[…] nation […] Persia […] went to meet […] to Arabia […] also in Damastes [name of book]. [… three undeciphered lines …]of the Arabians […] Hellanikos in Foundations [of Nations and Cities] says […] Persia [… two undeciphered lines …] Arabia […] and Palaiphatos in the seventh book of his Tr[ojan cycle] [… two undeciphered lines …] the Red Sea not foreign […] turn aside […] carry out […] for the [… undeciphered line …] the extreme […] the Issedones, that is [Esse]dones, that is Asse[dones], he would advance […]
Author: Didymos Chalkenteros (probably)
Title of Work: Unknown
Location in Work: Column 1 = fragments 18 and 19, Column 2 = fragments 8, 10 and 11, plus possible join of fragment 46.
Date of Work: c. 10 BCE
Original Language: Greek (Attic)
Original Text:
Column 1
ε]θνος[ ]ν[
]Περς[ ]καθηκ[
ε]πι τη[ν Α]ραβια[ν
ε]ν κ[αι Δ]αμαστες [
Column 2 (with no lines missing)
]ευ[ ]
]ν πε[ ]
χερε[ ]
τοι συμ[ Αρα-]
βιων γ[ Ελλανι-]
κος δ’ε[ν Εθνων κ(αι) Πολεων]
κτισες[ι λεγει ]
δε Περς[ ]
[ α]ροι κ(αι) ]
δε συμ[ ]
Αρ[αβι]α[ Παλαιφατος] {or with fr. 46:} Αρ[ ]αι αλ[ ]
δ̅ εν ζʹ Tρ[ωικον ] {or with fr. 46:} δ̅ εν ζʹ τρ[ ]α[ ]
διων εχ[ ]
ρ[οι? κ]αι κ[ατ/θ εις]
την Ερυθ[ραν θαλασσαν]
ου ξενον [δ ]
παρατρ[επ -]
μα εξηνεγκ[ε ]
γαρ την[ ]ριμ[ ]
[ ]ανεινε[μ ]ε[ν ]
[ ]αρις εσχατο[ν ]
[ ]τους Ισσηδονα[ς ]
[Εσσ]ηδονας ο δε Ασση[δο-]
[νας σ]τρατευοι περ[ ]
Reference Edition: Lobel, Oxy1611; Oxyrhyncus Papyri, part 13, no. 1611
Provenience: Oxyrrhynkos (al-Bahnasa, Egypt)
Edition Notes: Lobel’s edition of this part of Oxy. 1611 came after five fragments edited individually in the original publication were found to form a single narrative. After joins the combined fragment’s column is 24 lines tall, matching that of the columns on a larger fragment, so there are apparently no missing lines between the first and second column. Lobel also noted a possible additional join (of fragment no. 46), and the museum has placed that fragment in accordance with that possible join in the papyri’s display case, which is reflected in the digitized image on the museum’s web site and here on this page, on the right side of column two, lines 11-12. However, Lobel’s edition implicitly rejected the proposed join of fragment 46, as the restorations he made would be negated by it. Here the effects of making the join are shown as an alternative reading, although the join of fragment 46 is not a visibly obvious fit and the text seems very hard to restore sensibly with the join made.
Restorations differ here from Lobel’s in four ways: (1) in col. 2 line 14, Lobel’s restored of noun ending -ρ[οι] is marked uncertain because it can’t be seen on the digital image, and an unspecified verb beginning κ[ατ-] or [καθ-] is restored instead of Lobel’s καθηκουσιν governed by the preceding -ρ[οι], which fit his misguided assumption that the text is ethnographic; (2) in col. 2, l. 15 the verb παρατρ[επ ] is restored, with ending uncertain; (3) Lobel’s suggestion to restore [Αβ]αρις in the fourth from final line is rejected, because it is difficult to imagine how Abaris could be connected to Damastes’ story of the Athenian mission to Persia, and because Abaris is not mentioned together with Issedones in any ancient text (see the general commentary). (4) The three consecutive iterations of the name Issedones in the fragment’s final lines are restored here as a list of three alternate spellings known to the commentator, with Essedones in second position, in place of two instances of Issedones followed by Assedones.
Source of Date of Work: Dickey, Ancient Scholarship, 7
Commentary:
This important but poorly preserved and difficult fragment of Damastes is not included in either the FGrH or BNJ collections of his fragments. Judging from other, better preserved parts of the papyrus, this passage belonged to a scholarly commentary on a literary text, likely a comedy, perhaps a lost work of Aristophanes, and most likely by the extremely prolific commentator Didymos Chalkenteros (‘bronze-guts’) of Alexandria, active from the late 1st century BC to the early 1st century CE (Arrighetti, POx XIII 1611).
