Fragment of an unidentified Hellenistic Historiography
18th January- Alba de Frutos GarcÃa
The release of the Fourth Volume of the Greek papyri belonging to the Roca-Puig Collection has highlighted the wealth of the papyrological collection at the Montserrat Abbey. From among these recently published pieces, some fragments which might have originally belonged to the same book roll are of the greatest interest as they record an unidentified work of Hellenistic Historiography.
Although the fragmentary character of these texts has prevented their editors from establishing any definite relation with any author, work or historical episodes already known, the palaeography clearly dates these fragments to the 3rd century BC. This is key, since it places the papyrus from Montserrat at a close date to its original composition. Therefore its author might have been one of the first generation of the historians of Alexander, whose works are almost entirely lost.
The relative disposition of the extant fragments in the original work is far from clear. According to the reconstruction provided by the editors, the sequence of events described in these fragments may be reconstructed as follows.
The first fragment contains no more than "the coast where they had to stay". In the second fragment a certain Eurydice appears surrounded by bodyguards. A lacuna on this part of the texts hamper the identification of the second individual accompanying her. The extant of the preserved texts is ...]ole[..., which makes the identification with Pt]ole[maios an attractive suggestion. A larger portion of text is fortunately preserved in the third fragment. The text on first column describes how a male individual "going down from a sacrifice to the coast crossed sailing back to the army camp", where according to an oath "offered a sacrifice" to the goddess. The second column shows us an hecatomb of goats, sheep and calves which was also attended by "the magistrates, the priests, the leaders of the citizenry and all the foreign residents".
If we assume that the events described in these fragments happened in succession, it would therefore possible to connect the papyrus from Montserrat with the episode of Alexander the Great at Troy. The military background in which the plot is developed, the crossing of several rivers, and the sacrifice offered to a goddess might have a parallel in this episode of the year 334 BC described by Plutarch and Arrian as they show the crossing of the rivers Strymon and Hebrus an finally the Hellespont, where once in Troy Alexander offered a sacrifice to Athena before honoring his hero Achilles.
In spite of the significant problems in interpreting these fragments, they are of the greatest interest. The Montserrat piece is one of the earliest papyrus fragment related to the historiography of Alexander. Its date of composition may place the author among the first generation of the historians of Alexander whose works were lost in later times.
S. Torallas Tovar - K. A. Worp, "39. Fragment of Unidentified Hellenistic Historiography", S. Torallas Tovar and K. A. Worp, Greek Papyri from Montserrat (P.Monts.Roca IV). Scripta Orientalia 1, Barcelona, 2014: 57-71.
http://dvctvs.upf.edu/catalogo/ductus.php?operacion=introduce&ver=1&nume=832