μὲν τοῦ βρ̣έ̣γ̣ματο̣ς διαίρεσιν μετὰ ψιλώσεως [τοῦ] ὀ̣σ̣τ̣έ̣ο̣υ καὶ κατὰ τῆς κορυφῆς τραύματα δύο μετὰ̣ ψιλώ̣σε̣ ω̣ ̣ς τοῦ ὀσ[τέ]ου καὶ κ̣ά̣[τ]ω̣θ̣εν τούτων τραύματα [ ̣ ̣ ̣ἐ]πὶ τοῦ δεξιοῦ μέρους τῆς κεφαλ̣ῆ̣ς ̣ καὶ κατὰ τοῦ ἀριστεροῦ κροτά[φου -5-6-] ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣οἰδήματος καὶ κατὰ τῶν̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ [̣ -ca. 2-] [τοῦ] ἀ̣ριστεροῦ ὠτί[ου οἴ]δημα μετὰ πελ̣ ̣ιώ̣ ̣μ̣α̣τος καὶ κατὰ τῆς δεξιᾶς ὠμο[πλάτης κα]ὶ ̣τοῦ ὤμου οἴδημα μετὰ πελιώματος [καὶ κ]ατὰ τῆς δεξιᾶς χει[ρὸ]ς κατὰ τοῦ μεγ̣ίσ̣ ̣το̣ υ̣ ̣ δακτύλων πλῆγμα μετʼ οἰ̣ δ̣ [̣ ήματο]ς ̣ καὶ κατὰ τοῦ βραχίονος τῆς δεξιᾶς χειρὸς οἴδημα μετ[ὰ] π̣ελιώματος καὶ κατὰ τοῦ ἀριστεροῦ μηροῦ τρῶ[σιν ̣ ̣ ̣]̣ [̣]̣ ω̣ ς καὶ τοῦ γονατίου ἄνωθεν τρῶσιν καὶ ἐ[̣ πὶ] το̣ ῦ̣ δεξιοῦ μη̣ρ̣οῦ τρώσεις δύο πέρας εἰς πέρας ̣ [κ]α̣ὶ ̣κ̣ατὰ [πάσης τῆς] ἀριστερᾶ̣ς ̣ π̣λ̣ευ̣ ρ̣ ᾶς τρῶσιν· ὅθεν προσφωνῶ. (ἔτους) ι [καὶ] η τ[ῶ]ν̣ κυρίων [̣]̣ ̣ ̣ἡμῶν Κωνσταντίνου καὶ Λ[ικινίο]υ̣ Σεβ̣ αστῶν, ἐπὶ ὑπατ[ε]ία̣ ς Καικ̣ιν̣ ̣ίο̣ υ̣ ̣ Σαβεί̣ [̣ νου] καὶ Οὐεττίου Ῥουφίνου τῶν λαμ̣π̣ρ̣ο̣τά̣ ̣τω̣ ̣ν̣ Μ̣ εχ̣ ̣[εὶρ κζ].
——
(hand 2) Α̣ὐρ̣ ή̣ ̣λ̣ιο̣ ̣ς ̣ [Σαρα]π̣ίων ἐπιδέδωκα π̣ρο̣ ̣σφ̣ ωνῶ̣ν̣ ὡς πρόκειται.
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(hand 1) To Valerius Ammonianus, also called Gerontius, logistes of Oxyrhynchos,
From Aurelius Sarapion son of Herodotos, public doctor from the glorious and most glorious city of the Oxyrhynchites. Yesterday, which was the 26th of Mecheir, on account of a petition submitted to you by Valerius Noundinarios I was sent … to go to the village of P—, and to observe and report on the condition (?) of the wounded man … the condition of the guard Moueis, and therefore I submit to you this report. When I arrived at the village I observed Moueis lying in bed, with a gash on his head stripped to bone, two wounds on the top of his head with stripping to bone, beneath these wounds … on the right side of his head; and on his right temple … swelling and on his … on his left ear a bruise with lividity, and on his right shoulder-blade a bruise with lividity, on his right hand on the largest finger a bruise with swelling, on his right wrist a bruise with lividity, on his left thigh a wound … above his groin a wound, on his left thigh two wounds from end to end, and all along his left side more wounds. I attest to this. Year 18 of our lords Constantinus and Licinius, Augusti, in the consulship of the mot glorious Caecinius Sabeinos and Vettius Rufinus, Mecheir 27. (hand 2) I Aurelius Sarapion have submitted this report as requested.66
When petitioners chose to complain about violence, they were asked to reflect not only on who they are as social beings, but similarly on who they are as physical beings. The experience of pain, mediated through language, draws attention to the body and its wounds. I will discuss this process at greater length in what follows, but for the present a few comments must suffice for outlining the ways in which the experience of violation contributes to subjectivity and self-perception. The overt reflection—and narration—of the experience of being a victim of violence provides a window into the world of differential vulnerabilities that I mentioned above, and as such is a valuable source for how individuals living in an ancient empire chose to describe and classify themselves. This does not, however, make these sources unproblematic. What we see in the narratives that petitioners create is both a set of normative claims about how they wish to be treated, and also a narration framed at the moment when they are forced to acknowledge publicly a disjunction between their wounded bodies and their normative claims—or, in another sense, between their ideally deserving social body and their actually mistreated physical body. At the moment of violation, in other words, we are seeing not unmediated subjectivities, but deeply and problematically affected ones, which reveal themselves through highly selective descriptions. These descriptions, however, cluster in interesting and important ways, and deserve to be treated systematically.
A final issue, however, relates to the mechanics of how personhood is structured by and reflected in this narrative process, but comes from there to a broader problem, one which is both linguistic and epistemological. Namely: as I suggested above, language (in this case, the language of petition, with its accompanying narrations and claims and its stilted and repetitive terminology) is a highly imperfect technology for communicating pain. It is therefore also an imperfect tool for communicating one’s self-understanding in the wake of violence.67 This is so for three reasons. Language is imprecise and capable of misunderstanding. Pain is largely a private emotion or sensation. Language that expresses pain—if people choose to express it at all—often feels limp and inadequate to its task.68 Finally, in the world of Roman Egypt, the language of pain that is found in petitions is delivered through a stilted, legalistic vocabulary, the product of a scribal culture that mediates or translates between the language of pain and the language of law. Though working through all the details of these problems would be beyond the scope of this chapter (and working through them in the detail necessary would require a deep and wide-ranging philosophical anthropology), let me make a suggestion: translation and fiction, like obligation, are powerful metaphors, and they work in multiple directions. What matters in the case of a petition is not some underlying truth or reality of what actually happened, nor simply the ability of the words in the petition to move a higher power to sympathy. What ultimately matters is what comes to be accepted as truth in a particular moment in a particular society. And this is precisely what is interesting about law. When people framed their narratives about wounded bodies and personal pain, they were setting administrative wheels in motion, and they and the people they accused would subsequently be responsible for details placed in their narrations. The reason why this worked was that by translating some version of their painful experiences into the proper legal categories, by writing them up in petitions that would be passed around to high officials, petitioners thereby made those feelings and experiences “true”—because, at least in some sense, the truth of law is capable of flattening out the truth of facts and experience.69 Traduttore, traditore, of course, and this is precisely the power of these narratives, and why people sought refuge in them in the wake of violence.
PART II
From the Language of Pain to the Language of Law
