Two copies of the closing clauses of a sale contract, in which the seller Aurelius Kopreas son of Herminos guarantees the sale, sets penalties for any challenge, and consents to its public registration. Written in the Hermopolite nome on 18 February 337.
In English machine translation
[a]
[…] and that neither I nor anyone else on my behalf will proceed against you, the purchaser, or against your successors concerning anything in this sale in any way whatsoever. If I do proceed or fail to guarantee, the proceeding shall be invalid and I, or whoever proceeds on my behalf, shall in addition pay to you, the purchaser, or to your successors the damages and expenses and, as a penalty, double the price as a private debt, and to the treasury
[the same amount,] and the sale shall nonetheless be valid, which I have issued to you in duplicate for security, as if deposited in a public archive, and to whose future public registration I hereby consent. Having been asked whether these things have been done thus rightly and properly, I agreed. After the consulship
of Virius Nepotianus and Tettius Facundus, the most illustrious, Mecheir 24. I, Aurelius Kopreas son of Herminos, have sold
[and] received the price and will guarantee and consent to the future public registration as aforesaid.
[b]
[against] you, the purchaser, or against your successors concerning anything in this sale in any way whatsoever. If I do proceed or fail to guarantee,
the proceeding shall be invalid and I, or whoever proceeds on my behalf, shall in addition pay to you, the purchaser, or to your successors the damages and expenses and, as a penalty, double the price as a private debt, and to the treasury the same amount, and the sale shall nonetheless be valid, which I have issued to you in duplicate for security, as if deposited in a public archive, and to whose future public registration I hereby consent. Having been asked whether
these things have been done thus rightly and properly, I agreed. After the consulship of Virius Nepotianus and Tettius Facundus, the most illustrious, Mecheir 24.
I, Aurelius Kopreas son of Herminos, have sold and received the price and will guarantee and consent
to the future public registration as aforesaid.
The object of the sale is lost; the catalogue describes it as a sale of real estate. The date uses a post-consular formula, naming the consuls of the previous year, 336.
Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Frammento di un contratto di vendita d’immobili). It has not been reviewed by a papyrologist: check the edition before citing. Restorations follow the edition; […] marks lost text and (?) an uncertain reading.