bgu.1.19

Copy. By delegation of Petronius Mamertinus, prefect of Egypt. Year 19 of Hadrian Caesar the lord, Mecheir 17, in the case of Chenalexas versus Petesouchos and Dionysios. Menander the judge told the litigants: “I postponed the present affair, because it was in the general interest, until I should write to His Excellency the prefect to ask him if the inheritance of the grandmother’s estate was given to the grandsons and to the granddaughters of the Egyptians by virtue of a grant of the lord Hadrian Caesar. So, the letter I wrote to His Excellency the prefect and the one he sent me in response will be read.” He ordered that both of them be read and inserted in the minutes, their content being verbatim as follows: “To His Excellency the prefect Petronius Mamertinus, Menander, former royal scribe of the Arsinoite nome, greetings. At the last conventus, Chenalexas daughter of Alexander, Egyptian, was involved in a lawsuit with her paternal uncle Petesouchos and her cousin Dionysios before the judge Herakleides, about the part of the inheritance of her grandmother which she said had fallen to her father from his mother. As those around Petesouchos confirmed that the latter had died before his mother in the first year of the reign of Hadrian Caesar the lord (ad 117/8), whereas (Chenalexas said he died) in the fifteenth year (AD 131/2), she promised to prove it with documents. The judgment was deferred for administration of proof. Now, all of them having been sent to me for trial, she claimed to benefit by the grant of the god, the most illustrious Emperor, who allowed the Egyptians to inherit their grandmothers’ estate, and she brought a precedent of His Excellency the epistratêgos Gellius Bassus, who had judged that the children’s children also inherit the estate of the grandmother. After other things, his decision was written as follows: ‘All the paternal estate that falls to the person in question from the testament of Eudaimonis or in any other way, will come to his children.’ The matter being also about the question whether with the grandmother being dead intestate the ninth year before the Emperor’s grant, the granddaughter will take the part of the succession of her father, I write to you, my Prefect, so that you may command what in your opinion is to be done. I pray for your health, Lord Prefect. Year 19 of the Emperor Caesar Trajan Hadrian Augustus, Mecheir 14.” To which letter it was answered: “Petronius Mamertinus to Menander, former royal scribe of the toparchy of Polemon, greeting. If no judgment has been pronounced on the affair between Chenalexas and Petesouchos [...] paternal uncle and Dionysios, cousin, concerning the estate of her grandmother, it is advisable that, according to the letter of the lord, you allow Chenalexas, through your judgment, to succeed to the part of the paternal estate her father would have inherited if he had survived. Goodbye. Year 19, Mecheir 14.” He pronounced the following decision: “It seems advisable, according to the letter of His Excellency the prefect, that Chenalexas should succeed to the part of the paternal estate her father would have inherited (from his mother) if he had survived.”