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J. JOEL FARBER
type that Patermouthis would need to keep, so we have to rely on the
summary recorded in the concluding settlement, P.Miinch. 14 from 594
C.E. It is an unexplained oddity that loannes, though he seems to be
present,35 does not actually sign this document, but is represented by a
guarantor who answers for him. Was his illness chronic and is he now
incapacitated? But he is still a soldier in the Syene &ptLe66. Was
Patermouthis so disgusted with him that he refused to accept his brotherin-law's signature and demanded that a more responsible man vouch for
him?
In any event, we have here a detailed history of the progress of the
dispute during the intervening nine years. It seems that loannes and
Tapia had quarreled again and gone to arbitration about a house of hers.
The arbitrator had ruled in favor of loannes, and as a result, she was
supposed to pay him four solidi, but Patermouthis had gotten involved
and somehow prevented her from paying her son. Ioannes then brought
a complaint against Patermouthis before one Kallinikos, the deputy of
another warden, and succeeded in having Patermouthis fined seven solidi
for interfering in a matter that, he claimed, concerned only loannes and
his mother. Evidently smarting from this fine, Patermouthis brought a
suit against loannes for violating the written pledge he had signed in
P.Miinch. 7 never to sue Patermouthis about the estate of Iakobos. But
Patermouthis' suit was not tried: "after they had spoken and argued much
with each other" they agreed to go to arbitration (lines 30-31).
P.Minch. 14 records the results of that arbitration between the two
men before a priest. Ioannes is to give Patermouthis five solidi on
account of the seven solidi which Patermouthis had been fined by the
warden's deputy. At the same time, loannes' claim on Tapia for the four
solidi which the arbitration over the house had awarded him is retained,
nullifying Patermouthis' attempt to prevent her from paying her son.
A friendly resolution concludes the proceedings, according to which
Patermouthis credits loannes with the four solidi that Tapia was
supposed to give him, so that loannes now owes his brother-in-law only
one solidus. We may well wonder if that solidus was ever paid.
Franklin and Marshall College J. Joel Farber
35P.Munch. 14.42 and 51-52.
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