26

SOLDIER’S LETTER FROM WÂDI

FAWÂKHIR (EGYPT), POSSIBLY
OF THE SECOND CENTURY (O. FAW. 2,
CPL 304, CEL 74)

Introduction
This is part of a small corpus of Egyptian military letters in the name of Rustius
Barbarus. For discussion of the Latin of the whole corpus see Cugusi (1981); also
id. (1992: II.62–7). On the date of the corpus see the remarks of Cugusi (1981:
752–3) (uncertain, but possibly early second century AD or a bit before that). For
the punctuation of this text, see below, Commentary, ‘preliminaries’.

Text
Rustius Barbarus Pompeio fratri suo salutem
opto deos · ut bene ualeas · que mea uota sunt ·
quid · mi tan · inuidiose scribes aut · tan leuem
me iudicas · si tan cito uirdia mi non · mittes
stati amicitiam tuam · obliscere debio · 5
non sum talis · aut · tan leuis · ego te · non
tanquam · amicum · habio set · tamqua[m]
fratrem · gemellum · qui de unum ·
uentrem · exiut · hu ̣n [̣ c uer]bum sepi-
̣ · set tu · [. . .]as · me · [[.]]
us tibi s ̣c ̣rị bo 10
iudicas accepi · fasco c ̣o ̣lic̣ ̣los et
unum casium · misi tibe · per Ạrṛ i-̣
a ̣num · equitem · chiloma e ̣ntro ha-
[b]et · collyram · I · et · in lintiolo ·
[ ] · alligatum · quod ⋅ rogo te ut · 15
em[as] mi matium · salem et
[mi]ttas mi · celerius · qui-
a pane uolo facere
uale frater ·
k[a]rissime 20

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 308 Text 26

Translation
Rustius Barbarus to his brother Pompeius, greetings. I pray the gods that you
are well, which is my wish. Why do you write to me with such ill will and judge
me so fickle? If you do not send me the greens very quickly, I ought immedi-
ately to forget your friendship. I am not such a person or so fickle. I do not
regard you as a friend but as a twin brother who came from the same womb.
This (word?) I keep on writing to you, but you . . . judge. I have received . . . (?)
cabbages and a single cheese. I sent you by the eques Arrianus a box. Inside it
has one pasta dish (?) and, bound in a linen cloth, . . . which . . . I ask that you
buy me a matium of salt and send it to me quickly, because I want to make
bread. Farewell, dearest brother.

Commentary
preliminaries
Cugusi’s interpretation (1981: 734) is as follows: Rustius Barbarus Pompeio
fratri suo salutem. opto deos ut bene ualeas, quae mea uota sunt. quid mihi tam
inuidiose scribis aut tam leuem me iudicas? si tam cito uiridia (?) mihi non
mittis, statim amicitiam tuam obliuisci debeo? non sum talis aut tam leuis. ego
te non tamquam amicum habeo, sed tamquam fratrem gemellum qui de uno
uentre exiuit. hunc uerbum (?) saepius tibi scribo, sed tu alias (?) me iudicas.
accepi fascem (?) cauliculorum et unum caseum. misi tibi per Arrianum equitem
chiloma: intro habet collyram I et in linteolo (denarium?) I (?) alligatum, quod
rogo te ut emas mihi matium salis et mittas mihi celerius, quia panem uolo
facere. uale, frater karissime.
Interpuncts are not placed regularly between words in this text but
are sporadic. Sometimes they seem to mark off groups of words that
belong together, as is particularly clear in the second line, but often
they are more haphazardly placed. We perhaps see the start here of
grammatical punctuation, but consistency has not been achieved. See
above, 20.4.
2 opto deos ut bene ualeas que mea uota sunt: the opening formula is of
Greek type. Cf. Terentianus P. Mich. VIII.468.3–4 ante omnia ̣o ̣pto te bene [ual]
ere, que m[ihi ma]xime uot[ạ su]nt, alongside his Greek letter 476.2 πρὸ μὲν
πάντων εὔχομαί σε ὑγιαίνειν καὶ εὐτυχεῖν μοι, ὅ μοι εὐκταῖόν ἐστιν. See Adams
(1977a: 4–5), Cugusi (1981: 735), and on formulae transferred in both direc-
tions between the two languages, above, 13.16 and 20.3.

