James Humphreys (pornographer)

James William Humphreys (7 January 1930 – September 2003) was an English businessman and criminal who owned a chain of adult book shops and strip clubs in London in the 1960s and 1970s. He was able to run his business through the payment of large bribes to serving police officers, particularly those from the Obscene Publications Branch (OPB) of the Metropolitan Police. His diaries—which detailed meetings he had held with police officers, the venues of the meetings and the amounts of bribes paid—provided evidence for the investigation by anti-corruption officers of the Metropolitan Police.

Humphreys became involved in petty crime early in life, and was first arrested at the age of 15. The severity of his crimes increased over time and, in March 1958, he was sentenced to six years' imprisonment after using explosives to open a safe and steal £8,260 in money and postal orders. On his release he opened a strip club in Soho, the centre of London's sex industry. As Humphreys expanded his business and moved into other areas of the sex industry—sex shops and book shops selling obscene material—he had to bribe an increasing number of officers to be able to operate.

In January 1972 Humphreys and his wife, Rusty, took Ken Drury—the head of the Flying Squad—and his wife on holiday to Cyprus and Beirut. Journalists from The Sunday People found out about the trip, and published details on its front page, along with allegations about the bribery from Humphreys and other pornographers. Drury was suspended from duty, and soon afterwards the new Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Robert Mark, began an anti-corruption purge in the force. Humphreys was arrested for assaulting his wife's former lover and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment. In an attempt to have his conviction overturned or the sentence reduced, he gave a copy of his diaries to the anti-corruption police and was interviewed about the payments to the OPB. Thirteen members of the OPB were imprisoned for corruption.

Humphreys was released from prison early after assisting the police. He left the UK and set up an illegal amphetamine factory in Ireland, fleeing the country shortly before the premises were raided by the Gardaí. He travelled to the US and invested in a drugs-smuggling operation, but was cheated of his investment. In the 1990s he and his wife were living in London and were arrested for running at least three brothels in Marylebone and Marble Arch. He was sentenced to twelve months in prison; his wife was gaoled for eight months. The character Benny Barrett, played by Malcolm McDowell in the 1996 BBC television series Our Friends in the North, was based on Humphreys.

## Biography

### Early life; beginnings of criminal career

James William Humphreys was born in Bermondsey, South London, on 7 January 1930. He left school at age 14 and began a career of criminality; while still a teenager he became friends with Frankie Fraser, the London gangland enforcer. When he was 15 Humphreys was arrested for housebreaking and theft, and was fined £5. Seven months later he was sent to an approved school for stealing a car. He was released the following year, but was sent back in October 1947 for a series of offences. In 1948 Humphreys was sentenced to three years in Rochester Borstal for theft; he was released in February 1950. Nine months later he was sent to prison for a year for aiding and abetting other criminals, and released in June 1951.

In July 1951 Humphreys married June Driscoll. His crimes became more serious and the sentences increased as he got older. In 1952 he was arrested for handling stolen goods and resisted—assaulting the police in the process. That October he was sentenced at the Old Bailey to 21 months in Wormwood Scrubs; he was released in December 1953. After being arrested for loitering with intent to steal cars, he was given a conditional discharge of a year in November 1954. He broke the discharge the following July when he was caught stealing clothes. He was sent to prison for two years and three months and was released in February 1957. Soon afterwards he broke into a sub-post office and blew open a safe to steal £8,260 of money and postal orders; in March 1958 he was sentenced to six years' imprisonment. After serving four and a half years in Dartmoor Prison, he was released in October 1962.

### Strip club and sex shop owner

On his release from Dartmoor Humphreys changed direction professionally and opened a strip club in Old Compton Street, Soho, which was frequented by fellow criminals. Soho was the area of London that, with a proliferation of sex shops and sex workers, was the centre of the city's sexual economy. Humphreys rekindled a relationship with a former girlfriend, June Packard, who had renamed herself Rusty Gaynor: Rusty after the colour of her hair, Gaynor after the actress Mitzi Gaynor. She had previously worked as a barmaid and model, but was employed as a stripper by the time she and Humphreys resumed their relationship. The couple married in May 1963.

To keep the club free of harassment from the police, Humphreys had to pay protection money to Detective Sergeant Harold "Tanky" Challenor. When the demands for payments continued after Humphreys moved his club to nearby Macclesfield Street, he made a complaint to Scotland Yard; after a short investigation, Challenor was cleared. The club proved financially successful, so he and Rusty took a lease on 5 Walker's Court, Soho, and opened the Queen's Club, a strip bar opposite the Raymond Revuebar. For those who could not get into the Revuebar, Queen's was the alternative, and the club flourished. Rusty performed in three acts per day. The proceeds of the club enabled Humphreys to buy a 14-bedroom farmhouse in Newenden, Kent, a flat in Dean Street, near the club, a holiday apartment in Ibiza and a Rolls-Royce. The Queen's Club later moved to the junction of Berwick Street and D'Arblay Street, where it became more popular than in its previous location; Humphreys retained the property in Walker's Court as an office.

