ⲙⲛⲧϩⲣⲱⲙⲁⲓⲟⲥ: Reflections on the Forms of Use of the ‘Language of the Romans’ in Late Antique Egypt. Textual, Archaeological and Epigraphic Sources

After the renowned article of Robert Cavenaile, Le latin dans les milieux chrétiens d’Égypte (1987 ), the role of Latin in late antique Egypt has not ceased to be investigated from the most varied per-spectives, also due to the numerous new editions of texts, mainly literary, which have enriched the corpus of attestations or contributed to its better understanding. However, it is only recently, also thanks to the conference of which this volume is the direct result, that a systematic revision of the totality of available data has been attempted, through an effective dialogue between classicists and specialists of the Coptic tradition6. Despite such a fervour of studies, however, it is evident that de-fining the relationship of Latin with Greek and Egyptian – whether the latter is to be understood, in a first phase, as what remained of Demotic, or, later on, with Coptic, which progressively transformed from a literary, and in some way artificial, language into a spoken language – remains an ‘awkward question’, and certainly far from being completely resolved.The use – or rather of the uses – of Latin in Egypt between the 4th and 6th / 7th centuries is in fact an extremely complex phenom-enon since the use of the ‘language of the Romans’ encompasses both the role of the language of the elite – or of those who aspired to be assimilated to it – and that of the language of a minority. Thus it was a powerful and unavoidable tool for certain socio-political environments, but at the same time characterised by limited opportunities of use.