Petition to the epistrategos about dues demanded on royal land TM 20417Oxyrhynchos180 CE – 192 CE

To Titus Claudius Xenophon, the most excellent epistrategos, from […] Anthestius Primus also called Lollianus, formerly […] and former high priest […] of the city of the Oxyrhynchites. […] I bought from Dionysios son of […] together with the son of Alexander the […] arouras near Sennis, belonging to him from a division made with […] and his brother Apollonios the younger, 52 1/2 arouras of grain land and 1/2 aroura in building plots, free from royal, estate and sacred land, in accordance with the division I made with my brothers, I paying the public dues of the private land alone. But a very long time later, after forty years, somehow, since the seller Dionysios had died, the village scribe of […] in which Sennis also lies, as if in answer to an inquiry about the owner from whom the demand for the public dues on 4 arouras of royal land, 15 artabas of wheat, should be made, declared that these 4 arouras of royal land were intermixed with the 53 arouras belonging to me which I bought from Dionysios and […], so that on this account the public dues must be paid by me, although […] had neither held royal land intermixed nor cultivated it nor knew anything at all of what was declared by the village scribe, and moreover the public dues had long been paid for these same 4 arouras, presumably by others. Since therefore I have suffered no small damage, and it is unjust that I, who do not cultivate it, should be required to pay public dues for another's land, I ask, if it seems good to you, that you write to the strategos of the nome so that he may instruct the person whose duty it is to do this, according to the regulations, […] the 4 arouras of royal land declared by the village scribe to be intermixed with my private land, and […] declare the possessor, from whom the demand for the public dues may reasonably be made. For concerning the dues improperly demanded of me my claim will remain against whoever appears and lays claim, so that I may be helped. Farewell. […] I, Anthestius Primus also called Lollianus, through Apollonios, […] have submitted it.