One of the other outlets on Walker's Court was an adult shop run by Bernie Silver, an established pornographer and racketeer. In the early 1960s, while it was legal to sell softcore pornography, selling more explicit work was illegal. There was no licence needed from the police or local authority. Although there had only been five sex shops in Soho in 1955, that number grew markedly during the 1960s. The professor of law Colin Manchester considers the rise was because of the permissive society and the more lenient Obscene Publications Act 1959, which was less restrictive than its predecessor. Silver and Humphreys began a professional relationship; Silver thought Humphreys and his wife would be a profitable investment for the future, Humphreys thought Silver could provide access and protection. Both judgements proved sound. The journalist Neil Root writes that the two men "tolerated each other, perhaps became friendly for a time", but were wary of one another.

In 1964 one of Humphreys's clubs was a target for arson; after renovation Humphreys fitted it and all his commercial properties with steel shutters. It was suspected that the South London criminal organisation the Richardson Gang were behind the attack in an attempt to move their extortion business into Soho, but this was never proven. Humphreys appeared at Bow Street Magistrates' Court in July 1966, charged with allowing "unlicensed public music and dancing (striptease)" three times that year; he was fined £450.

In 1969 Humphreys used his police contacts against Murray Goldstein, the owner of Maxim's strip club in Frith Street, in an attempt to seize control of the outlet. It was not the last time that Humphreys acted as a paid informant to the police; Root writes that "it can be said with certainty that Humphreys was a police informer, as has been the underworld view since the 1970s". That same year Humphreys and his wife tried to open a sex shop, but were told by police if they did so, they would face police interference and raids. Silver arranged for himself, Humphreys and Rusty to dine with Commander Wally Virgo, head of the Metropolitan Police's Serious Crime Squad. Humphreys was told that Detective Chief Superintendent Bill Moody, the head of the Metropolitan Police's Obscene Publications Branch (OPB), had blocked the opening. Soon afterwards Silver invited Humphreys to a lunch with Moody at which Moody said that Humphreys could open the shop if he paid £4,000 up front, a half share of the takings and £100 a week to the OPB. Humphreys and Silver shared the remaining 50 per cent of the profits from the outlet. Virgo was given £1,000 for the initial introduction and subsequent payments of £2,000 a week and a £2,000 bonus at Christmas.

Over the next three years Humphreys opened between six and ten other sex shops. The first three—opened on Lisle Street, Windmill Street and Newport Street—cost Humphreys and Silver £6,000 in payments to Moody. Between 1969 and 1972 Humphreys made £216,000 profit from his shops.

Silver taught Humphreys about bribing police officers and gave him the advice "Get them when they're young", as they would then remain amenable when older. The police were paid on a sliding scale, depending on rank: £5 for a constable, £10 for a sergeant and up to £2,000 a month for the senior officers. Humphreys would invite members of the OPB to dinner at some of London's top restaurants—Quo Vadis, SPQR, Le Caprice and the Savoy Hotel—where he would pay for the meal and give each of them a "goodwill payment"; when asked how he knew whether a policeman was amenable to taking bribes, he answered "I've never known one that isn't." This would include taking out entire police departments: on one occasion Silver, Humphreys and their wives entertained the Flying Squad, paying for the meal at which the senior magistrate in London was also a guest. Often Humphreys would entertain and bribe different policemen three times a day: lunch, dinner and nightclubs, and often the bribes were not money, but cars or jewellery for police officers' wives. The head of the Flying Squad, Ken Drury, dined with Humphreys so often, the officers under his command noticed how much weight he was putting on; Humphreys bought him an exercise bicycle and a rowing machine to help him keep his weight down.

The bribes paid to the OPB ensured that anyone trying to open a rival sex shop would be repeatedly raided until they gave up their business. When police had to raid the shops owned by Humphreys or Silver—or any of the other pornographers who bribed the police—the owners received a coded telephone message first, often WHSmith or Ryman, to signify that the sex shops had to be as legitimate as a high street newsagent and stationers. What the police officers did not know was that for each lunch, dinner or meeting he had with them, Humphreys kept a diary listing those present, the venue and the amount of bribe he paid; these were often for smaller amounts of £50–£100, and were in addition to the regular fees paid to keep the shops and clubs running.

### Sunday People investigation

In January 1972 Drury, Humphreys and their wives travelled to Cyprus and Beirut for a fortnight's holiday. Drury signed into the hotel in Famagusta under his own name, with his police rank, and gave his address as Scotland Yard. News of the trip was soon leaked to journalists from The Sunday People. This was either by a gangland figure angry at having been charged with firearms offences, or a member of the Flying Squad who saw a postcard Drury had sent to his colleagues in London.

