C A sister seeks to avenge her brother’s murder

In 1988, a previously unknown group of twenty-one documents of the mid-third century came to light. The exact provenance of the documents is not known, but they are from the Middle Euphrates area, in the same region as Dura Europos (for which see Chapters Two and Four).

Five of the new documents are petitions to provincial and local officials, two of them addressed to the governor of the recently formed province of Coele Syria.¹³¹ All the petitions were written in Greek on papyrus, and bear many similarities to petitions from Roman Egypt. One is to the centurion in charge of public order in the region from a woman, Bathsabbatha (‘'daughter of the God of the Sabbath”¹³²), who claimed that her brother was murdered and, apparently, that his body had been taken away. She had recovered his body but not his property (which evidently belonged to her as his heir), which was in the possession of another woman, labathnanaia, whom Bathsabbatha wants to charge with murder. The rela­tionship of labathnanaia to the deceased is not stated, but perhaps she was his widow (and therefore in a position to take control of his property). Having already presented witnesses (both military men, in this frontier zone) to back up her claim, Bathsabbatha now seeks the centurion's subscription (endorsement), which would enable her to bring an accusation against labathnanaia to provincial authorities.¹³³ The case would have to go before the governor, for his delegates and subordinates did not have jurisdiction in a murder case [D.1.21.1 (Papinian)]. Bathsabbatha received the centurion's subscription, but we do not know how the case turned out.

P.Euphr.

To Julius Marinus, centurion for maintaining order in Sphorakene, from Bathsabbatha daughter of Arsinoe,¹³⁴ from the village of Magdala of Sphorakene.

My lord, while you were in Appadana I brought before you Aurelius Abilaas, a soldier of the sixteenth legion Flavia Firma, and Barsemaias, a veteran, trustworthy men who gave evidence to you that Nisraiabos my deceased brother, who had been snatched away by some evil-doers, had been recovered by me.¹³⁵ labathnanaia holds his possessions, which belong to me, and I am ready to bring an accusation against her in regard to his murder. And so for this reason, I ask that you give your subscription to this petition of mine, so that I can use it as testimony.

[in another hand, in Latin] I received this at Appadana on the sixth day before the Kalends of June in the consulship of Ariannus and Pappus.¹³⁶