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A short letter from a group of estate managers (pronoetai) to their master about a requisition of cheeses and flax stalks. They ask him to instruct the secretary to supply them so they can buy the goods, and urge him not to hand them over to the eirenarchs, who give them nothing. It comes from the Arsinoite nome and dates to the 4th to 7th century AD.
Pronoetai were managers of estates, and eirenarchs were local police officials responsible for keeping order. The Greek is ungrammatical in places, so the exact sense of the opening clause is uncertain.
Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below. It has not been reviewed by a papyrologist: check the edition before citing. Restorations follow the edition; […] marks lost text and (?) an uncertain reading.
[r] ἐὰν οἶδεν ἡ σὴ ἐξουσία ὅτι κατέχεις ἡμᾶς τυρία καὶ λινοκαλάμην, γράψον τῷ γραμματεῖ δώσῃ ἡμῖν ὧν χρείαν ἔχεις τυρίων καὶ λινοκαλάμης, ἵνʼ ἀγοράσομεν αὐτά, δέσποτα μὴ δώσῃς αὐτὰ τοῖς εἰρηνάρχαις, ἐπειδὴ οὐδὲν παρέχουσιν ἡμῖν. [v] δεσπότῃ ἡμῶν οἱ σοὶ δοῦλοι παντες οἱ προνοηταί.
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