An investigation was soon undertaken by The Sunday People. A journalist flew to Cyprus and was given a copy of the hotel register; the newspaper hired a private investigator who visited the branch of Thomas Cook on Regent Street, where he obtained a duplicate of the receipt, which showed Humphreys had paid for the Drurys' holiday. In February 1972 The Sunday People published a front-page exposé titled "Police Chief and the 'Porn' King". They began their article "The head of Scotland Yard's world-famous Flying Squad has just been spending an expensive holiday abroad with one of Britain's most notorious pornographers". The report continued on the inside pages, including the statement:

> Police officers in London. In particular some of those attached to Scotland Yard's Obscene Publications Department, are being systematically bribed by dealers in pornography. It is this that largely explains why their businesses flourish; why immense stocks of 'dirty' books, magazines and films are not confiscated.

Drury responded to the claims by giving an interview to the News of the World claiming he and Humphreys were searching for Ronnie Biggs, one of the gang members involved in the 1963 Great Train Robbery. He also stated that he was paying Humphreys as an informant. The accusation he was being paid as a "grass" angered Humphreys, and he gave a press conference to say that Drury was lying. On 2 March 1972 Drury was suspended from duty by Sir John Waldron, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police; Waldron also instituted an investigation into the allegations made by The Sunday People. Drury resigned from the force on 1 May 1972.

In April 1972 Robert Mark was appointed as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He began a fundamental change of the force, targeting corrupt policemen; soon after his appointment he told detectives that they were "the most routinely corrupt organisation in London". Mark brought in Detective Chief Superintendent Bert Wickstead, the head of the Serious Crime Squad (SCS), to take action against the pornographers and remove the corrupt officers from the OPB. The SCS began a three-year investigation into the relationship between the OPB and the pornographers; Silver, Humphreys and Eric Mason—the owner of ten sex shops—were the police's key targets.

### Attack on Peter Garfath

The relationship between Humphreys and his wife, Rusty, was sometimes turbulent. In September 1972 she received a three-month gaol sentence for possession of a firearm; there were some reports that she may have been threatening Humphreys with it. Humphreys said he would fly over central London and drop pornography if she was not released, but did not follow through. She was released in late October.

Shortly after Rusty's release, Humphreys arranged to have Peter Garfath—one of her former lovers—beaten up, after suspecting the two had rekindled their relationship. Garfath was attacked by four men at the Dauphine Club in Marylebone on 23 October and was slashed around the head, face and arms with a knife. Rusty denied that her husband was behind the action, and thought it was connected to the distribution of forged £50 notes that Garfath had been involved with. While corrupt officers were removed from Scotland Yard by Mark's actions, and the SCS were investigating the criminal activity in Soho, the large-scale pornographers left the country. Silver departed for Spain and Frank Mifsud—a Maltese criminal who ran a string of brothels—travelled to Ireland and then Brazil. Humphreys, who had been tipped off that the police had made the connection between himself and the Garfath attack, used a false passport in the name of Leigh and escaped to Rotterdam.

The SCS raided 50 premises connected to the pornography industry over the weekend of 27 and 28 January 1973, including sex shops, storage premises and residences. More than 40 long tons (41 t) of hardcore publications were seized and 11 people were arrested; one of them was Rusty Humphreys, at the couple's Brook Street residence. She was arrested because she and Humphreys rented a property in Greek Street to prostitutes. Each tenant bought a three-year lease for £2,000 plus £100 a week rent. Two years into the arrangement Humphreys bodily ejected two of the women from the flats. One negotiated a return, but three months later Rusty Humphreys violently threw her out again. Both women complained to members of Wickstead's SCS. When Rusty was arrested, police searched the Brook Street premises and found, in a wall safe, one of Humphreys's diaries containing the details of his bribes to police officers.

Four of the men arrested in the raids were charged with the attempted murder of Garfath, and Rusty Humphreys was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice by offering Garfath £2,000 not to give evidence against Humphreys. That July, Rusty was cleared of the attempt to bribe Garfath; two of the men were found guilty of unlawfully wounding and sentenced to five years imprisonment; another had pleaded guilty to the same charge and was gaoled for one year.

Humphreys was arrested for the attempted murder of Garfath in June 1973 in Volendam, the Netherlands, by two members of the SCS and a member of the Amsterdam police. He was held in prison in Amsterdam while a request was made for extradition back to the UK. He was part of an escape attempt from the prison that November; four men managed to break out, but Humphreys was recaptured on the prison roof. In late December 1973 the Supreme Court of the Netherlands ordered his return to the UK, after Humphreys had appealed an earlier decision. On 9 January 1974 he arrived back in the UK, where he was charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent. Humphreys stood trial for his involvement in the attack on Garfath in April 1974. In court he was described as "the emperor of porn". He was found guilty and sentenced to eight years in prison. In 1977 Humphreys claimed he had been framed by Detective Chief Inspector John Bland, conspiring with criminals, because of the suspension of Drury.