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 Soldier’s letter from Wâdi Fawâkhir 309

que: later in the letter there is sepius for saepius, and the digraph ae does not
occur in the text. In the first letter of the corpus there is a hypercorrect digraph
(aeorum), for original ĕ, and also a correct use in the monosyllable aes.
Terentianus, in whose corpus the original diphthong is often represented by
e, three times has aes in text 22 above, and it is likely that the digraph was more
tenacious in this monosyllable: the form es would have lacked distinctiveness
(see Adams 2013: 74). The hypercorrect example above further suggests that
the open e derived from ae early showed shortening. We have seen that already
in the archive of the Sulpicii from Pompeii in a text dated 18 June AD 37 there
is an instance of petiaerit for perierit (above, 15.8).
3 tan inuidiose: in this text tan occurs four times and tam not at all. Both
tanquam and tamquam occur once. In monosyllables and grammatical words
final -m was assimilated in place of articulation to the following phoneme, as is
shown by Cicero’s remark (Fam. 9.22.2) that illam dicam might constitute
a cacemphaton (landicam ‘clitoris’). Such assimilation is the origin of the
spelling tan, which, once established in particular environments, sometimes
spread to other contexts where it could not have represented the pronunciation
(see in general Adams 2013: 129–30). With leuis (twice in this letter) it was,
however, phonetic (before the alveolar/dental consonant), and in tan cito it
must have represented the velar nasal.
scribes: in this context the tense can only be present, not future: e has been
written for original ĭ. On the other hand in the next line mittes looks like
a future (despite Cugusi’s interpretation). In writing tablets of the early
imperial period the misspelling e for ĭ is not uncommon in the final syllable
of verb forms (see above, 16.1 with bibliography). It is possible that the
readjustment in the vowel system that was to lead in most areas of the
Romance world to the merger of ĭ and ē as a close e got under way in final
(unstressed) syllables, with a loss of tension of ĭ causing its opening in the
direction of the place of articulation of CL ē. The indeterminacy of the tense of
mittes here points to the potential for confusion in the tense system that lay
ahead.
4–5 si tan cito uirdia mi non mittes stati amicitiam tuam obliscere debio:
taken out of context, and following as it does a future conditional clause,
obliscere debio might seem translatable as a future periphrasis (‘I will imme-
diately forget your friendship’), in which case debeo might seem to anticipate
a use of its reflex in Sardinian (see Adams 2013: 653 with bibliography).
However, the next clause (non sum talis aut tan leuis) rules out such an
interpretation. The sense is ‘I should forget your friendship but am not so
fickle as to do so’. Alternatively with Cugusi the speaker may be taken as asking

