In one of his last articles the late John Mann wrote about Honesta Missio from the Legions . In the course of his article he had occasion to consider PSI IX 1026. This is a Latin papyrus containing a sworn attestation of a petition to the governor of Syria Palaestina with his subscriptio.

This is a collection of nine essays focused on military and administrative institutions in the ancient world, and supplemented by a presentation of thirty texts in Greek and Latin written on papyrus and wooden fragments, some unpublished. The essays and textual editions are contributed by a host of distinguished international scholars in honour of Professor J. David Thomas' 70th birthday. Professor Thomas (formerly at the University of Durham) has edited a large number of ancient texts over the last 50 years, and his work has been important to the understanding of subjects as diverse as the military strength on Hadrians Wall and the chain of command in the Egyptian civil service.

The recurring problems of eye-disease in Egypt account for the importance that ophthalmology has always had in this country. Eye-diseases and their treatment in Greco-Roman Egypt are documented by a remarkable but insufficiently known body of material: Greek literary papyri, which are often the only witnesses to lost medical works and which provide evidence of original theories, practices and terminology. The first part of this book provides an introduction to ancient ophthalmology, to the medical literature of Greco-Roman Egypt and to Greek medical papyri. The second part presents a critical edition (with a French translation and commentary) of the papyri with theoretical expositions, and a chapter on ophthalmic recipes.

handelt es sich urn das archaologische Problem; zur Diskussion stand ausschlieBlich die Deutungsfrage der betreffenden bildlichen Darstellungen. Die Tatsache, daB haufig mehr als nur ein Verstorbener von Anubis zu Osiris geleitet wird, zeigt, daB die Figur links tatsachlich den Gott selbst meint und nicht einen ihm anverwandelten Toten. Gelegentlich vollzieht der Verstorbene sogar eine Trankspende oder ein Raucheropfer vor Osiris-natiirlich nicht vor sich selbst. Eine faktische ldentitat beider Gestalten ist deshalb ausgeschlossen, zumal auch die Anwesenheit gottlicher Begleitpersonen bei der Mehrzahl dieser Stelen-besonders Isis-gegen eine solche Interpretation spricht. AuBerdem bieten auch die Texte der Grabstelen keinen Anhaltspunkt fiir die Hypothese, auf ihnen sei das 'Werden zu Osiris' dargestellt (vgl. die von Abdalla zusammengestellten und interpretierten Inschriften und seine diesbeziigliche Synthese, pp. lOlff, und 107). Ein besonderes Problem bildet die chronologische Abgrenzung des behandelten Materials. Die altesten datierten Reliefs des Katalogs stammen aus dem 1. Jahrhundert vor Chr. Es gibt offenbar auch Beispiele aus der friiheren Ptolemaerzeit, die sich starker an der von pharaonischen Traditionen gepragten Stilrichtung orientieren. Sie wurden anscheinend aus der Untersuchung teilweise ausgeklammert. Wie Stichproben lehren, ist von zwei ptolemaischen Stelen a us Dendera in Boston nur eine im Katalog enthalten (Inv. 98.1054 =Cat. No. 243). Eine Stele in Liverpool (Cat. No. 131 pl. 50) ist wegen des auffallig wiedergegebenen Kopfes des Toten spatestens in das friihe 2. Jahrhundert vor Chr. datierbar. AuBerdem hat der Verf. die qualitatvolle, vermutlich friihkaiserzeitliche Stele aus Abydos(?) in Kairo CG 27541 nicht aufgenommen, wahl da sie in den heiden Catalogue-General-Banden ohne Herkunftsangabe publiziert ist. Abdallas Publikation ist jedenfalls ein wertvoller Beitrag zur ErschlieBung .. des reichen archaologischen Erbes aus den Jahrhunderten der griechisch-romischen Periode Agyptens. Sie bietet dariiber hinaus zahlreiche Anregungen zu weiteren Forschungen tiber dieses auch interdisziplinar wichtige Material.

P.Rainer Cent. 68, which was edited by Dr John Rea, is a republication, with additionalfragments, of CPR V 5 (also edited by Rea). It is a very interesting, indeed unique, text, which concerns the appointment of guarantors for the payment of a surety [...] in cases of appeal against nomination to municipal offices.

The text here published has a claim to be the most important military document ever discovered in Britain. It was found during the 1988 season of excavation of the pre-Hadrianic area at Vindolanda. The archaeological context in which it was found is the earliest level in which tablets are present; it was located in the ditch by the west wall of the earliest phase of the fort, beneath four successive buildings of the later periods. The ditch appears to have been filled by A.D. 90/92 and the tablet is therefore most probably to be dated c. A.D. 90 (unless it was part of a deposit of rubbish put into the Period I ditch by the builders of the Period II structures). It would thus reflect the situation at Vindolanda only a few years after Agricola's departure from Britain, presumably just before the enlargement of the fort which made this area the site of the praetorium in the southern sector of the central range of buildings. The small amount of relevant evidence from other writing-tablets confuses rather than clarifies the picture. The commanding officer named in the strength report is Iulius Verecundus and there are five or six other texts associated with a man named Verecundus who may or may not be the same person (in only one case is the gentilicium (Iulius) preserved).

Emanuela Battaglia: ‘ARTOS’ il lessico della panificazione nei papiri greci. (Bibliotheca di Aevum Antiquum, 2 [Istituto di Filologia Classica e di Papirologia].) Pp. 252; 10 plates. Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1989. Paper, L. 30,000. - Volume 41 Issue 2