Fragment of a Greek satyr-play on the history of wine, from a scroll, in Attic dialect of classical Greek, on papyrus

three fragments, 155mm. by 105mm., 155mm. by 45mm., and 60mm. by 10mm., with remains of a wide single column with 19 lines in a fine and clear Biblical hand, verso blank, slight rubbing to surface, else good condition, mounted in glass

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing where appropriate.
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This is the only known part of a lost Attic Satyr-play, perhaps by Aristophanes himself

From the collection of Anton Fackelmann (1916-85); his MS. 5; online as Mertens-Pack 1637.3 and LDAB 6772. From mummy cartonnage.

These fragments contain the only known surviving part of a lost Athenian drama on the history of wine and its affects on mankind. Kramer (Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 34 (1979), p.5) identified it as a lost work of the acclaimed comic playwright Aristophanes (c.446-386 BC).

Satyr-plays were a tragi-comic form of ancient Greek drama, similar to modern burlesque. They featured a chorus of satyrs, and included themes of drinking, overt sexuality (often including large phallic props), and satirical pranks making fun of well-known individuals. That here begins with a speech by a mythic figure, who claims to have taken 'wild mountain fruit' (grapes) in his youth, and later to have 'revealed the drink of Dionysos (wine) to mortals'. Then after a break the text moves on to discuss some of the consequences of the emergence of wine in human society, including the introduction of the komos (ritual dancing by women in honour of the god Dionysos). It concludes with a direct address to the Muses, bewailing the current state of political affairs, in contrast to the simple Golden Age of the past. It has been edited by Kramer; and in Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta II, 1981, 217-19; and most recently Krumeich, Pechstein, & Seidensticker, Das greichische Satyrspiel (1999), pp. 635-8.