Papyrus 1807

Disposition of the estate of Iakobos through arbitration, undertaken by the scholasticus Marcus, who placed his signature at the end and made a supralinear correction to line 76. Although the widow Tapia claimed that the property at issue was jointly held by herself and her late husband alone, she agreed to divide it in three parts, giving a third to each of her two children and swearing that she was not withholding anything. Her son Ioannes subsequently accused her of doing just that and offered to make Menas, the commander of the frontier region, joint heir in Tapia's place if he would remove the hidden property from her. Menas responded by exacting from her 33 gold solidi, i.e., one-third of the estimated assets. Thereupon, Tapia brought a complaint before the scholasticus Fl. Markos. Having examined both parties and questioned the witnesses, he says in this document that Tapia has to take another oath but is allowed to keep the disputed property because, although Ioannes had been entitled to seek exaction to redress his grievance, Menas had seized too much; Tapia can seek redress from Menas, provided that Ioannes receives one-third of the recovered gold. A last-minute dispute as to whether Tapia promised to settle with Ioannes by paying him 12 solidi was to be decided by a sworn statement of three witnesses to the proposal.