ï~~76
Amin Benaissa
exempli gratia. In this section, roughly just past the middle of the document,
the overseer guarantees that he will make up any arrears in the collection of
revenue from his own account with the estate, and that he will include the additional percentage connected with the receiving measure. The beginning of
the stipulation concerning his annual wage is also preserved. Apart from some
minor variations (signaled in the notes), the formulas of P.CtYBR inv. 325 are
very similar to those of the Apionic contracts, the main difference being that
the former groups KTrl[tTa and eorLKO[ T6rot together in the clause concerning arrears, whereas these two categories are subject to different stipulations
in R Oxy. 136 and 3952. The occurrence of the expression T[K6g T6rcog provides an opportunity for an excursus on its meaning, which I believe has been
misinterpreted in Peter Sarris' recent discussion (see below).
The provenance of the document and the owner of the estate with whom
the overseer contracts himself are unknown. The owner is formally addressed
as i tv ov yaXorcp~irc ta (5), "your magnificence," an honorific title that does
not imply a particular senatorial rank, but typically qualifies in the fifth and
sixth centuries members of the "middling" local aristocracy such as comites.3
Despite the close verbal parallels with ROxy. 136 and 3952 and the fact that
the representative of the Apion family known as Strategius II held the title of
cyaXorprcotaT'roc at the turn of the sixth century,4 there is no positive reason
to connect P.CtYBR inv. 325 with the Apion estate. Large estates of the period,
whether belonging to the domus divina (imperial family), the church, or the
aristocracy, shared much in their administrative structure and generated the
same type of documentation.5 Thus, the phraseology of RPOxy. 8.1134 (421), a
3 See R. Delmaire, "Les dignitaires laics au concile de Chalc6doine: notes sur la
hierarchie et les preseances au milieu du Ve sidcle" Byzantion 54 (1984) 141-175, at
158-159: "ce titre nest pas lie a un rang precis, comme illustre ou spectable ou clarissime, mais il s'applique a certaines personnes de rang plus ou moins dlev&, selon celui
qui l'emploie et selon le destinataire: en general, il s'agit de personnes de rang spectable
au moins (...)" Cf. O. Hornickel, Ehren- und Rangpradikate in den Papyrusurkunden
(Giessen 1930) 28-29, and J. Banaji, Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity: Gold, Labour,
and Aristocratic Dominance (Oxford 2001) 150-152.
4 On Strategius II see Mazza (n. 2) 53-59, and N. Gonis, RPOxy. 70, p. 78. He is styled,eyctoTpeTrcÂ~-cUTOc KcL v6o tcTTo K61t TWV KOctOO0YLWg0vWV o60 -TtK~v in documents from the early part of his career; cf. P.Oxy. 16.1982.3-4 (497), 67.4615.3-4 (505),
possibly CPR 14.48.2 (506). Though Strategius was a patricius by 530, a scribe could
still slip back to addressing him as q c -eyaXo1p ntct in P.Oxy. 70.4785.17 (cf. n. ad
loc.).
5 Consider, for example, the well-known receipts for replacement parts of irrigation
machines, which are attested for imperial, ecclesiastic and several aristocratic estates
over a relatively wide span of time. See the list and brief discussion by L.E. Tacoma,
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