Petition to the king about wrongful imprisonment at Philadelphia TM 1251Kharabet el Gerza (ancient Philadelphia)mid 3rd c. B.C.

Fragment of a petition to King Ptolemy from a man who complains that, while he was away, he was wronged by someone at Philadelphia and thrown into prison without investigation, apparently in a matter involving 200 drachmas, until Zenon heard of it and released him. He asks that his petition be forwarded and that Zenon be instructed so that the case may be judged and he may obtain justice. It dates to the mid 3rd century BC and belongs to the Zenon archive.

In English machine translation

The right side of every line is lost, so the details of the complaint are uncertain. One catalogue record suggests the petition was forwarded to Zenon with a request to send the defendant up for trial. The place is given as the Memphite area with doubt, though the text itself names Philadelphia.

Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Fragment of petition to the king). It has not been reviewed by a papyrologist: check the edition before citing. Restorations follow the edition; […] marks lost text and (?) an uncertain reading.