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 310 Text 26

a question (‘should I?’) and replying to himself in the negative. On the inter-
pretation and punctuation adopted here (without question mark) the clause
non sum talis aut tan leuis has an adversative relationship to the previous
clause but is asyndetic (without sed). For this type of asyndeton see Hofmann
and Ricottilli (2003: 258), citing e.g. Plaut. Pers. 44 quaesiui, nusquam repperi.
See also above, 18.22.
tan cito: = ‘very quickly’: for tam + adjective/adverb as an intensive
combination or superlative equivalent see the numerous examples from clas-
sical Latin collected by Krebs and Schmalz (1905: II.640); also Adams (1977a:
56), and the index to Eusebius of Vercelli, CC 9, p. 475. The usage is common
in Livy: e.g. 34.50.4 quod admoniti essent ut tam pio tam necessario officio
fungerentur, 42.5.5 tam pio erga propinquos, tam iusto in ciuis, tam munifico
erga omnis homines regi. See also Kay (2010: 320) on an epigram of Martial
castigating one Sextilianus for his constant use of tantus = ‘very big’.
uirdia: a nominal use now attested several times in the eastern desert of
Egypt (see the text published by Bülow-Jacobsen et al. 1994: 35), whereas
previously it was known from glosses, where it is equated with CL olera,
‘vegetables, greens’ (for discussion see Bülow-Jacobsen et al. loc. cit.). Virdia
is represented in Romance (REW 9367), but olera is not. The question arises
whether it means ‘vegetables’ in general here, or ‘cabbages’. The reflexes in
Romance mean either ‘Savoy cabbage’ or ‘cabbage’ in general (e.g. Sp. berza).
The presence of coliclos in our present text (line 11) tells against the special-
ised meaning. Brassica was on the way out of use in classical Latin, and has
only a limited survival in Romance. Caulis and its diminutive cauliculus
acquired the sense ‘cabbage’, and that is likely to be the meaning of coliclos
here. One would not expect syncope under the accent (< uirídia), but the
syncope must have started in the form uíridis > uirdis and spread to the rest
of the paradigm.
5 obliscere: for obliuiscere or, in its classical deponent form, obliuisci. For the
loss of [w] between vowels of similar quality, cf. diuitis > ditis, lauatrina >
latrina, audiui > audi (audii), diuinus > dinus (see e.g. Väänänen 1981a: 51,
142). The active forms cited at TLL IX.2.110.34ff. are mainly late, starting with
an instance in the Vetus Latina. This may be the earliest active example attested
(see Cugusi 1981: 745). Deponent verbs were already showing a tendency to
switch into the active at the time of Plautus, but there was no steady or
unbroken decline in the category (see on the whole question Flobert 1975,
and see above, 3.424). The freedmen in Petronius both convert deponents into
actives (see e.g. Schmeling 2011: 181–2 on e.g. loquere at 46.1) and by hyper-
correction actives into deponents (see Schmeling 2011: 186 on 45.7

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 Soldier’s letter from Wâdi Fawâkhir 311

delectaretur). On Terentianus see Adams (1977a: 52). There was probably

a purist reaction against the loss of deponents. The literary language never
lost them entirely and even substandard texts display an effort to retain them
(see 47.15).
debio: there is no more common misspelling in this corpus than i for e in
hiatus, which points to closing in this environment and possible yodisation.
In this text note also habio, casium and lintiolo, and for the rest of the corpus
see Cugusi (1981: 743) (seven examples). For the early evidence for this
phenomenon see Adams (2013: 102–4).
8 gemellum: the diminutive gemellus, whether with the literal meaning ‘twin’,
as here, or with a derived sense, is not common in classical Latin, though it is
well represented in the Romance languages (REW 3721: e.g. It. gemello, Fr.
jumeau (with modification of the first syllable)). Cicero, for example, does not
have gemellus but uses geminus freely. Ovid had something of a taste for
gemellus, and there are instances in the shorter poems of Catullus, in
Horace’s Satires and Epistles, and in Virgil’s Eclogues, a distribution suggesting
an informal character. Geminus also has some Romance survivals (REW 3723),
and there cannot have been a clear-cut stylistic distinction between gemellus
and geminus.
8–9 de unum uentrem exiut: André (1991: 189) states that uenter of the womb
was ‘surtout poétique’, and then cites this passage to show that it was ‘aussi
dans le langage familier’.
De is presumably used with the accusative here, though when the dependent
terms are singular and end in -m the possibility has to be allowed that there has
been a mechanical addition of -m (with a vocalic misspelling in unum). For an
unambiguous instance of the accusative with a preposition normally taking the
ablative see above, 22.22, with the note.
The use of the preposition de in conjunction with a compound in ex-
represents an early sign of the encroachment of de on ex, which was eventually
ousted by the other (see above, 18.6 with bibliography). The pattern seen here
has early literary parallels, such as Rhet. Her. 4.51 eicite eum de ciuitate, Cic.
S. Rosc. 34 de manibus uestris effugit (cf. 149 de manibus erepta), Vat. 31 de
balineis exeunti, B. Afr. 11.2 de manibus . . . egredi. In Caesar exeo is construed
with ex at e.g. Gall. 1.5.1, 2.33.1, 7.20.10, but with de at 1.2.1.
In exiut there has been syncope in the final syllable of the verb form,
a syncope that was usually resisted because the full ending constituted
a morpheme. Examples occur only in low-register inscriptions. For exsiut
(sic) see ILCV 3053A, and cf. CIL XI.3541. In first conjugation verbs note
CIL III.12700 curaut, IV.2047 pedicaud, VI.24481 donaut (Väänänen 1966: 45,

