How fragmentary ancient texts are reconstructed (sometimes)

There’s something almost magical about how papyrologists and editors take tiny scraps of ancient papyrus and turn them into coherent texts. Here’s an example taken from the Hesiodic Catalogue of women.

P. Turner 1

Here’s a passage as it stands in one ancient papyrus, Turner papyrus 1, lines 17–24:

  ]θεαιεξεγενον[
  ]τ̣υ̣ρωνκαιαμη . . ν̣ο̣ε̣ργ̣[
  ]ι̣γ̣μονεϲορχη̣ϲ̣[
  ]ρ̣ατονειδοϲεχ̣[
  ]χθηοϲθειοιο
      ]ηϲετακ[. .]τ̣ι̣ν̣
      ]τ̣ο̣π̣ω̣λ[.]ν
    ]ι̣δεαδιομηδην

P. Oxy. 2822, fr. 2

And here’s the same passage as it appears in Oxyrhynchus papyrus 2822 fr. 2, lines 1–8:

    ] . . ρει̣ . [
     ]νοσου[
    ]ητεϲτε[
   ]θοϲδεκ[
    ]ηνκαλλ[
     ]τωνι̣[
    ]χα̣ιονε . [
    ]ειϲε . [

There’s no overlap between these two fragments. The Turner fragment has the ends of each line, the Oxyrhynchus fragment has bits of the first part of each line.

And yet modern editors have worked out not just that these two fragments are the same passage, but also how to reconstruct the entire text!

ἐξ ὧν οὔρειαι Νύμφαι θεαὶ ἐξεγένοντο
καὶ γένος οὐτιδανῶν Σατύρων καὶ ἀμηχανοέργων
Κουρῆτές τε θεοὶ φιλοπαίγμονες ὀρχηστῆρες.
Ξοῦ]θος δὲ Κ[ρείουσαν ἐπή]ρατον εἶδος ἔχ[ουσαν
κούρ]ην καλλ[ιπάρηον Ἐρε]χθῆος θείοιο
ἀθανά]των ἰ[ότητι φίλην ποι]ήσατ' ἄκ[οι]τιν,
ἥ οἱ Ἀ]χαιὸν ἐγ[είνατ' Ἰάονά τε κλυ]τόπωλ[ο]ν
μιχθ]εῖσ' ἐν [φιλότητι καὶ εὐε]ιδέα Διομήδην.

From them were born mountain Nymphs, goddesses,
and the race of Satyrs, good-for-nothings and wastrels,
and the Kouretes gods, who love fun and dancing.
And Xouthos married Kreiousa, who possessed lovely beauty,
the beautiful-cheeked daughter of divine Erechtheus;
by the will of the gods he made her his own wife.
She bore to him Achaios and Ion, famed for horses,
having sex with (Xouthos); and also beautiful Diomede.

Catalogue fr. 10.17–24 ed. Most (my translation)
(= fr. 10(a) M-W)

And I’ll tell you right now that this reconstruction is absolutely accurate. (Well, mostly. I’m slightly doubtful about φίλην in the sixth line: we’ll come back to that.)

How on earth? What is this wizardry?

Step 1. Strabo

The key to joining the two papyrus fragments lay in an ancient book that has survived intact, Strabo’s Geography. Strabo survived by being transmitted via the mediaeval manuscript tradition.

And by good luck, Strabo happens to quote the first three lines of this passage in full.

Ἠσίοδος μὲν γὰρ ἐκ Δώρου καὶ τῆς Φορωνέως θυγατρὸς πέντε γενέσθαι θυγατέρας φησίν,

ἐξ ὧν οὔρειαι Νύμφαι θεαὶ ἐξεγένοντο,
καὶ γένος οὐτιδανῶν Σατύρων καὶ ἀμηχανοεργῶν
Κουρῆτές τε θεοὶ φιλοπαίγμονες, ὀρχηστῆρες.

For Hesiod says that five daughters were born from Doros and Phoroneus’ daughter:

From them were born mountain Nymphs, goddesses,
and the race of Satyrs, good-for-nothings and wastrels,
and the Kouretes gods, who love fun and dancing.

