Note 279 — Chapter VI · CHARACTERISTICS OF FISHERMEN IN GREECE AND ROME—POVERTY “THE BADGE OF ALL OUR TRIBE”—DEITIES OF FISHING
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They must, however, now according to the evidence of the Papyri be dated back some three centuries, i.e. from the usually accepted date of the sixth to about the third century a.d.
As regards some of the Romance writers, the Papyri are a revelation and compel apparently much revision of dates. Thus Chariton (whom “the critics place variously between the fifth and the ninth centuries a.d.”) is fixed by Pap., Fayum Towns, as before 150 a.d. Achilles Tatius, whose allotted span, owing to his imitation of Heliodorus (who hitherto has been dated about the end of the fourth century), was run “about the latter half of the fifth or beginning of the sixth century,” is now placed by Pap., Oxyrh., 1250, as living before 300, and thus Heliodorus is removed up to (c.) 250 a.d.