Books by Amin Benaissa
This volume presents the first fruits of the research project Hexameters Beyond the Canon: New Po... more This volume presents the first fruits of the research project Hexameters Beyond the Canon: New Poetry on Papyri from Roman and Byzantine Egypt, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The new texts illustrate the great variety and interest of hexameter composition in this period, with categories including fable, ethical instruction, mythological narrative, ethopoea, and magical hymn. Earlier periods are represented by new pieces of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women and Callimachus’ Hecale. The extant literary texts include discourses of Musonius Rufus, Dio Chrysostom, and Favorinus, three figures rarely encountered in the papyri. On the theological side, there are fragments of the Septuagint (Genesis and Exodus) and two new manuscripts of the sermon On Pascha by Melito of Sardis. The documentary section offers texts from a very wide chronological range, from the late Ptolemies to Maurice. Highlights include a petition to Cleopatra and Caesarion and a letter mentioning a prefectural decree on ‘days of purity’. There are two small thematic units: three leases of fishing rights, and a handful of documents relating to Heptanomia in the fourth century. The usual indexes and a selection of photographs are provided.
This volume marks a new departure for the series: it is the first to publish texts in Egyptian. O... more This volume marks a new departure for the series: it is the first to publish texts in Egyptian. One is a Greek–Coptic paraphrase of Homer's Iliad, the other a sale of house property in Demotic accompanied by a Greek tax receipt. Section I presents extensive remains of a set of codices of the Septuagint. Section II includes a miscellany of new literary and subliterary texts: remnants of post-Classical hexameter poetry, a possible fragment of Middle comedy with an Anacreontic theme, and a cento of Homeric verses on the myth of Daphne. The seventeen papyri of Apollonius Rhodius published in Section III, providing some two dozen new readings, confirm the Argonautica's status as the most popular epic poem in Roman Egypt after the Homeric and Hesiodic classics. The papyri of Apollonius are complemented by a painting of a wheeled float carrying the Argonauts, perhaps an illustration of a local spectacle. Section IV includes twenty declarations of livestock from the first and second centuries, and the largest number of accounts from the 'Apion archive' since vol. XVI. The global figures for the Apion estate's income, expenditure, and tax payments offer fresh data to steer and inform the lively debate about the economy of this prominent Oxyrhynchite institution.
Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries, Volume 56, 2018
The epic poet Dionysius, who probably flourished in the first century CE, is a key transitional f... more The epic poet Dionysius, who probably flourished in the first century CE, is a key transitional figure in the history of Greek poetry, sharing stylistic and thematic tendencies with both the learned Hellenistic tradition and the monumental epic poetry of the later Roman period. His Bassarica is the earliest known poem on the conquest of India by the god Dionysus and was an important model of Nonnus' Dionysiaca. His Gigantias related the battle of the giants against the Olympian gods and legends surrounding it, with particular focus on the figure of Heracles. This is the most comprehensive edition to date of his poetry, expanding the number of fragments available and providing a more reliable text based on a fresh inspection of the papyri. The volume includes a substantial introduction contextualising the poetry, a facing English translation of the text, and a detailed linguistic and literary commentary. <www.cambridge.org/9781107178977>
Rural Settlements of the Oxyrhynchite Nome. A Papyrological Survey
Trismegistos Online Publication 4 (Version 3.0; Leuven 2021): http://www.trismegistos.org/top
A comprehensive gazetteer of the villages and hamlets of the Oxyrhynchite nome, the administrativ... more A comprehensive gazetteer of the villages and hamlets of the Oxyrhynchite nome, the administrative region of Graeco-Roman Egypt centred around the city of Oxyrhynchus (modern Al-Bahnasa). It provides a critically compiled list of the papyrological attestations of each settlement and presents in summary form the information recoverable from the papyri about individual villages, such as their relative location, topographical features, religious institutions, and the officials, occupations and important landowners associated with them. This publication will be a useful resource to papyrologists studying and editing Oxyrhynchite documents as well as to scholars interested in the topography and rural society of Graeco-Roman Egypt.
Select Articles and Chapters by Amin Benaissa
J.-L. Fournet and A. Ricciardetto (eds.), Appréhender la culture écrite des Anciens: les catégories “documentaire” et “littéraire” en papyrologie et leurs limites, 2025
This paper investigates editorial approaches to the categories 'literary' and 'documentary' in th... more This paper investigates editorial approaches to the categories 'literary' and 'documentary' in the early decades of papyrology, roughly from 1891 to 1918. This was a formative period for the discipline with a lasting impact on later practice. Treatment of these two categories of text was conditioned by the institutional academic frameworks in some countries, the backgrounds, interests, and partialities of individual editors, and the practices inherited from more developed disciplines like epigraphy. Barring a few exceptions, there was no systematic attempt to define the two categories and reflect on the relationship between them outside of palaeography. Most editors of large collections, however, dealt with both types of text. Schubart appreciated the complementarity of both categories of papyri for understanding the cultural history of Graeco-Roman Egypt, while Grenfell and Hunt recognised the importance and usefulness of documents for the dating and reconstruction of literary texts written on the reverse side. Attempts to interrelate literary and documentary texts in mixed archives are less evident in this period.
Literary Papyri from the Bodleian Library and Other Collections (P.Lit.Var.), 2024
On col. ii 9–14, see E. Dettori, 'Un nuovo frammento (e un nuovo titolo) di Lisania di Cirene', Z... more On col. ii 9–14, see E. Dettori, 'Un nuovo frammento (e un nuovo titolo) di Lisania di Cirene', ZPE 235 (2025) 13–16.
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. LXXXVI, 2021
Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 200, 2016
Publication of a papyrus in the British Library preserving a receipt issued by an actuarius of a ... more Publication of a papyrus in the British Library preserving a receipt issued by an actuarius of a military unit (probably the Mauri Scutarii in Hermopolis) to a new recruit. The actuarius confirms the receipt of the recruit’s certificate of appointment to the unit (probatoria), which was issued by the dux Thebaidis, and accordingly undertakes to register him in the unit’s muster-roll (matrix). The only parallel to this type of document is P.Münch. I 2 (578). The papyrus also reveals the name of a new dux Thebaidis, Flavius Heracleius Dorotheus Hypsistius Andronicus Celer Zenodotus. He is identifiable with a wealthy honorary consul in the reign of Anastasius mentioned by John Lydus.
For a recent study of this text, see J.-Y. Strasser, 'L’Inscription en l’honneur d’Apion (P.Oxy. ... more For a recent study of this text, see J.-Y. Strasser, 'L’Inscription en l’honneur d’Apion (P.Oxy. LXXIX 5202)', Chronique d'Égypte 182 (2016) 352-77. See also SEG LXIV 1883 = <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1874-6772_seg_a64_1883>.
p. 115 "the Aegyptiaca in at least five books": delete "at least".
Uploads
Books by Amin Benaissa
Select Articles and Chapters by Amin Benaissa