The Archive of Ammon Scholasticus of Panopolis Volume 1: The Legacy of Harpocration, Texts from the Collections of Duke University and the Universität zu Köln Abhandlungen der Nordrhein-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Sonderreihe: Papyrologic

Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1997, 198 Seiten und 24 Bildtafeln. Gebunden Kartoniert.

The archive to be published in the projected series of volumes entitled P. Ammon comprises the family papers collected and preserved by the fourth-century advocate Aurelius Ammon Scholasticus, son of Petearbeschinis, of Panopolis in the Thebaid. A well educated lawyer who professes and exhibits interest in rhetoric and philosophy, he was born during probably the first or second decade of the IV century to Petearbeschinis and his second wife Senpetechensis also called Nike; he was the mainstay of his family and presumably in mid-career in 348 when he wrote most of the texts contained in this volume. He is last attested in 372 when he championed his daughter and son-in-law Helladios in litigation. The archive includes not only his own papers but many from other members of the family. The earliest dated text is a purchase of property in 281 by his father's first wife, census returns of 303 and 308 by his parents and in 299 by his elder half-brother Horion I, and many undated papers including farming accounts and receipts. The family possessed or drew income from extensive holdings scattered throughout the Panopolite nome.Head of a family of high-ranking hereditary priests, Petearbeschinis was priest of the principal temples of the nome, his first wife Senpasis was a priestess and daughter of a priest, and their son Horion I was priest and archiprophetes of the temples of the nome, to whose account accrued one-tenth of all their vast temple lands. Of the five ranks of the traditional college of priests, the archiprophetes stood alone in the first rank, exercising authority analogous to that of bishop or archbishop, while the higher-ranking priests constituted the second tier, in which Petearbeschinis was apparently senior. Horion II, son of Horion I and so Ammon's nephew, was expected.