gr. προσφώνησις ἰατροῦ

The medical report (προσφώνησις ἰατροῦ) is a Roman documentary text typology consisting of the official account by which a physician declared to have performed an examination or an autopsy after a petition from a private individual and a subsequent request of the authority in charge, to whom he forwarded a written declaration of the results. It is a clearly documentary genre, where purely medical content – featuring terms and concepts that are comparable with other medical writings such as recipes, handbooks, and treatises – joins the administrative praxis, of which it mirrors evolutions, transformations, and even the technical vocabulary[1].

The entire procedure is essentially administrative (see below), as is the language employed. The vocabulary used to describe the administrative stages of the medical inspections is of the same bureaucratic technicality as in other similar, non-medical documents: the commitment of the charge is expressed by the verbs ἐπιστέλλω, ἐπιτάσσω, ἐπιτρέπομαι[1]; the presence of the official  representative of the authority (hyperetes, see below) is often introduce by the typical processual clause ἐπὶ πάροντι[2]; the visit itself is referred to with forms of the verbs ἐπιθεωρέω, ἐπισκέπτομαι, ἐφοράω, ἐπιδεῖν “to look, watch, examine”, which bore a medical technical meaning[3] but were also widely used in administrative contexts with the broader sense of “to inspect officially”[4]. The petition is called βιβλίδιον as usual until the end of the 3rd century[5]; the report itself is no more than a προσφώνησις, an “official declaration”, to which is appended the specification ἰατροῦ. The concluding verbs are the standard ἀναφέρω, ἐπιδίδωμι, or the derived προσφωνῶ[6]. It is interesting to note that even the recurring term indicating the “health conditions” of the visited subject, διάθησις, though bearing a technical meaning in the medical texts[7], is the same used, more generally speaking, in the administrative documents, to refer to the “conditions” of anything, even of a corpse (σῶμα νεκρόν), or of the illicit cut of two acanthus plants in an imperial vineyard, in a petition from 270-275 AD (Chr.W. 177) the conclusion of which, if it had survived without the foregoing text, would probably have encouraged the editors to label it as a request for a medical inspection.

It is clear that the key figure of the procedure was the official representative (see below), who indeed sometimes wrote down the report instead of or together with the doctor (R12, R23=R24), while the physician played the role or a mere “consultant”, a specialist asked for his professional advice[8]. This explains the technical administrative language employed, and is particularly apparent if we compare the medical reports with other types of expertise, issued by specialists of different fields[9]. It is striking, for example, the “archive” of official reports addressed to Valerius Ammonianus alias Gerontius, logistes of the Oxyrhynchites at the beginning of the 4th century AD (P.Oxy. LXIV 4441 + VI 896). It is a huge tomos synkollesimos (secondary roll made up of several documents glued together for safekeeping) in which medical reports are flanked by declarations of artisans asked for their professional advice in particular situations, mostly inspections of buildings (see also P.Oxy. I 53; XLIV 3195; XLV 3245; PSI V 456)[10]. The hyperetes is missing from such documents just as from the medical reports (see below), but see P.Cair.Isid. 124, where a hyperetes reports to the strategos the results of an inspection in a courtyard destroyed by a fire, endorsing its fraudolent character by means of the very same bureaucratic vocabulary as used in the medical reports[11].

As a consultant, the inspecting physician had just to visit the patient and to attest his conditions by means of an accurate description of his injuries, which follows the usual medical technical vocabulary. This has been thoroughly analysed by M. Manfredi, who pointed out its high degree of specialization, attesting to the physicians' professional qualification[12] that in turn highlights their role of expert consultants, whose intervention was skilled but limited to a general overview (the verbs used are εὓρον, ἔγνων, εἴδαμεν[13]). Only in one case (R2) is recorded a therapeutic intervention; in all the other instances we find just a detailed report of nature, typology and place of the injuries. Less detailed are the reports of death: the man in R6 is just said to be hanging from a slip-knot, and the irenarch in R30 is just said to have been died of a severe illness, lacking any traces of injuries or blows.

