The Philinna Papyrus

1. P. Amh. 11 and P. Berol. 7504: History of the Problem of their Relationship. ‘Too small to have more than a palaeographical interest’: thus marked, the Amherst Papyrus 11 was published by Grenfell and Hunt in 1901; they assigned it to cent. I B.C. For all its smallness, however, Wilamowitz remembered this text when he found a similar one in the Berlin Papyrus 7504, which he edited in 1907, dating the hand ‘spätgriechisch.’ But in quoting from the Amherst Papyrus he relied too much on his memory; that, and some mistakes which he made in editing the Berlin Papyrus, prevented him from making full use of his discovery. A considerable step forward was taken by Adam Abt in 1910. He supplemented convincingly ll. 8–12 and 17–18 of the Berlin Papyrus from the text of the Amherst Papyrus. He even envisaged, and for excellent reasons, the possibility that the two papyri were parts of the same roll, but eventually decided against it because he thought that ll. 13–16 of the Berlin Papyrus could not be made to fit on to the Amherst Papyrus. Here he was wrong, as will be shown presently.