" Here is an affectionate letter of
invitation: "Greeting, my dear Serenia, from Petosiris. Be sure, dear,
to come up on the 20th for the birthday festival of the god, and let me
know whether you are coming by boat or by donkey, that we may send for
you accordingly. Take care not to forget."
Here is an advertisement of a gymnastic display:
"The assault-at-arms by the youths will take place to-morrow, the 24th.
Tradition, no less than the distinguished character of the festival,
requires that they should do their utmost in the gymnastic display. Two
performances." Signed by Dioskourides, magistrate of Oxyrrhynchus.
Here is a report from a public physician to a magistrate: "To
Claudianus, the mayor, from Dionysos, public physician. I was to-day
instructed by you, through Herakleides your assistant, to inspect the
body of a man who had been found hanged, named Hierax, and to report to
you my opinion of it. I therefore inspected the body in the presence
of the aforesaid Herakleides at the house of Epagathus in the Broadway
ward, and found it hanged by a noose, which fact I accordingly report."
Dated in the twelfth year of Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 173).
The above translations are taken, slightly modified, from those in The
Oxyrrhynchus Papyri, vol. i. The next specimen, a quaint letter, is
translated from the text in Mr.
Pages:
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465