Locatio operis faciendi : P. Oxy.II, 275 ( DDBDP )

LOCATIO OPERIS FACIENDI

Contract of apprenticeship

( September 18, AD 66 )

P. Oxy. II, 275 = P. Lond. III, 794 descr. = W. Chr. 324 = Sel. Pap. I, 13 ( DDBDP ).

English translation ( G. Milligan, Cambridge, 1910 ).

Agreement between Tryphon, son of Dionysius, the son of Tryphon, his mother being Thamounis the daughter of Onnophris, and Ptolemaeus, son of Pausirion, the son of Ptolemaeus, his mother being Ophelous, the daughter of Theon, weaver, both parties belonging to the city of Oxyrhynchus. Tryphon agrees to apprentice to Ptolemaeus his son Thoönis, his mother being Saraeus the daughter of Apion, who is not yet of age, for a period of one year from the present day, to serve and to do everything commanded him by Ptolemaeus in accordance with the whole weaving art, as also he himself knows it—the boy being supported and clothed during the whole time by his father Tryphon, on whom also all the public dues for the boy shall fall, on condition that Ptolemaeus shall give him monthly on account of his keep five drachmas, and at the expiry of the whole period on account of his clothing twelve drachmas, it not being permitted to Tryphon to remove the boy from Ptolemaeus until the time is completed ; and if there are any days during this period on which he [the boy] plays truant, he [Tryphon] will produce him for an equal number of days after the time, or let him pay back for each day one silver drachma, and the penalty for removing him within the period shall be a hundred drachmas and a like amount to the public treasury. But if Ptolemaeus himself does not teach the boy thoroughly, let him be liable to the like penalties. This contract of apprenticeship is valid. The 13th year of Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus Emperor, the month Sebastus 21.

I Ptolemaeus, son of Pausirion, the son of Ptolemaeus, my mother being Ophelous the daughter of Theon, will carry out each of these requirements in the one year.

I Zoilus, son of Horus, the son of Zoilus, my mother being Dieus daughter of Soceus, write on his behalf seeing that he does not know letters. The 13th year of Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus Emperor, the month Sebastus 21.

► Bibliography

Grenfell & Hunt, P. Oxy. II, 275 (1899) ; Kenyon & Bell, Greek Papyri in the British Museum, III, London, 1907, 794 descr. ; Milligan, Selections from the Greek papyri, Cambridge, 1910, pp. 54-58, n. 20 ; Wilcken, Grundzüge und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde, Leipzig-Berlin, 1912, Chrest., 324 ; Westermann, CP, 9, 1914, pp. 295-315 ; Meyer, Juristische Papyri : Erklärung von Urkunden zur Einführung in die juristische Papyruskunde, Berlin, 1920, n. 42 ; Hunt & Edgar, Select Papyri, I, London, 1932, n. 13 ; Winter, Life and Letters in the Papyri, Ann Arbor, 1933, pp. 69-70 ; Westermann, CP, 40, 1945, pp. 1-10 ; Biscottini, Aegyptus, 46, 1966, p. 274 ; Petit, Le premier siècle de notre ère, Paris, 1968, n. 87 ; Pestman & Rupprecht, Berichtigungsliste der griechischen Papyrusurkunden aus Aegypten, IX, Leiden, 1995, p. 179 ; Kruse, ZPE, 111, 1996, pp. 151 ss. ; Walker, The Economic History Society, Annual Conference, Warwick, 2009, p. 119.

► Source : Papyrus from Oxyrhynchus, published in 1899.