Triphiodorus

The Loeb blurb comments, "and Tryphiodorus (papyri reveal the correct spelling to be “Triphiodorus”) deals with The Taking of Troy in 691 lines, beginning with the Wooden Horse and ending with the sacrifice of Polyxena.".

These papyri cannot be the one from Oxyrhynchus, P.Oxy. XLI 2946. The evidence of the documentary papyri can be assembled through Trismegistos People.

If the first member is τριφι-ο-, the Graeco-Egyptian deity Triphis is involved in a name with a geographically restricted distribution.

Lexical studies (Italian).

M.L. West wrote in Gnomon 42.7 (1970), 657-661 at 661, of Livrea's edition of Colluthus: 'I hope that Livrea will persevere with his edition of Triphiodorus ; that he will give it a more comprehensive introduction, a less constipated apparatus, and a better-balanced commentary; and that he will stop spelling the poet's name with a y.'.

LGPN knows no bearers of this name at this date of either spelling.

A Koine dvandva

DGE, but not LSJ (or the Rev.Supp.), has an entry for Διονυσο-πλάτων referring to a signet ring with a depiction not only of Dionysus (note the name of the witness and of his father), but also of Plato thereon: 'Dioniso-Platón, representación de Dioniso y Platón'.

The eighth of nine witnesses to P.Oxy. I 105 (118-138 CE) wrote/had written (lines 19-20): 
Διονύσιος Διον[υσ]ίου τ[ο]ῦ Διογένους ἀπὸ τῆς αὐτῆ[ς] πόλεως
μαρτ[υ]ρῶ[τῇ τοῦ Πεκύσιος διαθήκῃ, καὶ εἰμὶ] ἐτῶν τεσσαράκοντα ἕξ, οὐλὴ παρὰ κρόταφον δεξιόν, καὶ ἔστι μου ἡ σφραγὶς Διονυσοπλάτωνος.

The translation in the ed.pr. stops before the details of the witnesses...

The father and son of Ptolemy I Soter

OLD, IV, p. 997, iii, has 'Lāgus ~i, m. The father of Ptolemy I of Egypt...'. The citations from Lucan 8.802 and Silius 17.591 show that the is long. An adjective Lāgēus ~a ~um, a. Of Lagus' is also reported.

The Greek forms Λά̄ᾱγος and Λᾶγος continue Λά̄ϝᾱγος (vowel quantities inferred from λᾱός and from -ηγός στρατηγός, κυνᾱγός, etc., but is also confirmed by the hexameter Call.fr.734 Pf.; the trisyllabic spelling is found in papyri and inscriptions). The former was used by the father of Ptolemy, the latter by that bearer's grandson (Ptolemy's son by Thais). Ptolemy I Soter is currently a deadend in LGPN...

Rantidi 26 [Egetmeyer no. 196, p. 773] (a 6th-c. BCE inscription in the Cypriot syllabry) provides the earliest (imperfect) occurrence of this name: la-wa-ko.

Some contact phenomena

LSJ s.v. μαρὰν ἀθά, Syriac phrase, = ὁ Κύριος ἥκει, 1 Ep.Cor.16.22.

The lemma in BDAG is μαράνα θά '(our) Lord, come!' on the basis of codd. Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, and Bezae inter alios (including P46). LSJ follows the word division as in the second hands of Vaticanus and Bezae and the first hand of others. The TR and 1739 have no word division. See also Didache 10.6.

Also, OGI 660a.3 has βάσιον (LSJ Supplement 'Copt. basion', elsewhere βάζιον a 'mineral'). The previous line has μεταλ<λ>άρχη (not -άρχου) as a genitive of -άρχη-ς.

Σάββατον, Σάββατα, and Σαβάτ, with derivatives.

Notes on papyri: P.Oxy. III 531

Grenfell & Hunt introduced this item as 'A letter from a father to his son, giving him good advice, and announcing the dispatch of clothes and money'.

The good advice in question is in lines 9-12:
ὅρα μηδε|νὶ ἀνθρώπων ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ προσκρο[ύ]σῃς, ἀλλὰ τοῖς | βιβλίοις σου αὐτὸ μόνον πρόσεχ[ε] φιλολογῶν | καὶ ἀπʼ αὐτῶν ὄνησιν ἕξεις.
"Take care not to offend any of the persons at home, and give your undivided attention to your books, devoting yourself to learning, and then they will bring you profit."

