La coraggiosa Egenanda

The article aims to outline the portrait of Egenanda, a woman bearing a name of East Germanic origin, who is probably an Ostrogoth attested in a Latin documentary papyrus hitherto unknown and recently edited, translated and commented by the Author of the article in collaboration with Teresa De Robertis and Stefano Zamponi. Dating to the sixth century AD and likely coming from Sicily, the fragment preserves part of a larger text that was organized in the form of a list reporting various kinds of documentary material. Given the presence of terms and phenomena hitherto not attested in the late antique West in any direct tradition, it constitutes a written testimony of extraordinary importance. The peculiarities involved in the mentions of Egenanda, starting from her name, and the extraordinary aspects of their context of transmission meet like in a reflecting mirror game.