by Dominik Lohmann
The archive of Dionysius comprises 7 demotic and 33 Greek papyri. Most of the papyri date between 117 BC and 103 BC.
As this is a business archive, little is known about the person of Dionysius. He was probably born around 135 BC and lived in Akoris. In addition to his Greek name, Dionysius also had the Egyptian name Plenis (P. Dion. 10). He grew up bilingual and spoke both Greek and Demotic. His professional activities also fit into the picture of this Egyptian-Greek identity. He was a priest of a local Egyptian deity, a royal farmer and, from 106 BC, a soldier in the Greek military of the Ptolemies (P. Dion. 7). Most of the Greek papyri deal with wheat loans (e.g. P. Dion 17), in which Dionysius mainly appears as a debtor. One possible explanation for his apparently high level of debt is that he was a poor farmer who needed the wheat to survive. However, this does not fit in with the picture of the demotic papyri, in which Dionysius appears relatively wealthy (e.g. P. Dion. 7). The many loans of wheat can therefore also be explained by the fact that Dionysius was a kind of businessman who borrowed grain cheaply and then lent it back at a high price. However, there is no evidence of this in the archive. Overall, this question remains unresolved as the exact circumstances of the wheat loans are unclear. The archive thus offers an insight into the world of life in the Ptolemaic period, with the Egyptian and Greek influences and the financial situation of Dionysius taking centre stage in the research literature.
Bibliography:
- B. van Beek, Archive of Dionysios, Son of Kephalas (2003), Trismegistos <www.trismegistos.org/arch/archives/pdf/69.pdf> [accessed 01.03.2024].
- E. Boswinkel – P. W. Pestman (eds), Les archives privées de Dionysios, fils de Kephalas, Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava 22 (Leiden 1982)
- N. Lewis, Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt. Case Studies in the Social History of the Hellenistic World (Oxford 1986)
- P. W. Pestman, Dionysios. Een geslepen zakenman of een arme drommel? Een archief met een raadsel, in: P. W. Pestman (ed.), Familie-archieven uit het land van Pharao (Zutphen 1989) 71–74
- P. W. Pestman, Dionysios, Son of Kephalas. A Bilingual Family Archive from Ptolemaic Egypt, in: P. W. Pestman (ed.), Acta Orientalia Neerlandica (Leiden 1971) 19–21