The Castanet Dancers of Arsinoe

Author(s): W. L. Westermann
Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology , Jul., 1924, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Jul., 1924), pp.
134-144
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.

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134

THE CASTANET DANCERS OF ARSINOE

BY W. L. WESTERMANN

THE following document is one of those allotted to Cornell University out of t

purchases of papyri of the season of 1922. The Cornell allotment reached the U
in February 1923. The document is in itself neither highly significant nor entir
content, but the results of the task of interpreting it for publication seem to h
social and economic interest to warrant separate treatment before the more for
ance of the papyrus in a projected volume of the Cornell lot. These result
regarded as an indication of an open field for a longer and more complete stud
theatre and all forms of musical and other entertainments in Ptolemaic and Rom
as they appear in the papyri, in the archaeological, and in the literary sources1.
This Cornell contract had been folded twice, lengthwise, causing the loss of fr
three letters in the right hand crease.
Contract with Castanet Dancers
for a Festival.
Philadelphia 206 A.D.
Cornell Papyrus Inv. No. 2
8 inches x 3j inches.

'Iual6opa IcpoTraXL[f]pia
7rapa ApaT[e]l [o'l]r/? o -co-
Lvr () aLXaseX`e?a?. /3ovXop,at
7rap[a]Xa,Setv ae ovv e'repat /cpo-
5 TraX[ia]rptla, (ytvovrat) (&vo), XtLrovpyrijaiaaa
7rap' /jl'v e7r'l [ep]a et attro
'T^ Ks TroV Hav[v] ULvb KaT' a' dp-
xa[i]ov%, XajLp/3av6vTro r V,cJ
v7rep PtaOoV KaO' [r7j]epav eacdo-
Jo T7,v (8pa%jXa\u) Xr Ical 7[poa]7rape[Xo'v]T.v
Ij61)1Jv KCpt07j [(dpTaI,83a)] 8 Kal ap-
Trv f'evyry (el6oaL re'o-aapa) .[' ,] oe, eav Ka-
reveyICTerat aTLC]ja v1 Xpvaa
,Koj,jua, raVra -[ca]a 7rapai,v-
15 XdaFo,?ev, 7rap[e]f,ue90a Se
Pie ICa , epX oJ,e[vo]*t Ovov?
vo tcal advepXo[]/Xevo0t
rovS tooV'.

EToV? tS' AovKliov YeTt[J]t'iov Yeov77pov

20 Ev'e,E/3ovi HepTrvaKos [tKal] MapKov
Avp7rtlov 'A'rwvTe[4vo]v HIapOKov
e,3ao'Crv tal T Hov,/tXov ZCrTTrTAOV
rCea Kaioapos Ie/8[aorTo]v. ITa.v[v]t ir.
1 Cf. WITITLTYiM SCHUBART, Einfuhrung in die Papyruskunde, 401.

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 THE CASTANET DANCERS OF ARSINOE 135

"To Isidora, castanet dancer, from Artemisia of the village of Philadel

that you, assisted by another castanet dancer-total two-undertake to
festival at my house for six days beginning with the 24th of the month P
the old calendar, you (two) to receive as pay 36 drachmas for each day, a
in addition 4 artabas of barley and 24 pairs of bread loaves, and on conditio
garments or gold ornaments are brought down, we will guard these safely
furnish you with two donkeys when you come down to us and a like num
back to the city.
Year 14 of Lucius Septimius Severus Pius Pertinax and Marcus Aur
Parthicus, Augusti, and Publius Septimius Geta Caesar Augustus, Payni 1

NOTES.

