OPES – Oslo Papyri Electronic System

Background and Physical Properties

Material:

Papyrus

Connections:

P.Fouad 21, l.11-16

Size:

16.5 x 13 cm.

Lines:

12

Publication side:

Recto, the Verso is blank

Palaeographic description:

Written in a large, handsome hand, with subtle strokes, very accurate and regular.

State of preservation:

Very fragmented. The surface is almost totally damaged through abrasions, with loose and broken fibres all over.

Content

Date:

63 A.D.

Origin:

Unknown place, province of Egypt

Language:

Greek

Genre:

Documentary

Author:

–

Title / Type of text:

Official letter

Content:

Official letter concerning honeste missi (missikii), written from some higher official. Mention of strategoi. At the end four crosses (XXXX) in the middle of the line, signifying perhaps ""forty""? According to Daris S P.Oslo inv.1451 and P.Fouad 21, l. 11-16 are identical in expression and are perhaps copies of the same document, and SB VIII 9668 prints Daris' new version of the text and describes it as an ""Official document concerning the legal position of dismissed soldiers"".

Subjects:

Letter Military Administration Army Veterans

Named people:

–

Named places:

–

English translation:

SB VIII 9668: ""and the basis of complaint is not the same for each of you. For some of you are legionary veterans and some from the cohorts, some from the alae, some from the oarsmen group so that the legal right is not the same for all. I shall take care of it. I have written to the strategoi of the nomes to instruct them to abide by the terms of the imperial constitution as to the rights of each of you.

Provenance:

Unknown place, province of Egypt

Acquisition:

Purchased 1934 from Maurice Nahman, Cairo

Acquisition year:

–

Editions

• Traversa A, SO 37, 1961, 130-131
• Daris S, Aegyptus 42, 1962, 125

Further Literature

Daris S, Documenti per la storia dell'esercito Romano in Egitto (1964), no. 102.Hengstl J, Bemerkungen zu Papyri, ZPE (1980) p. 88-89 (doubts the connection between the two papyri).Link S, Konzepte der Privilegierung römischer Veteranen, Stuttgart 1989, p. 25, 109-112.Alston R, Soldier and society in Roman Egypt (1995), p. 215, n. 23.