The Zenon papyri apparently record the activities of a bachelor whose energies were invested in furthering the business dealings of a brother and the careers of aspiring athletes and musicians. The archive of the Hellenized Greek-Egyptian Dionysius shows a comparable pattern in which the household is structured vertically, through close links between brothers, as well as horizontally. Greek fathers in Ptolemaic Egypt at first show a tendency to rear daughters rather than expose them. Despite the appearance of homogeneity in Egyptian administrative documents, she concludes, the radical mix of cultures and ethnic backgrounds within this geographical area guarantees that family life under the Ptolemies was complex and far from uniform. Those anxious to preserve Zenon's good name could object that actual evidence for biological paternity is at best ambiguous, and that a true only son, even if illegitimate, would arguably have been recognized, adopted, and raised as heir to his father's sizable estate rather than left to fend on his own.
Errors are few.
It also benefits considerably from attention to class difference and from thirty years' worth of scholarship on Greek gender protocols. In short, it will be better used to supplement, rather than replace, Lacey. But even that cannot happen until OUP brings out a moderately priced paperback edition.