Antiquity Studies

The Pocket Pindar

The Antinoupolis Codex and Pindar’s Readership in Graeco-Roman Egypt

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Abstract

The parchment codex published as P.Ant. II 76 and III 212 contains remains of Pindar’s Olympians 5 and 6 along with scanty traces of marginal notes. Further conservation and study allows us to now roughly reconstruct the format of the original manuscript, and new imaging techniques have revealed better readings of the marginalia. In this speculative article, I explore the Pindar codex’s form, content, and the particular context of Antinoupolis. In the process, I touch upon the question of Pindar’s popularity in Roman Egypt, book production in Antinoupolis, and the form and function of the early codex. Taking all available evidence into account, I propose that we might have a pocket codex of Pindar’s complete works – perhaps intended for casual reading.  


Open access

Submitted: May 17, 2021 | Accepted: June 23, 2021 | Published Dec. 16, 2021 | Language: en

Keywords Pindar • Antinoupolis • Ancient readership • Codex • Papyrology

Copyright © 2021 Mark de Kreij. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-548-3/015


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