NOTE ON SB 9109
Under the title "Sale of Vine Land" was published P. Mich. inv.
1431 (= SB 9109), the lower half of a contract written in A.D. 31 by
Kronion son of Apion, the nomographos of Tebtynis. It is a part of
his archive, which is otherwise found in Michigan Papyri II and V,
but was acquired separately from the rest. One of two documents
published in TAPA 81, 1950, pp. 69 ff., it is technically a sale, but its
language more closely resembles that of the cessions and subscriptions to cessions P. Mich. 252; 256; 258; 259; 262; 267-79; 273; and
303.' Kronion's orthography is careless and inconsistent.
In this text occurs an expression found elsewhere only in a few
contracts of cession or renunciation from the Arsinoite Nome. The
first penalty clause (lines 7-8), which in phrasing is similar to P. Mich.
350.16-18 (Tebtynis, A.D. 37); and P. Duk. inv. 170.26 (Ptolemais
Euergetis, A.D. 44);2 and in part like P. Teb. 393.21-23 (A.D. 150),
is presented in the editio princeps as
6o t 6' av rc.vw 7rpoyeypaIppIevov 7rapaovvpafb r7v v ep v airv Tuorarat
7ro0 rap' aobVroV repi roTr)V eo0bov
1. While confusion between terms of sale and cession is well known from later
documents, particularly outside the Arsinoite Nome (cf. e.g. P. Ryl. 164, Hermopolis, A.D.
171, and comm. by A. B. Schwartz, Die offentliche und private Urkunde im romischen
Aegypten, AbhLeipzig 31.3, 1920, pp. 190 ff.; cf. L. Mitteis, Grundz. p. 178), the present
document alone among first-century Arsinoite conveyances combines r76 earapivov...
apyvptKov napaXcop77tKUi tOaV Ke)d\0atov (I. Ke~dtxatov) and ht Karat r 7V apaXcjprotv
rawriv in the body of the contract with rnenpaKpvat, 7rpctv and rhv ouvvKEXw pnpr'vvrlv rthv
na&av in the first subscription. We do not know, of course, how the transaction was
specified or the ahinexnh'r was characterized in the lost first half ot the contract.
2. Of the clause in question the Duke text, a cession of catoecic land, preserves only
the following: iniep abr lic niepi ro6r7wv i~i0ov 4 'vKXraotv 'EAirtolirtuv K JvavOw
6tapoi0tl~Cw r77Trv K[aKorTXvrnotv.
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