30 I: Eleanor Dickey (University of Reading), A Warsaw papyrus that changes the history of ancient lexicography?

Abstract

The Latin-Greek lexicon of ps-Philoxenus, a treasure-trove of learned and archaic vocabulary that is universally agreed to be by far the best work of ancient bilingual lexicography, has for centuries been thought to be a creation of the sixth century AD. All available evidence indicated that bilingual dictionaries of such scale and quality could not have existed in earlier centuries. But does a Warsaw papyrus datable to c. AD 200 contain a fragment of ps-Philoxenus’ lexicon? If so, how would that change our understanding of the history of ancient bilingual lexicography?