Roman soldier's life unfurls: Princeton grad helps bring ancient writings to light

The Cincinnati Enquirer ^ | Monday, January 26, 2004 | Sue Kiesewetter

[nickcarraway]

SHARONVILLE - Nearly 2000 years ago a young Roman soldier wrote home, asking his father's permission to marry his girlfriend.

In another letter, he asks for boots and socks to keep his feet warm during a cold winter. And he tells how he must violently put down those who revolt and riot in Alexandria.

All this - and more - about life for Tiberianus, who lived in Roman Egypt, is being advanced through the work of a Princeton High School graduate now attending the University of Michigan.

Last fall, Robert Stephan (Class of 2001) found some papyri - ancient writings on papyrus, made from the reed plant - stored but forgotten in the university's vault. The papyri had been collected during UM excavations at Karanius, southwest of Egypt's Nile River delta, in the 1920s and '30s.

Unbeknown to today's scholars, 15 papyri collected from the original excavation had been catalogued by the university but never examined or translated. The works may never have been discovered had Stephan not begun an independent study project last fall.

Many archaeologistscall his discovery a breakthrough.

"The significance of this is that the world (did not) know that these existed,'' said Arthur Verhoogt, a UM assistant professor of papyrology and Greek. "It's an important contribution to our understanding of the Roman Empire at large.''

Stephan is spending much of his free time working with professors to translate the papyri and put the writings in context with other archaeological findings. His work will be published next year in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists. Stephan also is putting together an exhibit of papyri and artifacts from Karanius for the university's museum in October.

"This is a revision of what we know,'' said Traianos Gagos, president of the American Society of Papyrologists.

"This collection of fragments is hard to read - private letters are the hardest to translate because there's not much background. The approach Rob has taken is broader. He's bringing the archaeologist into it - the way it should be studied.''

The work, Stephan said, is fascinating and unusual for an undergraduate to be doing.

"I'm trying to find out what life was like for the average Joe of this society," Stephan said. "I want to find the guy's social status and what his life was like.''

[martin_fierro]

"In a poignant, final paragraph, the soldier asks his father, 'Why on earth did you name me Tiberianus'?"

[Tijeras_Slim]

No gladiator photos please. :)

[martin_fierro]

Time to revive an old tagline.

[livius]

Interesting! It would be great to see an exhibit on this and other finds from that region and period.

[richardtavor]

What an interesting find. I have helped to interpret fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Israel) (90% of them are civil documents (marriage, divorce, birth, death, census, etc, some personal, some Biblical, etc.) Many Archaelogists have pieced together the daily lives of the sect that lived at the scriptorium at Qumran (no, they were not monks!) One of my conclusions was that life moved a whole lot slower then--wars took years of preparation and everyone knew when they were coming. I hope this student finishes the project--it helps to understand history if one has a fundamental understanding of how ordinary people lived.

[archy]

No gladiator photos please. :)

Okay-fine. But it appears from this new research that some of the legions were better equipped than some scholars had previously believed.

[tang-soo]

It would be pretty cool if there were any references of a man from Israel who healed the sick, challenged the secular and religious leadership and spoke of eternal salvation.

[Tijeras_Slim]

That looks like fun.

[SwinneySwitch]

"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur"

(anything said in Latin sounds profound)

[sirshackleton]

In a way, I envy this kid. Sometimes I wish I had a year or two of college back to really buck up and do some serious studying. I only had maybe two or three semesters of college that I really took seriously and really tried to devour my classwork. But most of the time the only "papyrus" I was studying was the one that told you where all the happy hours were in town.

[KellyAdmirer]

I want to read the parts where Tiberianus skewers the liberals and peace protestors and hears the lamentations of their women.

[KarlInOhio]

In another letter, he asks for boots and socks to keep his feet warm during a cold winter. And he tells how he must violently put down those who revolt and riot in Alexandria.

Alexandria quagmire.

[Benjo]

One of my conclusions was that life moved a whole lot slower then--wars took years of preparation and everyone knew when they were coming.

That's interesting. I would have guessed just the opposite, that in those days all you had to do to go to war was put down your scythe and hoe and pick your spear and sword and you were in business. In contrast, when we were preparing for the first Gulf War, the military spent the better part of a year prepositioning all the tanks and other weapons and supplies.

Now that I think about it I remember cases where it took years for to prepare for wars in antiquity too. I remember readinging once that an ancient king in Iraq once spent something like five or ten years digging a canal connecting the Tigris and Euphrates. Then when he was done, his army sailed down the canal and attacked the cities on the other river. The Vikings, I remember too, when they attacked coastal cities in Britain and Europe would show up out of the fog one morning with as many as 800 ships.

[archy]

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur"

(anything said in Latin sounds profound)

Vescere bracis meis.

[js1138]

Romanes eunt domus

;^)

[2nd Bn, 11th Mar]

OUTDAMNSTANDING PIC!

Semper Fi,

[Renfield]

The thing that strikes me is that it sounds like a letter a GI would write home to his father today....

[Professional Engineer]

ping

[Professional Engineer]

OOOO, I'd like one too please.