OPES – Oslo Papyri Electronic System

Background and Physical Properties

Material:

Papyrus

Connections:

P.Oslo II 40a (copied on the same sheet)

Size:

32 x 31 cm

Lines:

47

Publication side:

Recto (Verso: blank)

Palaeographic description:

Practiced cursive of the Roman period. One hand (same as in P.Oslo II 40a).

State of preservation:

Medium brown colour. Two vertical kolleseis. One at ca. 8 cm from the right edge and another at ca. 30 cm from the right edge and ca. 2 cm from the left broken edge. Kollema width ca. 23.5 cm. The inferior and right edges appear to be preserved while the upper and left edges are damaged, so that between 3 and 15 letters are missing from the beginning of each of the lines of the first column, as well as 4 entire lines from the top of the first column, and 3 lines from the top of the second column. Vertical breaks along fold lines. Traces of ink have penetrated the sheet onto the upper left part of verso. The fragment contains two contracts spread over two columns. The first contract, P.Oslo II 40a occupies the initial 23 lines of col. i, the first 4 lines being entirely reconstructed on the model of P.Oslo II 40b. The latter contract occupies the remaining 23 lines of the first column, as well as the 21 extant lines in col. ii. The lacuna at the top of col. ii is thought to consist of 3 lines.

Content

Date:

August 26, 150 CE

Origin:

Bahnasa (ancient Oxyrhynchus), Egypt

Language:

Greek

Genre:

Documentary

Author:

Ptolemaios son of Apion, son of Apion

Title / Type of text:

Loan of Money / Contract (Copy of original)

Content:

Ptolemaios son of Apion borrowed 1400 drachmae at the customary annual interest rate of 12 % from Apion son of Petosorapis on Mesore, epagomenê 3rd (= August 23) in the 13th year of the reign of Antoninus Pius (150 CE), to be paid back by Mecheir 30th (= February 24) of the following year (151 CE). The borrower pledged half of a house as collateral for the loan. The document is a so-called menein-contract. In one particular year, Ptolemaios, Persian of the epigone, was obliged to borrow ready money twice from the same wealthy man, Apion son of Petosorapis, viz. 600 drachmae on Pharmouthi 19th (= April 14) (P.Oslo II 40a), and 1400 drachmae on Mesore, epagom. 3rd (= August 26) (P.Oslo II 40b), in the thirteenth year of the reign of Antoninus Pius (= 150 CE). The rate of interest payable was that customary at the time, 12%. The first sum mentioned was loaned against security of a female slave, the second sum secured against half of a house at Oxyrhynchus.

Subjects:

Contract Copy Menein Loan Money Security House

Named people:

Ptolemaios son of Apion (son of Apion) and Sarapous Apion alias Petosorapis son of Petosorapis (son of Petosorapis) Oualentia Sara son of Ptolemaios Athenaios Isarous

Named places:

Oxyrhynchus

English translation:

Ptolemaios son of Apion, son of Apion, his mother being Sarapous, from the city of Oxyrhynchos, Persian of the epigone greets Apion, also called Petosorapis, son of Petosorapis, son of Petosorapis, former kosmetes of the same city. I acknowledge that I have received the capital sum of one thousand four hundred drachmas of imperial silver coinage in cash from you, to which nothing has been added, with a monthly interest of one drachma for each mina from the next month, Thoth. I will pay the interest back to you monthly, the responsibility resting on you for the payments which I will get no receipt from you, and I will pay the capital sum back on the thirtieth of Mecheir, in the forthcoming fourteenth year of the lord Antoninus Caesar, without delay. If I should not pay it back, I agree that, after the due date of the sum, in place of what I have not paid back, the posession and ownership for all time of the half share of an inherited house I own at the quarter of the Tenth, including the atrium, courtyard, furniture, and of all the entrances and exits, shall remain with you and your legal successors. Its neigbours are: to the south, the property formerly belonging to Oualentia, to the north, the property formerly belonging to Sara son of Ptolemaios, to the east a public street, to the west, the property belonging to Athenaios. And (I agree) that you may pay the taxes for it and be master of it as if a sale has been made to you, and that you may gain the profits, and that you may sell and dispose of it as you wish, with no claims remaining with me. And I will provide you and your legal successors with the mentioned half share of the house, the atrium and the courtyard secure against everything with every guarantee, both exempt from any registration and from (debts incurred from) cultivation of royal land and of land belonging to the patrimonium of the emperor, and from every form of taxation, and from whatever else, and I will not be permitted, unless I first pay back the one thousand four hundred drachmas and the interest, to sell, rent out, nor otherwise dispose of the half share of the house, the atrium and the courtyard, nor to make a census declaration for anyone living in it, while you are permitted on your own conditions, from now on, whenever you wish, to have possession of the above mentioned, through the [lacuna of 3 lines] the half share of the house, the atrium and the courtyard in place of the one thousand four hundred drachmas and the interest which I might not have payed back, or to perform exaction of the debt and the overdue monthly interest of one drachma for each mina, both on myself and on the half part of the house, the atrium and the courtyard, and on all my other property, while you, Apion, also called Petosorapis, do not suffer loss in the exacting of what else I owe you according to another document (i.e. P.Oslo II 40a) in two copies for the capital sum of six hundred drachmas and the interest on this running from next month, Thoth, with my slave Isarous as security. That document too, written in two copies in my (Ptolemaios') own hand, is valid. The thirteenth year of Imperator Caesar Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Augustus Pius, 3rd intercalary day of Mesore.

