Flavius Dioscorus () lived during the 6th century AD in the village of Aphrodito, Egypt, and therefore is called by modern scholars Dioscorus of Aphrodito.Kuehn 1995, p. 1. Although he was an Egyptian, he composed poetry in Greek, the lingua franca of the Eastern Mediterranean since the Hellenistic period.Kuehn 1995, pp. 1–2. The manuscripts, which contain his corrections and revisions, were discovered on papyrus in 1905,Maspero 1911, pp. 454–456. and are now held in museums and libraries around the world.Keenan 1984a, p. 53. Dioscorus was also occupied in legal work, and legal documents and drafts involving him, his family, Aphroditans, and others were discovered along with his poetry.MacCoull 1988, p. 4; Fournet-Magdelaine 2008, pp. 310–343. As an administrator of the village of Aphrodito, he composed petitions on behalf of its citizens, which are unique for their poetic and religious qualities.MacCoull 1988, pp. 16–19 and ff.; Kovelman 1991, pp. 138–148; Kuehn 1995, pp. 2–4. Dioscorus was a Christian (a Copt) and lived in a religiously active environment.MacCoull 1988, pp. 5–7; Kuehn 1995, pp. 56–58. The collection of Greek and Coptic papyri associated with Dioscorus and Aphrodito is one of the most important finds in the history of papyrology and has shed considerable light on the law and society of Byzantine Egypt.Bell-Crum 1925, p. 177; Kuehn 1995, p. 47; Ruffini 2008, pp. 150–197. The papyri are also considered significant because of their mention of Coptic workers and artists dispatched to the Levant and Arabia to work on early Umayyad architectural projects.
Papyrus The papyri of Dioscorus were discovered by accident in July 1905 in the village of Kom Ashkaw (also called Kom Ishgau, Kom Ishqaw, etc.), which was built above the ancient site of Aphrodito.Lefebvre 1907, pp. viii–xi. An inhabitant was renovating his home when a wall collapsed and revealed a chasm below. Papyrus rolls and fragments were seen in the crevice, but by the time the Antiquities Service was notified and arrived, most of the papyrus was gone. During subsequent excavations, a large jar filled with papyrus was discovered in a Roman-style house. Important fragments of Athenian Comedy, both Old and New, were discovered among these papyri, including fragments of the famous comedy writer Menander.Lefebvre 1907, 1911; Gomme-Sandbach 1973; Koenen 1978. There were also fragments of Homer's Iliad and other literary works and reference works.Fournet 1999, pp. 9–237; Fournet-Magdelaine 2008, pp. 309–310.
Most importantly, the excavator Gustave Lefebvre unearthed an archive of sixth-century legal, business, and personal papers, and original poetry. These were turned over to the young scholar Jean Maspero, son of the Director of the Antiquities Service of Egypt, who edited and published the documents and poems in several journal articlesMaspero 1908–1910, 1910, 1911, 1912. and two volumes of the Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire: Papyrus grecs d’époque byzantine (Cairo 1911, 1913). Jean was killed in the battle at Vauquois on the Lorraine during World War I, and his father Gaston completed the third volume of Dioscorian papyri in 1916. Other Dioscorian papyri, obtained by antiquities dealers through sales and clandestine excavations,Gaston Maspero, intro. to P.Cair.Masp. III, p. viii; Keenan 1984a, pp. 52–53, and 2009, p. 66; Gagos-van Minnen 1994, p. 8. were published in Florence, London, Paris, Strasbourg, Princeton, Ann Arbor, the Vatican, etc.See note 5 above.
Aphrodito The village of Kom Ashkaw is in Middle Egypt, south of Cairo and north of Luxor. It was originally an Egyptian city, but after Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 B.C., it was given the Greek name "Aphroditopolis" (“The City of Aphrodite”) and was made the capital city of its nome (an administrative district, like a US county). Before the 6th century, however, Aphroditopolis lost its status as a city, and the capital of the Aphroditopolite Nome was moved across the Nile River to Antaeopolis.MacCoull 1988, p. 6; Kuehn 1995, pp. 52–53. The village of Aphrodito and the city of Antaeopolis were part of the larger administrative region of the Thebaid, which was under the jurisdiction of a doux, appointed by the Byzantine Emperor. The doux had his administrative center in Antinoopolis on the east bank of the Nile River.Bagnall-Rathbone 2004, pp. 169–172.
Aphrodito was situated in an environment that was highly poetic and religious. Nonnus, the most influential poet of the Early Byzantine Era (AD 300–700), had come from Panopolis, 42 km. southeast of Aphrodito.Alan Cameron 2007; pp. 34–39; Cavero 2008, pp. 15–25. Other poets from the Thebaid had not only become celebrities—such as Musaeus Grammaticus, Colluthus, and Christodorus—but also were part of a poetic revolution of that time.Alan Cameron 1965 passim; MacCoull 1988, pp. 59–61; Cavero 2008, pp. 25–105. These poets, though Egyptians, wrote their verses in the Greek dialect of Homer. Perhaps one of the reasons for this movement was to usurp the pagan vocabulary and style of the most honored ancient poet for Christian purposes. Dioscorus continued and developed this revolution by writing encomiastic poems (poems of praise) in an Homeric style.MacCoull 1985, p. 9; Fournet 1999, pp. 673–675. The community was also active religiously. According to the New Testament, Egypt was the first home of young Jesus and his family.Mt 2:13–21. And according to Patristic literature, Egypt was the birthplace of Christian monasticism.Athanasius, Life of Antony. In Northern Egypt, the areas of Nitria, Kellia, and Wadi Natrun contained large monastic centers that attracted devout followers from both the Eastern and Western halves of the Byzantine Empire.Bagnall-Rathbone 2004, pp. 107–115. In southern Egypt, one of the first Christian monasteries was established at Pbow, 127 km. southeast of Aphrodito.Gascou 1976, pp. 157–184; Rousseau 1985 passim. Less than 40 km. south of Aphrodito was the White Monastery, founded by the vigorous Coptic monk Shenoute.Emmel 2004 passim. The father of Dioscorus himself, Apollos, established and later entered his own monastery.Gascou 1981, pp. 219–230. In fact, Aphrodito and its vicinity “boasted over thirty churches and nearly forty monasteries.”MacCoull 1988, p. 7.
