Two Personal Letters
Personal letter from Tourbon to Nemesianos aking for some clothes, promising to send things in return, and alluding to a person who owed Tourbon some money
One text, 3 sources · Trismegistos-Text 31839
Letter to Nemesianos asking for winter clothing and pressing a debtor TM 31839Alexandria (?)240 CE – 60 CE
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 →
Private letter, missing its beginning, to Nemesianos asking him to send a garment quickly because it is winter, offering to send whatever he needs in return, and asking him to press an unnamed debtor for payment. The writer is identified elsewhere as Tourbon; the letter dates to the mid 3rd century AD, possibly from Alexandria.
In English machine translation
[recto]
[… lines lost …]
[…] to send me the cloak (?) quickly. You know that it is winter and there is need of them. So do not neglect it. And if you have need of anything from here, let me know by letter so that I may send it to you, knowing that I do it gladly; or you will pass it on to my brother. I have instructed him not to neglect this. You also know the man who owes me, since it was not right to name him in a letter; and you yourself do this much, for I know how you love me: trouble him, since he is negligent. If he pays anything, you will write back to me. I greet your daughter and son. Origenes and Pasis and Protous greet you. Farewell, I pray.
[verso]
Deliver to Nemesianos.
The word alikl(i)on is rare and probably denotes a kind of cloak or garment. The papyrus carries two personal letters; this is one of them, and the writer's name Tourbon is not preserved in the surviving lines.
Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Two Personal Letters). 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.col.10.279
[r] [… ? lines lost …] …[…] τὸ ἀλίκλιον ταχύτερον πέμψαι μοι. οἶδας ὅτι χειμών ἐστί καὶ χρεία ἐστὶν αὐτῶν· μὴ οὖν ἀμελήσῃς· καὶ ἄν τις σοι χρεία ἦν τῶν ἐνθάδε, δήλωσόν μοι διὰ ἐπιστολῆς ὅπως ἀποπέμπω σοι, εἰδὼς ὅτι ἡδέως ποιῶ· ἢ μεταδώσεις τῷ ἀδελφῷ μου. τούτου αὐτῷ ἐντέταλμαι μὴ…