Humphreys and Rusty decided to co-operate fully with the police in an attempt to earn him an early release. Rusty handed a second of Humphreys's diaries over to Deputy Assistant Commissioner Gilbert Kelland, who was in charge of A10 (Complaints Investigation) Branch. Humphreys was interviewed at length by A10, and surprised detectives by his detailed memory of events. His two diaries covered 1971 to 1972 and included details of more than 350 meetings with police officers and the amounts he paid them in bribes. He had also written a detailed letter to Deputy Commissioner James Starritt while he was in Amsterdam, and brought back a twelve-page statement he had worked on.

On 28 February 1976 twelve police officers were arrested in connection with the corruption investigation being run by Kelland. Eight of those arrested had retired from the force and four were under suspension. These included Drury, Virgo and Moody. The first of two trials of those charged with corruption took place in November that year and involved Detective Chief Inspector George Fenwick, Detective Inspectors Charles O'Hanlon and Cyril Jones, Detective Sergeant Peter Fisher, Detective Constable Michael Chamberlain and one other; all faced charges of "conspiring together and with others to accept money and other considerations from persons trading in pornography between July 1964 and October 1973". Humphreys refused to appear as a witness during the case because O'Hanlon was a good friend. All but one were found guilty. During sentencing, the judge, Justice William Mars-Jones, said "Thank goodness the Obscene Publications Squad has gone. I fear the damage you have done may be with us for a long time." Fenwick was sentenced to ten years in prison, Chamberlain was given eight years, Jones and O'Hanlon seven years and Fisher received four years.

The second trial of members of the OPB began in March 1977. Six former policemen were charged: Virgo, Moody, Detective Inspectors Leslie Alton and Rodney Tilley, Detective Sergeant David Hamer and Detective Constable Peter Brown. Humphreys was a key witness for the prosecution and was brought to the Old Bailey from prison each day. He said he had given Kelland the names of 42 policemen whom he had bribed. He told the court that in addition to his book shops in Soho, he dealt in pornography internationally—in the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and the US—and owned sex boutiques, strip clubs and his share of the brothel in Soho. Humphreys said that he was giving evidence because his own conviction was going to be reassessed; he stated that he was still innocent of the charges for which he was serving time. In mid-May, all six men were found guilty. Virgo and Moody were both given twelve-year sentences; Alton received ten years; Brown was given seven years; Hamer four years and Tilley three years.

In July 1977 the case against Drury, Detective Inspector Alistair Ingram and Inspector John Legge opened; all three were accused of "corruptly accepting cash and other favours" from Humphreys. He initially refused to appear in court for the prosecution, but was persuaded to change his mind by a journalist from The Sunday People who told him that his conviction for the attack on Garfath was being investigated. Drury and Ingram were found guilty; the judge instructed the jury to find Legge not guilty. Drury was sentenced to eight years; Ingram to four years' imprisonment. Their convictions meant twelve policemen had been sent to prison as a result of Humphreys's evidence.

Humphreys was released from prison on 24 August 1977, three years and four months into his eight-year sentence, after the royal prerogative was exercised. He wrote two novels while he was in prison: Through the Eyes of a Pig and Seven Rotten Apples.

### Later life

Humphreys left the UK and set up a greyhound-breeding business in Knocklong, a small village in County Limerick. The business was a front for its real purpose of an illegal amphetamine factory. He fled the country in 1982, just before a raid by the Gardaí, and travelled to the US where he invested in a drugs-smuggling operation, but was cheated of his investment.

After living in Mexico and the US Humphreys and his wife returned to the UK in 1988 and opened a restaurant in Blackheath, south east London. Following its liquidation, the couple set up at least three brothels in Marylebone and Marble Arch; police suspected the couple were operating a fourth brothel, but could not prove it. Although prostitution is legal in the UK, living off immoral earnings is an offence. After a surveillance operation, the couple were arrested in November 1993. The Humphreys, who were living in West Hampstead, pleaded guilty to the charges; Humphreys described himself as a greyhound bloodstock agent. As well as taking a percentage of the women's earnings, the couple charged the prostitutes £30 a day expenses and between £100 and £180 a day rent. Additional charges were also levied, including £100 a week for printing advertising cards, and £50 a day to the man who posted the cards in local phone boxes. The rent and additional charges were so high that the women worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week. The judge, Mr Justice Fingret, said that the brothels had been "a well organised and highly profitable organisation, netting the two of you well in excess of £100,000 profit in a 20-month period". The prosecution estimated the couple's takings to be £100,000–£300,000. Humphreys was sentenced to twelve months; Rusty was gaoled for eight months in Holloway Prison. Humphreys died in September 2003.

In the 1996 BBC television series Our Friends in the North the character Benny Barrett, played by Malcolm McDowell, was based on Humphreys. In 1999 Humphreys discussed the possibility of their life story being made into a film with Film4 Productions, who gave the film the provisional title Rusty; as at 2021 the film remains unmade.