Linguistic evidence proves therefore essential in concluding that what is now, for us, a documentary genre pertaining to the corpus of the medical papyri because of its contents, in the ancient times was just a sub-category of administrative report, with very few differences from other types of reports of inspections, excepted the medical vocabulary used to write down the autopsy.

1. P.Oxy. LVIII 3926 (This, 246 AD): petition requesting a medical inspection followed by the order of the strategos to the hyperetes

Ἰουλίῳ Ἀμμωνί̣ῳ̣ τῷ καὶ Εὐαγγέλ̣ῳ̣ | στρατηγῷ Θινίτο̣υ̣. |
παρὰ Αὐρηλίας Σενπα̣τοῦ̣τος Πανούρι|ος Τιτοῆτος ἀπὸ Θινός. περὶ ἑσπέ|ραντ̣ῆ̣ς̣ διελθούσης̣ ἡμέρας πλῆθος | κακούργων ἐπῆλθε̣ν τῇ οἰκίᾳ μου | ἐν κώμῃ Θινὶ καὶ ἔπληξαν | τὸν ἄνδρα μου Τιτοῆν Κορτᾶτος | σκυτέα κατὰ τοῦ ἀριστεροῦ ὤμου | [κ]α̣ὶ̣ τῆς ἀριστερᾶς χειρὸς ξίφεσι | καὶ τὸν υἱόν μου Ψεκῆν καὶ | ἔπληξαν κατὰ τῆς κεφαλῆς καὶ | ὅ̣σ̣α εὗρον ἐπὶ τῆς οἰκίας ἐβά|σταξαν, κατασχίσαντες πάσας | τὰς θύρας. ἀγνοηθέντων οὖν | μοι τῶν κακούργων ἐπιδί|δωμι τάδε τὰ βιβλίδια ἀξιοῦσα | ἀ̣ποτάξαι σε ὑπη̣ρ̣έτην τὸν ἐπο|ψόμενον τὴν̣ π̣ερὶ αὐτοὺς | διάθεσιν πρὸς τὸ δύνασθαι αὐ|τοὺς τῆς δεούσης θεραπείας | τυχεῖν. vac. | (ἔτους) γ Αὐτοκράτορος Καίσαρος Μάρκο\υ/ | Ἰουλίου Φιλίππου Εὐσεβοῦς |25 Εὐτυχοῦς καὶ Μάρκου Ἰουλίου | Φιλίππου γενναιοτάτου | καὶ ἐπιφανεστάτου Καίσαρος | Σεβαστῶν, Μεχεὶρ ιε̣. |
(m2) Αὐρηλ(ία) Σε̣νπατοῦ̣ς Πανοῦρ | Τιτοῆτος ἐπιδ̣έδωκα. | ἔγραψα ὑπ(ὲρ αὐτῆς) Αὐρήλ(ιος) Σ̣ωτὴρ | Σωτῆρος μὴ ⟨ε⟩ἰδυία̣ς | γράμμ̣ατα. | vac.
(m3) ἐπεστάλη Σαρ̣α̣πίων ὑ(πηρέτης). | ἴ̣σ̣ον βιβλιδίου Σενπατοῦτος ἐπι|σ̣τ̣έλλαιτ̣αί (l. -λεταί) σοι ὅ̣π̣ως σ̣υνπαραλαβὼ\ν/ | δ̣η̣μόσιον
ἰατρὸν καὶ ἐπιδὼν | τ̣ὴ̣ν περὶ τὸν ἄνδρα αὐτῆς | καὶ τὸν υἱὸν διάθεσιν ἐνγρά̣|φ̣ως προσ̣φωνήσῃς. | [(ἔτους) γ] Με̣χ[εὶ]ρ̣ ιε.

