Franks in Sixth-century Egypt

In a fragmentary papyrus-letter (P.Vindob. G 14307) from the "Papyrus sammlung der Osterreichischen Nationalbibliothek" at Vienna Franks, [...], occur for the first time in the papyrological evidence. In the following article we present the editio princeps of this papyrus including a discussion of the Franks.

In a fragmentary papyrus-letter (P.Vindob. G 14307) from the "Papyrus sammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek" at Vienna Franks, cI>PU'Y'Y01, occur for the first time in the papyrological evidence. In the following article we present the editio princepsl of this papyrus including a discussion of the Franks.
The papyrus was found in Hermupolis 2 , but internal elements in the text (see below) suggest that it may have been written somewhere else in the Thebais.
The hand of the papyrus is characteristic of the sixth century3; it has many marks of a well-trained professional hand, but it becomes less careful and "scribal" as the letter goes on, both in the individualletters and in the overall ductus. It offers no very precise guide to a date. The name Belisarius far a subardinate of the comes does rather point to a date a generation or more after the 530s (see note to line 6), thus in the second half of the sixth century.

The Papyrus
The papyrus consists of two fragments, which do not join. The original margins are all at least partly present except at the right (looking from the orientation of the front side of the papyrus), where a small amount may be lost. The text on both the front and the back is written across the fibers. This is thus a strip cut along its longer dimension from a papyrus roll and rotated 90 degrees far writing, in a fashion familiar 1 We are grateful to Prof. Hermann Harrauer for offering us this text for publication and for providing an excellent photograph for Bagnall's use. Palme would like to thank the "Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften" for the grant of an APART-fellowship, in the course of which his contribution to this article was wrilten.
3CharaClcristic are the overscale A and IC the use of Ö in the Latin style (d) as weil as in its triangle form. € is written as a half circle with amiddie stroke . Some letters (y, lt, q>, etc .) change between "uncial" and, if connected with other letters in ligature, more cursive forms. Similar letterforms may be observed in, e. g., CPR X 120 (Arsinoite, 523), P.Lugd. Bat . I 10 (photo in: E. Boswinkel, P. 1. Sijpesteijn, Creek Papyri, Ostraca and Mummy Labels, Amsterdam 1968, nr. 50; Oxyrhynchos, 591/2) and CPR XIV 9 (Arsinoite, 607). The overall impression of the handwriting is vcry similar to that of P.Rail/el' Cent. 78 (Hermopolile, J I half 6 th cent.) and 80 (Hermopolite, 6 th cent.), but bOlh papyri are dated only on palaeographical grounds as weil.
for letters of this period 4 . The typical height of such ralls being 30-33 cm 5 , and the combined width of the two fragments being about 29 cm, the gap between them might in principle be anywhere from 1 to 4 cm. The most secure restoration of the middle lacuna seems to be that of !ine 8, where five letters and part of a sixth are lost.
Because the same word is written in line 6, the missing space may be measured at 2.8 cm. The overall sheet would then have been 32 cm wide. In line 1, where 1 cm less is preserved in the left-hand piece, the loss should thus be 6-7 letters (at an average of around 1.8 characters per cm). This space allows restoring ~ 8aullcHHo[1:Tj<; ano]-Öouvat, as one would expect. Although it is just conceivable that the sheet was another centimeter or two wider, with another 2-3 letters to be restored, nothing pleads in favor of such a notion.
The continuation of the letter on the back is written on the right-hand fragment (again, oriented from the front). On the left-hand fragment there are faint traces of two lines of address on the back, written below the continuation of the letter and at right angles to it (i. e., with the fibers). The letter was folded once in the middle of its height (now lost) and then a second time in the middle of its width; thus all the text of the letter was hidden (and is therefore weil preserved), while only the !ines of address remained outside and faded. One letter, a <p (trom cJ>Aj?), can be recognized in these traces.
2. The Affair of the Letter: a AOyo<; a(juAta<; The large loss in the middle of line 4 and smaller gaps elsewhere prevent complete and certain restoration of the text and full understanding of the events that form the subject matter of the letter, but a fair amount can be recovered with reasonable prabability. The key is AOyo<;, which appears in !ines 5 and 6. The AOYO<; in !ine 5 is something that one gets from an official, in this case the comes; in line 6 it is apparently a statement given by the Franks (on whom see below). The mention of a church in !ine 7, coupled with the fact that imprisonment is the central issue in the letter, strongly suggests that the first AOyo<; is the AOyo<; a(juAta<; which forms such a central part of Iustinian's Edict 13 (promulgated in 539 and addressed to Egypt 6 ), particularly its chapters 9,10 and 28 7 . Usually people took refuge in a church in order to escape punishment or to avoid paying money due to the treasury (whether one's 4por the practice of writing transversa charta, common from the sixth century onwards, cf. E. G. Turner, The Terms Recto and Verso. 7We owe the recognition of the A6yo<; here as that dealt with in Edict 13 to John Rea. The problem was not restricted to Egypt, as its appearance in Edict 13 might suggest; cf. also particularly Edicts 2 and 10, neither of which is specific to Egypt. On the practice of asylum in Egypt in this period see P. taxes or -more probably -those one had collected from others). If the fugitive was able to receive a 'Aoyor;, a "letter of asylum"8 , from some authority he could leave the asylum without running the risk of being imprisoned. Abuse of A6yot had evidently become a significant problem by lustinian's reign 9 . He ordered that only the praetorian prefect or his authorized subordinates could permit such 'A0YOl to be issued (at their own risk, in case of non-payment), and then only for a limited and non-renewable period, at the end of which the debt had to be paid 1 O. Clergy were not otherwise to allow churches to be used for asylum. Absent a properly issued 'Aoyor; meeting these conditions, treasury debtors could be seized even inside a church. If our dating of this papyrus is correct we are presumably dealing with difficulties in the administration of A6YOl that persisted despite lustinian's legislation -not a matter for surprise: Several late sixth century deeds of surety for colon; adscripticii contain a clause against seeking the asylum of a church (npo<J<puY11) or A6YOlll.
