Letter from Menas to the pagarch Athanasios against sending a builder to Babylon TM 129775Hermopolites

A Byzantine letter from Menas, a lawyer (scholastikos), to Athanasios, illustris and pagarch, in the Hermopolite nome. Menas asks that the letter-carrier, a builder from Sebaemphis working on a cistern, not be sent to Babylon, since otherwise the cistern would remain unbuilt and the land plots would lie neglected.

In English machine translation

Babylon here is the fortress in Egypt near later Cairo, where workers were sent for requisitioned labour. The phrase translated 'not be passed over' is heavily restored and uncertain.

Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Menas scholastikos a Athanasios. Contro l'invio di un artigiano a Babylon). It has not been reviewed by a papyrologist: check the edition before citing. Restorations follow the edition; […] marks lost text and (?) an uncertain reading.