English operator of adult book shops and strip clubs in London in the 1960s and 1970s


Brothers Poem

The Brothers Poem or Brothers Song is a series of lines of verse attributed to the archaic Greek poet Sappho ( – ), which had been lost since antiquity until being rediscovered in 2014. Most of its text, apart from its opening lines, survives. It is known only from a papyrus fragment, comprising one of a series of poems attributed to Sappho. It mentions two of her brothers, Charaxos and Larichos; the only known mention of their names in Sappho's writings, though they are known from other sources. These references, and aspects of the language and style, have been used to establish her authorship.

The poem is structured as an address – possibly by Sappho herself – to an unknown person. The speaker chastises the addressee for saying repeatedly that Charaxos will return (possibly from a trading voyage), maintaining that his safety is in the hands of the gods and offering to pray to Hera for his return. The narrative then switches focus from Charaxos to Larichos, who the speaker hopes will relieve the family of their troubles when he becomes a man.

Scholars tend to view the poem's significance more in historical rather than in literary terms. Research focuses on the identities of the speaker and the addressee, and their historical groundings. Other writers examine the poem's worth in the corpus of Sappho's poetry, as well as its links with Greek epic, particularly the homecoming stories of the Odyssey. Various reconstructions of the missing opening stanzas have been offered.

## Preservation

Sappho is thought to have written around 10,000 lines of poetry, of which only around 650 survive. Only one poem, the Ode to Aphrodite, is known to be complete; many preserve only a single word. In 2014, Dirk Obbink, Simon Burris, and Jeffrey Fish published five fragments of papyrus, containing nine separate poems by Sappho. Three were previously unknown, and the find amounted to the largest expansion of the surviving corpus of Sappho's work for 92 years. The most impressive is the Brothers Poem fragment, called P. Sapph. Obbink, part of a critical edition of Book I of Sappho's poetry. The remaining four fragments, P. GC. inv. 105 frr. 1–4, are written in the same hand, and have the same line-spacing.

P. Sapph. Obbink measures 176 mm × 111 mm. Carbon-dating places it as between the first and third centuries AD, which is consistent with the third century AD handwriting. The roll of which P. Sapph. Obbink was part would have been produced in Alexandria, and likely taken to Fayum. There is evidence that the roll was damaged and repaired; it was later reused as cartonnage – a material similar to papier-mâché made with linen and papyrus – which Obbink suggests was used as a book cover. P. Sapph. Obbink preserves 20 lines of the Brothers Poem, followed by 9 lines of another work by Sappho, the Kypris Poem. It is, according to author and scholar James Romm, the best-preserved extant Sappho papyrus. A second papyrus, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 2289, published by Edgar Lobel in 1951, preserves enough of the Brothers Poem to show that at least one stanza preceded the well-preserved portion.

## Provenance

Soon after the discovery of P. Sapph. Obbink was made public in January 2014, scholars began to raise questions about the provenance. The initial version of Obbink's article announcing the discovery said that the papyrus was in a private collection, but contained no discussion of its origin or ownership history, as would be usual when reporting on a newly-discovered ancient artefact; C. Michael Sampson describes this absence as "anomalous and suspicious". Archaeologists immediately criticised this lack of transparency, and the initial version of Obbink's article was soon taken down. Since then, several contradictory claims have been made about the history of P. Sapph. Obbink.

The earliest discussions of the provenance began shortly after the announcement of the discovery in January 2014. In an article in the Sunday Times, Bettany Hughes reported that the papyrus was originally owned by a German officer, while Obbink wrote in the Times Literary Supplement that it was found in mummy cartonnage. Obbink later claimed that the German officer mentioned by Hughes was an "imaginative fantasy", and that the original belief that the papyrus had come from mummy cartonnage was due to a misidentification. Based on information contained in a brochure for a sale of the papyrus compiled by Christie's in 2015, Sampson identifies the German officer mentioned by Hughes as Ranier Kriedel [de] and argues that this initial story was fabricated to cover for defects in the papyrus' true provenance.

In 2015, Dirk Obbink presented a second account of the provenance in a paper delivered to the Society for Classical Studies. He claimed that the papyrus derived from the collection of David Moore Robinson, who had purchased it in 1954 from an Egyptian dealer, Sultan Maguid Sameda, and on his death left it to the University of Mississippi Library. Part of the Robinson collection was offered for sale through Christie's in 2011; Obbink reported that P. Sapph. Obbink was included in this sale, and was bought by a collector in London. It was this anonymous owner who gave Obbink, the head of Oxford University's Oxyrhynchus Papyri project, access to the papyrus and permission to publish it. However, Dorothy King observed that Christie's description of the papyri in their 2011 sale did not match up with what is known of P. Sapph. Obbink, and argued that it was not in fact part of the 2011 sale. Sampson notes that the presence of the papyrus in the 2011 sale is unverifiable, and in an article with Anna Uhlig for Eidolon, observes that no documentation supporting this account has been produced, and that the evidence for it is "principally Obbink's word". Following the publication of Sampson's 2020 article, in which he concluded that "I doubt [Obbink's 2015 account of the provenance] is true even in part", Anton Bierl and André Lardinois published a retraction to Obbink's chapter in The Newest Sappho which repeated this account, citing the "tainted" provenance, and Obbink's failure to provide a "substantive response" to Sampson's allegations.

