Dioskorus

Flavius ​​Dioscorus (Greek Dioskoros ) was an Eastern Roman functionary, lawyer and poet of the 6th century .

Dioskoros can be considered a typical representative of the educated "upper middle class" during the late late antiquity . He was born in the Egyptian town of Aphrodito ; his father Apollos was a protokometes ( head of the village ) and later became a monk. Dioskorus enjoyed an excellent education (presumably in Alexandria ). At least since 543 he was active as a scholasticos ; the name "Flavius" at this time had the character of a title and indicates a position within the imperial empire administration. Perhaps - the papyri are not clear here - Dioskoros had the title of vir clarissimus and therefore belonged to the lowest rank of the senatorial class. Shortly after 547 he traveled to Constantinople , where he received an audience with Emperor Justinian . It was about the right that Aphroditopolis was allowed to pay taxes directly to the imperial treasury and not to large landowners; this was a right which the village had already acquired, but which the large landowners repeatedly challenged. In 565, shortly before Justinian's death, Dioskorus moved to Antinoopolis , where he tried to pursue a career as a lawyer and poet. In 573 he returned to his hometown to look after the family estate. He died soon after 585.

Basically, Dioskorus is an unremarkable figure. He gains importance through the historical coincidence that his private archive of papyrus documents has largely been preserved and was discovered in the early 20th century. It offers the ancient historian valuable insights into everyday life in the late Roman provinces and includes contracts, instructions, petitions, Dioskoros' own poems (in ancient Greek ), a Greek- Coptic glossary as well as private records. It is noteworthy, among other things, that Dioskoros also owned and knew works by a number of old and rather remote Greek authors.

literature

• Jean-Luc Fournet (Ed.): Les archives de Dioscore d'Aphrodité cent ans après leur découverte . Paris 2008.
• Leslie SB MacCoull: Dioscorus of Aphrodito. His Work and his World . Berkeley 1988; here online .
• John Martindale: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire III . Cambridge 1992, pp. 404-406.
• Clement A. Kuehn: The Beginnings of Christian Mystical Poetry and Dioscorus of Aphrodito . New York 1995.