Beschreibung:

MILITARY PAY REGISTER OF COHORS I APAMENORUM , in Greek, manuscript on papyrus [Egypt, 3rd century] A unique survival of a military account documenting the reimbursement of travel expenses of recruits to a Roman cohort stationed in Egypt. A fragment, c.250 x 140mm, three incomplete columns of 17-c.30 lines written in a rounded Greek cursive, with part of the top margin and the bottom margin preserved, the entries in Column 2 broken into sections, with a short inset heading above each section; a gap in Column 1 indicating perhaps the beginning of a new section; Column 3 – as far as it is preserved – continuous. The reverse appears to have been later used for what may be a school exercise, with c.10 lines of hexameters (some staining, especially on the reverse, frayed at edges). Between glass sheets and in a stiff cardboard folder. Provenance : (1) Prof. Aziz Suryal Atiya (1898-1988), of the University of Utah. Atiya was a prominent Coptologist, historian and founder of the Institute of Coptic Studies in Cairo in the 1950s, and of the Middle East Center at the University of Utah. He compiled the Arabic Papyrus, Parchment and Paper Collection at the J. Willar Marriott Library, University of Utah. (2) H.P. Kraus, 1989, sold to: (3) Schøyen Collection, MS 244/1. Text : The document lists soldiers of the cohors I Apamenorum to each of whom a sum of money – invariably 296 drachmas – has been paid or credited. This auxiliary cohort, nominally 500-strong, containing archers and a cavalry element, joined the Egyptian army before 144, and remained there until the end of the 4th century (there are a number of other textual witnesses to the existence of this cohort: see, for example, an inscription from Ostia honouring C. Nasennius Marcellus senior, ‘praef[ectus] coh[ortis] I Apamenae’; and in the career inscription of M. Valerius Lollianus, whose first post was that of ‘praefectus cohort[is] I Apamenorum sa[gittariorum] equit[atae] in the 150s). That the present document dates from the 3rd century is made clear by the fact that the men’s names, with the exception of Saturnilus , are all preceded by αυρ’, the regular abbreviation for Αυ͗ρήλιος. Such a concentration of Aurelii post-dates the constitutio Antoniniana , effective in Egypt from 214. The terminus ante quem is the reign of Diocletian (284-305), when soldiers were generally accorded the imperial gentilicum Valerius . The pay is likely to be viaticum , or reimbursement of the ‘travel expenses’ which followed enlistment. Bibliography : R.A. Coles and R.S.O. Tomlin, ‘296 Drachmas for each soldier: MS Schøyen 244/1 recto’, Essays and Texts in Honor of J. David Thomas , 2001, pp.187-201.