Letter from Kurra to Basileios demanding gold taxes for soldiers' pay TM 19844Aphrodites Kome (Antaiopolites)708 - 709

[recto] In the name [of God. Kurra son of Sharik, governor, to Basileios, administrator of the village of Aphrodito. We give thanks] to God, and after this. [We have often, it appears, written] to [you about] the collection of the public gold taxes of the seventh indiction, and up to this [day] you have not bestirred yourself in this, nor indeed have you sent anything at all, but you have been negligent and contemptuous, and the time has come for the Muhajirun of the Fossaton to receive their pay and to go out on the raids. On receiving the present letter, therefore, immediately and with all speed send to us whatever gold you may have collected from these same public taxes, with a man of yours who is to pay it into the treasury. For we have instructed the present messenger not to depart from you until you send whatever you have collected, and strive energetically for the collection of the amount remaining of these gold public taxes, with good management, sending whatever you collect of them as it comes in, without delay, so that we may not be compelled to send […] to anoint (?) you about this […] through your administration […] with fairness and good management […] or unjust ones, and you will know [that the first] task of an official [is] the collection [of the public taxes, and] let there not be through you […] hindering or of giving […] through you the amount, and you will be in danger. [Written in the month] […] [verso] Kurra son of Sh[arik, governor, to Basileios, administrator of the village of Aphrodito]