Biography
Early years There is no surviving record for the early years of Dioscorus. His father Apollos was an entrepreneur and local official.Keenan 1984b passim; Kuehn 1995, pp. 54–58. The commonly accepted date for the birth of Dioscorus is around AD 520.Maspero 1911, p. 457; MacCoull 1988, p. 9; Kuehn 1995, p. 59. Although there is no evidence, it is likely that Dioscorus went to school in Alexandria, where one of his teachers might have been the Neoplatonic philosopher John Philoponus.MacCoull 1987 passim. Although Alexandria was not the most prominent place for a legal education – that was the famed law school of Beirut – young men did travel there for rhetorical training preliminary to the study of law.Cribiore 2007, pp. 56–57. These included the celebrated poet Agathias, a contemporary of Dioscorus, who at an early age published a successful collection of poems called the Cycle and later became the center of a circle of prominent poets in the Byzantine capital, Constantinople.Alan and Averil Cameron 1966, pp. 8–10; Averil Cameron 1970 1–11, 140–141.
Back in Aphrodito, Dioscorus married, had children, and pursued a career similar to his father's: acquiring, leasing out, and managing property, and helping in the administration of the village.Keenan 1988, p. 173; Kuehn 1995, p. 59. His first dated appearance in the papyrus is 543. Dioscorus had the assistant of the defensor civitatis of Antaeopolis examine the damage done by a shepherd and his flock to a field of crops, which was owned by the Monastery of Apa Sourous but managed by Dioscorus.Maspero, P.Cair.Masp. I 67087; Keenan 1985, pp. 245–259.
Constantinople
Dioscorus also became engaged in legal work. In 546/7, after his father Apollos died, Dioscorus wrote a formal petition to Emperor Justinian and a formal explanation to Empress Theodora about tax conflicts affecting Aphrodito.Maspero, P.Cair.Masp. I 67019 v, and P.Cair.Masp. III 67283. The village was under the special patronage of the Empress,Maspero, intro. to P.Cair.Masp. III 67283, pp. 15–17; Bell 1944, p. 31; Keenan 1984a, p. 54. and had been granted the status of autopragia.Kuehn 1995, p. 53 note 58. This meant that the village could collect its own public taxes and deliver them directly to the imperial treasury. Aphrodito was not under the jurisdiction of the pagarch, stationed in Antaeopolis, who handled the public taxes for the rest of the nome.Gascou 1972, pp. 60–72; Liebeschuetz 1973, pp. 38–46, and 1974, pp. 163–168. Dioscorus's petition and explanation to the imperial palace described the pagarch's violations of their special tax status, including theft of the collected tax money.
The communications to Constantinople seem to have had little effect, and in 551 (three years after the death of Theodora), Dioscorus travelled with a contingency of Aphroditans to Constantinople to present the problem to the Emperor directly. Dioscorus may have spent three years in the capital of the Byzantine Empire.Salomon 1948, pp. 98 – 108; Fournet 1999, pp. 318 – 321. In poetry, the city was very active. Not only was Agathias now writing there, but also Paul the Silentiary and Romanus the Melodist. In respect to the Aphroditans' tax problems, Dioscorus was able to obtain an imperial rescript, three copies of which have survived in his archive.Maspero, P.Cair.Masp. I 67024 r, v, and 67025. The Emperor instructs the Duke of the Thebaid to investigate and, if justified, to stop the aggressions of the pagarch. There is no evidence of further tax violations by the pagarch until after the death of Justinian in 565.
Antinoopolis In 565/6 Dioscorus left Aphrodito for Antinoopolis, the capital city of the Thebaid and the residence of the doux.MacCoull 1988, pp. 11–12; Kuehn 1995, p. 66. He remained there for about seven years. His motivation for the move is nowhere made clear. But surmising from the surviving documents, one can conclude that he was attracted by the opportunity to advance his legal career in the proximity of the Duke and likewise was compelled by the increasing violence of the pagarch against Aphrodito and his own family.Kuehn 1995, pp. 68–69. The legal documents from that period show that Dioscorus wrote the final will for the Surgeon General (Phoebammon),Maspero, P.Cair.Masp. II 67151 and 67152. arbitrated in family property disputes,Bell, P.Lond. V 1708. composed marriage and divorce contracts,Kuehn 1993, pp. 103–106, and 1995, p. 70 note 153. and continued writing petitions about the offenses of the pagarch. One such petition, P.Cair.Masp. I 67002, describes how a group of Aphroditans on their way to the annual cattle market were ambushed. They were eventually put into a prison in Antaeopolis, under the control of the pagarch Menas, where they were tortured and robbed and their animals were seized. Menas and his men then attacked the village of Aphrodito itself: he blocked the irrigation, extorted money, burned down homes, and violated the nuns. All these crimes were committed in the name of collecting the public taxes, although Aphrodito had never failed a payment and Menas had no right to collect them. A formal explanation, P.Lond. V 1677, describes the attacks by Menas on Dioscorus himself and his family. He seized property owned by Dioscorus and transferred it to his assistants, leaving Dioscorus with only the tax liability. Menas proceeded to pillage the home of Dioscorus's brother-in-law and seized his land too, reducing him and his family to poverty. He then arrested Dioscorus's own son.