To Iulius Ammonius alias Euangelus, strategos of the Thinites, from Aurelia Senpatus daughter of Panuris son of Titoes, from This.  Yesterday evening a gang of criminals attacked my house in the village of This and injured my husband Titoes son of Kortas, cobbler, on his left shoulder and on his left hand with swords, they injured also my son Psekes on his head, and stole all of what they found in the house, after having broken down all the doors. Therefore, because these criminals are unknown to me, I send you this petition requesting that you order to your collaborator to inspect their conditions, so that they can receive the due treatments. Third year of Emperor Caesar Marcus Iulius Philippus Pius Felix and of Marcus Iulius Philippus, most worth and noble Caesar, Augusti, 15 Mecheir.
Aurelia Senpatus daughter of Panuris son of Titoes delivered. Being illiterate, Aurelius Soter son of Soter wrote on her behalf.
The order has been given to the collaborator Sarapion. A copy of Senpatus' petition has been sent to you so that you bring a public doctor with you, examine the conditions of his husband and his son, and present a written report. Third year, 15 Mecheir.

2. P.Oxy. III 475 (Oxyrhynchus, 128 AD): petition requesting a medical inspection preceded by the order of the strategos to the hyperetes

Ἱέραξ στρατηγὸς Ὀξυρυγχείτου Κλαυ|δίῳ Σερήνῳ ὑπηρέτῃ.
τῶν δοθέν|των μοι βιβλιδί[ω]ν ὑ[π]ὸ Λεωνίδου | το[ῦ] κ(αὶ) Σερήνου τὸ ἴσον ἐ̣π̣ε̣στέλλεταί (l. ἐπι-) σοι, | ὅπως παραλαβὼ̣ν̣ δημόσιον ἰατρὸν | ἐπ[ι]θεωρήσῃς τὸ (corr. ex τὸν) δηλούμενον νε|κρὸν σῶμα καὶ παραδοὺς εἰς κηδεί|αν ἐνγράφω̣ς ἀποφάσεις προσφω|νήσητε. (m2) σεσ[η]μ(είωμαι). | (m1) (ἔτους) κγ [Μ]άρκου Αὐρηλίου Κομμόδου | Ἀντωνίνου Καίσαρος τοῦ κυρίου | Ἁθὺρ ζ. |
(m3) Ἱέρακι στρα(τηγῷ) | παρὰ Λεωνίδου τοῦ καὶ [Σερήνου χ]ρη|ματίζοντος μητρὸς Ταύριο[ς] ἀπὸ Σε|νέπτα. ὀψ[ί]ας τῆς διελθούσ[ης] ἑκ⟨τ⟩ης | ἑορτῆς οὔσης ἐν τῇ Σενέ[πτα καὶ κρο]|ταλιστρίδων λειτουργου[σῶν κατὰ τὸ] | ἔθος πρὸς οἰκίᾳ Πλουτίωνος τοῦ [γαμ]|βροῦ
μου ̣ ̣ ̣[ ̣] ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣τοδήμου | Ἐπαφρόδειτος δοῦλος αὐτοῦ ὡς | (ἐτῶν) η βουληθεὶς ἀπὸ τοῦ δώματος | τῆς αὐτῆς οἰκίας παρακύψαι καὶ | θεάσασθαι τὰς [κρο]ταλιστρίδας | ἔπεσεν καὶ ἐτελε[ύ]τησεν. οὗ χά|ριν ἐπιδιδοὺς τὸ βιβλ{ε}ίδιον [ἀξ]ιῶ | ἐὰν δόξῃ σοι ἀποτάξαι ἕνα τῶν περὶ | σὲ ὑπηρετῶν εἰς τὴν Σενέπτα | ὅπως τὸ τοῦ Ἐπαφροδείτου σῶμα | τύχῃ τῆς δεούσης περιστολ[ῆς] καὶ | καταθέσεως.
(ἔτους) κγ Αὐτοκράτορος | Καίσαρος Μάρκου Αὐρηλίου Κομμόδου Ἀντωνίνου | Σεβαστοῦ Ἀρμενιακοῦ Μηδικοῦ Παρθικοῦ | Σαρματικοῦ Γερμανικοῦ Μεγίστου Ἁθὺρ ζ. |
----
Λεωνίδης ὁ καὶ Σερῆνος ἐπι[δ]έδωκα.