Strabo 10.3.19

By splicing together the two papyrus fragments and the Strabo quotation, we get the following:

ἐξ ὧν οὔρειαι Νύμφαι θεαὶ ἐξεγένοντο
καὶ γένος οὐτιδανῶν Σατύρων καὶ ἀμηχανοέργων
Κουρῆτές τε θεοὶ φιλοπαίγμονες ὀρχηστῆρες.
   ]θοϲδεκ[. . . . . . . . . .]ρ̣ατονειδοϲεχ̣[
    ]ηνκαλλ[. . . . . . . . .]χθηοϲθειοιο
     ]τωνι̣[. . . . . . . . . . .]ηϲετακ[. .]τ̣ι̣ν̣
    ]χα̣ιονε . [. . . . . . . . . . . .]τ̣ο̣π̣ω̣λ[.]ν
    ]ειϲε . [. . . . . . . . . . . .]ι̣δεαδιομηδην

But remember, editors have reconstructed the entire passage. We’ve still got a way to go.

Step 2. Word breaks, punctuation

Ancient books didn’t have word spaces, and they usually didn’t have punctuation. Actual papyrologists probably don’t really need to go adding them in for their own reading, because they’re used to how text looks in ancient copies. But it’ll still be helpful to put them in here, to show that some of the word breaks are pretty obvious to anyone who knows the language. In a couple of places, some common words and names that go over the edge of the papyrus are also easy to fill in.

ἐξ ὧν οὔρειαι Νύμφαι θεαὶ ἐξεγένοντο
καὶ γένος οὐτιδανῶν Σατύρων καὶ ἀμηχανοέργων
Κουρῆτές τε θεοὶ φιλοπαίγμονες ὀρχηστῆρες.
   -]θοϲ δὲ κ[-. . . . . . . . . .-]ρ̣ατον εἶδος ἐχ̣[-
    -]ην καλλ[- . . . . . . . .-]χθῆος θείοιο
     -]των ι̣[-. . . . . . . . . . .-]ηϲετ’ ἄκ̣[οι]τ̣ι̣ν̣
   Ἀ]χα̣ιὸν ἐγ̣[-. . . . . . . . . . . .]τ̣ο̣π̣ω̣λ[.]ν
    ]ειϲε . [. . . . . . . . . . . .-]ι̣δεα Διομήδην

Step 3. Know your mythology

Thanks to Strabo, we already know that the passage is talking about Satyrs and goddesses. We’ve also already filled in the name ‘Achaios’ in line 7, and we’ve got Diomede in line 8. If you know your Greek mythology, or if you look it up, you know that Achaios and Diomede are brother and sister, and that they have a brother Ion. We can see the passage is talking about family — line 6 has the word ἄκοιτιν, ‘wife’.

Achaios, Ion, and Diomede are the children of Xouthos and Kreiousa. It so happens that line 4 gives us the snippet

-]θοϲ δὲ κ[-

which could very easily read ‘and (Xou)thos something something K(reiousa)’. It’ll be something like ‘Xouthos married Kreiousa’, so Kreiousa will be in the accusative case,

Ξοῦ]θος δὲ Κ[ρείουσαν

The end of line 6, with the word ‘wife’, will be the bit telling us that ‘he made her his wife’:

ποι]ήσατ’ ἄκ̣[οι]τ̣ι̣ν̣

(There’s a small emendation here: the papyrus reads -ηϲετ’, which is very obviously a verb ending. -ετο is a common verb ending, but in the first aorist, -ετο becomes -ατο. Modern students learning ancient Greek make the same kind of mistake all the time. I find it strange that no critical edition reports the reading that’s clearly visible on the papyrus, though, even if just to correct the error.)

