The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part 43

3088.

Ἀντωνινιαναί Antoniniana (a name of public baths) (P. Giss. 50), the first is indicated, since they drew their earliest title from Trajan. Hadrian's name may have been attached to them on this occasion or later during his visit to Egypt. But the speculation is very tenuous because the mention, from the reign of Antoninus, of μείζονες θερμαί greater baths (III 473 5) may mean that there were two sets of Thermae baths at Oxyrhynchus.

13-15 Just possibly it could be ἐχῷ I may have at the end of 13; for the participation of provincial governors see R. MacMullen, ‘Roman Imperial Building in the Provinces’, HSCP 64 (1959) 210, 225 n. 24. If so, print ἐπιδῶ I may contribute instead of ἐπιδῷ he may contribute in 14, but τις anyone will suit the very scanty traces equally well and it seems more likely that the gist is—‘and from contributions that may be made in the future by any person who is anxious to gain a reputation for generosity’. At the end of 14 λο or το seems a possible reading, though the traces are too scanty to confirm φιλο/τιμουμε[ν- ambitious for reputation.

17 On the simplest hypothesis this would be an earlier date than the one in 6, see 6 n. and introd. The space certainly seems too short to restore the month-name as Phamenoth.

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3089. REPORT OF VILLAGE ELDERS

33 4B.82/C(1)a

25 x 21 cm.

A.D. 146

In essence this is a report to a strategus military administrator of a nome from elders acting in place of a village scribe (1-7; 38-9), but the bulk of it is taken up by the citation of other documents that gave rise to the report. The case as we have it began with a petition to the procurator financial administrator P. Aelius Eclectus (19-37) laying information that a certain Valerius Niger owed money to the Roman government on account of leases of usiac royal/estate property that he and his dead brother had undertaken on mutual security. The procurator wrote to the strategus asking him to exact whatever was owed and this letter is also quoted in full (8-18). Evidently the strategus gave instructions to the village authorities to report, but these are not repeated.

The body of the report was very short (38-9) and the damage to the ends of lines in the second column makes its purport uncertain. Probably it simply confirmed the existence of one of the leases in question. The same loss to the right makes it hard to say why the original petitioner was interested. He asks for justice, which makes it seem likely that he was not a mere informer. Perhaps the likeliest possibility is that he too was a creditor of Niger and hoped to recover the debt if Niger’s property was sold up to repay the treasury.

The back was used subsequently for a day-by-day account and some similar jottings appear upside-down in the lower margin and in other vacant spaces on the front.