Hierax, strategos of the Oxyrhynchites, to his collaborator Claudius Serenus. Of the petition presented to me by Leonidas alias Serenus, a copy is sent to you so that you bring a public physician with you and examine the corpse in question, and after giving the permission to bury it, present a written report. (m2) I signed. (m1) Year 23 of Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Caesar our lord, 7 Hathyr.
(m3) To Hierax, strategos, from Leonidas alias Serenus, inscribed in the archives as having Tauris as his mother, from Senepta. Yesterday evening, the day 6, when the feast at Senepta was taking place, while some castanet players were performing, as usual, at Ploution's house, who is a relative of mine, Epaphrodius, a slave of his, aged 8, after hanging out of the terrace of that house with the intention of watching the performance of the castanet players, fell down and died. Therefore I deliver this petition and ask you, if you agree, to charge a collaborator of yours to go to Senepta so that Epaphroditos' corpse can receive the due treatment and burial. Year 23 of Emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus Armenicus Medicus Parthicus Sarmaticus Germanicus Maximus, 7 Hathyr.
Leonidas alias Serenus delivered.

3. P.Oxy. XVII 2111, ii, 32-3 (unknown provenance, c. 135 AD): judicial proceedings for the strangulation of a woman.

ὑπη]|ρ̣έ̣τ̣η̣ν̣ καὶ ἰατρὸν επ̣[

...the collaborator and the physician...

4. P.Oxy. XII 1502r, i, 1 (Oxyrhynchus, c. 260/1 AD): judicial proceedings for an assault

]μ̣ονος δημόσιος ἰατρὸς προσεφώνησα.

...monos, public physician, reported.

1. The text typology: name, occurrences, evidence.

The full name of this documentary typology, προσφώνησις ἰατροῦ, appears only in P2 (ll. 27-8), a petition recounting the different stages of the administrative procedure. Elsewhere it is called just προσφώνησις “report” (P6, l. 11; P11, l. 12; P13, l. 17) or referred to with forms of the verb προσφωνῶ (in several petitions as in most of the reports themselves).

Up to now, the known medical reports come down to us amount to 30 items: four have been very recently published in the latest volume of the Oxyrhynchus papyri[1]. They date from the end of the 1st to the end of the 4th century AD, with a slight predominance of the latest instances and of the Oxyrhynchite provenance. It is therefore clearly a Roman practice, and it might well reflect the application of Roman law concerning legal medical practice in the Egyptian province[2]. There are duplicates of the same documents (R23=R24 and R28=R29) according to a bureaucratic procedure that is further reflected in the heading of R4 (ἀντίγραφον προσφωνήσεως “copy of the report”): the creation of multiple copies for the official archives and maybe for the private individuals as receipts[3]. Information about the process of inspection is provided also by 14 petitions requesting an official examination: such complementary documents are attested up to the early 6th century.

A useful overview of the studies, as well as of the main features of this corpus of documents, has been recently provided by HENNIG 2014.

2. Administrative framework and medical practice.

The administrative pathway of a medical report[4] [B1-2] started with a petition[5] sent by an individual to a public officer with the purpose of reporting a violent fact (usually criminal, but sometimes also accidental, or even just suspicious) and explicitly requesting the dispatch of a functionary to check the conditions of the injured. The petitioner could be either a private individual or a person charged with a public office (including police officers like an eirenophylax, a pediophylax and a riparius), and he could request the public intervention either for himself or for different persons, usually workers or relatives of his.

