WRITING MATERIAL FOR BUSINESSMEN
T7c# Xdprov 6s ToV 6yov (6p.) 6, "price of papyrus-roll for the
accounting 4 drachmas." Such is a frequent entry in the monthly accounts
of income and expenditure kept with great meticulousness by Heroninus,
administrator of a number of private estates near Theadelphia in the
Fayum formed by Alexandrian citizens in the middle of the third century
after Christ. See SB VI 9408 (2) ii 37 [Payni year 3 = A.D. 253 or 256];
9409 (1) iii 31 [Pharmouthi year 2 = 255]; 9409 (2) ii 31 [Hathyr, same
year (?)]; (3) ii 35; (4) i 6; (6) i 3 [probably the same year, 260] P.Flor. III
321.33 [sum and date missing]; P.Lond.inv. 1289 ined. "accounts from
Heroninus archive" mentioned by T. C. Skeat, JRS 24 (1934) 66 n. 5. The
detailed account of Irenaeus, administrator of Euhemeria and contemporary of Heroninus, also has an entry for 4 drachmas (SB VI 9406.39). In
P.Flor. III 322.109, also from Irenaeus, the figure is much higher, 38
drachmas [not a multiple of 4! Pharmouthi year 5 = A.D. 258].
These prices for papyrus rolls will interest our honorand. In Papyrus
in Classical Antiquity 132 he has himself collected examples of unit
prices. He points out the snags in the comparisons: "Even where the price
per papyrus roll is given or calculated, there still remain two unknowns:
the length of the roll and the quality of the paper." We might add two further unknowns: the height of the roll, and whether the paper was new or
already written on one side.
The latter question is particularly relevant to Heroninus. No doubt
he did use new rolls from time to time for his accounts. One example is
P.Lond. 1226, III p. 103 [headed f r6xos<, "roll 6," accounts for Thoth,
year 2, presumably 254]; another is P.Flor. III 321. But though such
accounts were submitted to no less a person than Aurelius Apianus, a
magnate of Alexandria, senator, exegetes and former hypomnematographus of that city, they were sometimes written on the back of a roll
utilized for other purposes. P.Flor. III 322 from Irenaeus [Pharmouthi
163
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