The situation in this papyrus seems to be the following (see the line notes for discussions of particular problems): A person whose name is lost (line 4), son of Horigenes, is in pos session of a 'Aoyor; sealed with the finger-ring of the comes, intended to protect hirn from imprisonment as a result of problems arising from his tax obligations to the treasury, probably those related to activity as a collector or responsible official rather than simply as a taxpayer. Despite his pos session of this 'Aoyor;, the 8For this meaning of AOYOe, see Just.Nov. 17.6 (535): ... 'tOue, KaAoullevoue, AOYOUe, K'tA. Cf. S. Braßloff, Zu den Quellen der byzantinischen Rechtsgeschichte IV -Das kirchliche Asylrecht in Ägypten, SZ 25 (1904) 313. A6yoe, has the meaning "letter of asylum" also in P.Oxy. XVI 1944,6, a sixth or seventh century petition complaining of oppression, and in the text quoted below, note 1l. Such AoYOt could be written also in Coptic, W. Franks have arrested hirn, perhaps in a church. The writer has remonstrated with the Franks, but they have given hirn a statement in the church, perhaps under oath, that they are not acting improperly towards the detainee. The writer believes, however, that they have acted illegally in imprisoning the son of Horigenes despite his 11,01'0<;. He therefore has written a letter to the comes, asking hirn to intervene with his a8EA<p0<;, to be understood as "colleague", to see that the imprisoned man is released. This letter (which we do not have, but of which the second sentence of the present letter is a kind of summary) he has sent to the 8u'llllucrto'tl'\<; of line 1, with the present letter as a cover, being concerned that his letter to the comes might not reach its proper destination without personal assistance from someone close to that high official 12 . In the sentence that begins on the front and concludes on the back, the writer asks his correspondent (the 8u'llllucrto'tl'\<;) to join in seeking cooperation from the other high official (the a8EA<p0<;), who seems to be the person controlling the Franks or, at least, the one who is keeping the man in prison. The final sentence of the letter probably is added to explain why the writer is involved in the matter: He has been appointed to an office responsible for tax collection.
There is no direct information about the identity or status of the writer or of the imprisoned person. Although they are clearly well below the level of the comes (whose exact official position we cannot determine), and need intermediaries to reach his ear, they are still persons of importance: one does not obtain a 11,01'0<; from hirn without some influence. A good guess would be that they are both of the civic aristocracy (honestiores) , with high-levelliturgical responsibility for the collection of some tax or taxes.

The Franks
The question then is who the Franks, oi. <l>payyol, are. This is evidently the first appearance of Franks in the papyri 13. It is difficult to see, given their apparent actions here as part of the official apparatus, that they can be anything except soldiers. Of course it would be hard to explain how a group of real Frankish tribesmen would have come to act in Egypt 14. If they were some Franks recruited for the Roman army, e. g.
140ne mi ghl , to be ure. think of Ihe poss ibility that I.hey were part of a private force. i. e., buccellarii, for whom see now O. Schmitt, Die Buccellarii. Eine Studie zum militärischen Gefolgschaftswesen in der Spätantike, Tyche 9 (1994) 147-174, with bibliography. But the entire tenor of the letter looks rather to an official context than a private one, and if they were in the service of a large landowner discharging public functions, one would expect their ernployer or chief to figure instead. There is, moreover, no obvious in the urgencies of the Third Blemmyan War (between 563 and 568), they could hardly be refered to as "the Franks", as their ethnic identity would not be obvious any more . Much more probably <l>PO:')'YOt here refers colloquially to soldiers of a military unit which had Franci as part of its official name. This phenomenon is widespread in Byzantine Egypt: The cuneus equitum Maurorum scutariorum at Hermupolis and Lycopolis is refered to as Mo.UpOl even in official tax-receipts, the LK'68o.t 'Iou<Jn-Vto.vol in Antaiopolis and Apollonopolis are simply known as LK'68at, and the units that garrisoned Arsinoe are just called ~o.Koi and Tpo.v<J'tt'YPt'tavoi in the papyri .
