Private Letter
Letter written to Serenus by his father Dorion to inform him that, pursuant to his request, he has sent baskets containing bread, cheese, and parsley-roots
One text, 3 sources · Trismegistos-Text 28801
Letter from Dorion to his son Serenus about food sent by Theon TM 28801UnknownIInd century or early IIIrd century 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 from Dorion to his son Serenus, telling him he has sent baskets of bread and a small basket of cheeses and parsley roots with Theon, asking for news, and passing on greetings from the family. A postscript mentions that a certain Eutyches is causing trouble about the old tower of the house. It dates to the 2nd or 3rd century AD.
In English machine translation
[recto, top]
[…] Pharmouthi 15.
Dorion to Serenus, his sweetest son, greetings.
Before all else I pray that you are in good health, and I make your obeisance before our ancestral gods, praying for the best things concerning you. I have sent you a little something through Theon: baskets of loaves and a small basket in which there are cheeses and parsley(?) roots, as the letter contains. Write to me, lord, with the others, about your well-being and about what you need from me. Greet from me the sweetest Isidoros. Your mother Thais greets you, and your brother and sister Herakles and Antonia also called Modesta, and all those in the house.
I pray for your health, lord son.
Pharmouthi 12.
[recto, margin]
Concerning the old tower of the house, Julius has already written to you that Eutyches is troubling us.
[verso]
To Serenus, his son, from Dorion, his father.
The word skorselenes is rare and understood as parsley roots, a variant of selinon; the 'tower' (pyrgos) was a multi-storey part of an Egyptian house. The note at the top, dated Pharmouthi 15, seems to be a receipt docket added later than the letter itself (Pharmouthi 12).
Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Letter of Dorion to Serenus). 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.mich.3.212
[r,ctr] […]ελ Φαρμοῦθι ιε. Δωρίων Σερήνῳ τῶι γλυκυτάτῳ υἱῷ χαίρειν. πρὸ μὲν πάντων εὔχομαί σε ὑγιαίνειν καὶ τὸ προσκύνημά σου ποιῶ παρὰ τοῖς πατρῴοις ἡμῶν θεοῖς εὐχόμενος περὶ σοῦ τὰ κάλλιστα. μικρόν τι ἔπεμψά σοι διὰ Θέωνος κόϊκα ἄρτων καὶ σφυρίδιον ἐν ᾧ τυρία καὶ σκωρσελήνης ὡς…