Until the end of the 3rd century AD, the authority in charge was the strategos of the nomos. Diocletian's municipal reform decreased the strategos' powers to the sole tax exaction, under the title of exactor[6], and put the nomoi under the authority of the logistes or curator civitatis[7], flanked by the syndikos / ekdikos or defensor civitatis[8] and by the prytanis[9]. This transformation clearly affects our documents, in that the addressee shifts to the logistes, the prytanis, the syndikos, the ekdikos, as well as some police officers such as nyktostrategoi and riparii[10]. This important change seems not to take place at the same time everywhere: in the Arsinoites and in the Hermopolites petitions and reports are addressed to the strategos still during the first quarter of the 4th cent. AD, while in the Herakleopolites and above all in the Oxyrhynchites the replacement takes place earlier[11].

The official delegate charged of the inspection is usually called hyperetes, “collaborator” of the competent authority[12]. At least until the beginning of the 4th century AD he is charged by the strategos (later by the logistes[13]) of recruiting a physician as a specialist consultant and of performing the examination along with him. It is important to stress that the key figure of the entire procedure is the hyperetes himself (see above): his presence, apparently essential to grant the necessary official flavour of the process[14], is explicitly requested in the petitions and mentioned in the reports, while the reference to the physician is often omitted[15]. The complete disappearance of the hyperetes from the Oxyrhynchite reports during almost all the 4th century AD is noteworthy, but likely due to a change in the formulary rather than to administrative changes, because it is not paralleled in other nomoi[16]. Indeed in the 5th/6th-century Oxyrhynchite petitions a public functionary is mentioned again, now the boethos (“collaborator”) or the demosios taboularios (“public notary”[17]). At the same time, in the reports it is added a starting clause containing the details of the original petition: this likely shows that the bureaucratic focus moved from the executing authority to the actual request for intervention, but does not imply the disappearance of the functionary from the actual medical inspection.

The specialist who actually performs the inspections and writes down the final report is called, from the Sixties of the 2nd century onwards, demosios iatros, “public physician”[18]. This profession was likely established after Antoninus Pius’ decree limiting the number of doctors exempted from the liturgies (compulsory public services), by introducing a procedure of selection (dokimasia), which is perhaps reflected by the formulary of the Hermopolite reports, in which the public physician is presented as “of those who are included in the fixed number of the selected of the city”[19]. Earlier, the official inspections were performed juts by a “doctor” (iatros, echon iatrieion) and occasionally by other experts like entaphiastai (mummifiers: R5[20]) or maiai (midwives: P10, P.Gen. II 103[21]). Sometimes the public doctors involved in the inspection were more than one[22], but it seems to depend on temporary circumstances rather than on an established praxis[23].

Not always the place of the examination is recorded. In most cases it was the patient's house, which seems to be the usual practice. Only in the said case of the hanged, the inspection takes place in someone else's house: it is likely where the tragedy happened, though nothing explicit is told by the report. More puzzling is the mention of the logisterion (the office of public accounting[24]) as the set of medical inspections. In R21 we do not find any apparent reason why Aurelius Paesis son of Senenophis, a private individual exhibiting blows and injuries on the left side of his body, had to be examined ἐπὶ γραβάτου ἐν τᾠ δημοσίῳ λογιστηρίῳ (“on a table of the public logisterion”). The report is addressed to the logistes, whose name is indeed etymologically connected to that office, but other documents addressed to the same official describe inspections in private houses, so the connection must be purely accidental. We know that the logisterion could have acted as a place of lawsuits[25] and, above all, it included a prison, intended (just as the one attached to the praktoreion, the office of the tax exactors) for the culprits of tax crimes[26]. The case described in P.Oxy. XLIII 3104 (not actually a medical report, nor a true petition) is therefore meaningful. The keepers of the logisterion of Oxyrhynchus[27] communicate the death of a tax farmer that was brought to them, being already ill, by a desmophylax (jailer)[28]. The likely background is that the tax farmer had been arrested for the usual irregularities in the exactions, temporarily imprisoned in a desmoterion (prison for private crimes) and thence transferred - already ill - to the logisterion (not necessarily while waiting for the process, as suggested in the introduction of the ed.pr.)[29]. When requested in such cases, the medical inspection likely had to be carried out in the place of detainment of the subject, and that must be the case for R21.