We know from the Notitia Dignitatum (ed. O. Seeck, Berlin 1876, p. 65-66) that there were already two units of Franks (or at least troops so designated) in Egypt in an earlier era l5 . Notitia Or. XXXI 51 lists under the command of the dux Thebaidis an ala prima Fr(/f/corum at ontra Apollooos and O/' . XXXI 67 a cohors septima Francorum at Dio polis (Thebes)16. Hermupolis, the provenance of this papyru ,was garrisoned in the fourth and fifth centuries by the Mauri mentioned above, who were replaced between 538 and 548 by the Nou~18o.t 'Iou<Jnvtavoi; both units are attested by a considerable number of papyrus documents 17, while nothing is known so far about Franks in Hermupolis . This may indicate that our letter was not written in Hermupolis, but in either Thebes or Contra Apollonos -if the ala and cohors Francorum were still there in the sixth century . Although our papyrus comes from Hermupolis, nothing in the letter teIls us where the son of Horigenes was detained, where the letter was written, or where the Franks were stationed. We do not have any direct evidence for the date at which Frankish units entered Egypt, and views on the general question of the date at which Germanic units appear there and in the East generally have varied 18. Their designation by the tradilional term a/a and cohor , however, sugge. ts that they may weil have been in plac since the lim of Diocletian l9 . In the olher direction, we kn w nothing of the contin ued Egyptian presence of the Frankish units in the sixth century, and there is on any reckoning a gap of more than a century and a half between the Notitia and our papyrus. The docurnentation for most of the Thebaid in the intervening per i d is scanty enough 20 thaI this silence is not a significant argument against suppo ' ing that our "Franks" are the successors of one of these units. And if they had stayed in Egypt from Diocletian to the late fourth century, there is no reason they could not have remained for another 150 years 21 . Nor would the use of such troops be out of line with Iustinian's general disposition ofEgypt's garrison 22 . Our writer is certainly very displeased with the Franks' behavior, but there is no sign that he was aware of or trying to evoke their widespread reputation for lawless action, about which even their own king complained, according to Gregory of Tours 23 . speek, or a "changement d'~liquette".
On the other hand, if our interpretation of the affair as AOYO<; acruAta<; is correct, we may doubt if the arrest of a treasury debtor was in fact illegal. In any event, if we are right to see in the Franks here the members of a military unit stationed in Egypt since the Tetrarchy or at least since the time of the Notitia, they were surely Franks in name only by the late sixth century. Like other units garrisoned over a long period in gypt, the aia and cohors Francorum were no doubt kept up to strengh by the enlistmenl of locals 24 .  3. At the start, the deseender from the cross of line 2 passes through the remains of the 11. The letter before the middle lacuna could be Il. or v. The sense wanted is perhaps "cooperate with" or "help", but perhaps rather something a bit more menacing, "put pressure on", in any ease most likely framed by the writer in the form of a po!ite request. (A simple statement that the comes is doing something is also possible, but the eharacter of the entire letter, otherwise devoted to supporting arequest, would be in that ease harder to understand and what follows would be very loosely linked to what preeedes.) Options for resloring might then include cruvfaip'ltm] (perhaps a bit long), or (with more of the sense of press ure) cruv[a1j1n] or crUVlUIj11)"tClI]. The sense would in the latter ease be ,.Would His Magnificence pfease 'get on the back" or "breathe down the neck" of his eolleague. (Proper-Iy one expect · an object wi th lhe active, a, in Ihc cruvalj1<X1 <xvt<p ßOUK&AAaplou<; 0 f P.Köln V 240.8 (An taiopoli te, 6 1h cent. , , bucellarii in den Nacken sctzen" a thc editor tran ·Iales it). In P.Laur. 1lI 109.8 (prov . unknown, 6 th cenL), however, lhe objecl. already referred to, is understood: pie ase send me a phrouros '{va auva1j1<.O a.1rciP. In P.Michael.
30 .5-6 (Oxyrhynchos? 4 th cent.?) Elll.ol cruvamc.ov is rendered "helping me" by the editor, but there is loss before E]Il.0l and one cannot be sure.) The exact sense will in turn depend on the restauration of line 4, but probably in neither case is complete eertainty possible. 4 . &ÖEAepO'U could in principle refer to the imprisoned man (i. e., he would be the brother of the writer), but it would in that case be difficult to understand E1t[i with it or to find arestoration of the lacuna that provides a suitable sense, because a verbal construction (meaning "to free") is required there on which EK -eil<; epUA.!l1cij<; can depend . The traces of 1t before the middle lacuna, combined with the otherwise unmotivated use of the unusual verb crUIl.7to.paKo.AE<. O in line 8, uggcsts restoring 1t[<xpIlKaA.ElV, followed by a construction in which the co ntents of the rcqllcst (free from detention) are g iven, perhaps '{va. äepn, leaving about six letters for the individllal's name in the accusati e . Pilrallels to the overall sense can be found in PSI XIII 1344.3-4 (Antinoe, 6 th cent.: 1tO:PIXK[a.AW ouv]1 -e~v UIl.E-