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Select Papyri, 1.25


PROMISE TO BE HONEST

Greek text:   POxy 139
Date:   A.D. 612.

In the name of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour, in the 3rd year of the reign of our most godlike and honoured master and greatest benefactor, Flavius Heraclius the eternal Augustus and Imperator, Phaophi 29, 1st indiction. To Flavius Apion the all-honoured and most magnificent, of consular rank and patrician, landowner at this famous city of Oxyrhynchus, through Menas his servant who is acting on his behalf and assuming for his master, the said all-honoured personage, the rights and obligations of the agreement, from Aurelius Menas, head-watchman, son of Hor and of Herais, of the village of Adaeus in the pagarchy of your magnificence in the Oxyrhynchite nome. I acknowledge to your magnificence through your representatives that if at any season or time I shall be found to have stolen mechanical implements or cattle, or to have committed any theft whatsoever, or to have harboured thieves, I am bound to deliver to your magnificence for each infraction 24 gold solidi, to be really and truly exacted at the risk of my person and my property. This acknowledgement, made in a single copy, is valid, and in answer to the formal question I have given my assent.

{Signed}   I, Menas son of Hor, agree to this acknowledgement as above. I, John, have written for him, as he is illiterate

{Subscribed}   Executed by me, John.

{Endorsed}   Acknowledgement of Menas, head-watchman, son of Hor, of the village of Adaeus in the Oxyrhynchite nome.

papyrus 26


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