Standard Koine Greek in Third Century BC Papyri[*]

(1) The idea of "bad" Greek in third century BC documents

But what is "good" Greek in the times and places illustrated by the evidence of the papyri? What should be our point of comparison for linguistic analysis? There has been a natural enough, but increasingly unsatisfactory tendency to interpret these texts in relation to literary prose of the classical period. Sven-Tage Teodorsson compared them to Attic inscriptions of the fourth century in The Phonology of Ptolemaic Koine,[2] but that material too is remote in place, time, genre, and registers, and has restricted value for analysing many linguistic categories.

The argument of this short paper is that a more apposite point of comparison is available among the papyri themselves. The focus is mid-third century BC documents from Alexandria and the Fayum preserved in the Zenon archive. Within this richly varied corpus, which includes nearly 40% of all known Greek papyri from the third century, we find many documents from educated authors. And once again we can look to Edgar for suggestive comment, quoted in (2).

(2) The idea of "good" Greek in third century BC documents

My contention is that the archive's letters from Apollonios, the finance minister of Ptolemy II Philadelphos, and from Apollonios' circle provide a key sample of the standard Egyptian Koine of the time and a crucial "control" for assessing substandard language.

Sentence-Connective Particles and the Proposed "Control"

To illustrate the way these documents can sharpen our understanding, I want to consider some aspects of a single feature, the use of connective particles in the papyri. This is a complicated topic, and because of space-considerations I shall have to offer a cursory view here. In addition, of the different types of connection made by particles in Greek,[3] I shall be restricting my comments mainly to sentence-connection. Nevertheless, I hope this limited inquiry will highlight the much broader issues.

Let us begin from (3) below, a transcription of a well-known papyrus letter held in the University of Michigan's collection at Ann Arbor. It is written with an Egyptian brush and the stated author is a widow with the Egyptian name Senchons.[4] Among many other features of linguistic interest, the document is notable for its distribution of connective particles. Of the seven sentences making up the body of the message (after the greeting formula), only the fourth, fifth, and sixth contain connectives. These are καί, δέ, and a peculiarly spelt οὖν respectively (all shown in bold type in my transcription).

(3) P.Mich.Zen. 29 (docketed 13–21 July 256 BC)

In the landmark paper "Egyptian Scribes Writing Greek" Willy Clarysse takes this letter to manifest a fair mastery of Greek particles.[5] He contrasts it with the striking case of Horos' Egyptian-brush letter, (4) below, where we shall look in vain for even one sentence-connective particle. From a classical perspective neither writer seems much good at Greek particles. But how do educated contemporary authors use sentence-connectives in their ordinary, everyday communications?

(4) P.Cair.Zen. II 59243 (3 February 252 BC)

My proposed "control" is a set of texts built around the documents written in the name of Apollonios the finance minister. Over 70 of his letters have been preserved. Some are too fragmentary to be useful for the present purpose, but 37 are in good enough condition to be assessed for particle usage, and another three offer tantalizing additional glimpses. These letters mostly emanate from Apollonios' secratariat in Alexandria and are characteristically penned in elegant hands.

I supplement Apollonios' letters with texts from members of his circle. For the present treatment I have examined 16 documents from Amyntas, an administrator in Apollonios' Alexandrian household; seven from Hierokles, who directed a παλαίστρα attached to the same household; five attributed to Artemidoros, Apollonios' doctor; and 18 from Zenon himself, as well as additional sampling. The total is approximately 90 texts assessable for particle usage.

As a group they can in my view be taken confidently as a sample of educated language of the time. While there are individual differences of style, they are generally written in a fluent Greek containing such signs of sophistication as the clause-connective μὲν . . . δέ complex (seen, for example, in (5) below). John Lee has shown that this feature already had a positive stylistic value in the early Koine period.[6]

(5) P.Cair.Zen. II 59225 (Artemidoros the doctor to Zenon, 25 Jan. 253 BC), ll. 4–6

A systematic analysis reveals that the employment of sentence-connective particles in the "control" group is largely consistent with classical usage. Scholars have often observed the reduction in the number of particles employed in post-classical Greek, but in terms of sentence-connectives the range found in these early Koine documents accords quite closely with, for instance, the results of random sampling from Lysias (Lys. I 6–26 contains 29 sentence-connective examples of δέ, 13 of καί, 11 of γάρ, and five of οὖν, along with six cases of formal or stylistic asyndeton, for which cf. my notes 3 and 8).

For patterns of usage let us now consider some examples. If we take (6) and (7) below, we find no sentence-connectives at all, as in Horos' letter. These documents, however, are very short, consisting of the greeting formula followed by a single sentence. On the other hand, (8) below is an example of a longer text, the letter-body composed of four sentences. Once again there is no connective linking the first of them to the greeting, but each of the second, third, and fourth sentences contains a connective particle: δέ, οὖν, and γάρ respectively (shown in bold in the transcription).

