Texts from the "Archive" of Socrates, the Tax Collector, and Other Contexts at Karanis : : P. Cair. Mich. II / / ed. by Mohamed Gaber El-Maghrabi, Cornelia Römer.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Plus DeG Package 2015 Part 1
• HerausgeberIn: El-Maghrabi, Mohamed Gaber,; Römer, Cornelia,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2014]; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Language: English
• Series: Archiv für Papyrusforschung und verwandte Gebiete – Beihefte , 35
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (148 p.)

This volume of Papyri contains a selection of 25 pieces which were excavated in the village of Karanis in the north-eastern Fayum (Egypt) by American archaeologists between 1924 and 1926. Many of the texts published here come from the archive of a well known figure in the village life of Karanis in the 2nd century AD: Socrates, son of Sarapion, was a tax collector here for many years, serving the Roman Empire collecting taxes due in money and in kind. Besides his successful economic activities - Socrates certainly belonged to the upper stratum of society in Karanis - the tax collector was a lover of Greek literature; for sure, he did not venture into high philosophy and the like, but he read Homer, comedies, and tried to be up to date about mythology in plays. Half of the new texts published here are literary, mostly from Socrates’ library; other texts were found in the immediate neighbourhood of where Socrates lived, such as a surgical treatise about remedies of shoulder dislocations, which perhaps belonged to a doctor. The other half of the papyrus texts in this volume are documents that can shed new light on the activities of the tax collector, or of other inhabitants of Karanis. Altogether they give us a vivid picture of village life in Graeco/Roman Egypt in the 2nd century AD.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- TABLE OF CONTENT -- Preface -- Introduction -- A. Literary Texts from the “Archive” of Socrates, the Tax Collector (House B17) -- B. Literary Texts from Street BS1 in Front of B17, and Other Houses -- C. Documents from House B17 and from Street BS1 (House B17) -- D. Documents from Other Locations in Karanis -- Bibliography -- INDEXES