The origins of grammatical tables: a reconsideration of P.Louvre inv. E 7332

Modern Latin and Greek grammars and textbooks normally present inflectional paradigms in tables, with each form in a particular paradigm underneath the previous one; the paradigms are thus visually distinguished from narrative text, which is presented in the usual continuous lines, and the similarities and differences among the various forms are emphasized by their positioning. But it is generally believed that this is a medieval development, and that in antiquity paradigms were usually treated as part of the narrative text. A text often overlooked in this context is P.Louvre inv. E 7332, which was published by Karl Wessely well over a century ago (Wessely 1886: 218-21) but has since been largely forgotten. This fragment contains one of the earliest substantial examples of Latin grammatical paradigms laid out in the modern tabular fashion and thus offers important insight into the history of paradigm presentation. Its original publication is marred by a number of transcription errors, some of them major, and provides a largely unsupplemented text, so we offer here a complete re-edition as well as a discussion of the fragment’s significance.