For #OnThisDay today, a special treat: a small archive of nine petitions to the strategos of the Arsinoite nome, all dated precisely to May 11th, 218 BCE. This archive also helps shed light on 3rdC BCE archival practices in Ptolemaic Egypt: https://www.trismegistos.org/archive/80
First up for #OnThisDay May 11th, 218 BCE—three dealers complain against a wine merchant who has delivered them an incomplete order for wine https://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.enteux;;34
Also #OnThisDay May 11th 218 BCE: Petoys complains about Lachares and Alexandros, who refuse to accept as valid a contract for the lease of land. They claim that the contract was deposited while still unsealed, & therefore they're not bound to repay Petoys for letting his land https://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.enteux;;54
#OnThisDay May 11th, 218 BCE: the Greek foreigner Herakleides complains that an Egyptian woman named "Psenobastis" poured urine all over him and ripped his clothes off. (An Egyptian woman's name is unlikely to start with "P", so Herakleides may have misheard.) https://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.enteux;;79
#OnThisDay May 11th, 218 BCE: the wool merchant Harmiysis complains that Seos sold him 118 sheep to be sheared for wool, and then sheared them himself before handing them over https://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.enteux;;2
#OnThisDay May 11th, 218 BCE: Helladote complains that her husband Jonathan has completely wronged her in every way, despite her having brought a good dowry and perhaps a house to the marriage https://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.enteux;;23
#OnThisDay May 11th, 218 BCE: Hermogenes complains that he and Petosiris got into an argument, and then Petosiris "[placed] his hands upon me…with beatings and stompings upon whatever part of my body he might strike" https://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.enteux;;72
#OnThisDay May 11th, 218 BCE: a woman from Alexandrou Nesos complains that Dorotheos stole her coat when she took it off to go to work https://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.enteux;;30
Anyway, tomorrow we'll return to the usual 1/day #OnThisDay, but I can't pass up a day-in-the-life's-worth of petitions to a Ptolemaic era strategos
#OnThisDay May 11th, 218 BCE: Sosigenes complains that the policeman Hippoitas has wronged him, because after apprehending a thief who had stolen from Sosigenes, he took the money from the thief to return to him but instead kept it himself https://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.enteux;;28