Scribal and phraseological variation in legal formulas: ὑπάρχω + dative or genitive pronoun

The verb ὑπάρχω, ‘to belong to’, is frequently used in Greek papyri to denote possession in legal documents. The possessor in such constructions can be indicated by a personal pronoun in the dative or genitive. In this article, I show that the diachronic scribal and phraseological variation that is found in legal formulae with this verb points not only to an increase in the use of the genitive pronoun by individual scribes in certain constructions, but also to a general change from a dative to a genitive case in liability clauses in the Byzantine period. These changes may be connected to the process of dative case syncretism in post-Classical Greek.