The Maritime Loan in Eupolis' "Marikas" (P. Oxy.

2741)
Author(s): F. D. Harvey
Source: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 23 (1976), pp. 231-233
Published by: Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20181258
Accessed: 04-01-2021 11:04 UTC

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 THE MARITIME LOAN IN EUPOLIS1 "MARIKAS" (P.OXY. 2741)

P.Oxy. 2741 fr. 1 Bcol. ii 16-18:

tout' ?H8av<e>t?ei naC huh5<l>c [t?]v voutih?v a[

eirC t??> ir?pirTy p?peCi ]to?c t?kDouc o?

va ut t not*
Lemma
"You are borrowing this and stirring up the nautical ..." (or possibly a question: "Are

you ...?").
Lobel, in the editio princeps, writes (63): "the final a is awkward, but though it is
damaged I can see no other letter as likely, and a[ u is not irreconcilable with an
iambic tetrameter, which the noun wanting after t?v voutih?v would be apt to produce.

- t?v vauTLH?v a[: 'the shipping accounts'? toOc t?h[ouc and vauTinot suggest that
some matter of bottomry is in question. (t]? voutih?v, 'the fleet', was not written.)"
It would be unwise to print a restoration of the last word. Quite apart from the un

certainty of the final alpha, there are at least three possibilities besides Lobel's "shipping
accounts" :

(a) a trapa irpocSon?av line-ending of the type familiar in Aristophanes: huh?w might

suggest some liquid - e.g. "you are stirring up the nautical soup";
(b) t?v voutih?v might be a noun, "the nautical gentleman", and the line may have

ended with (e.g.) an adverb or adverbial phrase;

(c) although Lobel says the scribe did not write t? voutih?v, he might have intended
to. If so, t? vauTLH?v would surely be "the maritime loan" - the plural is more frequent
in this sense, but the singular is also found (see LSJ s.v.) - rather than Lobel's "fleet".
The verb enSavet?u, "lend out at interest", is not common, and Liddelland Scott
cite no instances earlier than ps.-Ar. Oec. 2. 1350 a 14 (c. 300 B.C.). For the middle
voice, in the sense "borrow", a single reference is given: an inscription from Patmos
3
(SIG 1068. 15) of the early second century B.C. Unless earlier examples have been

1) Oxyrhynchus Papyri xxxv (1968) no.2741, pp.55-73; text of these lines on p.60,
commentary p.63, photograph plate VII. The papyrus has also been edited by C.Austin,
Comicorum Graecorum Fragmenta in papyris reperta (Berlin and New York, 1973), no.95,
where these lines are numbered 96-8.

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232 F.D.Harvey

overlooked, this fragment of Eupolis is our first evidence for the use of the verb in Attic

as early as the fifth century, and constitutes our only literary example of the use of the
middle.

Commentary
"Mariners ... interest at twenty per cent." The missing verb is surely one meaning "to pay",
either in the generalising present tense or perhaps better in the imperfect, "Mariners used

to pay interest at twenty per cent". A glance at the more obvious texts shows that, of the

various verbs used in this sense with t?hoc, a?roSiSwpi is the most common (Aristoph.
Clouds 739, 755, 1286; Dem. 27.28; 30.9, 16; ps.-Dem. 34.26, 30; 53.20; 56.13, 37,
38 bis, 41, 43), but there is not enough space on the papyrus for aTre8C8ocav or airo

8i86aci: to judge from the photograph, only six or seven letters are missing. This leaves

us with a choice: Si8?act (Aristoph. Thesm. 843, ps.-Dem. 56.12), or e^pepov (9?pouci)
(Lys. fr. 1 Thalheim [ = fr. 38 Gernet-Bizos].2; Dem. 30.16, 22; Lycurg. 23) or
eT?Xouv (tcXouci) (ps.-Dem. 56.46). We cannot recover the exact word, but the sense
seems clear enough.
I have taken eirC t??> Tr?pirT^ p?pei as "at twenty per cent". Lobel's comment, how
ever, reads: "'in the fifth act'? I should have expected, in this sense, naTd t? tt. p?poc,