(6) P.Cair.Zen. II 59201 (22 May 254 BC)

(7) P.Cair.Zen. II 59180 (24 July 255 BC)

(8) P.Cair.Zen. II 59202 (23 May 254 BC)

This letter (8) displays the typical pattern of distribution. It becomes clear that it is regular to have no particle linking the body of the text to the greeting formula. And this is precisely what we should expect. Greeting and letter-body are discrete elements of the text (a point to which I shall return). But within the letter-body we usually find a consistent string of sentence-connectives.

There are, however, a handful of cases where connectives are omitted within the letter-body. Some represent what Denniston terms formal asyndeton,[8] as in (9). After διό Zenon does not need a connective particle. But others have no obvious motivation. The case of (10) is a clear example. It lacks a connective in the second sentence after the greeting in the copy of the letter to Nikeratos. Compare line 10 . . . πρὸς σέ. ὡς ἂν παραγ̣ένηται . . . with lines 2–3 . . . τἀντίγραφα. | ὡς ἂν οὖν καταχθῆι τ[ὰ] ξύλα (both segments appear in bold type in the transcription of (10) below).

(9) P.Cair.Zen. II 59287 (7 March 250 BC)

(10) P.Zen.Pestm. XX 27 (17 December 254 BC)

Perhaps the lack of connective in (10) is simply a copying mistake. It cannot be conclusive in itself. But then we find Amyntas leaving out the clause-connective δέ (in a μὲν . . . δέ complex) in (11) below, and having to insert it above the line[9] – he probably wrote this letter himself.[10] I wonder whether connective particles were becoming easy things to forget. These two cases may be showing us that even for educated third-century writers particles already have a "learned" or artificial quality. In fact Denniston's comment that "In contrast with . . . stylistic employment of asyndeton Andocides and Xenophon often omit connectives in narrative with a certain naive awkwardness, and without any apparent rhetorical justification"[11] suggests there is already a "literary" character to consistent use of particles in the classical period, and that we should not think in terms of a uniform "classical" practice.

(11) P.Cair.Zen. I 59044 (Amyntas to Zenon, docketed 26 March 257 BC), ll. 29–30

Some Conclusions

In the light of all this it is easy to agree with Willy Clarysse's assessment of the particle usage in (3) above. There is much that may seem strange in Senchons' letter, but the control over sentence-connectives is not so bad. The writer or dictator knows they need to be there, and remembers to include them in half the appropriate places.

On the other hand, the complete absence of sentence-connectives in (4) above seems remarkable. It may well reflect bilingual interference, as Clarysse concludes. But here I want to introduce a caveat. A note of caution is in order because of possible stylistic transfer from other document types. The nature of the text is important with regard to the use of sentence-connectives. They belong in a letter, while in something like a list we should not necessarily expect them. Yet a list, say of agenda items, may be expanded into a text of letter-type, and a document with the formal features of a letter may adopt the characteristics of a list.

The document transcribed below as (12), another Michigan papyrus, is a memorandum from Zenon's agent Iason. He instructs one Hermon to report to Zenon on a series of six matters. These are set out as a list, each matter linked asyndetically to what precedes. Three of them are developed by means of a dependent clause, and the last is extended by a further explanatory clause, connected by γάρ. There is nothing abnormal about the omission of particles in the earlier elements of the text. In the last sentence the document is simply turning into a letter-type composition as Iason decides to elaborate. We ought to consider whether an author of limited education, for example Horos from (4) above, may lack sensitivity to this difference between the requirements of a letter and those of a list-type text.

(12) P.Mich.Zen. 86 (not dated)

One more specific observation ought to be added here. Substandard usage in the matter of sentence-connective particles is not just about leaving them out. We have seen that a linking particle is inappropriate in the first sentence of the letter-body, immediately after the greeting formula. The only exception in my "control" group occurs in (13), where an extended greeting formula merges into the body of the message.

(13) P.Cair.Zen. II 59251 (14 April 252 BC), ll. 1–2

Something stranger is happening in (14). There we find Egyptian authors, pigs in danger, and an example of οὖν in the first sentence of the letter-body. This is definitely bad Greek. The particle is misplaced. And again the explanation may lie simply in educational level. The person responsible was familiar with the characteristic insertion of οὖν into the expression δέομαι σου or δεόμεθα σου, common in petitions and shown in (15). It usually occurs toward the end of the message, after the basis for the petition has been stated. In (14) the appeal for help comes right at the start, and the οὖν (shown in bold type), now logically meaningless, has come with it.

(14) P.Cair.Zen. III 59495 (not dated)

(15) P.Cair.Zen. III 59351 (to the king, Zenon, after 2 June 244 BC), ll. 3–4

What I have tried to demonstrate here is that systematic analysis of educated writing from the Zenon archive allows us our surest basis for assessing substandard usage in documents of the same place and time. I have examined a single feature in very brief order, and it will be obvious that I am merely sketching a richly textured scene. The last impression I would wish to convey is the appearance of a simple dichotomy between standard and substandard usage. The picture is much more complex. But by dwelling on the general nature of "good" Greek in third century BC papyri we can ward off the tendency to equate oddities too readily with bilingual influences, and take into full account the question of the levels of education reflected in our texts. My essential point is that we should be building our understanding of an emerging standard language in non-literary papyri from this internal evidence much more than from the practices of classical literature.