Letter from Herais to Lucretias

Description

Herais' letter, probably dictated to a scribe offers the usual difficulties. ;Herais' report of her travels beins somewhere upstream and ends with her probably in Alexandria, where she and her family lived (line 18). From the southern location she went down stream (north) to another place where she found the slave (or freedman) Eros in police custody. She went on to see her "sister" Lukretias' "brother", who had caused the incanceration of Eros because this slave (or freedman) had not paid "the orphans" the share of his profit from his service or work. She tried to persuade the "brother" to let Eros go to a place upstream, perhaps the place where Herais had began her trip downstream. But being unsuccessful, Herais continued her downstream travel to Alexandria where, three days later, Nephotianos arrived. His connection to the business is unclear. He seems to belong to Herais' family, and may have been brought new information. If so, then it was in Alexandria that Herais wrote the prsent lettr toher "sister" Lukretias who was living north of Antinoopolis. Herais asked her for a meeting in Antinoopolis, not in Lukretias' home (closer to Alexandria), probbaly because Antinoopolis was the place where they had to do business. Antinoopolis is the normal seat of the Epistrategos of Heptanomia and the place to do business in his office. As we are inclined to understand, this epistrategos is charged with matters concerning Alexandrians that lived in his jurisdiction. In this scenario, Herais and Lukretias are likely to have been Alexandrians, the latter living north of Antinoopolis. The entire matter seems to have resulted from quarrels about an inheritance, presumably located at the place in the south where Herais had began her travel home to Alexandria.