1. Kp0raXa (cpo0rt, Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, II, 4, 192) a

some kind, which Clement distinguished from " cymbals." Cf. P. Hib. 54 o
the musical instruments required for a festival are a drum, cymbals and castan
catl fv3aXcaa Kcal KcporaXa). WILCKEN, Chrestomathie, 494, n. 17, i
remark, " /porTaXa sind nicht Kastagnetten," in the sense that the c
chestnuts. In the general use of the word "castanet," as a clapper-like in
translation is the best that I can find. See DAREMBERG-SAGLIO, Diction
requires, rather than discredits, the translation "castanets."
This is the first appearance of the form KpoTaXt-'rpia. P. Oxy., III, 475
has the third declension form IcpoTaXt-aTPtW. But compare the form 3opXna-
in P. Grenf., I, 67.
2. The name of the first party of the contract, Artemisia, has becom
ending in -v7 has appeared before. See PREISIGKE, Namenbuch, s.v. (1922
7. Comparison with the similar contract P. Grenf., II, 67, d]7ro Ti? La
[Kar]a dpXaiovs makes the reading certain, though I was long in doubt a
Idris Bell, of the British Museum, has kindly checked the reading of Gren
and fully confirms it.
KaT' apXalovf. Another example of the late use of the old Egyptian y
as opposed to the fixed year introduced into Egypt by Augustus, with its
in each fourth year. Cf. P. Grenf., II, 67, n. 10.
8. Aa/t3av6vr,wv vr,cv. The masculine form of the participle is also us
11, 67, although there, too, the parties of the second part, the two dancer
use of the masculine must, I believe, have some technical legal explanation
regarded as a mistake for Xa,avororwv,r as the editors of P. Grenf., II, 6
11. WILCKEN in reprinting P. Grenf., ii, 67 (Chrestomathie, 497), fou
7rvpo]v dprdS3asa of line 14 uncertain. H. I. Bell later re-read it as 7r1Vpov
Berichtigungsliste, I, 190). The payment of barley in our contract fo
payment (also 36 drachmas per day in P. Grenf., II, 67), just as the whea
the Grenfell contract. There is no reason to doubt the reading 7rvpov of G
Bell.
12. For apcrv {ev'y7 as "pairs of bread loaves" see WILCKEN, Griec
755-57. The Twins of the Serapeum (P. Lond., xiv, 22f.) were to rece
per day, i.e. four pairs. That is exactly the amount which the two dance
document, 24 pairs of bread loaves for 6 days, or 4 pairs of loaves per d

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 136 W. L. WESTERMANN

payment and the barley (also the wheat and *woiua in P. Grenf., II, 67)
"keep," or food, for the six days. Paotuia developed the meaning of aproT i
and Byzantine times, TH. REIL, Beitrdge zur Kenntniss des Gewerbes im hI
Aegypten, 157, Leipzig, 1913.
16-17. KarepXope'votF-a'vepXoievots. Compare the regular use of KcaraSa
down " to a village from a city, and of dvaf,alvetv, "to go up" into the city
WILCKEN, Chrestomathie, No. 495.

DISCUSSION.

The closest extant parallel to the Cornell contract printed above is P. Grenf, ii, 67 of
237 A.D. Its provenance and general content are the same-engagement of two dancers
(op,XirTpiat) from the city of Arsinoe in the FayyAm for the celebration of a ten day(?)
festival in the village of Bacchias. The difference in time between the two contracts is
31 years; but the money payment per day for the artists is the same, 36 drachmas. The
general form is the same, both being Xetpoypaca of the letter-contract type. The technical
phraseology and the sequence of the provisions of the contract are similar. There are,
however, two outstanding differences in the two contracts. The first party in P. Grenf., ii,
67, is a guild, or corporation, of Bacchias (ovv0oov KcW,Iq BEaKXt8oT), its president (AvprXIov
'AaKc\a 7ryov;kevov) acting officially for the guild in he emaking of the contract. And the
dancers in P. Grenf., II, 67 received an advance payment as earnest money, vtrep dpa,83vod
...... .(SpaX, a)) [.] ,1.
The contract form for the hiring of dancers, and other minor artists remained constant
for at least three decades at the beginning of the third century in the north-eastern corner
of the FayyAm about Philadelphia, as these two contracts show. This was to be expected.
Legal phraseology in itself tends toward the stereotyped; and the habits of Egypt, par-
ticularly, were old habits. They had been tested pragmatically and their value approved
by long experience. Why, then, change an adequate form?
This particular legal form had the following elements:
1. Address to the artist in charge of the group or company whose services were desired.
2. Request for services, the type of services being implied in the professional name of
the artist, cporaXiaT-pi, opXa7Tpta. The verb XeLTrovpelv is colourless.
3. Number of days' services to be contracted for, with exact fixation of the date of
beginning and closing of the festival concerned.
4. Payment for services.
5. Special conditions. In the Cornell document, obligation of the hiring party to insure
the artists against loss of their professional wardrobe. In P. Grenf., II, 67, an
advance on account to the artists.

