One text, 2 sources · Trismegistos-Text 20210
Petition of Serenos to the riparii about his wife given to another man TM 20210Hermopolis362
The same ancient text or artifact as recorded by 3 records across 2 independent projects, recognised as one entity by its TM-Text identifier. View on Trismegistos →
A petition to the riparii (local police officials) of the Hermopolite nome from Aurelius Serenos of the village of Enseu. He complains that his mother-in-law, after claiming his wife Tamounis was possessed by a demon, married her off to another man while he was away working, without any divorce. The text dates to AD 362 and comes from the Hermopolis area.
In English machine translation
In the consulship of Mamertinus and Nevitta, the most illustrious.
To Aurelius Nilos son of Gennadios and Aurelius Theodoros son of Komasios, riparii of the Hermopolite nome,
from Aurelius Serenos son of Pinoution, from the village of Enseu in the same Hermopolite nome.
Six years ago I married a wife named Tamounis, whose father is Demetrios, and I gave the customary bridal gifts to the same wife and fulfilled the laws of marriage according to the custom of marriages, and I lived with her for three years. But the mother of the aforementioned woman deceived (?) me, claiming that my wife had been seized by a demon. So when I went away to my own work, in order to find a way to provide for our livelihood, she gave the same wife to another man without a divorce, named Peeus, from the village of Achilleus in the same Hermopolite nome […]
The riparii were 4th-century police officials responsible for public order in a nome. The end of the petition, with the request itself, is lost; a duplicate copy of the same petition survives.
Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Petition to the Riparii). 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.cair.preis.2ed.3
ὑπατείας Μαμερτίνου καὶ Εἰουίτταν τῶν λαμπροτάτων Αὐρηλίοις Νίλῳ Γενναδίου καὶ Θεοδώρῳ Κωμασίου ῥιπαρίοις νομοῦ Ἑρμοπολίτου παρὰ Αὐρηλίου Σερήνου Πινουτίωνος ἀπὸ κώμης Ἐνσεῦ τοῦ αὐτοῦ Ἑρμοπολίτου. πρὸ ἓξ τούτων ἐνιαυτῶν ἔγημα γυναῖκα Ταμοῦνιν τὸ ὄνομα ἐκ πατρὸς Δημητρίου καὶ τὰ ἐ…