Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

628 21c. egypt
of consular rank (˛pa* tissa, femina consularis), either the wife or the sister
of Strategius II (who had apparently died), and her two sons – another
Apion (Apion III) and George, both with honorary consular rank. 70
George appears so far only once in the papyri; Praeiecta and Apion appear
in tandem in papyri of 590 and 591, the mother acting with and possibly
on behalf of her son, still a minor. 71 By 593, Apion is acting on his own and
Praeiecta has disappeared. 72 His marriage to Eusebia, daughter of a Roman
aristocratic family with friendly ties to the future pope Gregory the Great,
must already have taken place. 73
Apion III appears in documents of 593 and later as sole owner of the
family’s estates in Oxyrhynchus and as honorary consul. By 604/5 he had
attained the patriciate and continued to hold that dignity till (at least) mid
year 619. He was dead by the very beginning of 620, but his ‘glorious
household’ continued as an economic unit for another year or so, fading
from history early in the decade of the Persian conquest and occupation
(619–29). 74 Apion III had, among other children, a son, Strategius (III),
still a youth at the turn of the century, and no longer confused (as he once
was) with another Flavius Strategius, a contemporary of Apion III, who
was apparently from a collateral line of the family that was more active in
the Arsinoite and Herakleopolite nomes than in the Oxyrhynchite. This
older Strategius, first mentioned in a papyrus of 591, 75 and now commonly
referred to as ‘pseudo-Strategius III’, was himself an honorary
consul, and eventually a patrician. He is perhaps best known from documents
of the first decade of the seventh century that show him as pagarch
of the Arsinoite and Theodosiopolite pagarchy, as Apion II had been
before him. 76 A person of eminence, he is credited with having prevented
a schism between the Egyptian Monophysite and Syrian churches at an
Alexandrian synod in 616; 77 but like Apion III, pseudo-Strategius III and
his household disappear from history in the early years of the Persian
occupation.
It is clear from this summary that the Apion family had a long and distinguished
history, traceable for some six generations from the late fifth into
the early seventh century. If there are any trends to be perceived in all this,
70 P.Oxy. xviii 2196; PLRE iiib.1049 (Fl. Praeiecta 2). Praeiecta appears in most discussions (and
stemmata) as Strategius II’s wife; for arguments that she was his sister: CPR xiv,p.43 n. 1.
71 PLRE iiia.515 (Fl. Georgius 10); P.Oxy. xix 2243, xvi 1989–90, P.Erl. 67.
72 P.Oxy. xviii 2202, additional refs. in Gascou (1985) 70 n. 387, to which may be added numerous
new references in P.Oxy. lviii.
73 Cameron (1979) 225–7; Gascou (1985) 70; PLRE iiia.98–9 (Fl. Apion 4). Eusebia and her mother
figure often in Gregory’s epistles, but leave no imprint in the documentary papyri.
74 Details in P.Oxy. lviii 3939.4–5 n., 3959 intro. 75 P.Oxy. lviii 3935.
76 Gascou (1985) 70–1 and n. 392; CPR xiv,pp.41–8; PLRE iiib.1203–4 (Fl. Strategius 10).
77 Hardy (1931) 35–6, Gascou (1985) 70–1.
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