6. Arrangements for transportation of the artists, from and back to their place of
business.

The woman Isidora, party of the second part in our contract, was a dancer, known as a
specialist in dancing with the castanets (KporaX\aTrpia). Living at the metropolis, Arsinoe,
her services were contracted for by the woman Artemisia of the village of Philadelphia for
1 Cf. the irrevocable earnest payment in a Rainer Papyrus mentioned by WESSELY, Karanis und
Socnopaei Nesus, p. 26, paid to a flageolet player, an dppa&ov dvairoppltros of 4 drachmas irl rcS avXicraa
ros ir{pi rov *tQpov eF'' ri.4pars erd.

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 THE CASTANET DANCERS OF ARSINOE 137

a festival at her home, which was a private celebration only in the sense tha
for by Artemisia herself. Oxyrhynchus Papyri, iII, 475 of 182 A.D. offers a cl
the semi-public character of these privately organized celebrations. It is
official inspection and report on the accidental death of a slave boy in the villa
near Oxyrhynchus. " Late yesterday afternoon, the sixth, while the festival
and the castanet dancers were giving their customary performance at the hous
in-law Ploution-Epaphroditus, his slave, aged eight, desiring to peep over from
the same house and see the castanet dancers', fell and was killed." The perform
necessarily, in view of village housing conditions in Egypt, be held in the op
the court yard or in the street, and be enjoyed by the people of the village.
This is a vivid glimpse into the intimate village life of Egypt in the second
our era, as clean cut as that passage in Acts xx, 9 which tells of the young m
out of the window of a loft hall at Troas when Paul was preaching and so m
Of greater value is the information which can be gleaned, from the Cor
published above and a group of related documents, upon the economic or
professional entertainers in Roman Egypt and the character of the contract
made. Two of these, a contract for instruction in flageolet-playing, and a mut
for an artist's services, are from the period of Augustus2. The remaining docu
number if we include Cornell Inv., 26, fall within the second, third and
centuries.
The professional entertainers lived, in all the cases in which their actual
determined, in the cities, such as Arsinoe, Oxyrhynchus and Hermopolis
natural in view of the greater opportunities for employment in their profe
urban life offered3. In engaging the services of the entertainers it was custo
person hiring them to make his contract with one or two professionals who, e
together, were in the business of hiring artists and grouping together tempor
of them for the fuilfilment of single contracts, or had their own organized co
services they completely controlled. To the first type of organization, in w
tracting artists would be in a rather difficult position regarding their help,
P. London, II, 331 (pp. 154-5): "To Cosmas, Chief of the flageolet players4, f
son of Satyrus, from the Island. I wish you to undertake, with three skilled g
four maidens, to celebrate a festival in the above-mentioned village for six
thus that I should interpret the contract (P. Corn. Inv., 26) with Isidora the ca
who probably worked the small town festivals with some temporary c
organized company (ravpucwvta) of artists appears in the contract P. Flor., 74

1 eara-aarOal ras Kpo7aXtaTplpas. The verb and the whole setting of this document, and th
gold ornaments of the artists in the Cornell papyrus, show that these were dancers, not "c
as translated by the editors of the Oxyrhynchus document.
2 B.C. U., iv, 1125 of 13 B.C. and P. Oxy., iv, 731 of 8-9 A.D.
3 At Arsinoe: the castanet-dancers of P. Corn. Inv. 26; the flageolet-players of P. Gr
flageolet-player, gymnasts and four little girls of P. Lond., ii, pp. 154-5. At Hermopolis :
and musicians of P. Flor., 74; the flageolet-player of Stud. Pal., xx, 78. At Oxyrhynchu
player and other musicians of P. Oxy., x, 1275.
4 I accept Wileken's resolutions 7rpw(vo1j)T(fi) avArX(rpl8ov) in CNrestornathie, 495, and h
tions for 11. 4-5.
6 Probably the woman Pamounis of P. Geneva, 73, was not the head of a regular compa
the contract for herself "with three other dancers" (iralaras, see WILCKEN in Archiv, inI,