Provenance:

Cairo, Egypt

Acquisition:

Purchased by Leiv Amundsen from Maurice Nahman

Acquisition year:

1929

Editions

• Eitrem, S. and Amundsen, L., P.Oslo II, 1931, pp. 92-100 (no. 40b)

Further Literature

Catalogues

TM 21518

Discussions

• Schwarz, A. B. (1937). Sicherungsübereignung und Zwangsvollstreckung in den Papyri (Aus Anlass von Stud. Ital. XII). Aegyptus, 17(3), 241–282. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41214595. On the legal framework for Greco-Egyptian secured loans and their execution, see pp. 247-250, 253-254, 259-265, 271, 277.
• Schönbauer, E. (1941). Rechtshistorische Urkundenstudien. Die katagraphe-Lehre von Andreas B. Schwarz in kritischer Beleuchtung. Archiv für Papyrusforschung und verwandte Gebiete, 14, 60-98. https://doi-org.ezproxy.uio.no/10.1515/apf.1941.1941.14.60. Discussion of legal terms in the contracts; see pp. 90-92.
• Pringsheim, F. (1950). The Greek law of sale. Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger. On proofs of acquisition as secure evidence of ownership; see p. 183 n. 7. On the absence of a risk clause in μένειν-type mortgages of houses; see p. 459 w/ n. 1.
• Christiansen, E. (1984). On Denarii and Other Coin-Terms in the Papyri. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 54, 271–299. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20184001. On the use of ἀργυρίου σεβαστοῦ νομίσματος (40a l. 4; 40b l. 31), see list 3, p. 289.
• Herrmann, J. (1984). P. Oxy. Hels. 36. In V. Giuffrè (Ed.), Scritti in honore di Antonio Guarini (pp. 415-422). Jovene. [= Herrmann, J. (Author) & Schiemann, G. (Ed.). (1990). Kleine Schriften zur Rechtsgeschichte (pp. 289-296). C. H. Beck.] Discussion of πίστεως l. 33; see pp. 419-420 = BL VIII, 228.
• Thür, G. (1987). Hypotheken-Urkunde eines Seedarlehens für eine Reise nach Muziris und Apographe für die Tetarte in Alexandreia (zu P. Vindob.G. 40.822). Tyche: Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte, Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 2, 229-245. https://doi.org/10.15661/tyche.1987.002.23. On monthly payments of interest and which of the parties to the contract is responsible for its fulfilment (ll. 33-34), see p. 237 n. 30.
• Nielsen, B. E., & Worp, K. A. (2002). New papyri from the New York University collection: III. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 140, 129–150. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20191485. Comparison of legal wording with P. NYU II 29; see pp. 139-140.
• Alonso, J. L. (2008). The alpha and omega of hypallagma. The Journal of Juristic Papyrology, 38, 19-51. On legal obligations in menein and hypallagma-securities, see p. 26 n. 22.
• Nielsen, B. E., & Worp, K. A. (Eds.). (2010). Papyri from the New York University Collection II (P.NYU II). Harrassowitz Verlag. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvbd8kff. Same as published in Nielsen & Worp (2002); see pp. 72-73.
• Kreuzsaler, C., Lerouxel, F., Markiewicz, T, Rupprecht, H., & Vandorpe, K. (2014). Capital. In J. Keenan, J. Manning, & U. Yiftach-Firanko (Eds.), Law and legal practice in Egypt from Alexander to the Arab conquest: A selection of papyrological sources in translation, with introductions and commentary (pp. 226-275). Cambridge University Press. On real security and menein-contracts, see p. 256.
• Alonso, J. L. (2016). One en pistei, guarantee Sales, and title-transfer security in the papyri. In D. F. Leão & G. Thür (Eds.), Symposion 2015: Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte (Coimbra, 1.-4. September 2015) (pp. 121-192). Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1v2xvqm. Discussion of menein-contracts; see p. 139-146.
• Lerouxel, F. (2016). Le marché du crédit dans le monde romain. Publications de l’École française de Rome. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.efr.31320. On the relationship between the menein-contracts and the institution of biblothêkê enktêseôn in the 1st/2nd centuries CE, see chap. 3 with n. 48; catalogue of papyri pertaining to the credit market, see pp. 349-354.
• Haklai, M. (2020). Credit and financial capital in Roman Egypt. In Capital, investment, and innovation in the Roman World (pp. 437-459). Oxford University Press. On the customary annual interest rate at 12%, see p. 445 n. 54.
• Yiftach, Uri. (2020). A petition to the iuridicus from the archive of Ptolemaios, son of Diodoros (147 CE, Theadelphia) (p. 201). Tyche: Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte, Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 35, 195-217. https://doi.org/10.25365/tyche-2020-35-16. On secured loans and P.Col. inv. 28, see p. 208 n. 31.
• Skarsouli, E. (2021). Unterer Teil einer Sechszeugenurkunde. In C. Armoni, T. Backhuys, S. Lippert, E. O.D. Love, E. Skarsouli, N. V. Navarrete, & R. Vecchiato (Eds.), Kölner Papyri, Band 17 (pp. 28-38). Brill. On the phrase πρᾶξιν ποιεῖσθαι (l. 60), see p. 34 note to l. 3. NB: The author mistakenly refers to P.Oslo II 41.
• Mauer, Q. (2022). Application, adaptation and rejection: the strategies of Roman jurists in responsa concerning Greek documents. Meijers-reeks. Boom juridisch. https://hdl.handle.net/1887/3295802. On Greek legal documents and Roman law, see p. 55 n. 55.