Persis (325 – 90 BCE)
Agricultural writer whose work C D excerpted (V, RR 1.1.9–10).
Persis (a woman’s name) is the only known female agronomist from classical antiquity.
RE 19.1 (1937) 1030 (#2), W. Kroll.
Philip Thibodeau
Petasios, pseudo? (300 – 400 CE)
Alchemist sometimes falsely called “King of Armenia” and first cited by O
A concerning “our lead” (CAAG 2.95, 97). “Petasios” is a Hellenized version
of the Egyptian for “given by Isis” (Heuser 1929: 49, 61); cf. I. The title of an
alchemical treatise ascribed to O claims Petasios as its addressee (CAAG 2.261), but
he is not mentioned in the text. An anonymous alchemical treatise preserves a fragment of
Petasios said to be from the (his?) De ̄mokritean Commentaries (CAAG 2.356). The A
A “C” attributes to Petasios two aphorisms concerning unspecified
instruments (CAAG 2.278, 282), and he is mentioned in an alchemical lexicon compiled
perhaps ca 8th–9th c. (CAAG 2.15). Texts attributed to Petasios may be extant in Arabic
(Ullmann 1972: 188). Letrouit (1995: 48) takes Petasios to be contemporary with S,
but an earlier date may be established if we equate him with the Petee ̄sios cited in some
versions of D as an authority on khalkanthes (also khalkanthon and khalkan-
thos; MM 5.98). In turn, this Petee ̄sios may perhaps be identified with the priest and magi-
cian Pete ̄sios (ca 99 BCE) found in P. Leid. G, H, I, and K. However, the fact that Z
P does not mention Petasios suggests three separate people, or that alchemical
doctrines were ascribed to this name only in the 4th c.
Berthelot (1885) 168–169; RE 19.1 (1937) 1125, W. Kroll; BNP 10 (2007) 864, J. Quack.
Bink Hallum
Petosiris, or Nekhepso-Petosiris (ca 150 – 100 BCE)
At Hermopolis the tomb of Petosiris (“whom Osiris has given”), a high priest of Thoth, has
been dated to ca 300 BCE (G. Lefebvre, Le tombeau de Petosiris, three vols. [1923–24]), and the
Egyptian royal name Nechepso/Nekhepso ( possibly from “Nekho the King,” referring to
Nekho II of the Saïte dynasty) was included as a forerunner to the 26th or Saïte dynasty
(664– 525 BCE) in one of the recensions of M’s compilation of Egyptian kings.
Neither of these figures can be connected to the Greek works on celestial omens and
astrology that circulated under the pseudepigraphic authorship of Petosiris and Nekhepso,
generally assumed to be compositions produced in Ptolemaic Egypt of the 2nd c. BCE.
Fragments of this material are collected in Riess (1892), but more are now known.
T is the first dateable source to cite either Nekhepso or Petosiris, but by late
antiquity, e.g., in F M, Petosiris and Nekhepso were widely associated
with divination, astrology, and the H tradition. They are the creation of the
interaction between the Greek and Egyptian cultural realms of the Hellenistic period.
Textual fragments of the Petosiris tradition include celestial omens in the Babylonian
style of Enu ̄ma Anu Enlil, transmitted to Egypt during the Achaemenid period and no doubt
a development from the tradition represented in a D papyrus concerning lunar
and eclipse omens (R.A. Parker, A Vienna Demotic Papyrus on Eclipse and lunar-omina [1959]).
PETOSIRIS, OR NEKHEPSO-PETOSIRIS