What Could Be Said about the Despotai of Greek Papyrus Adespota?

The adjective ἀδέσποτος could describe an anonymous text, story or letter, i.e. of which the author’s name is unknown (e.g. Plut., Dem., 5; Quaest. conv., 737b; Dio Chrys., Or., 12, 39). The word δεσπότης, from which it derives, refers to an elite authority, a master who possessed and exploited slaves. Just like a freed slave, an anonymous text may therefore be understood as “not having a master (anymore)”. The term adespoton is now used in the field of papyrology to designate archeologically discovered literary fragments (unica) –mostly from the Egyptian χώρα– whose authors (despotai) are unknown. Some of these papyri display, in their margins and between the lines, traces of what could be interpreted as the creative activity of textual composition: corrections affecting the content or style, written in the same hand as the text (crossing-out strokes, brackets, additions, variants...). Such corrections were identified as authorial amendments. This has therefore led to the identification of some papyri as autographs, i.e. drafts of texts in the process of being composed by the author’s own hand, or as idiographs, i.e. drafts corrected by a scribe according to the author’s direct will. Although autography seems to be strongly encouraged by some ancient authors (e.g., Quintilian, Inst., X, 3, 19-22; 31-33), an important question remains when studying these documents: is the modern scholar –used to narratives of solitary genius-like authorship– inclined to try uncovering an author at all costs or do papyri provide genuine material evidence of textual authorship, far away from Rome or Athens, in Graeco-Roman Egypt? This answer lies in nuance: rather than a definite yes-or-no answer, a scale of probability analysing the case of different papyri individually would do it better justice. Through the study of some “autograph” papyri, whether discourses, poems or school exercises, this paper attempts at grasping some inklings of a potential authorial figure (despotes), while questioning this very notion.