The comment contained in this part of the papyrus almost certainly relates to another, better-known fragment of Damastes describing the route taken by an Athenian diplomatic mission to Sousa. Such a mission would be ripe material for a comedy to mock, as evidenced by Aristophanes mocking a different Athenian mission to Sousa in the Acharnians (ll. 65-92), which could explain why the commentator would bring up Damastes’ account of the route taken. Our main account of Damastes’ story is also difficult to understand, as it is told third-hand by Strabo via Eratosthenes, both of whom were critical of Damastes’ story and might well have distorted it. Thus a second, potentially more direct window onto Damastes’ account could be quite useful, if this very damaged text could be better restored.
As shown in another part of the papyri, this commentary’s individual comments each begin with the word ὅτι, so we do not have the beginning of this comment, and we do not know how much of the comment has been lost that preceded the preserved portion. The beginning of the preserved portion refers to Damastes, Persia and movement to Arabia, and so appears to refer to the same Damastes story of an Athenian mission to Persia via Arabia retold by Strabo. It appears that the commentator has already referred to another author who wrote about the same mission, which very likely was the work being commented on.
After a few undeciphered lines, Arabians appear to be mentioned again and then another pair of writers are invoked: Hellanikos of Lesbos, another historian and contemporary of Damastes, and Palaiphatos, a later writer known for rationalizing explanations of epic mythology. Lobel was able to restore this pair of authors and works by noticing that they appear together in another text: in Stephanos of Byzantion’s Ethnikon, under the entry for Χαριμάται, where the nation of that name is located citing the same authors and works (BNJ 4 F70; BNJ 44 F3) relative to nations of the northwest Caucasus (Κερκεταί, Ἡνίοχοι) and southwest Caucasus (Μόσχοι, Κοραξοί). It seems very likely that the commentator who wrote the text preserved on this papyrus, especially if it is Didymos, was also the source of Stephanos’ entry on the Χαριμάται, and that he cited these two specific works together in multiple commentaries because the two works had very similar content on a certain subject: namely, the topography of the Caucasus. This makes it appear that Hellanikos and Polyphaitos, who likely followed Hellanikos, wrote about an Arabia near the Caucasus mountains, similarly to the tragic play Prometheus Bound (to come in this collection). Why Persia is mentioned in this same section of the text is unclear.
After a couple undeciphered lines the Red Sea appears to be mentioned (or possibly something else with the same word for red in its name). To the ancient Greeks ‘Red Sea’ meant the Persian Gulf (whereas our Red Sea they called the Arabian Sea). So if this restoration is correct the commentator is probably here discussing a realistic route to Sousa.
In the final four lines the commentator discusses the Issedones. Lobel thought this was incongruous with the previous discussion of Persia and Arabia, and suggested these four lines might represent the beginning of a different comment. Lobel also suggested that Abaris might have been mentioned at the beginning of the last four lines: a suggestion that led Felix Jacoby, followed by Ken Dowden, to conjecture that the last four lines represented a fragment of a text attributed to Abaris (FGrH/BNJ 34 F2). But although Abaris was believed to be either a Hyperboreian or a Skythian who had spent time in Hyperboreia, the legends told about Abaris have nothing else in common with the Arimaspeia. The corpus of texts about Abaris gives us no reason to expect that he would be mentioned together with Issedones, or that any of the works attributed to him would discuss Issedones. However, the Issedones do in fact fit in perfectly with a discussion of an Arabia near the Caucasus, and both Damastes and Hellanikos (to come in this collection) are known to have drawn material from the Arimaspeia. And there is no space on the left side of this text column before the final four lines where the ὅτι that begins new comments in this commentary would fit. Thus Jacoby’s and Dowden’s separation of the last four lines of this text into a separate fragment must be rejected.
Rather, what we appear to be reading is a commentary on a comic play’s reference to the same diplomatic mission to Persia described by Damastes and relayed to us via Eratosthenes and Strabo. This commentator regarded the story’s reference to an Arabia north or northeast of Kilikia as being related to references to a country of Arabia near the Caucasus, which Hellanikos and Palaiphatos after him apparently mentioned in close context with Issedones. And this material in Hellanikos stemmed from the Arimaspeia.
Concordance: FGrH/BNJ Abaris (34) F2 (last 4 lines only)