there is aparagraphus—a horizontal line indicating a break—followed by
works of Xenophon and then, after a second break indicated simply by a
space, the phrase (in line 28)‘ˇìÞæïı ‹óÆ åæßóŒðåôÆØÞ, ‘‘Of Homer, as
much as is found.’’ That phrase (of uncertain significance, and to which
we will return) then recurs with the works of Menander and Euripides,
and was perhaps intended to be understood with the names of Aristopha-
nes and at least three other authors that appear, in very fragmentary form,
at the bottom of the list. Such, then, is the list. What, though, was its
purpose? Since its title, if it had one, does not survive, we can only guess at
its exact nature, and scholars have advanced a number of theories: this
might be a list of books in a book collection or library, or in a bookseller’s
shop, or perhaps it was a list ofdesiderata, works someone wanted to buy,
or maybe it was the reading assigned by a teacher to his students.
12
For my
purposes, the crucial question here, and for all of these lists, is this: does
the list give us the contents of an actual, existing book collection, or does
it give us a list of books that did not exist as an actual collection, such as
a shopping list, or assigned readings, or a scholar’s bibliography of, say,
the works of Plato?
Scholars working on these papyri have developed a number of criteria
to help determine the nature and purpose of the lists: (1) If titles are
repeated, we can probably assume that we are not dealing with a
scholar’s bibliography, a teacher’s assignments, or a list ofdesiderata,
because in each of those cases there would be no logical reason to repeat
titles. (2) If a list devoted to a single author omits titles that should
have been known to any scholar, we can probably rule out a scholarly
bibliography.^13 (3) If a list includes what appear to be opisthographs (rolls
written on both sides), we can safely rule out teacher’s assignments
and scholarly bibliographies, neither of which would be likely to specify
or record such volumes. Our list includes repetitions (Alcibiadesin lines
9, 15, and 19,Protagorasin 5 and 21,Philebusin 16 and 22), and probably
some opisthographs (lines 7, 10, and 11), so that it most likely represents
an actual collection.
In addition, this papyrus, like some others, contains peculiarities that
can best be explained on the assumption that the compiler of the list was
looking at and recording actual physical volumes. To take one example: in
line 4, the only known ancient worksAgainst Calliclesare orations by Lysias
and Demosthenes, not dialogues of Plato, and several scholars have accord-
ingly suggested that this title might represent the third book of Plato’s
Gorgias, in which Socrates’ opponent is the philosopher Callicles, or per-
- These and other theories are set out clearly in summary form by Carlini 1989, 94 7.
He notes that at least nine different explanations of the list have been proposed so far. - Such bibliographies, or lists of an author’s works, were often appended to the end of
the biography of an author. See Otranto 2000, XIV XV, and cf. the remarkably full lists of
an author’s works that Diogenes Laertius attached at the end of each of his biographies.
236 Institutions and Communities