Timing is usually quite fast, as we would expect for health reasons: from the few extant references we know that the inspection was performed the very same day in which it was ordered by the authority, or the following one - that is just two days after the petition was issued. This could have been set according to the seriousness of the injuries[30].

3. Purposes of the official medical inspections.

Most of the examinations relate to injuries (or death) caused by criminal assaults[31]. It is however puzzling that, out of many petitions dealing with wounds as a consequence of violent robberies or assaults (e.g. 124 contain the key-word πληγαί), only 14 issue the request for an official examination of the injured (about 40 instances if we add the data from the reports, which actually imply the same amount of petitions), and one may wonder why. According to H. Heinen, “in erster Linie dürfte die obligatorische amtsärztliche Untersuchung gewaltsamer oder verdächtiger Todesfälle Teil eines Maßnahmenkataloges gewesen sein, dessen Ziel in der Aufrechterhaltung von geordneten Verhältnissen in der Provinz sowie in der Klärung von Gewalttaten bestand”[32], but this was the more general purpose of all the petitions[33]. If we recall that “a petition could be a way of forcing another party to negotiate seriously for a settlement, or could raise the implicit threat of litigation to force another party’s compliance to a settlement reached through negotiation, mediation, or arbitration”[34], we may infer that the medical inspection of the injured's conditions was requested only when the “case” was meant to be discussed in a tribunal, and therefore evidence of the crime was needed (μαρτυ|ρ{ε}ίας καὶ ἀσφαλείας in the words of the petitioner of P9, ll. 16-7; cf. μαρτυροποίημα ibid., ll. 8-9). See also P8, ll. 6-9, where it is said that the report will be kept at the official archive until the court decision, as well as P2 and P10, where from the general context it is clear that the results of the inspection should be used as evidence in a legal dispute[35]. Scarce and fragmentary, but not absent, are the references to medical inspections in the extant court proceedings (P.Oxy. XVII 2111 and XII 1502 [B3-4])[36].

The said judicial outcome was clearly not envisaged for the inspections performed in case of accidents or illnesses. Accidental falls are the causes of the injuries described in R20 and of the deaths reported in P3 and P4; an illness is the reason for the absence of the workers examined in R18 and in SPP I 3 (which is likely to be a private document[37]) and for the death of the irenarch inspected in R30. Scholars have advanced different explanations for these particular circumstances. Lately, A. Ricciardetto has recalled P. Charlier's distinction between violent death (accidental, criminal, or due to suicide) and natural death[38], but this does not fit the more general context of the medical inspections, which deal also with non-lethal wounds and diseases. On the other hand, the possibility suggested by D. Hennig, that in such cases the person who requested the inspection wanted to accuse someone of the fact[39], looks weak in that medical examinations clearly did not aim at ascertaining the causes of what the doctor described[40] (no “crime scene investigation” took place[41]). Even in R30, where the doctor declares not to have found signs of violence on the irenarch's body, stating that he died of a violent illness, he is just reporting the actual conditions of the corpse. And in R18, where it is apparent that the purpose of the examination is to certify that the sick is really unable to go to work, again the report is restricted to the pure attestation of the fever status.

Furthermore, it must be stressed that, when explicit, the purpose for which the medical inspection was requested is the possibility to proceed with the due medical treatments, or - in case of death - with the burial. This looks odd, since it introduces a completely private dimension in an otherwise public plea. U. Wilcken's statement that “in einem solchen Fall [...] ohne Gutachten des Arztes die Leiche zur Bestattung nicht freigegeben [wurde]”[42] is a description rather than an explanation, and still does not consider the cases other than death. The easiest explanation is that it was necessary to complete the official examinations before proceeding with any operation that could alter the person’s conditions: medical treatments and burial, therefore, are not the immediate purpose of the petition, but rather a collateral, though urgent need[43]. In fact, the unity of purpose of the documents belonging to this particular corpus is given by the comparison with the other reports of official expertise. If we cease focusing on the specific content and look at them as official reports, we can easily draw the conclusion that they served as a general legal certification (hence the pivotal role of the hyperetes) of bad health conditions or death, regardless of any further employment.