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138 W. L. WESTERMANN

with Sarapion and Phoibammon, pantomimists of Hernmopolis, which reads, afte

tomary address: "I agree that you (two) have undertaken, with the entire comp
you have of musicians and others, to render service for five days from Tybi 26th to t
......in the before-mentioned village of Ibion." In P. Oxy., xII, 1275, of the third
one Copreus is addressed in the contract as " head of a company of flageolet pl
musicians" (7rpoeCor' o a'v/ovlas avX'lrTcov), and the contract is for the services
himself and his company'. Our contracts are with people living in the villages.
one may surmise, with the second-raters of the profession. In the cities greater a
hired as individuals. Such, at least, is the impression given by two accounts whic
from Oxyrhynchus, P. Oxy., III, 519 and VII, 1050. They are both public accoun
one case a mime, a Homerist, and a dancer are listed as being paid individually,
musicians are grouped. In the other, a flageolet player, a mime and a Homer
separately in the payment list.
On the understanding developed above, that there were companies of pr
entertainers in Egypt which were fairly permanent in their organization, I off
interpretation of P. Oxy., Iv, 731, of 8 A.D. It was regarded by the editors as a co
the professional services of some kind of an artist2 for a year's term. So far as i
is correct. The artist contracted that his services were to be available upon the
tenth of every month, and for two additional days at the Isis festival and three d
time of " the Stars of Hera," a total of 29 days during the year. The large numb
of service to be rendered and the fact that he is to receive a fixed salary o
drachmas for the year leads to the conclusion that the artist was contracting h
for a year's time to the bus iness manager of an entertainment company (
the document itself gives the information that it is an antichretistic pledge of these s
in lieu of interest upon a money loan made to the artist the nature of which wa
in the missing first part of the contract. It is for this reason that the professio
tainer says, " in consideration of which I shall give you my services monthly on t
10th5." Because of the complicating character of the antichresis in this agreemen
fact that the amount of rthe loan is lost, it is difficult to use the document for t
of determining the relative rate of pay of artists. It is useful as being the only
yet extant to show that the antichretistic contract was employed in hiring artist
apprentices to weavers and nailmakers6.
Acknowledging the peculiar character of the contract P. Oxy., Iv, 731, it still h
of interest which may be safely deduced and applied to the study of the enterta
The contract of services was to run for a year, for three fixed periods, the ninth
of each month, the Isis festival (2 days), and the festival of the Stars of Hera (3

1 In P. Grenf., II, 67, the contract is also made with a person who furnishes two dancers, b
himself go to the village.
2 As proven by the mention of the two festivals and the verb XtTovpyvro-w, 1. 4, as in P.
26, 1. 5.
3 More persons than one were mentioned as parties of the second part in this contract as shown by v;slv,
1. 4, and Exere and (a-ETre later in the contract.
4 P. Oxy., VII, 731, 13-14, X 6poX\oyla r7S ((a))7rapapovijs. For the nrapapoval agreements see WILCKEN,
Papyruskunde, I, 1, 261 ; MITTEIS, Papyruskunde, ii, 1, 67, n. 6 ; H. LEWALD, Zur Personalexekution, 13 iff.
6 P. Oxy., iv, 731, 5-7.
6 P. Teb., I, 384 and B.G. U., 1124. Cf. WESTERMANN, Apprentice Contracts in Class. Phil., Ix, 296, 300.

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 THE CASTANET DANCERS OF ARSINOE 139