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 312 Text 26

id. 1981a: 44, Cugusi 1981: 744). The syncopated form eventually caught on in
an extensive part of the Romance world. See Väänänen (1981a: 143) on
cantau(i)t > OIt. cantao (mod. canto), Sp. cantó, Pg. cantou (see further
Adams 2013: 117).
The form exiut must derive from exiuit, where the u is not normal in
classical Latin (in which one would expect exiit, with a tendency to contrac-
tion into exit). The u-form, which has late parallels in substandard texts,
implies the insertion of a glide to counter contraction (see above, 22.13 for
parallels).
9–10 sepius: the comparative use for the positive is paralleled by that of
celerius at line 17 below (on which see above, 23.8–9). Saepe faded from use
in non-literary imperial Latin (see below, 29.2), but the comparative was
more tenacious (see Stefenelli 1962: 24). Pelagonius for example uses sae-
pius but not saepe. For such comparatives earlier (longius, diutius) see
above, 11.21.
10 set tu: for the spelling set in this environment see line 7.
11 fasco c ̣o ̣lic̣ ̣los: the first word is obscure: is it perhaps a second declension
variant for fascem? See B. Löfstedt (1983: 460), taking the phrase as equivalent
to fascem cauliculorum. On this interpretation the construction might be
partitive apposition (= coliclos fascem, ‘cabbages, a bundle’), but with an
unusual word order, paralleled however later in the letter (see below, 26.16
on matium salem). Or fasco might be ablative (‘cabbages in a bundle’).
The form fasco, however, remains obscure.
Coliclos (probably ‘cabbages’: see above, 26.4–5) has syncope and the ‘rustic’
monophthong for au (on which see Adams 2013: 81–7). In caulis ‘stem, stalk of
a plant such as a cabbage’, then ‘cabbage’, and its diminutive cauliculus the
o-spellings were established already in early republican literature, if manu-
scripts are to be trusted (for colis see TLL III.652.20ff., and for coliculus,
651.27ff.; cf. Adams 2013: 84–5, and above, 4.16). They occur particularly in
agricultural writers. Both Cato (Agr.) and Varro (Rust.) prefer coliculus to
cauliculus (by 2:0 in each case). Cato has caulis four times and colis once,
whereas Varro has only colis (four times). Columella also has only coliculus as
the diminutive form (ten times), but prefers caulis to colis by 25:7. If the figures
may be taken at face value there is a distinction in the three agricultural writers
between the base form and its diminutive. All three have only the o-form of the
diminutive, but caulis outnumbers colis in two of the three.
12 tibe: there are four instances of this form in the corpus of Rustius Barbarus.
There are two ways of explaining the spelling.

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 Soldier’s letter from Wâdi Fawâkhir 313

Originally the second syllable had a diphthong ei (see 14.5). That proceeded
to ī in the usual way, which was subject to iambic shortening (> ĭ).
An intermediate stage in the development ei > ī was a long close e. For the
inscriptional evidence for such e-spellings see Adams (2007: 52–62).
The spelling tibi could have two phonetic realisations, with the second vowel
grapheme representing either the original long vowel, or the short consequent
on iambic shortening.
As for tibe, the first possibility is that the e is parallel in type to that
seen above in scribes (see above, 26.3). The shortened second i in a final
syllable might have undergone opening to a type of close e prior to
merging (once phonemic distinctions of vowel length had been lost)
with CL ē and producing the close e of most Romance languages. Thus
tibe could be a ‘modern’ form reflecting developments in progress during
the Empire.
The second possibility is that tibe is old-fashioned, a spelling reflecting
in origin the long close e that existed for a time in the Republic. On this
view the e-spelling that once had a basis in speech might have been
maintained to some extent in the written language as an archaism.
There is some evidence for archaisms of this type. The letter of Suneros
(above, 14), which has the archaic tibei, also has deuom for original
deiuom, where there is not only the old e-spelling but also the archaic
genitive plural form (see 14.9). The surveyor writes ube for ubi (see
above, 25.9).
There is also anecdotal evidence of a vogue for such e-forms in written
imperial Latin (see Adams 2007: 149–50). According to Quintilian (1.7.24),
Asconius Pedianus said that Livy wrote sibe and quase rather than sibi and
quasi: ‘sibe’ et ‘quase’ scriptum in multorum libris est, sed an hoc uoluerint
auctores nescio: T. Liuium ita his usum ex Pediano comperi, qui et ipse eum
sequebatur. haec nos i littera finimus (‘[s]ibe and quase are found in texts of
many writers, but whether the authors intended them, or not, I do not know;
I learn the fact that Livy used these forms from Pedianus, who himself
followed the example. We spell these words with a final i’, Russell, Loeb).
Quintilian is not talking about speech but about spellings in manuscripts.
Livy and many others wrote sibe and quase, and Asconius Pedianus, having
seen such forms in Livy, followed the auctoritas of the respected author. It is
inconceivable that Livy and other literary figures used such spellings as
a reflection of a proto-Romance vowel merger that was taking place in
speech. They must have been using orthography with an old-fashioned
flavour to it.

