Τρισαυγούστιον et φραγέλλιον. Contrôle de qualité et mesurage du grain fiscal au IVe s. apr. J.-C. à la lumière de P.Mich. XX 800 et de l’inscription tardive du grenier d’Andriakè (Grégoire, Recueil 290)

Abstract

In P.Mich. XX 800 (354 AD), a contract for river transport, a κυβερνήτης declares under oath that he has received a cargo of taxable wheat, which he undertakes to deliver without damage to Alexandria. This contract is the only one to mention, by the term λιτρισμός, the act of weighing the wheat, and to indicate how much 1 sextarius of wheat weighed. The publishers, who consider this one of the weighing operations known to have been carried out in Alexandria, do not understand why it intervenes in the declaratory part of the oath, giving the impression that this λιτρισμός took place when the wheat was loaded in the chôra. Some papyri of the Imperial period in fact show that there was indeed a weighing at the time of the departure of a grain transport, and that a sample was taken then. This weighing which, according to P.Mich. 800, focused on 1 sextarius, aimed at controlling the quality of the wheat (wet, diseased or mixed wheat would not have had the standard weight). The λιτρισμός of a sextarius mentioned in the papyrus further suggests a new interpretation for the late-antique inscription from the horreum of Andriake (388–392 AD), which commemorates the installation in this granary of μέτρα καὶ σταθμά made on the model of standard measures sent for this purpose by the praefectus praetorio orientis. The names of some of these weights and measurements have given rise to various interpretations: besides μόδιοι (modii) and ξέσται (sextarii), two φραγέλλια σιδαρᾶ (sic) and three αὐγούστια
were made and are curiously associated with sextarii (ξ(έσται) χάλκεοι β ἔχοντες τρία αὐγούστια). To understand this, we must return to the actual reading on the stone, τρισαυγούστια, unduly corrected by the editors to read τρία αὐγούστια. These trisaugustea were official weights authenticated with the triple image of the emperor that would have to be combined with each of the two sextarii to allow the λιτρισμός to proceed (there are two sextarii, because these copies of standard measures were destined to go to two different places). As for the two φραγέλλια σιδαρᾶ, it is very tempting to associate them with the no less controversial regulae ferreae of the inscription of the navicularii from Arles, CIL III 14165 (198–202 AD). Rather than considering these as measurements of length intended for the verification of the height and diameter of the capacity measures, this article proposes a return to the interpretation proposed by Waltzing for the regulae ferreae: in his view, these were scrapers used to shave excess wheat off the top of the measure.