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Although the names of the addressee and parties
involved are missing, this sensational account
appears to be taken from a petition to a court
complaining of the misconduct of a husband in his
role as kyrios (cf. no. 82).
Now concerning the insulting allegations he made
about me: he shut up his own daughters and mine,
along with my foster daughters and his agent and
his son for seven whole days in his cellars, and
treated his slaves and my slave Zoe violently,
[virtually] killing them with blows. He stripped
my foster-daughters naked and set fire to them, in
complete violation of the law. And he said to the
foster-daughters, 'Give me everything that belongs
to her', and they said that they had nothing that
belonged to me. To the slaves as they were being
beaten he said, 'What did she take from my house?'
Under torture they said, 'She has taken nothing
that belongs to you; all your property is safe'.
Zoilus accused him because he had locked up his
foster-son. He said to Zoilus: 'Have you come on
account of your foster-son or to speak on behalf
of a certain woman?' [47]
He swore in the presence of the bishops and his
own brothers, 'from now on I shall not hide all my
keys from her and I shall not attack her and
insult her from now on. (Added above the line) He
trusted his slaves but not me. He made a marriage
agreement, and after his contract and his oaths he
hid the keys from me again. When I went to the
church in Sambatho, he also shut the outside doors
and said about me 'Why did you go to church?' He
made many abusive comments to my face, and further
insulted me by speaking through his nose.
Of the public grain in my name valued at 100
drachmas he did not pay one artaba. He locked up
the accounts after he got hold of them and said,
'Put down the price of the grain as 100 artabas',
but he paid nothing, as I said. He told his
slaves, 'Bring reinforcements so they can lock her
up'.
Choous his assistant was sent to prison and
Euthalmus posted bail for him, but ran short of
money. I took a little extra and gave it to
Choous. When he met me in Antinoöpolis when I had
my bathing bag containing my ornaments, he also
said to me, 'If you have some money with you, I
shall take it because of what you gave to Choous
as bail for his imprisonment'. All this is
verified by his mother's testimony.
Also he kept on tormenting my soul about his slave
girl Anilla, both in Antinoöpolis and here. He
said: 'Throw out this slave since she knows what
she has taken', perhaps because he wished to
implicate me and use it as an excuse to take all
my possessions. I did not put up with her being
sent away. And he kept on saying that 'a month
from now I'm going to take a mistress [48] for
myself'. God knows that this is true. |
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