ABSTRACT
It is currently impossible to write a history of literature and erudition in antiquity without taking into account the rich and varied testimony of papyri, which are an essential supplement to literary sources. However, while trying to exploit papyri, the historian of literature or, more widely, of culture, can but experience a certain frustration due to the nature of this documentation. On the one hand, literary papyri, in theory more immediately usable sources, inform us essentially on what authors were read or owned - therefore an essentially passive culture - as well as on the techniques and uses for copies of works (material, writing, layout) - that is, the culture of copying. On the other hand, documentary papyri sometimes provide us with some limited information on those who were active in this culture, most often anonymously and by way of allusions. Consequently, one can draw, at best, information on the social and material conditions of the presence and diffusion of Greek literature, but it is impossible to relate this to a particular literary work or figure whose work is known. Between the two, papyrologists have established a sort of 'purgatory': 'para-literary' papyri (in English 'sub-literary papyri') that would be most suitable for illustrating an active participation in literary Hellenism if they were not dealing with the most humble, technical, and elementary aspects of Greek literature (textbooks, magic or medical recipes, etc.), where automatic reflexes win over invention, and learning over autonomous practice. The information is not scarce, but it is scattered and does not allow us to grasp the different phases of Greek paideia, in the broadest sense (learning, reading, and production), as interconnected, unless by recomposing texts from varied dossiers of various provenances, periods, and socio-cultural contexts. Furthermore, papyrologists are hardly ever able to place literary papyri in their Sitz-im-Leben, that is, to attribute to a book the context of its owner: a primary condition in order to place literate practices in their social setting. In very rare cases, this contextualisation is possible, 1 but it generally concerns consumers rather than practitioners of literature. One dossier escapes this categorisation: that of Dioscorus of Aphrodite.
