| |
KF5JRV > TECH 14.10.16 12:35l 18 Lines 993 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 3587_KF5JRV
Read: GUEST
Subj: Salesmen
Path: IW8PGT<IR2UBX<IZ3LSV<IK6ZDE<F1OYP<JH4XSY<JE7YGF<N9PMO<N0KFQ<KF5JRV
Sent: 161014/1026Z 3587@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.13
A Door-to-Door Bookseller in Egypt, Second Century CE Circa 150 CE
P. Petaus 30O, an Egyptian papyrus fragment of a private letter in Greek from
Roman Julius Placidus to his father, written about 150 CE by Petaus (Petaus
komogrammateus) a village scribe of Ptolemais Hormou (El-Lahun) and
surrounding villages, reads in translation as follows:
"Julius Placidus to his father Herclanus, greeting. Dius came to us and showed
us six parchment codices (tas membranas hex). We selected none of those, but
collated eight, for which I paid on account 100 drachmas. You will be on the
lookout in any case. . . I hope you are well. . .by Julius Placidus."
"We get a glimpse here of the ancient counterpart of the door-to-door
bookseller. Among his offerings are parchment codices. These were apparently
inscribed with texts but were perhaps not well inscribed, since six were not
bought. It is not clear whether the eight others that were collated and
purchased were rolls or codices...
Read previous mail | Read next mail
| |