An enlarged image can be obtained online.

Addresses and delivery

I am reliably informed that the street called 'Straight' in Damascus is/was not so straight.

The more detailed delivery instructions in the papyri are:
P.Oxy. XIV 1678 (image) and 1773, XXXIV 2719 ('Give a shout...'), and XLI 2980.
These references are from P.J. Parsons, City of the Sharp-nosed Fish - Greek Lives in Roman Egypt. (London: Orion Publishing Group, 2007), 125-126 and 239nn. 23 and 24.

The Bacchylides papyrus

A telling of the acquisition of this treasure can be found in:
A. P. Burnett, The Art of Bacchylides (Martin Classical Lectures: vol. 29). Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 1-2, where division into some 200 pieces is mentioned.

The Oxyrhynchus distributions and related links

The distribution list of 1974 remains online.

The Glasgow Oxyrhynchus papyri have images online.

There is a catalogue of the papyri at St John's College, Cambridge.

The Westminster papyri were edited by D. J. Crawford and P. E. Easterling in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 55 (Aug., 1969): 184-190.

The British Library's papyri (highlights thereof, such as the Athenian Constitution) are being digitised.

Latin words in Greek

centurio gives κεντορίων (at Philae, 32 BC), κεντυρίων (NT., when not ἑκατοντάρχης: κεντυρι- is relatively widespread in epigraphy: e.g., SB V 8449 39/40 AD), and κεντουρίων in John the Lydian, de magistratibus (6th. c. AD; but cf. the related adjective in Egypt or Nubia in the 1st ? c. AD: SB V 5818).

In yet later Greek, illustris gives ἰλλουστρία (illustr(i)a) and ἰλλοῦστρος (Rev.Supp. s.v. ἴλλυστρος).

A monk and a deacon were walking along... for the first time... and came to the rescue

A petition by Aurelius Isidorus (of archive fame) contains the earliest recorded reference to a monk (to be added to LSJ s.v. μοναχός II) in Egypt (6 June 324 AD).

Consider, especially, lines 7-12:
καὶ κ̣α̣τ̣α̣λαβο|μένου μου τὴν βοῦν καὶ ἀνάγοντος αὐτὴν | ἐπὶ τῆς κώμης ἀπαντήσαντές μοι κατὰ τοὺ̣ς̣ | ἀγροὺς μεγα ῥοπάλῳ καὶ χαμαιρ̣ι̣φ̣ῆ̣ ἐ̣μὲ ποι|ησάμενοι πληγαῖς κατέκοψαν καὶ τὴν βοῦν̣ ἀφείλαντο,

The monk had the (Biblical) name Isaac, while the deacon was named Antoninus.

Notes on inscriptions: SIG 1

This is not the first of a series of posts working through the Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, as fruitful as that would be. This is a convenient reference for the set of inscriptions that are online as SEG XVI 863 (= Buck[3] 104; [2] gives the text(s) in full | Schwyzer 301 | LSAG 415 n. 48 | SB VIII 10018).

F. Coulmas uses this text as an example in Writing Systems (Cambridge, 2003: 129). The caption ('Ionian Greek inscription'), transcription (e.g. ἐλθόυτος and ἀλογγόσο̄ς),  accentuation (e.g. ἢλθον) and translation ('The foreigners guided... and the Egyptians Amasis') are all sadly faulty.

The non-Ionic nature of the main inscription is evident from several  features:
Ἐλεφαντίναν, Ψαμά̄τιχō τοὶ, and ἁμὲ. Note also πρᾶτον in the mark of Anaxanor.

Anne Jeffery's notes (search for 'Abou Simbel') are very informative about the variety of texts that compose this single 'inscription'.

LSJ cites this inscription in at least six entries. A search for 'Abu Simbel' returns ten instances.

LSJ s.v. ἵημι: 'Dor. ἀν-ίη SIG 1 (Abu Simbel, vi B.C.);' [my bold]
s.v. ἀνίημι: 'Ion. 3sg. ἀνίη SIG 1 (Abu Simbel, vi B. C.' (sic) [my bold]
This use of eta is also seen in ἦλθον and ἦχε. LSJ relates the latter to ἄγω, but then the eta would have to be an Ionic feature.

