are two types of paianistai in the Roman are And there also Egyptian paianistai, Asclepius.1 1. There
Ptolemais? are linked to the cult of period. In Athens, paianistai attested both in Egypt and in Rome, who seem to be
linked particularly to Sarapis and the Imperial cult.2 The Egyptian paianistai may have been influenced but their immediate form perhaps took shape in the context by native Egyptian religious organisations,3 of the imperial cult in Egypt under the Flavian emperors, who were particularly active in Egypt.4 even seems 2. Paianistai in and the Roman that their repertoire included sang paianes, period it to judge from the Sophoclean of the genre, inscribed on the paian to Asclepius names at Athens of with the the places the Egyptian along paianistai. Among are attested is Oxyrhynchus we have many papyri (P. Oxy. 3018), and from Oxyrhynchus Pindar. Were paianes by poets of the classical period, especially any of these papyri owned
classical
examples monument
Sarapion paianistai
containing and part of a living performance-tradition? by the Oxyrhynchite paianistai, 3. The most complete papyrus of the Pindaric paianes is P. Oxy. 841. On a census AD;
list, known
recently,
Roger
the recto of this papyrus is as P. Oxy. 984, referring to the reign of Titus, and most likely to be dated to 91-2 has argued that this census-list refers not to Oxyrhynchus but to a city in Bagnall
Upper Egypt, and probably Ptolemais Hermiou.5 If that is right, it is an open question whether the text of the Paeans was written
in Ptolemais to Oxyrhynchus) or at Oxyrhynchus (and subsequently migrated (on a papyrus which had been transported there from Ptolemais).6 4. There is another link between the Apolline Hermiou. Of four surviving paian and Ptolemais known as the "Erythraean Paean", one comes from Ptolemais Hermiou, copies of the paean to Asclepius
dated by a superscription
to 97 AD.
Other
versions
come
of the Paean
from Erythrae
(early 4th century
BC), Athens (IG IP 4509; 2nd centuryAD) and Dion inMacedonia (2nd centuryAD). The Ptolemais version was inscribed by "the polis", on account of Trajan Hugieia (IGR is uncertain.7 Other versions Ptolemais
a temple and t?menos when to Asklepios and they dedicated or not the cult of Asclepius I 1154). Whether at pre-existed the paean consist of three strophes, composed in a mostly dacty
1 IG II2 2481, which is late 2nd century AD; and the Sarapion Monument, which is early 3rd century, recording paianistai from 175 AD. IG 2(2) 2481: J. H. Oliver, Paianistai, TAPA 71 (1940), 302-14 (late 2nd century AD); Sarapion monument: SEG 28.225; Piraeus: o? Traiavicrral too Mouvixfou SIG 1110 = /G 2(2) 2963 (see Oliver 'AaK\T)TT?ou: n. a see Here their chief is called F. Geschichte des griechischen Vereinswesens (Leipzig (above, 4), 311). Poland, Xoyiorris': 1909), 379; Eleusis: SEG 32, 232. 2 Egyptian paianistai from Egypt: from Karnak a graffito attesting a group of paianistai, who honoured Sarapis and Augustus; SGUA 1.5803: t? TrpoKwr||ia | t?v Trar|aviaTOto? [ley?kov Separn? Kai Geo? Se?aaTo? Trapa to?c oeo?s" tol ei? Aioair?Xei? Tracas1; this inscription might commemorate a pilgrimage of a group domiciled somewhere
else
in Egypt;
from
Panopolis,
we
know
called
apaianistes
Sarapion
(SGUA
3.7090
=
1.1743:
Ai8u|iT|
...
ei?
ITav?v Zapamcavi TreaviaTfj);Oliver (above, n. 1), 313. P. Oxy. 3018 contains part of two documents laying out privileges of Egyptian paianistai inOxyrhynchus, one dating from the time of Severus and Caracalla, the second from the time of Hadrian. Egyptian paianistai at Rome: IG 14. 1084 (146 CE) refers topaianistai who honoured both Zeus-Helios-Sarapis and the deified Emperors IG 14. 1084: Oliver (above, n. 1), 312; also/G 14. 1059 from the time of Severus. 3 On
these,
see M.
Muszynski,
Les
"Associations
en
religieuses"
tiques et grecques, OLZ 8 (1977), 145-174. 4
R.
E. A.
Palmer,
Paean
and Paeanists
of Serapis,
in R. M.
Rosen
Egypte
and
d'apr?s
J. Farrell,
les sources
hi?roglyphiques,
edd., Nomodeiktes:
Greek
d?mo
Studies
in
Honour ofMartin Ostwald (Ann Arbor, 1993), 355-68. 5 In R.
S. Bagnall,
B.
Frier,
I. Rutherford,
The Census
Register
P. Oxy.
984:
The Reverse
of Pindar's
Paeans
[= Pap.
Brux. 29) (Brussels, 1997), 25. Bagnall entertains the possibility that itmight refer to Lycopolis, but regards this as less likely. Doubts about this thesis are expressed by O. Montevecchi in her review, Aegyptus 77 (1997), 153-6. 6 See Bagnall inBagnall/Frier/Rutherford (above, n. 5), 23 7 G. Plaumann, Ptolemais inOber?gypten (Leipzig, 1910), 91-3; the other piece of evidence for the cult that he cites is a lid of a bcpavpos, with an illustration of a snake. On religion at Ptolemais in the Hellenistic period, see also J. Scherer, Le Papyrus Fouad 1erInv. 211,BIFAOAX (1942), 43-73.
I. Rutherford
42
has been expanded with an additional lie metre. Uniquely, the version from Ptolemais strophe, written to ensure the regular inundation of the Nile. The cult in anapaestic metre, which calls on Pythian Apollo in P. Oxy. 984.8 Against is attested for Ptolemais this background, to it seems reasonable of Apollo of a guild o? paianistai for Ptolemais Hermiou also. They may posit the existence established traditions of performance Artists, attested for Ptolemais by the Dionysiac
have
drawn
Hermiou
on the
since
the
mid 3rd century BC.9 These hypothetical paianistai would perhaps differ from those inKarnak and in so far as they honoured Asclepius and not Sarapis; but they would resemble those at Karnak Rome, in virtue of the association with the imperial cult, since the superscription mentions and Rome Trajan. about the role of the paian at Ptolemais 5. The dates invite speculation in the late 1st Hermiou list was written century AD. The census in 97 AD. It is uncertain how established have been within 6.1 would might added
have
91-2 AD; is established the cult of Asclepius the papyrus was reused for the literary text, but assume the cult was most active.
about soon
a few decades, when we would like to suggest that the text of Pindar's
been
commissioned
by paianistai
Paeans
from Ptolemais
or re itmay
P. Oxy. 841 on the verso of the census-list Hermiou and copied there. The stanza
was considered an to the copy of the Erythraean there shows that Apollo paean preserved for paeans in this cult. At some later point, the papyrus was acquired by someone addressee appropriate because of its literary value. from Oxyrhynchus
University of Reading
Ian Rutherford
8 Lines
81, 342,
9 OGIS
51 ; cf. F. Dunand,
104,92.
345
refer
to an Apolline Le
associations
to TraaTO?poi dionysiaques
and a Tracnro(|>?piov au service
de pouvoir
lagide,
in Associations
Dionysiaques
85
Comments
Report "\"Paeans at Ptolemais ?\", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 135 (2001), 41-42. "