review of Dioscorus of Aphrodito, His Work and His World, by Leslie S. B. MacCoull. In Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 25: 173-78.
  • ----- 2000. “Egypt.” In The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 14: Late Antiquity, Empire and Successors, A.D. 425-600, 612-37.
  • ----- 2007. “Byzantine Egyptian Villages.” In Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300-700, ed. R. Bagnall, Cambridge, 226-43.
  • ----- 2008. “‘Tormented Voices’: P.Cair.Masp. I 67002.” in Les archives de Dioscore d’Aphrodité, Paris, 171-80.
  • ----- 2009. “The History of the Discipline.” In The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology, Oxford, 59-78.

  • Koenen, Ludwig, et al. 1978. The Cairo Codex of Menander. London.

  • Kovelman, Arkady B. 1991. “From Logos to Myth: Egyptian Petitions of the 5th-7th Centuries.” Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 28: 135-52.

  • Kuehn, Clement A. 1990. “Dioskoros of Aphrodito and Romanos the Melodist.” Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 27: 103-07.
  • ----- 1993. “A New Papyrus of a Dioscorian Poem and Marriage Contract: P.Berol.Inv.No. 21334.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 97: 103-15; plates 2-3. [SB XXII 15633]
  • ----- 1995. Channels of Imperishable Fire: The Beginnings of Christian Mystical Poetry and Dioscorus of Aphrodito. New York.
  • ----- 2009. “Egypt at Empire’s End.” The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 46 (1): 175-89.
  • ----- 2011. Cicada: The Poetry of the Dioscorus of Aphrdito. The Critical Edition. Vol. 1, part 1. http://www.ByzantineEgypt.com.

  • Lamberton, Robert. 1986. Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition. Berkeley.

  • Lefebvre, Gustave. 1907. Fragments d’un manuscrit de Ménandre. Cairo.
  • ----- 1911. Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, No. 43227: Papyrus de Ménandre. Cairo.

  • Liebeschuetz, J.H.W.G. 1973. “The Origin of the Office of the Pagarch.” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 66: 38-46.
  • ----- 1974. “The Pagarch: City and Imperial Administration in Byzantine Egypt.” Journal of Juristic Papyrology 18: 163-68.

  • MacCoull, Leslie S. B. 1981. “The Coptic Archive of Dioscorus of Aphrodito.” Chronique d’Égypte 56: 185-93.
  • ----- 1986. “Further Notes on the Greek-Coptic Glossary of Dioscorus of Aphrodito.” Glotta 64: 253-57.
  • ----- 1987. “Dioscorus of Aphrodito and John Philoponus.” Studia Patristica 18 (Kalamazoo): 163-68.
  • ----- 1988. Dioscorus of Aphrodito: His Work and His World. Berkeley.
  • ----- 1991. “Dioscorus.” The Coptic Encyclopedia, edited by A. Atiya, vol. 3, 916. New York.
  • ----- 2006. “The Historical Context of John Philoponus’ De Opificio Mundi in the Culture of Byzantine-Coptic Egypt.” Zeitschrift Fur Antikes Christentum 9 (2): 397-423.
  • ----- 2007. “Philosophy in its Social Context.” In Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300-700, ed. by R. Bagnall, Cambridge, 67-82.
  • ----- 2010a. “Philoponus and the Coptic Eucharist.” Journal of Late Antiquity 3 (1): 158-175.
  • ----- 2010b. “Why and How Was the Aphrodito Cadaster Made?” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 50 (4): 625-638.

  • Maspero, Jean. 1908-10. “Études sur les papyrus d’Aphrodité I.” Bulletin de l’Institut français d’Archéologie Orientale 6 (1908): 75-120. “Études sur les papyrus d’Aphrodité II.” Bulletin de l’Institut français d’Archéologie Orientale 7 (1910): 97-119.
  • ----- 1910. “Un papyrus littéraire d’Ἀφροδίτης κώμη.” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 19: 1-6.
  • ----- 1911. “Un dernier poète grec d’Égypte: Dioscore, fils d’Apollôs.” Revue des études grecques 24: 426-81.
  • ----- 1911-1916. Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire: Papyrus grecs d’époque byzantine. 3 vols. Cairo. [P.Cair.Masp.]
  • ----- 1912. “Les papyrus Beaugé.” Bulletin de l’Institut français d’Archéologie Orientale 10: 131-57.

  • McNamee, Kathleen. 2007. Annotations in Greek and Latin Texts from Egypt. New Haven.

  • Milne, H. J. M. 1927. Catalogue of the Literary Papyri in the British Museum. London.

  • van Minnen, Peter. 2007. “The Other Cities in Later Roman Egypt.” In Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300-700, ed. by R. Bagnall, Cambridge, 207-25.

  • Parca, Maryline G. 1991. Ptocheia or Odysseus in Disguise at Troy (P. Köln VI 245). Atlanta.

  • Rousseau, P. 1985. Pachomius: The Making of a Community in Fourth-Century Egypt. Berkeley.

  • Ruffini, Giovanni. 2008. Social Networks in Byzantine Egypt. Cambridge.
  • ----- 2011. A Prosopography of Byzantine Aphrodito. Durham, N.C.

  • Saija, Ausilia. 1995. Lessico dei carmi di Dioscoro di Aphrodito. Messina.

  • Salomon, Richard G. 1948. “A Papyrus from Constantinople (Hamburg Inv. No. 410).” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 34: 98-108, plate XVIII.

  • Viljamaa, Toivo. 1968. Studies in Greek Encomiastic Poetry of the Early Byzantine Period. Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum, vol. 42. Helsinki.

  • Weitzmann, Kurt. 1978. The Icon. New York.

  • Wifstrand, Albert. 1933. Von Kallimachos zu Nonnos: Metrisch-Stilistische Untersuchungen zur späteren griechischen Epik und zu verwandten Gedichtgattungen. Lund.

  • Zuckerman, Constantine. 2004. Du village à l’Empire: autour du registre fiscal d’Aphroditô (525/526). Paris.

External links

  • Man and Circumstance Biography of Dioscorus of Aphrodito
  • Cicada The Poetry of Dioscorus of Aphrodito: The Critical Edition
  • AWOL The Ancient World Online (see July 14, 2011)
  • Papy-L What's New in Papyrology (see March 30, 2011)
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK