Oath [363 AD]
Undertaking, on oath, by pilots to take grain taxes to Alexandria. Has a subscription in a second hand. Part of the Skippers' archive.
One text, 3 sources · Trismegistos-Text 140148
Sworn undertaking by town councillors to deliver wheat to Alexandria TM 140148Oxyrhynchos363 CE – 363 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 →
Sworn undertaking by five town councillors of Oxyrhynchus, acting as curators of the Alexandrian grain supply, addressed to the strategos Gaius Julius Leukadios. They declare that they have loaded wheat of the 7th indiction tax quota onto a ship piloted by Germanus and promise to deliver it to the public granaries in Alexandria and bring back receipts.
In English machine translation
In the consulship of our master Julian, eternal Augustus, for the 4th time, and of Flavius Sallustius, most illustrious prefect of the sacred praetorium, […]
To Gaius Julius Leukadios, strategos of the Oxyrhynchite nome,
from the Aurelii Gennadios son of Julianus, former logistes, and Herakleides son of Herakleides, and Timagenes son of Serenos, and Ammonios son of Apion, and Sarapion son of Ploutarchos, all councillors of the city of the Oxyrhynchites, curators of the grain for Alexandria. We acknowledge, swearing the revered divine oath of our master Julian, eternal Augustus, that we have received from those registered below and loaded into the ship listed below, from the quota of the fortunate 7th new indiction, new wheat, clean, unmixed with barley, not wetted and free of all fault, by the public measure, by the prescribed measurement, in total […] artabas of wheat. We will carry the cargo down to most illustrious Alexandria and will deliver it into the public granaries there, full in amount, and upon its delivery we will bring back receipts, so that we may be blamed in nothing, or may we be liable to the divine oath. It is as follows:
Into the ship of […], officialis, whose pilot is Germanus, being from the Oxyrhynchite nome, the aforementioned artabas of wheat […]
whose guarantors are […], landowner, and Gennadios […], stationarius.
The consular date (Julian IV and Sallustius) is 363, but the 7th indiction points to early 364, after Julian's death. One record describes the swearers as pilots, though the text names town councillors.
Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Undertaking by Town Councillors to Deliver Wheat to Alexandria). 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.mich.20.802
ὑπατείας τοῦ δεσπότου ἡμῶν Ἰουλιανοῦ αἰωνίου Αὐγούστου τὸ δ καὶ Φλαουίου Σαλουστίου τοῦ λαμπροτάτου ἐπάρχου τοῦ ἱεροῦ πραιτωρίου …[…] Γαίῳ Ἰουλίῳ Λευκαδίῳ στρατηγῷ Ὀξυρυγχίτου παρὰ Αὐρηλίων Γενναδίου Ἰουλιανοῦ ἀπὸ λογιστῶν καὶ Ἡρακλείδου Ἡρακλείδου καὶ Τιμαγένους Σερήνου καὶ Ἀμμω…