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 314 Text 26

On the other hand the present letter is full of phonetic spellings (see the
Conclusions below), but otherwise devoid of archaisms. The question is best
left open.
13 chiloma: χείλωμα ‘box, coffer’: see P. Oxy. X.1294.5. Here is a Greek word
that may be otherwise unattested in Latin (see also Cugusi 1981: 740–1). It does
not appear in the TLL, and this is the only example cited by the OLD.
In military communities in the Eastern Desert where Greek was the dominant
language loan-words readily passed ad hoc from Greek into Latin even when
there might have been a Latin equivalent available. In this same corpus note
O. Faw. 5b.5 amaxe (= amaxae), Gk. ἅμαξα (see Cugusi 1981: 740; in Latin now
also in a text from the Myos Hormos road: see above, 20.3). For further such
terms see Adams (2003a: 443–7).
13–14 e ̣ntro ha[b]et: habet is not impersonal (= Fr. il y a) but has chiloma as
subject (see too Cugusi 1981: 749–50). The e of entro if it is correctly read
would probably reflect Greek influence (ἐν-). Intro is usually directional (‘to
within’), and the static correspondent intus would have been expected here.
Quintilian (1.5.50) notes the confusion of the pair as a solecism (hoc amplius
‘intro’ et ‘intus’ loci aduerbia, ‘eo’ tamen ‘intus’ et ‘intro sum’ soloecismi sunt).
But the failure to distinguish them goes well back (see above, 5.24 on Cato;
also Lucil. 1215), and was not entirely avoided in the literary language.
Russell (2001: I.148 n. 58) notes that Quintilian himself comes close to
breaking the rule at 11.3.99 pollice intus inclinato. Intus (which originally
meant ‘from within’, a sense found in Plautus: TLL VII.2.102.39ff.) in
particular is often interchangeable with intro in literary Latin (e.g.
Lucretius, Ovid, Celsus, Pliny, Tacitus: see TLL VII.2.106.42ff., Adams
2013: 334, 589). Intro for intus is more restricted in distribution (see TLL
VII.2.55.54ff., citing, apart from Cato, Vitr. 5.10.2, Mul. Chir. 21 and a few
late examples).
14 collyram: this is κολλύρα, tentatively defined by OLD as a ‘kind of pasta’,
and by the TLL III.1667.42 as ‘genus quoddam panis’. It is found in Plautus
(Per. 92), then is virtually unattested in literary texts (apart from the Vetus
Latina and a metaphorical example in Tertullian), but is reflected in Romance
(of coarse bread) (Italian dialects, Portuguese: REW 2055). See also Cugusi
(1981: 738–9).
15–16 quod rogo te ut em[as] mi: with Cugusi’s suggested supplement
before alligatum (denarium), quod might seem to be a substitute for quo
(see Cugusi 1981: 750). Quod became something of a universal subordinator
in late Latin (see E. Löfstedt 1907: 15–19, id. 1936: 14–21, Hofmann and

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 Soldier’s letter from Wâdi Fawâkhir 315