D.W. Amundsen, G.B. Ferngren (1978), The Forensic Role of Physicians in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, “Bulletin of the History of Medicine”52, 336-53.

I. Andorlini, A. Marcone (2004), Medicina, medico e società nel mondo antico, Firenze.

R.S. Bagnall (1989), Official and Private Violence in Roman Egypt, BASP 26, 201-16.

R.S. Bagnall (1993), Egypt in Late Antiquity, Princeton (NJ).

B. Baldwin (1963), Crime and Criminals in Graeco-Roman Egypt, “Aegyptus”43, 256-63.

K.-H. Below (1953), Der Arzt im römischen Recht, München.

E. Boswinkel (1956), La médecine et les médecins dans les papyrus grecs, "Eos"48.1 (Symbolae Raphaeli Taubenschlag dedicatae), 181-90.

A.K. Bowman (1971), The Town Councils of Roman Egypt, Toronto.

A.K. Bowman (1974), Some Aspects of the Reform of Diocletian in Egypt, in Akten des XIII. Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses (Marburg/Lahn, 2.-6. August 1971), herausgegeben vonE. Kiessling und H.-A. Rupprecht, München, 43-51.

A.Z. Bryen (2008), Visibility and Violence in Petitions from Roman Egypt, GRBS 48, 181-200.

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H. Heinen (2006), Amtsärztliche Untersuchung eines toten Sklaven. Überlegungen zu P.Oxy. III 475, in Medicina e società nel mondo antico. Atti del convegno di Udine (4-5 ottobre 2005), a cura di A. Marcone, Firenze, 194-202.

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M. Hirt (2014), Medical Reports, in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Volume LXXX, edited by M. Hirt, D. Leith and W.B. Henry, London, 159-65.

M. Hirt Raj (2006), Médecins et malades de l’Égypte romaine, Leiden-Boston.

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A. Kolbe (2001), Tabellarius, in Der neue Pauly. Enzyklopädie der Antike, herausgegeben von H. Canck und H. Schneider, Stuttgart-Weimar, XI, 1190-1.

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J. Lallemand (1964), L’administration civile de l'Égypte de l'avènement de Dioclétien à la création du diocèse (284-382). Contribution à l'étude des rapports entre l'Égypte et l'Empire à la fin du IIIe et au IVe siècle, Bruxelles.

N. Lewis (1965), Exemption of Physicians from Liturgy, BASP 2, 87-92.

M. Manfredi (2004), Qualche osservazione sui referti medici nei papiri, in Testi medici su papiro. Atti del Seminario di studio (Firenze, 3-4 giugno 2002), a cura di I. Andorlini, Firenze, 153-70.

V. Mannino (1984), Ricerche sul “defensor civitatis”, Milano.

H.J. Mason, Greek Terms for Roman Institutions. A Lexicon and Analysis, Toronto.

P. Mertens (1958), Les Services de l’État Civil et le Contrôle de la Population à Oxyrhynchus au IIIe siècle de notre ère, Bruxelles.

F. Mitthof (2007), Forensische Medizin im römischen Ägypten, in Zwischen Magie und Wissenschaft. Ärzte und Heilkunst in den Papyri aus Ägypten, herausgegeben vonH. Froschauer und C. Römer, Wien, 55-63.

O. Nanetti (1941), Ricerche sui medici e sulla medicina nei papiri, “Aegyptus”21, 301-4.

B.R. Rees (1952), The Defensor Civitatis in Egypt, JJP 6, 73-102.

B.R. Rees (1954), The Curator Civitatis in Egypt, JJP 7-8, 83-105.

N. Reggiani (2012), Carcere e carcerieri nell’Egitto tolemaico. Note storiche e papirologiche, REA 114, 367-86.

N. Reggiani (2015), Ispezionare cadaveri: mummificatori, medici e anatomisti nell’Egitto greco-romano (a proposito di P.Oxy. III 476),  MBAH 33, 75-86.

