p.oxy.50.3555 I - IIOxyrhynchos

To ⟦Claudius⟧ Asklepiades (?), strategos, from Thermouthion daughter of Ploutarchos, of those from the city of Oxyrhynchus. A little home-born slave girl of mine, whose name is Peina, I loved and cared for like a little daughter, in the hope that when she came of age I would have her to support me in my old age, since I am a woman without help and alone. She was going about the city on the 19th of last month for lessons in singing and other things, with a certain Eucharion, freedwoman of Longinus, escorting her, who about the hour of her departure from my house brought Peina back with her right hand bound up; and when I asked her the cause, she reported to me that she had been knocked down by a certain slave boy of Polydeukes who was following a donkey, so that as a result her whole hand was crushed and most parts of it were mutilated, and the rest gaping open. And at that time, not having the person in charge of the strategia, I did not lodge a report about this, thinking the wound would be passing; but since it is incurable and I cannot bear the grief over the slave girl, because she is in danger of her life and I am gripped with despondency about living, which you too, when you see it from the evident facts, will be indignant at, I have therefore of necessity taken refuge with you, the protector, and I ask to be helped and to obtain from you […] […]