(On the basis of the drawing in Coulmas), the name Ψαμμά̄τιχος (Ψαμμήτιχος in Hdt.2.2.1, etc.) shows the (familiar) Light Blue use of <Ψ> for p+s and for /k^h/, not the Red use of these characters for /k^h/ and k+s respectively.

LSJ s.v. Ψ notes, 'not used in the Attic alphabet: in the Western Gr. alphabets it represents the sound χ (kh): with the value ps it is found in SIG1 (Nubia, vi B. C.),...'.

The key point in understanding these spellings is that (this) Rhodian script, like (some) Cretan, used eta for the original long e and for the result of the first wave of compensatory lengthening (e.g. ἦμι 'I am'), in contrast to other non-Ionic scripts which used <Ε>. The Cup of Nestor (line drawing) exemplifies for all three vowels:  
ΝΕΣΤΟΡΟΣ, ΠΟΤΕΡΙΟΝ (ποτήριον), and KENON (κεῖνον, κῆνον).
See Buck § 4.6 for eta in use to represent a vowel outside Ionic.

The mark of Telephos of Ialysos, one of the Rhodians illustrates this: Τήλεφός μ’ ἔγραφε ℎο Ἰᾱλύσιο. The toponym on which the ethnic adjective is based appears in Homer in its Ionic form, Ἰήλυσος (Il.2.654: Λίνδον | Ἰηλυσόν τε || καὶ ἀργινόεντα Κάμειρον.).

Note also the name Ἀναχσάνορ (unless Ἀναξσάνορ: SEG XXIX 1669) and his mark ℎο Ἰᾱλύσιος ℎόκα ('Dor.' for ὅτε) βασιλ|εὺς ἤλασε τὸν στρατὸν τὸ πρᾶτον.

The adverb υἷς 'as far as' is only in this inscription (according to PHI Greek Inscriptions): Cf. Buck § 132.4 'Rhod. ... (no. 104.3)'.

κατύπερθε (apparently only here in epigraphic texts) shows psilosis and is called 'Ion.' in LSJ. Indeed, it is in Ionic (50x Hdt., 1x Arrian's Indika), but may not be unique to Ionic. We must remember that Rhodian has ἰαρός and ἰερός with a smooth breaking (Buck §§ 58.b 261.8: ἐπ᾿ ἰερέως 'of NN' appears as a dating formula), which suggests some degree of psilosis.

The Gallus Trilingual

The monument displays the text in (from top to bottom and in decreasing 'font' size) in hieroglyphics, then Latin, and then Greek.

The most recent (?) edition of the text has a BMCR review.

A weakness of the gloss method

E.A. Sophocles, s.v. σισόη  [p. 990i], gives 'a sort of queue' Sept. Lev. 19, 27, Greg. Naz.  III, 1081 A. Theod. I, 337 B'.

What sort of queue? Since LSJ s.v. gives 'roll of hair, LXX Le.19.27', which suits the context, this must be OED s.v. queue, n. 4, not 7, which is 'Chiefly Brit.

'(Egyptian)' in Sophocles, but 'Phaselite' in LSJ on the basis of Hesychius.

Claudius to the Alexandrians: Hello.

P.Lond. VI 1912 (text and trannie that reflects its 'orthography')

Dealers in...

Not all Greek words ending in -ᾶς, many of which are first reported from papyri, denote a dealer in some commodity or other (e.g. κωδᾶς, dealer in sheepskins POxy.1519.4 (iii A.D.), but many do.

'better representatives of "spoken Greek"'

J.A.L. Lee so terms P.Oxy. XVI 1874 (6th c.)  and P.Oxy. VI 903 (4th c.) in 'The sayings of the Desert Fathers: Their Evidence for Late Koine Greek', Phronema 30.1 (2015) 23-42 on p. 30n.23 and, for the latter only, p. 32.

'better' is in contrast to the records of the fifth-century Church Council debates.

Egyptian month names

The Egyptian names of months are not included in LSJ, but some were added to the Revised Supplement): Μεσορή, παῦνι (and variant spellings), Παχών; cf. Φαρμουθιακός.

The first of these name is explained simply as a month with some papyrological and Egyptian and Cyrenean epigraphic citations. The  names in π- are explicitly months 'in N. Africa'. Τhe adjective is glossed as 'of the Egyptian month...'. Capitalisation is inconsistent.