ninth and tenth were busy days in the profession, presumably because they we
of some kind. For these 29 days' service1 the artist was to receive a fixed sum
drachmas, and 13 silver drachmas 2 obols as oSlytov, which must be unde
original meaning of "allowance for food2." If the artist is needed by the com
the stipulated number of 29 days, he is to be hired by the day at the same rat
2 obols. This provision is evidently put in so that the company head may be
to meet unexpected calls. For the opportunities offered to the artists of meagr
were not confined to the public and private festivals. Wessely has published
(Stud. Pal., xiII, 6, xx, 78) between a flageolet player and a wine-growing
whic the musician agres to wor with ther wine-treaders, playing to them th
period of the vintage. Obviously, as Wessely suggested, he supplied the rhyth
movements of the vintagers in their work. This is to be regarded as an " eff
" speeding up" process, as it is called in American industry, rather than as a
of entertainment for the vintagers. The relation between rhythm and labour
among primitive peoples, lasting well down toward the period of modern mach
has long since received comprehensive treatment by Karl Biicher3. The an
were accustomed to use the flageolet to give the rhythm for the movements of
in treading grapes and grain, for which there was an especial musical compos
marily used4. One is not warranted, however, in drawing the conclusion that th
flageolet as an aid in industrial processes, as it thus appeared in Ptolemaic-Ro
was specifically an innovation in Egypt broughtin by the Greek conquerors.
labour was equally well-known in Pharaonic Egypt.
The contract just discussed (P. Oxy., IV, 731) for the hire of an artist's ser
year by entrepreneurs differs only slightly from one modern type of contract
make with booking agents. Often the modern agents guarantee to hire a
specified number of weeks at a stated sum per week. This amount the bookin
required to pay, whether they are able to book the contracting actor or not.
stand the Greek contract5 the artist has a guarantee of 29 days of work and
40 drachmas per year. He does, however, forfeit 1 drachma 2 obols per day fo
the specified 29 days on which he does not work. This seems to be nothing m
measure to avoid loss on the part of the entrepreneurs in case of sickness of
other unavoidable cause of failure to meet the terms of the contract. The gua
heads of the company is not, apparently, affected thereby. The company
relieved froming the contractal obligation of paying for the 29 days' work, except
when the artist fails to meet his obligation of doing the required work.
Some idea of the rate of pay of these artists may be obtained by analysis of the
concerned. The artists furnished their equipment, such as instruments, costum

1 Really counted as thirty days in making up the total payment for the year. See the e
11. 8-9.
2 P. Oxy., Iv, 731, 10-11, <f' c [1]/acri p'Oi Kar' O+ivtov dpyv(plov) apaXp.[as SeKarpZs 8uo doXovS. The
restoration of cFK]arpLS is no doubt correct. It is to be observed that the food allowance is thus fixed at
just A of the total money payment (40 drachmas) for the 29 days of the contract.
3 In his Arbeit und R/hythmus, Teubner, Leipzig, 1909.
4 Ibid., 39 f., where the references are cited. Cf. the terra-cotta group of four women kneading bread,
with a flageolet player giving the rhythm (original in the Louvre), reproduced by Biicher as P1. II.
5 My interpretation differs slightly from that of the editors.

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140 W. L. WESTERMANN

ornaments (as in P. Corn. Inv., 26, 14-15). P. Hibeh, 542, of 245 B.C., despite i
may be taken as typical of the customary instruments and costums furnished
Greek writes to a friend asking him to send a flageolet player, and requests
bring flageolets of a particular type, the Phrygians, along with the others. If
the friend is to advance the money to the player for the purchase of the Phrygia
The giver of the festival wishes also the presence of a particular artist, an
named Zenobius, who is to bring a drum, cymbals and castanets; and his co
be " as elegant as possible."
The artists customarily required in the contracts that transportation to an
they went out into neighbouring villages, be furnished them. In P. Corn. Inv., 26,
was supplied for each of the two artists; in P. Grenf., iI, 67, three donkeys fo
the third animal evidently carrying the instruments and properties. The pre
village of Souis in P. Oxy., x, 1275, in arranging for a public festival in the
to furnish ten donkeys for a flageolet player and his company of flageolet pla
musicians. Only four donkeys were furnished for eight persons in P. Lond
154-55), the eight including a flageolet player, three gymnasts and four girls
The question of the amount of pay received by the artists is difficult to d
absolute amount is retained in six different documents. The pay is, in most ca
for both in money and in kind. The " double loaves of bread " which appear
the contracts were no doubt used immediately by the artists as food during
the festivities. This is made clear in P. Gen., 73 (WILKEN, Chrest., 496). The
agent of four dancers, who signed them up for seven days for the festival of
village of Philadelphia in the Fayyim, makes the following arrangements for
his group: " I am to receive from you (the head of the guild) on account of m
28 drachmas daily, you feeding us and furnishing suitable entertainmento, and as
three artabas of dates from the guild." The requirement of food stands her
commonly taken in the contracts by the arrangement for double bread loave
barley, dates, raphanous oil and vinegar which appear in various contracts m
as an element of the earnings of the artists rather than as a- part of the f
Herein lies the difficulty of determining the relative wage-earning power of
tainers.
The following table is arranged so as to supply a survey of the material w
useful in giving a solution to the problem:
1 Costly dress and ornaments of the mimes, HERMANN REICH, Der Mimus, 158-9, Berli
2 WILCKEN, Chrestomathie, 477.
3 Tibia Phrygia, DAREMBERG-SAGLIO, S.v. tibia, v, 312 f.
4 MaXaKo6s seems to refer to a definite type of professional dancer. The editors of P.
attention to the cinaedus malactus of PLAUTUS, Miles Glor., 668. Possibly the ciaXaKos w
who dressed as a woman and executed feminine dances.
6 'IA j00ov Xoyov.
a Zevlav ef1rTeltOV, which must refer to lodging, as the context shows. This is the only case where
lodging is expressly mentioned in the contract. Unfortunately the papyrus is incomplete, so that it is
impossible to say whether the artists may have furnished their own transportation, by jackass, as an offset
to the lodging furnished to them.
7 TtrAj. See WILCKEN, Chrest., 496, " Ehrensold." There is a clear distinction made here between piatos,
the money payment, and 7T1A, the honorary present, as also in P. Oxy., vii, 1025, 19-20. Although the
nTulj had probably been regarded, originally, as a gift to the artists, in these contracts it has become an
essential part of the contractual arrangement. Economically and legally it is a payment in kind. Realistic-
ally translated it would be a "commodity payment," as opposed to JlAo.-0, the money payment.