A third possible provenance was reported in 2020, when Brent Nongbri published an email from Mike Holmes, the Director of the Museum of the Bible Scholars Initiative, which revealed evidence that P.GC. inv. 105 had been sourced from Turkish antiquities dealer Yakup Eksioglu. The Atlantic reported that Eksioglu had corroborated this, and had also claimed that P.Sapph.Obbink came from his collection. In an article for the Center for Hellenic Studies, Theodore Nash concluded that the papyrus was "almost guaranteed" to be connected to Eksiolgu. According to Eksioglu, P. Sapph. Obbink and P. GC inv. 105 had been in his family collection for over a century, though he provided no documentation for this. Brian D. Hyland rejects this as "simply not believable".

Critics of the lack of transparency around the provenance of the papyrus have suggested that this is to hide a questionable origin. Sampson suggests that the accounts given in 2014 and 2015 were fabricated to conceal an undocumented – or "unmentionable" – true origin. Theodore Nash argues that "the convoluted cartonnage narrative was simply a red herring to legitimise a recently looted papyrus". Hyland suggests that the papyri might instead have been smuggled out of Egypt around 2011, during the overthrow of president Mubarak; or that they may have been among the uncatalogued papyri excavated by Grenfell and Hunt at Oxyrhynchus.

## Poem

### Content

The poem is 20 lines (five stanzas) long and written in Sapphic stanzas, a metre named after Sappho, which is composed of three long lines followed by one shorter line. The beginning of the poem is lost, but it is estimated that the complete work was probably between one and three stanzas longer. It lies within the genre of homecoming prayers; others of Sappho's works on this theme include fragments 5, 15 and 17.

The narrative consists of an address to an unnamed listener, structured in two parallel sections, concerning two of Sappho's brothers, Charaxos and Larichos. The speaker hopes that Charaxos will return successfully from a trading voyage, and that Larichos will grow into manhood, and take up his position among the elites of society in Lesbos.

The first two extant stanzas detail Charaxos' arrival. In the first, the speaker reproaches the addressee for repeatedly saying that Charaxos will return "with his ship full", that only gods can know such things, and that the addressee should send her to pray to Hera for Charaxos' safe return. The third and fourth stanzas develop into a more general examination of human dependence on gods. The speaker asserts that while human fortunes are changeable ("fair winds swiftly follow harsh gales") Zeus gives good fortune to those he favours. In the final stanza, the speaker hopes that Larichos will "[lift] his head high" and "become an ανερ [man] in all senses", as Obbink puts it, and release the family from its troubles.

### Authorship

When Obbink published the poem in 2014, he attributed it to Sappho based on its metre, dialect (Aeolic), and mentions of Charaxos and Larichos, both of whom are identified in other sources as her brothers. It is possible that the text is an ancient forgery; though the song was included in at least some Hellenistic editions of Sappho (from which P. Sapph. Obbink and P. Oxy. 2289 derive), a classical imitation of Sappho is still possible. Nonetheless, evidence provided by Herodotus indicates that Charaxos was mentioned in poems that were attributed to Sappho during the fifth century BC; therefore it is likely to be at least authentically from archaic Lesbos.

### Characters

Neither of the two characters is named. Whether the speaker can be identified with Sappho herself is central to its interpretation. André Lardinois observes that most of the identified speakers in Sappho's poetry are female. Melissa Mueller identifies the speaker as Sappho, and the poem has generally been interpreted as being autobiographical. Not all scholars have identified the speaker with the historical Sappho; Bär and Eva Stehle both argue that the speaker is a fictionalised or literary version of Sappho. If the speaker is to be identified as Sappho, Obbink suggests that she is to be read as a young woman: her brother Larichos (who can only be six or so years younger than her, as that is how old she was when her father died, in a biographical tradition preserved in Ovid's Heroides) is shortly to come of age (Obbink puts him at around twelve); Sappho-the-speaker is therefore still a teenager herself.

The addressee of the poem is unnamed in the surviving text, but many suggestions have been made as to their identity – Camillo Neri lists eleven possible candidates. Obbink suggests the most likely candidates are Rhodopis or Doricha, described in ancient sources as the lover of Charaxos, and Sappho's mother, to whom Sappho addressed other poems. Most scholars agree that the addressee is some concerned friend or relative of Charaxos. Many (including Martin L. West, Franco Ferrari, Camillo Neri, and Leslie Kurke) select Sappho's mother as the most likely option. Giambattista d'Alessio draws parallels with other fragments of Sappho which mention a mother, particularly fragment 9, which also appears to mention a mother in association with religious ritual.