The set is incomplete even though a hexameter poem from the Greek Anthology (9.383, cited by Rev.Supp. for Μεσορή, παῦνι and Παχών) tells what there is to know as far as the order goes:
  
Πρῶτος Θὼθ ἐδάη δρεπάνην ἐπὶ βότρυν ἐγείρειν.               August-September 
ἰχθυβόλοισι Φαωφὶ φέρει πανδήμιον ἄγρην.                       September-October 
Πληιάδων φαίνουσαν Ἀθὺρ τεκμαίρεται ὥρην.                   October-November 
Χοιὰκ σπειρομένων σταχύων δείκνυσι γενέθλην.                November-December 
Τυβὶ δὲ πορφύρεον βουληφόρον εἷμα τιταίνει.                    December-January
<σημαίνει πλωτῆρσι Μεχεὶρ πλόον ἀμφιπολεύειν.>             January-February 
Ἄρεος ὅπλα φέρειν Φαμενὼθ δείκνυσι μαχηταῖς.               February-March 
εἰαρινῶν Φαρμουθὶ ῥόδων πρωτάγγελός ἐστι,                    March-April 
λήια δ’ αὐανθέντα Παχὼν δρεπάνῃσι φυλάσσει,                 April-May 
εὐκάρπου δὲ Παϋνὶ προάγγελός ἐστιν ὀπώρης,                   May-June 
καὶ σταφυλὴν κατέχων εὐάμπελός ἐστιν Ἐπηφί,                 June-July 
καὶ Μεσορὶ Νείλοιο φέρει φυσίζοον ὕδωρ.                         July-August

9.384 is an elegy that does not name the Roman months, but has each of them speak for themselves about their distinguishing features. 9.580 is a similar hexameter piece (not '530' as in Paton's General Index s.v. Months..., Roman' on p. 451 of the Loeb edn, volume III).

A hot-water bottle at Oxyrhynchus

LSJ s.v. φακός II. 
'anything shaped like lentils: 1. hot-water bottle, POxy.1088.46 (i A. D.); φ. ὀστράκινος Hp.Nat.Mul.34; πυρίη φακῶν τῶν κεραμήων Aret.CA2.5; φ. τοῦ ἐλαίου oil-flask, LXX 1 Ki.10.1; τοῦ ὕδατος ib.26.11.'

Sure enough, such a hot-water bottle does feature in P.Oxy. VIII 1088, which describes various remedies. The translation of the ed.pr. of the relevant section (col. ii, lines 38-47) is as follows:

'For quartan fever : juice of silphium 1 ob., myrrh. 1 ob.,
Another dose: hemlock 3 dr., henbane 3 dr. (ὑοσκυάμο(υ) (δραχμαὶ) γ), opium 2dr. (ὀπίου (δραχμαὶ) β), castor 1 dr. (καστορήου (δραχμὴ) α), black hellebore 1 dr.; 
pound and work them up separately with water and pastilles the size of an Egyptian bean, then dry in the shade and give them to the patient to drink fasting (νήστηι), rubbing them in half a cotyle of raisin wine, having previously given him a bath two hours before taking; apply a warm bottle to the feet, and cover him with blankets (προλούσας πρὸ τῆς λήμψεω(ς) ὁρῶν (= ὡρῶν) β καὶ φακὸν πρὸς τοὺς πόδας προτιθείς, καὶ σκεπάζειν ἱματίοις).'

43 'The Egyptian bean was a common measure of magnitude;...'.
44 'νήστηι : cf. Moeris... νῆστις Ἀττικοί, νήστης Ἕλληνες....'
46 φακόν : Hp. Περὶ γυν. φύσ. is cited, as in LSJ,... καὶ τοῖς ὀστρακίνοις τὸ ὕδωρ ἐγχέων ξεστόν. 'They were so called on account of their shape.'

Hieroglyphics and their Decipherment

Wikimedia Commons illustrates the representation of the name Ἀλέξανδρος in hieroglyphics in a cartouche (in accordance with the rebus principle on an acrophonic basis):

The Greek text of the Rosetta Stone is OGI 90 (an English translation thereof).
The Greek text of the Philae Obelisk is OGI 137, 138, 139.

The latest know hieroglyphic inscription (394 CE) is discussed here.