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 Length of
Aver
Document Date No. of Artists Total Payment paymen
contract
dis

P. Lond., II, 331 1 flageolet player

5 dra
pp. 154-55 165 A.D. 3 gymnasts 7 days 40 drachmas per day
WILCKEN, Chrest., 495 4 dancing girls day

2 pantomimists 36 drachmas per day 18 drachm

P. Flor., 74 181 A.D. with musicians 5 days 30 double loaves brea
and others 4 small loaves2 per day each 1 drch 2

1 mime -497 drachmas (total)

P. Oxy., III, 519 s d 1 Homeristt - 448 drachmas (total) cannot be d
WILCKEN, Chre8t., 492 econ cenry musicians en -amount lost mine
1 dancer -1(?)4 drachmas (total)

P. Gen., 73 second-third d 28 drachmas per day 7 drachmas per

WILCKEN, Chrest., 496 century da3 artabas of dates day each

36 drachmas per day 1

P. Corn. Inv., 26 206 A.D. 2 castanet dancers 6 days 24 double loaves bread 1 d
4 artabas of barley per day

36 drachmas per day 18 d

P. QGrenf., Ir, 67 237 A.D. 2 flageolet players 10 (?) days 15 double a
WLCKN, Chrest., 497 3 artabas of wheat per day e
140 drachmas per day
1 flageolet player o0!' 1'
P. Oxy., x, 1275r and company
third
flageolet
of 40 double
century
players I8 ^ye
lo
5 days
kotylai of r
and musicians 1 jar 1of
jarinea
of vinegar

P. Oxy., vII, 1025 end of third 1 mime3 customary customary money payment
WILCKEN, Chrest., 493 century 1 Homerist numberofdays and payments in kind

1 For the examples cited in this column see table II of Louis WEST, The Cost of Living
in Classical Philology, xi, 1916, 304.
2 Kal 7t fiovKIXXas raFaCpat, cf. the Latin buccellas.
3 BwoX6os. SCHUBART, Einfihrung, p. 400, describes this person as a "character actor."