N. Reggiani (forthcoming), I papiri greci di medicina come fonti storiche: il caso dei rapporti dei medici pubblici nell’Egitto greco-romano, in Proceedings of the International Conference “Retour aux Sources: les Anciens des Antiques, les Antiques des Modernes” (Besançon 26-28.09.2013).

A. Ricciardetto (2013), ‘Inspecter un corps mort’: contribution des rapports médicaux sur papyrus (Ier-IVe siècles de notre ère) à l’histoire de la pratique médico-légale antique, in 4^e Colloque International de Pathographie (Saint Jean de Cole, mai 2011), actes publiés sous la direction de P. Charlier et D. Gourevitch, Paris, 101-15.

P. Roesch (1982), Medecins publics dans l’Egypte impériale, in Médecins et Médecine dans l’Antiquité (Centre Jean Palerne - Mémoires III), édité parG. Sabbah, Saint-Étienne, 119-28.

M. San Nicolò (1912), Strafrechtliches au den griechischen Papyri. Eine rechthistorische Skizze, „Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie und Kriminalistik“46, 118-45.

P.J. Sijpesteijn (1968), Angabe an einen Nyktostrategen, in Antidoron Martino David oblatum. Miscellanea Papyrologica, edited byP.J. Sijpesteijn, B.A. Van Groningen, P.W. Pestman, Leiden, 128-32.

I.A. Sparks (1971), A Report of Accidental Death, BASP 8, 7-10.

S. Strassi (1997), Le funzioni degli ὑπηρέται nell’Egitto greco e romano, Heidelberg.

K. Sudhoff (1909), Ärztliches aus griechischen Papyrus-Urkunden. Bausteine zu einer medizinischen Kulturgeschichte des Hellenismus, Leipzig.

R. Taubenschlag (1955), The Law of Graeco-Roman Egypt in the Light of the Papyri. 332 B.C. – 640 A.D., Warsaw² [1944¹].

R. Taubenschlag (1972), Das Strafrecht im Rechte der Papyri, Aalen [Leipzig 1916].

J.D. Thomas (1969), The Nyctostrategia in the Egyptian Metropoleis, CE 44, 347-52.

S. Torallas Tovar (2000), The Police in Byzantine Egypt: The Hierarchy in the Papyri from the Fourth to the Seventh Centuries, in Current Research in Egyptology, edited by A. McDonald and C. Riggs, Oxford, 115-23.

S. Torallas Tovar (2001), Los riparii en los papiros del Egipto tardoantiguo, “Aquila Legionis”1, 123-51.

S. Torallas Tovar (2004), La práctica forense en el Egipto romano, CFC(G) 14, 183-200.

U. Wilcken (1913), Papyrus-Urkunden, APF 5, 198-300.

H.C. Youtie (1978), Critical Trifles VI, ZPE 29, 293-4 [= Scriptiunculae Posteriores, I, Bonn 1981, 465-6].

G. Zalateo (1957), Un nuovo significato della parola δοκιμασία, “Aegyptus”37, 32-40.

A general bibliography (updated to 2011), edited by A. Ricciardetto, is available online at http://web.philo.ulg.ac.be/cedopal/petitions-et-rapports-medicaux-bibliographie/

1. MEDICAL REPORTS

2. PETITIONS REQUESTING A MEDICAL INSPECTION

* NOTE The petitions are exclusively those that explicitly contain the request to send a functionary to perform a medical inspection: thus they are further selected with respect to TORALLAS TOVAR 2004 and do not include the dubious cases such as P.Würzb. 8 = SB I 5280 (Antinoupolis, 158 AD), a petition to the nomarch with the request to send an hyperetes, the context of which is too fragmentary to allow a more precise definition; or such as P.Harr. I 133 (366 AD), a fragmentary petition where it is possible to read just a mention of οἱ δημόσιοι ἰατροί together with certain police officers known as spekoulatores.

Nicola Reggiani