cf. [P.Oxy.] 2257 fr.l, 8, but M. Aur. Med. xi 1 has eirC ttovt?c p?pouc and the
dative would not be essentially different. On the other hand, Savet?ec8ai IttC with a

dative of the rate of interest or the security is regular usage." However, eirC t?J) ir?pirT^
pepe i cannot mean "in the fifth act (sc. of this play)11, since five-act structure was un
known to Old Comedy; and there is no room to restore "in the fifth act [of some other
2)
play]". This unhappy suggestion is better forgotten.
Furthermore, support for the translation "at twenty per cent" comes from the fact that

this was indeed a common rate for a maritime loan at Athens. At first sight, admittedly,
3)
our evidence for the rate of interest on such loans seems to fall into no clear pattern:

2) Lobel 's second suggestion only is printed by Austin ad loc. (p.99).

3) See G.M.Calhoun, "Risk in sea loans in ancient Athens", Journal of Economic and
Business History 2 (1930) 561-84; G.E.M. de Ste. Croix, "Ancient Greek and Roman
maritime loans", in Debits, Credits, Finance and Profits: essays in honour of W.T.Baxter,
ed. H.Edey and B.S.Yamey (London, 1974), 41-59 (41-52 for the fifth and fourth centuries).
The older discussion by G.BiMeter, Geschichte des Zinsfusses (Leipzig, 1898) 30-41 is
vitiated (a) by the use as evidence for maritime loans of two passages (Isaios fr. 20 Thal heim,

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 The Maritime Loan in Eupolis' "Marikas" (P.Oxy.2741) 233

clearly there were considerable fluctuations, depending on the length and danger of the

journey, the time of the year, the political situation, whether the voyage was single or
return, and so forth. There are three fourth-century references to the rate of interest on

actual loans: one at 30 ?/o (ps.-Dem. 34.23, a double journey in the 320s), one at
22 1/2 ?/o, to be raised to 30 o/o if the merchant sailed back during the storms of the
autumn equinox (ps.-Dem. 35.10, in the 340s or thereabouts), and one at 12 1/2 ?/o,
4)
on a trireme, not a merchant vessel (ps.-Dem. 50.17, 361 B.C.). Given such wide
divergencies, it might be thought that it would be impossible to speak of an average or

usual rate of interest; but fortunately we do have one general statement by Xenophon in
the Poroi (3.9, written during the 350s): uarep voutih?v, cxeS?v eir?TrepirTOv,
5)
"like a maritime loan, at almost 20 ?/o". There is no reason to question this figure,

and it ties in very neatly with the remark of the anonymous commentator of Eupolis.

It remains to point out that the Eupolis fragment gives us our earliest datable reference

to a Greek maritime loan. Previously, the earliest such loans known to us were those made
at an unknown date by one Diodotos, who was killed in battle in 409 (Lys. 32.6-7).
Eupolis' Marikas was produced in 421 (schol. Aristoph. Clouds 552); whether this is in fact
earlier than any of Diodotos' loans we have no means of telling, but it does give us our
first firm date. No more details about the loan or its relevance (if any) to the plot of the

play can be recovered, since the adjoining comments are on quite different matters; but

it is noteworthy that Eupolis, like Lysias, expected his audience to understand what seems
to have been no more than a passing reference to a maritime loan - in other words, the

maritime loan was already a familiar institution in 421.

Exeter F.D.Harvey

and Moirokles ap. Ar. Rhet. 3. 1411 a 16-18) which may not, and one which cannot
(Diphilos fr. 43 Kock lines 18-21 = Athen. 7. 292 b: lOor 12 o/o prof it,not interest!) refer
to such loans; and (b) by a misinterpretation of Xen. Poroi 3.9 (see n. 5 below).
4) Ps.-Dem. 34 is discussed by Calhoun 569, de Ste. Croix 49-50; ps.-Dem. 35 by
Calhoun 569-79, de Ste. Croix 44-6; ps.-Dem. 50 by Calhoun 575, de Ste. Croix 50-1.
5) Billeter (op.cit. 36-9) attempts to take irXe?ov rj eir?TpiTov in the following
clause, as well as cxe8?v eirtirepirTov, with uarep voutih?v; his arguments are not
convincing.
6) de Ste. Croix 43-4.
7) id. 44.

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