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142 W. L. WESTERMANN

As a comparison of a different nature there may be placed against the flag

pay of P. Grenf., II, 67, the daily wage of a skilled labourer, namely a shipwright,
I, 69, amounting to 7 drachmas. This document is dated as of the third centu
In drawing inferences from the comparisons made above, several disturbing
be considered:

1. In determining the daily rate for entertainers the sum must be distributed over two
additional days, namely the time lost in travelling to and fro between villages and metropolis.
2. With this the fact must be considered that a portion of the expense for food for the
entertainers was supplied.
3. The payment in kind must be added to their money wage.
4. The higher rate taken by the head of the company of artists requires a deduction
from the daily wage of the employed artist. This is a factor impossible to estimate.
The rough impression which one gains of the great difference in pay of artists as against
day-labourers is probably more apparent than real. Perhaps the best point of departure is,
after all, the antichretistic contract of 8/9 A.D. discussed above (P. Oxy., IV, 731) with the
artist who obtained a guarantee of 29 days' work during the year. This performer received
pay at the rate of 1 drachma 2 obols per day with a food allowance of 13 drachmas 2 obols
for the entire year. This allowance distributed over 30 days (which is the actual basis of
calculation for the year's pay) brings the pay of the artist up to 1 drachma 43 obols. To
this there must still be added the indeterminable amount of the interest of the loan which
is now lost in the earlier part of this antichretistic contract2. Hazarding a rough guess,
the addition for interest would bring the performer's pay to about two drachmas a day.
With this pay the best comparison is the wage of weavers, 3- asses per day, and of a master
weaver, 6 asses per day, in a Latin papyrus of 1 A.D.3 The equivalents in the Graeco-Egyptian
coinage are 5i obols and 1i drachmas4. On this calculation the ordinary entertainer, under
contract with the manager of a company, received about twice the pay of a common weaver
and about 25 per cent. more than a master weaver. Obviously the bulk of the earnings of
the organized entertaining companies went to the entrepreneurs.
From the available sources it is possible to obtain only a vague idea of the relative
economic standing of different types of artists within the profession. From Oxyrhynchus of
the second century, Christian era (P. Oxy., III, 519), we have a fragmentary list of payments
made by the city officials for festival entertainment. Assuming that they were all hired for
the same period, the mime received 496 drachmas and a Homerist 448 drachmas. In the
list there follows a payment " on account of music " (amount lost) and that for a dancer.
The reading of this last item is not certain; but it seems to lie between one hundred and
two hundred drachmas. P. Oxy., VII, 1025, of the late third century, is a contract for the
hire of a mime, here called a /0toXoyos, and a Homeric reciter. These two performers had
been hired frequently for the same festival by the same city5. In consequence the terms of
the contract were that they were to serve for the usual number of days and for the usual
money payment and emoluments in kind. Significant here is only the fact that the order
of the two is the same as in P. Oxy., iII, 519, the Homerist following the mime. This order

1 A. SEGRE, Circolazione Monetaria, Rome, 1922, 116-17.

2 This point was missed by Louis WEST in Classical Philology, xi, 304, table II.
3 P. Oxy., Iv, 737. 4 Louis WEST, I.C., 295.
5 P. Oxy., VII, 1025, 10-12, E'av7rjs 7KeTf KaaO6[S] 9os vIsitv fETLV c

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 THE CASTANET DANCERS OF ARSINOE 143

is also followed in P. Oxy., vII, 1050, col. II. In this document the
player appears listed with those made to a boxer, a theatre guard
temple slaves.
The popularity of the mimic artists and the high financial rewa
are well known'. Counting six days for the festival at Oxyrhynch
I1I, 519, the mime would be receiving pay at the rate of 821 drachm
at the rate of 74? drachmas. Counting ten days for the festival wh
of P. Grenf., II, 672 is the longest recorded festival noted in artist
be paid at the following rate per day: mime 493 drachmas, H
Obviously these artists were, as a group, much more highly paid th
probably also more highly regarded in the public esteem3.
Hermann Reich has expressed the belief that the mimists did n
a place in the guilds of Dionysiac artists4. Among the members o
Ptolemais, however, we find listed a cithara player, a singer to ci
dancer, a flageolet player for tragic performances, and a trumpeter
artists, including even the castanet dancers, gymnasts, flageoletists
appear in our village and small city contracts, did not have access
Dionysiac associations, they must surely have had their own socia
number and character of these associations already known in Egyp
for this supposition.
Training for the musical profession was obtained by apprentice
slave or free, to a trained performer. The only apprentice contra
which we have7 is unfortunately mutilated. Nevertheless, it gives a
of the degree of specialization which existed in the musical profes
dancer of the Cornell contract, was a specialist in castanet da
Narcissus is to be instructed in certain musical specialties which ar
apprentice contract. He is to know four tunes (?)8 on the double
these to be arranged as accompaniments to other instruments. He
disposal five tunes9 on the syrinx and on another Egyptian instrum

