152
JAMES G. KEENAN
Next, constituting a more tenuous independent category,
would come two absentee landowners: Flavius Samuel the soldier
(if it is conceded that he was an absentee) and, no doubt more
important, the illustrious Flavius Alexander, whose honorific titles
survive, but whose functionary titles are irreparably damaged in
PSI IV 283-clearly a high-level official of some sort, hardly the
type to have found existence in Aphrodite very congenial.
Together and last would come probably local parties like Paul
son of John, a possessor who perhaps owned more land than he
could farm himself (or certain plots that were at an inconvenient
distance from his main holdings), and a lady landowner who was
probably unable to farm her own land and without husband,
brothers or sons to farm it for her.27
The extent to which Phoibammon profited from his leaseholding activities is impossible to calculate, not only by reason of
the relative thinness of the documentation, but also because the
documents that are extant and published do not provide a consistent series of essential facts. To begin with, documentation on
Phoibammon's leaseholding activities is drawn from two different
types of documents. Of the nine pertinent documents, four are
contracts of lease. These, when whole, provide absolute dates (526
the earliest, 550 the latest) and detailed terms, but not always the
area in arouras of the land taken in lease.28 Possibly this is because
the intricate, age-old system of localizing and naming parcels of
land in Aphrodite largely did away with the need, or the perception
of the need, to measure them exactly. Instead, the boundaries are
described in detail and acknowledged-as were in other terms
other features of Aphrodite's agrarian life-as being ancient or
traditional (apxa^a).29 On the other hand, the rent receipts issued
to Phoibammon-the second type of document being considered at
this point-give only indictional year-indications and, though these
provide sets of alternative possibilities fifteen years apart, they do
not give year-dates that can with absolute confidence be translated
in our terms. Moreover, Phoibammon is most often in these said
of Phoibammon. In line 3, I take (otq38a[dwl vo] to be a scribal error for
oDLI/3(/iwI []v. For the general format of these lines, cf. PSI IV 284. 1-2.
27 P.Mich. XIII 668 (542 or 557); P.Lond. V 1841 (536).
28 P.MichaeL 43 (526), P.Lond. V 1841 (536), PSI IV 283 (550), P.Mich. XIII
667 (6th century).
29 Or rakauc: P.Michael. 48.21. See P.Cair.Masp. I 67001.19, P.Michael. 45.22,
46.10, P.Mich. XIII 666.12. Other features in other terms: the traditional service of
village shepherds as fieldguards K 1TarEpwov irtju[v Ka]h [7r]p[oy6]vo>v (P.Cair.
Masp. I67001.11).
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