necklace, a coverlet, a figure of Aphrodite, a cup, a big
tin flask, and a wine-jar. From Onetor get the two bracelets. They have
been pledged since the month Tybi of last year for eight... at the
rate of a stater per mina. If the cash is insufficient owing to the
carelessness of Theagenis, if, I say, it is insufficient, sell the
bracelets and make up the money." 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. Grenfell's Greek Papyri (Oxford, 1896),
p. 69: "To Noumen, police captain and mayor, from Pokas son of Onos,
unpaid policeman. I have been maltreated by Peadius the priest of the
temple of Sebek in Crocodilopolis. On the first epagomenal day of the
eleventh year, after having abused me about... in the aforesaid temple,
the person complained against sprang upon me and in the presence of
witnesses struck me many blows with a stick which he had. And as part of
my body was not covered, he tore my shirt, and this fact I called upon
the bystanders to bear witness to. Wherefore I request that if it seems
proper you will write to Klearchos the headman to send him to you, in
order that, if what I have written is true, I may obtain justice at your
hands."