In addition we know Kreiousa is the daughter of Erechtheus. It’s hard to think of any names other than ‘Erechtheus’ that could fit the end of line 5, ]χθῆος θείοιο, so that gives us ‘daughter of divine Erechtheus’:

κούρ]ην καλλ[-. . . . . . Ἐρε]χθῆος θείοιο

beautiful (something something) daughter of divine Erechtheus

These family links also allow us to fill in one more thing: if Xouthos and Kreiousa are having children, they’re going to have to have sex, and hexameter poetry isn’t shy about mentioning that. The last line is likely to mean something along the lines of ‘she had sex with him and gave birth to Diomede’:

μιχθ]εῖσ' ἐ-. [

where μιχθεῖσα means ‘(she) having had sex’.

Put all of these additions together and we get

ἐξ ὧν οὔρειαι Νύμφαι θεαὶ ἐξεγένοντο
καὶ γένος οὐτιδανῶν Σατύρων καὶ ἀμηχανοέργων
Κουρῆτές τε θεοὶ φιλοπαίγμονες ὀρχηστῆρες.
Ξοῦ]θος δὲ Κ[ρείουσαν . .-]ρ̣ατον εἶδος ἐχ̣[-
κούρ]ην καλλ[-. . . . . . Ἐρε]χθῆος θείοιο
     -]των ι̣[-. . . . . . . . . ποι]ήσατ’ ἄκ̣[οι]τ̣ι̣ν̣
   Ἀ]χα̣ιὸν ἐγ̣[-. . . . . . . . . . . .]τ̣ο̣π̣ω̣λ[.]ν
μιχθ]εῖσ' ἐ-. [. . . . . . . . . . . .-]ι̣δεα Διομήδην

Step 4. Metre and metrical formulas

This particular passage is outstandingly lucky. It’s very rare that there are so many ways of filling in gaps. Most papyri don’t overlap with one another or with surviving texts, have no mythological content, and aren’t in verse. This one really won the lottery.

Because poetic rhythm and poetic devices are also here to help us out. Metrical formulas are one type of building block that early hexameter poets used to construct their poetry. If a modern editor knows their way around the formulaic system, they can use these building blocks too.

For example, take the partial phrase in line 4, εἶδος ἐχ̣[, where the second word is going to be a form of the verb ἔχω: ‘possessing beauty’. If you do a simple search of extant hexameter poetry for the string ειδος εχ-, you’ll find the following lines (not counting the fragment we’re looking at):

Ἑρμιόνην ἣ εἶδος ἔχε χρυσῆς Ἀφροδίτης
Ὠκεανοῦ κούρη πολυήρατον εἶδος ἔχουσα
Δήμητρ' ἠύκομον, πολυήρατον εἶδος ἔχουσαν
ἀθανάτην βασίλειαν, ὑπείροχον εἶδος ἔχουσαν
ἐκπρεπὲς εἶδος ἔχουσαν ἐν ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι
               ]..ν πολυήρατον εἶδος ἔχουσ[αν]
γείνατο δ' Ἰφιάνειραν ἐπήρατον εἶδος ἔχουσα[ν]

Sources: Odyssey 4.14; Theogony 908; Hymn to Demeter 315; Hymn 12 (to Hera) 2; Hymn 32 (to Selene) 16; Catalogue fr. 13.7 ed. Most; Catalogue fr. 25.39 ed. Most.

Next notice that the papyrus has the letters -ατον before the word εἶδος. Four of these results have an exact match for that, too.

The upshot is that what we’ve got in line 4 of our passage is a formulaic phrase. It’s attested in the forms πολυήρατον εἶδος ἔχουσα, πολυήρατον εἶδος ἔχουσαν, and ἐπήρατον εἶδος ἔχουσαν. The poet chooses the variant based on metrical and syntactical context: ἔχουσα when the woman who ‘possesses beauty’ is in the nominative case, ἔχουσαν when she’s accusative; πολυήρατον after a penthemimeral caesura, ἐπήρατον after a tritotrochaic caesura. (If you want an explanation of these terms, see here from earlier this year.)

