Letter from Gemellus to Epagathus
Letter from Lucius Bellenus Gemellus to Epagathus, perhaps his nephew. Gemellus sends instructions to Epagathus to perform certain tasks related to the running of his estate
One text, 3 sources · Trismegistos-Text 10775
Letter from Lucius Bellenus Gemellus to Epagathos with estate instructions TM 10775Euhemeria (Arsinoites)94 CE
The same ancient text or artifact as recorded by 3 records across 3 independent projects, recognised as one entity by its TM-Text identifier. View on Trismegistos →
A letter from the landowner Lucius Bellenus Gemellus to Epagathos, who managed his estate, with instructions about clearing dung, protecting the oil-press, flooding fields, watering olive groves at Dionysias, paying several officials and fitting doors. It was written in AD 94 at Euhemeria in the Fayum.
In English machine translation
[recto]
Lucius Bellenus Gemellus to his own Epagathos, greeting.
Please, on receiving my letter, have the dung in it cleared out, so that what you call the storeroom may become a store-chamber (?); and dig deep around the outside of the oil-press, so that the oil-press may not be easy to climb over; and separate the dung into the dung-heap; and let them flood all our holdings, so that the sheep may sleep there; and let them water the olive groves a second time; and cross over to Dionysias and find out whether the olive grove has been watered twice and forked (?); if not, let it be watered, and […] safely forked […] them fail; and give […] and Psellos the sitologoi […] and Chairas the secretary of the cultivators and Herakles 90 drachmas and interest, and Chairas the former collector 24 drachmas, and Didas […] the price of barley 240 drachmas and interest, and Heron the former president interest for 2 years, 120 drachmas. And let the carpenters fit the doors; I am sending you the ropes. Make the beams of the oil-press double, and those of the store-chambers single. Farewell.
Year 14 of Imperator Caesar Domitian Augustus Germanicus, month of Germanikos 14.
So do not do otherwise.
[verso]
Deliver to Epagathos from Lucius Bellenus Gemellus.
Germanikos was Domitian's renamed month corresponding to Thoth. The meaning of katabolaion (rendered 'store-chamber') and of the 'forking' of olive trees (perhaps hoeing with a two-pronged fork) is uncertain.
Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Letter from Gemellus to Epagathus). It has not been reviewed by a papyrologist: check the edition before citing. Restorations follow the edition; […] marks lost text and (?) an uncertain reading.
P.Fay. 110
[r] Λούκιος Βελλιῆνος Γέμελλος Ἐπαγαθῶι τῶι ἰδίωι χαίρειν. εὖ ποιήσεις κομισάμενός μου τὴν ἐπιστολὴν ἀναγκάσας ἐκχωσθῆναι τὸ ἐν αὐτῶι κόπριον ἵνα καταβολαῖον γένηται ὃ λέγεις ταμιεῖον, καὶ τὰ κύκλωι τοῦ ἐλαιουργείου ἔξωθεν σκάψον ἐπὶ βάθος ἵνα μὴ εὐυπέρβατον ἦι τὸ ἐλαιούργιον, κα…