This is not universally agreed upon. The classical historian Anton Bierl argues that the central dispute of the poem is between masculine and feminine ideologies. He suggests that the speaker's offer to pray to Hera is a "solution appropriate to her gender", and contrasts with the masculine belief that the family's problems can be solved through Charaxos' pursuit of wealth. He therefore suggests that the addressee is a male relative of Sappho. Lardinois also believes that the addressee is a man: he argues that Sappho's mother could have gone to pray to Hera herself, and therefore it does not make sense for her to send Sappho on her behalf. In contrast, Mueller and Leslie Kurke both argue that the addressee is probably meant to be female, based on Sappho's use of the word θρυλεω ("chattering" or "babbling") to describe their speech. The word has negative connotations that would make Sappho unlikely to use it to address a man. Anja Bettenworth has argued that the addressee is of a lower social status than Sappho, again based on the use of θρυλεω, but Kurke argues they are likely to be in a position of authority over Sappho, as she expects them to send her to pray to Hera.

The final two characters, Charaxos and Larichos, are identified as Sappho's brothers in ancient sources. Charaxos is first mentioned by Herodotus, who describes his love for the courtesan Rhodopis; Strabo and Athenaeus say that he was a wine trader. The earliest mention of Larichos comes from Athenaeus, who says that in his youth he was a wine-pourer in the prytaneion (town hall) in Mytilene. Modern scholars are uncertain whether either was Sappho's actual brother. For instance, Lardinois sees Charaxos and Larichos as fictional characters: he draws comparisons to the poetry of Archilochus about Lycambes and his daughters, generally considered to be fictionalised.

### Context

Sappho's poetry from the first book of the Alexandrian edition appears to have been about either the family and religious or cultic practices, or about passion and love. The Brothers Poem focuses on her family. Its original performance context is uncertain, but most scholars consider that it was intended for monodic performance – that is, by a single singer, rather than a chorus. As with all of Sappho's poetry the melody that would have accompanied the poem does not survive. Aristoxenus reports that Sappho used the mixolydian mode, and in antiquity she was associated with the barbitos (a stringed instrument similar to the lyre); based on this information, Armand D'Angour has set the poem to music in an attempt to reconstruct what it might have sounded like in antiquity.

Brotherhood was a frequent theme of archaic Greek poetry, and the relationship between brothers was often used to explore conceptions of proper behaviour. The Brothers Poem seems to have been one of several about Charaxos and Larichos. Eva Stehle suggests that it may have been part of a "series of 'brothers poems'", though David Gribble notes that the fragments of Sappho's work which do survive are insufficient to conclude that she composed a series telling the story of Charaxos' relationship with Doricha.

Sappho portrays Charaxos as irresponsible, with Larichos as his more respectable foil. Unlike in the versions of this trope in Homer and Hesiod, Sappho inserts a third, female, figure into the relationship. In this scheme, the figure with moral authority is unable to be the moral example to the wayward Charaxos due to her gender; she must rely on Larichos who still has the potential to become an upstanding adult. Thus, Laura Swift sees the poem as an example of Sappho reworking established epic tropes from a female perspective – as she also does in fragment 16.

Anton Bierl identifies seven other fragments of Sappho that seem to have dealt with Charaxos or Doricha. Like the Brothers Poem, fragments 5, 15, and 17 focus on homecomings; fragments 5 and 15 are both likely to be about Charaxos, and Bierl suggests that fragment 17, a cultic hymn referring to Menelaus' visit to Lesbos on his way home from Troy, may be a prayer for a safe journey for Charaxos. Four other surviving fragments of Sappho, 3, 7, 9, and 20, may all have been connected with the story of Charaxos and Doricha.

The Brothers Poem follows shortly after fragment 5 in the edition of Sappho preserved by P. Sapph. Obbink, with probably only one column of text between them. Silvio Bär argues that the poem was deliberately positioned here because it was seen as a sort of continuation of that fragment by the editor of the Alexandrian edition of Sappho's poetry. He suggests that it acts to correct the views put forward in fragment 5: there, Sappho prays to the Nereids, not just for the safe return of her brother but that "whatever his heart desires be fulfilled"; in the Brothers Poem she recognises that such a broad request is out of the competence of the Nereids and should more properly be addressed to the goddess Hera.

Links between Homer's Odyssey and the Brothers Poem have been observed by many scholars. Bär describes the epic as a "crucial intertext" for the Brothers Poem. The relationship in the poem between the speaker, Charaxos, and Larichos parallels that of Penelope, Odysseus, and Telemachus in Homer: in the Brothers Poem, the speaker awaits Charaxos' return from overseas and Larichos' coming-of-age; in the Odyssey, Penelope awaits Odysseus' return and Telemachus' coming-of-age. Additionally, Anton Bierl suggests that the context of Charaxos' being away in Egypt – according to Herodotus, in love with the courtesan Rhodopis – parallels Odysseus' entrapment by Calypso and Circe. A specific parallel to the Odyssean homecoming narrative is found in line 9 [13]. Sappho uses the adjective ἀρτεμὲς ("safe"), which occurs only once in the Odyssey, at 13.43, where Odysseus hopes that he will return to Ithaca to find his family safe – just as the speaker hopes in the third stanza of the Brothers Poem that Charaxos will return to Lesbos to find his family safe.