Szantyr 1965: 579–82), and quod for quo is cited from the very late period
(see Bonnet 1890: 394 on Gregory of Tours, Stotz 1998: 134). However,
there are other possibilities here. There may be an anacoluthon caused by
a mechanical use of the expression quod rogo followed by a construction
that did not fit it. Alternatively quod might be causal.
16 matium salem: the construction here is partitive apposition (‘a matium of
salt’), but the word order is abnormal for Latin, in which in this construction
in expressions of quantity the term for the whole regularly precedes that for
the part (‘salt, a matium’), as e.g. at Terentianus P. Mich. VIII.468.10–11
habes amicla par unu amictoria ̣ [pa]r unu sabana par unu saccos par unu.
The reverse order is, however, common in koine Greek texts from the same
region and period (for details see Adams 2006): cf. O. Florida 1 ἔχεις δέκα
ἡμέρας κομμιᾶτεν, O. Claud. II. 227 κομείσατε μ[αρ]σίππιν σείναπιν (‘receive
a bag of mustard’), 228 κομίσατε . . . σεύτλια δέσμην γ′ καὶ ἄλλη(ν) δέσμη(ν)
σέρις (‘receive beets three bunch (sic) and another bunch chicory’), I.139
εἵνα . . . τὸ πρόσλοιπον δώσομεν τὴν τειμήν (‘so that we . . . can give the rest the
price’), I.141 καταγρα[φ]ὶν γράψις τοὺς ἐργάτας (‘write a list the workmen’)
(examples from Adams 2006: 2–3). The construction with this order sur-
vives in modern Greek: δυο κιλά πατάτες ‘two kilos of potatoes’, δέκα τόνοι
τσιμέντο ‘ten tons of cement’, πλήθος κυναίκες ‘a crowd of women’ (see
Adams 2006: 3, with bibliography).
Such reversals do occur in very late Latin (Norberg 1944: 6 n. 1, Hofmann
and Szantyr 1965: 57). At this date, however, the departure from the normal
Latin order probably reflects interference from Greek, in a text from a Greek
milieu with other Greek elements. It is possible, as we saw above (26.11), that
fasco coliclos is of the same type (cf. above, in this paragraph, O. Claud. II.228).
There are one or two other types of apposition in which there may be
a movement from the part to the whole. This order can occur in expressions
with genus (cf. Ausonius, Mosella 310 omne genus uolucres). Also, we saw at
3.421 that in double locatival expressions the term for the whole may
come second. Note for example Cic. Verr. 2.50 in curia Syracusis (part >
whole) alongside Verr. 5.160 Syracusis in lautumiis (whole > part) (for this
example and other variations of the same type see Müller 1895: 547 and
passim). A distinctive feature here, however, is that the terms are locatival,
and in the first example Syracusis is a locatival adnominal rather than a pure
apposition.
17 [mi]ttas mi celerius: for this expression see above, 20.6 (letter from the
Myos Hormos road) cura tibi sit celerius mittere, and for the use of the
comparative see 23.8–9 (and above in this text, 26.9–10).

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 316 Text 26

Conclusions
This text is notable for its phonetic spellings, which fall into at least nine or ten
types and comprise at least twenty tokens. The types are: e for ĭ in final
syllables, syncope, assimilation of final -m, assimilation of final -d, vocalic
contraction (in mi), closing of e in hiatus, omission of final -m, loss of [w]
between two vowels of similar quality, e for ae, o for au, e for original ei (?).
By contrast a letter of similar date from the Myos Hormos road (text 24) has
just a single spelling error (24.5 frugda; the u looks more like a slip than
a phonetic spelling). We should not however conclude that the speech of the
two writers differed, as most of these misspellings represented features of
speech in general at this period. The difference between the writers is in the
level of their literacy. The other letter, as we saw, has some literary usages as
well as correctness of spelling, and is a reminder that we should not lump all
non-literary documents together as specimens of ‘Vulgar Latin’. There were
differences of educational level among those stationed in Egypt.
The present letter starts with a Greek-style epistolary formula, and has
Greek syntactic interference in matium salem. It also has some extremely
rare Greek loan-words (chiloma, collyram). Its bilingual background is
obvious.
Non-standard features include obliscere, exiut, sepius and celerius.

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