A business letter concerning a consignment of olives that the gymnasiarch Dios locked away after inspecting them, before agreeing on a price. The writer defends the quality of the olives, complains that fish sent through Ammonios never arrived, mentions travelling with camels, and scolds the recipient for not dating his letter. Dated Thoth 11, 2nd century AD.
In English machine translation
[… lines lost …]
[…] … […] write(s) (?) […]
[…] for the letter […] writing; for you write to me
[in your] letter that immediately on [receiving] the olives the gymnasiarch Dios shut [them all] away, having dared to inspect whether they are good or not. But this […] I say (?) that […]
[…] for all the olives which I sent [you] are good, except [only] four which I suspect are slightly reddish, and these too […]
[…] the four metretai […] I […] from the whole […] and they are good […] only this, but […]
[…] for comparison with the whole […] you write that the olives have been shut away by the gymnasiarch before he has yet agreed on […] price, this […] of the people
[…] since you tell me that the gymnasiarch is buying
[…] the olive sellers until I arrive
[…].
For with God's help I too am coming with the camels
[…].
And you wrote to me that you sent me a sea bream and a dogfish through Ammonios; know that he delivered none of them to me.
A certain Potamon brought me [your] letter by word of mouth (?), that I should go to meet the camels
at the Aphrodision. Since they are going to the Ammoniake, I immediately sent Ophellios there so that he might bring me half of the camels. ⟦and the gymnasiarch wanted you to have another three metretai of the oil and that all be …⟧
⟦… my visit; for these …⟧ and […] the letter from you [and] I sent you the gymnasi[…] since […] I wrote of the olives; but
keep them until I come [to you]. And you ought to have written the day and the month in the letter so that
I might know on what day it was brought to me. Greet Helene and Thaesis
and Ptolemas and Menas and all our people.
I pray for your health.
Thoth 11
Several lines were deleted by the writer and are only partly legible. Ammoniake may refer to the Ammoniac (oasis) region; the phrase 'by word of mouth' renders an uncertain reading.
Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Business 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.