Private letter
Letter, no addressee, no sender mentioned, about various purchases
One text, 3 sources · Trismegistos-Text 21525
Private letter about sending provisions, rent and wheat TM 21525Unknown place, province of EgyptJanuary 9, 61 A.D.
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 →
A private letter, its beginning lost, asking the recipient to send goods (pairs of something, a basket of onions, dates, seed and money) via a donkey-driver named Hermanias, and discussing a troublesome tenant's rent and an exchange of wheat. It is dated 9 January AD 61, in the reign of Nero.
In English machine translation
[… lines lost …]
[…] only (?) the price of the […] to the donkey-driver, asking […] him that they steal outright (?).
I urge you therefore to send to Hermanias, the man with the donkey, […] twenty pairs and one basket of ascalonian onions (?), and send me dates. And concerning the rent, since the tenant is giving us trouble, what harm does it do you to let her hold it back? And if you have cabbage seed (?), send us 11 artabas and 2 drachmas for expenses. And if he exchanges the wheat, urge him to come down because of the measuring fee (?) for the 20 artabas.
Greet Aphynmous and my mother and everyone in the house.
Farewell.
Year 7 of Nero the lord, Tybi 14.
Several words are uncertain: askalia are probably Ascalonian onions (shallots), bakania probably cabbage seed, and podoma a rare term perhaps for a measuring or transport charge. Sender and addressee are lost with the opening lines.
Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Letter). 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.oslo.2.48
[… ? lines lost …] […]…μονον τιμὴν τῶν το[…] ταψ[…]ῆσαι τῷ ὀνηλάτῃ αἰτοῦσιν …ς…[…]… αὐτὸν ὅτι καθάπαξ κλέπτουσιν. παρακαλῶ σε οὖν πέμψαι Ἑρμανίᾳ τῶι μετὰ τοῦ ὄνου εχ εἴκοσι ζεύγη καὶ καλάθιν ἓν ἀσκαλιῶν καὶ φοινίκια μοὶ πέμψον. καὶ περὶ τοῦ ἐνοικίου, ἐπεὶ ἡ ἔνοικος ἡμᾶς χειμάζει,…