1 REICH, Der Mimus, 159-62. The noted Dionysia of whom Cicero spoke
Roscius the comic actor, pro Roscio comoedo, 8, was a dancer, not a mimist as
calls her a saltatricula.
2 In Chrestomathie, 497.
3 WILCKEN, Grundziige, 421, has made the interesting observation that there was a marked difference
between the village festivals and those of the cities, the latter being more distinctively Greek (Homerists,
mimists, etc.), the former retaining in much higher degree old-Pharaonic characteristics (dancers, flageolet
players, etc.). He feels that the difference noted arises from the stronger Greek element in the cities. The
fact, so far as our present materials go, is only that Homerists and mimic actors do not appear in the
villages. This can be fully explained on the simple ground of the high payments demanded by the Homerists
and mimes and the lower cultured niveau of the villagers. It is to be noted that the dancers and musicians
lived in the cities and presumably found much work to do there, as I suggested earlier in the paper.
4 REICH, Der Mimus, 27.
5 DITT., Or. Gr. Ins., I, 51, 30ff., cf. SAN NICOLt, Aegyptisches Vereinswesen zur Zeit der Ptolemder und
Romer, I, 46.
6 See San Nicol6's study, quoted above.
7 B.G.U., iv, 1125 of 13 B.C. Cf. WESTERMANN, Apprentice Contracts in Class. Phil., ix, 295 ff.
8 Maya&Lo( )...apLa, B.G.U., Iv, 1125, 21.
9 A?Trovpyla(s) "accomplishments" actually, 23.

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144 W. L. WESTERMANN

which is unknown to me1. Two of these are to be adapted as accompanimen

is to be taught two accompaniments to go with cithara performances f
festivals (?); four more accompaniments and six more musical numbers whic
for solo rendition. Two of these are for the Phrygian flageolets which hav
mentioned as special instruments (P. Hibeh, 54).
This teaching contract for flageolet playing is filled with technical e
clearly needs a complete interpretation, on the basis of Schubart's readings,
trained scholar. If I am not greatly mistaken two of the compositions
(cpovtarTa) played on the longer, or left hand, reed of the double tibia, which
the Icpo0-vt or accompaniment2. The period of training in this contract seem
more than six months8 which would imply that the slave had already some m
rudiments of the instrument before entering upon his technical training4.
calls for a testing of the musical candidate by three persons of technical prof
to be selected by agreement between the two parties to the contract. Econo
sidered the contract shows that teaching the Pova-tirc Te'XV was another sou
for accomplished performers. The remuneration received by the master flag
instance amounts to 100 drachmas5. In view of this contract and the numero
contracts in the banausic crafts6 it is scarcely doubtful that the dancing pr
recruited by similar business-like methods.
No more contracts with professional entertainers appear among the publ
after the end of the third century. Even the words aiV\1T'?, opX'rrTpta, icpo
the like, cease to appear in the later documents. These facts do not prove b
that dancing and musical entertainments ceased in Egypt with the developme
hedonistic attitude fostered by Christian ascetism. The fact of the non
entertainer contracts may be due entirely to the Tyche which rules papyri fin
that matter, no contract with an artist has so far appeared from the three ce
Ptolemaic rule in Egypt. Reich has shown how the stage-production of the m
in the fourth century, even in Jerusalem itself, despite the thunderings o
Fathers against the mime and its actors7. The same thing must have he
performances of the lesser artists such as Isidora and her companion of the ci
whose vocation it was to bring pleasure into the toilsome lives of the Egypti

1 Tepcir), 23, AIyvwrrlots rTpelraiL, 4.

2 L. 31, evapt'repofl Kpov4para f. See DAREMBERG-SAGLIO, s.v. tibia, v, 318, and cf. t
tibia sinistra in Varro, de re rust., I, 2, 15-16.
3 L. 6, 33.
4 Horace in the Ars Poetica, 414, says: qui Pythia cantat tibicen, didicit prius extimuitque magistrum.
5 L. 5, 32. 6 Article on Apprentice Contracts in Class. Phil., ix.
7 Der Mimus, 747 ff., 787 ff.

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