Ξοῦθος δὲ Κρείουσαν has (a) Kreiousa in the accusative case, and (b) a tritotrochaic caesura. So we can reconstruct the line very confidently:

Ξοῦ]θος δὲ Κ[ρείουσαν ἐπή]ρατον εἶδος ἔχ[ουσαν

Similar considerations apply in line 5. After κούρ]ην, there are only a few words and phrases starting καλλ- that could sensibly fit before Ἐρε]χθῆος. Some formulaic words are disqualified because they can only start in the second half of a foot (καλλιπλόκαμον, καλλίσφυρον, καλλίζωνον); another is ruled out because hexameter poetry always uses it to describe horses (καλλίτριχον). The reconstruction Ἐρε]χθῆος means we’re looking for a tritotrochaic caesura, so that rules out καλλίστην and καλλίκομον. κάλλεος εἵνεκα is too long.

Ruling out all of those narrows our choices down to one: καλλιπάρηον, ‘beautiful-cheeked’. καλλιπάρηον also happens to be the right length, in terms of number of letters, to occupy the space between the two parts of the line. So the correct supplementation of line 5 is

κούρην καλλ[ιπάρηον Ἐρε]χθῆος θείοιο

the beautiful-cheeked daughter of divine Erechtheus

And we do this for the rest of the passage. In line 7, ‘she gave birth to Achaios’ is going to mean supplementing Ἀ]χαιὸν ἐγ[είνατ(ο); that leaves exactly the right amount of space for Achaios’ brother, Ion, in the accusative form Ἰάονα. At the end of the line, κλυτόπωλος is an adjective that standardly appears at line-end (3× in the Iliad). In line 8, μιχθεῖσ' ἐν φιλότητι is standard formulaic phrasing for ‘after having sex’ (4× in the Theogony, 1× in the Hymns, 4× elsewhere in the Catalogue). εὐειδέα appears a few times elsewhere.

The only bit where I have doubts is the first half of line 6: ἀθανά]των ἰ[ότητι φίλην, according to the editions of Merkelbach and West (1990), Hirschberger (2004), and Most (2007). The formulaic adjective to use before ποιήσατ' ἄκοιτιν would be θαλερήν, not φίλην (θαλερὴν ποιήσατ' ἄκοιτιν: 4× Theogony, 5× elsewhere in the Catalogue, 1× in the Megalai Ehoiai). That is in fact how some scholars have supplemented the line.

However, θαλερήν doesn’t fit West’s reconstruction of the first part of the line, ἀθανά]των ἰ[ότητι. And Hirschberger’s commentary points out that Iliad 9.397 uses φίλην ποιήσομ' άκοιτιν (‘I shall make (her) my own wife’). I think there’s still room for doubt: I can just about imagine the line going

κούρ]ην καλλ[ιπάρηον Ἐρε]χθῆος θείοιο
ἀθανά]των ἴ[σου θαλερὴν ποι]ήσατ' ἄκ[οι]τιν

the beautiful-cheeked daughter of divine Erechtheus,
equal of the gods; he made her his fruitful wife.

It’s a little strange to expand on Erechtheus like that when he’s only being mentioned in passing. I’m prepared to accept that West’s reconstruction is the more likely — but it’s the one phrase in this passage that is not quite certain.

---

And there we have it — a complete passage. Like I said, this passage is unusually fortunate in having so many clues that allow us to reconstruct it. It may look like papyrologists are sorcerors.

Actually on reflection I guess they are pretty much sorcerors. But it’s the mechanical kind of sorcery! It isn’t like Doctor Strange doing any random magic that the writers happen to think of. It’s more like Dungeons & Dragons magic, with strict rules.

Sources

• Hirschberger, M. 2004. Gynaikōn Katalogos und Megalai Ehoiai. Ein Kommentar zu den Fragmenten zweier hesiodeischer Epen. Munich/Leipzig.
• Lobel, E. 1971. The Oxyrhynchus papyri vol. 37. London. [Internet Archive]
• Merkelbach, R.; West, M. L. 1990. ‘Fragmenta selecta.’ In: Solmsen, F. (ed.) Hesiodi Theogonia Opera et dies Scutum, 3rd ed. Oxford. 109–246.
• Most, G. W. 2007. Hesiod. The Shield, Catalogue of women, other fragments. Cambridge (MA)/London.