Mueller suggests that the Brothers Poem is a deliberate reworking of the Homeric story, focusing on the fraternal relationship between Sappho and Charaxos in contrast to the conjugal one between Odysseus and Penelope. According to Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi, this should be seen in the context of an archaic Greek tradition of domestic – and specifically sisterly – discourses.

Along with stories of Odysseus' homecoming in the epic tradition, the Brothers Poem has similarities to several other genres of archaic Greek poetry. Joel Lidov sees it as being in the tradition of prayers for safe returns; Richard Martin identifies structural similarities to Archilochus' Cologne Epode (fr.196a), a piece of iambic invective; and Peter O'Connell suggests parallels with songs of welcome, in particular Archilochus fr.24.

### Missing stanzas

How much of the Brothers Poem has been lost is unknown. An overlap between P. Oxy. 2289 and P. Sapph. Obbink, the apparent alphabetic arrangement in the Alexandrian edition of her works, and the implausibility of any poem beginning with the word ἀλλά (meaning "but" or "and yet"), suggest that at least one opening stanza is missing. Bär has argued against this position, noting that the overlap between the Oxyrhynchus and Obbink papyri is sufficiently small (only six characters) as not to be conclusive. He argues that there are other known exceptions to the alphabetical ordering of the first Alexandrian edition of Sappho's works, thematic reasons why the Brothers Poem might have been placed out of order to follow closely after fragment 5, and parallels elsewhere in Greek literature for an inceptive ἀλλά.

Despite Bär's arguments, most authors conclude that the Brothers Poem is missing at least one, and perhaps as many as three stanzas. Gauthier Liberman suggests that it was originally seven stanzas long; Kurke argues it is likely that only one stanza is missing. There are a variety of theories around the content of the missing stanzas. Mueller suggests that they may have revealed the identity of the addressee. Joel Lidov proposes that the latterly passive addressee actually speaks in the missing stanzas.

Obbink provides a reconstruction of a single initial stanza of the poem. He argues that the mention of Larichos in the later stanza appears too suddenly, and therefore he had probably been mentioned in earlier, now missing, lines. Athenaeus notes how Sappho often praised Larichos for being a wine-pourer in the prytaneion at Mytilene; this wine-pouring may have been mentioned here. Obbink also suggests that the opening lines originally contained a mention of the death of Sappho's father when she was young, which was the source of Ovid's anecdote at Heroides 15.61–62. Kurke has argued that the missing stanza discussed Charaxos, giving the complete poem a symmetry of three stanzas discussing each of the brothers.

## Reception

The discovery of the Brothers Poem, along with fragments of eight other poems – the largest discovery of new material by Sappho in almost a century – was the subject of significant media attention. James Romm, writing in The Daily Beast, called it "a spectacular literary discovery", and Tom Payne in The Daily Telegraph said that it was "more exciting than a new album by David Bowie". Other commentators expressed concern about the provenance of the papyrus, fearing that it had been illegally acquired on the black market, or even that it was a forgery like the Gospel of Jesus' Wife. Douglas Boin in The New York Times criticised the failure to discuss the papyrus' provenance properly as "disturbingly tone deaf to the legal and ethical issues". Following reports in 2019 that Obbink had illicitly sold several fragments of papyrus to Hobby Lobby, which were then donated to the Green Collection, further questions about the provenance were raised. Charlotte Higgins reported in The Guardian that "there are even doubts as to its authenticity. The latest gossip in classical circles is that it might even be a fake. 'Everything about it seems too good to be true,' one senior Cambridge classicist told me."

Though classicists considered it the "most spectacular" of the 2014 finds, it is not considered one of Sappho's best works. Martin West originally considered the work to be "very poor stuff" and "frigid juvenilia", though he later toned down his criticism. Liberman wrote that the poem is clumsy, displaying signs of hasty composition. Richard Rawles suggested that part of the reason that the poem was initially considered disappointing was because it was not about sexuality or eroticism – a factor that he predicted would make the fragment of greater interest in the future. Some commentators have been more positive. Though Loukas Papadimitropoulos said that his initial impression was that it was simplistic, he concluded that the meaning of the poem was "perhaps the most profound in all of Sappho's extant work", and that the poem turns the "simple[...] into something highly significant".

Despite scholars' disappointment over its quality, the Brothers Poem is valuable for the historical and biographical information it contains. It is the first fragment of Sappho discovered to mention the names "Charaxos" and "Larichos", both described as Sappho's brothers by ancient sources but not in any of her previously known writings. Before the poem was found, scholars had doubted that Sappho ever mentioned Charaxos.

Poem written by Sappho