Una recente scoperta: la Storia dell’Episcopato di Alessandria (HEpA, CAe 5064)

Those who open today the most recent reference textbook on Roman Egypt (Roman Egypt: A History, edited by Roger S. Bagnall, published by New York University, with contributions by various authors), will find there “Box 2.11.1” devoted to “The Ethiopic History of the Episcopate of Alexandria.” When one considers that the boxes are a number in the volume, but not in the hundreds (56 to be exact), this already gives the measure of the general importance of this recently discovered historiographical text: general, that is, for the vast audience of those interested in Egypt of the Greco-Roman age in its entirety, that is, up to the threshold of the Arab-Islamic age. This presence is all the more remarkable in view of the extraordinary wealth of literary and documentary sources that Egypt has left us, certainly the best written documentation in the Mediterranean area in terms of quality and quantity.