An ancient shopping list - Nunc est bibendum

Translated from french (please notify us of errors)

“Hey bro, how are you? Could you bring me some poultry, bread, lupin seeds, chickpeas, beans and fenugreek, please?”

In this apparently banal form, a letter written in Greek in the 3rd century after our era has come down to us, preserved on papyrus and now held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Its author, Herakleidès, writes to his brother Petepsaïs. Both live in Egypt, then a province of the Roman Empire.

It is a private letter, short and functional, with no literary ambition, yet of exceptional interest for the history of everyday life.

A very practical order

Herakleidès asks his brother to purchase various foodstuffs, after having already passed the instructions on to a third party named Polydeukès. This is clearly a practical order, connected with an upcoming journey.

The list includes:

twenty birds (ornithia), at 4 drachmas each, “or even more”;
wheat cakes (selignia), large (20 drachmas) and small (8 drachmas);
legumes, measured in choinix (a unit of capacity):
– lupins (4 choinix),
– chickpeas (2 choinix),
– beans or phaseoli (phasēlia, 2 choinix),
– fenugreek (tēleōs, 2 choinix).

Prices and quantities are given without comment, as if self-evident. Nothing suggests speculation or an exceptional situation: this is an ordinary supply order, of the kind frequently encountered in the papyrological documentation of Roman Egypt.

A word that resists papyrologists

One passage of the letter nevertheless presents a difficulty. Herakleidès specifies that, if Polydeukès “did not agree to buy” the goods, Petepsaïs will have to take care of it himself. The problem lies in a Greek word, ἀπατρο̣βας (apatrobas), whose meaning remains uncertain.

Editors hesitate between an unknown adverb and a proper name (for example Patrobas), a possible but syntactically delicate hypothesis.

The letter follows a standard epistolary formula: opening greeting, body of the message, final wish for good health. The tone is familiar, sometimes insistent: “but be careful not to do otherwise”.

This type of correspondence shows that the practice of writing was not confined to literary elites. Without drawing excessive conclusions about general levels of literacy, the document nevertheless attests to at least a functional command of writing, used to manage very concrete matters: purchases, prices, quantities, journeys.

A snapshot of everyday life

This small shopping list, scribbled nearly eighteen centuries ago, sheds light at once on everyday foodstuffs in Roman Egypt, supply networks, the practical language of economic life, and the ordinary uses of writing. Through it, it is less the grand structures of the Empire than the simple gestures of daily life that speak again: buying, counting, carrying… and above all, not getting it wrong.

Complete text in Greek

Ἡρακλείδης Πετεψαίτι τῷ
ἀδελφῷ πλεῖστα χαίρειν.
πρὸ μὲν πάντων ἀ[σ]πάζομέ
σαι. ἐδήλωσα τῷ [ἀ]δελφῷ
Πολυδεύκῃ περὶ ἐντολικοῦ
τοῦτ’ʼ ἔστιν περὶ ὀρνιθια\ων/ κ
ἐκ (δραχμῶν) δ τοῦ ἑνὸς ἢ καὶ πρός,
καὶ σελιγνίων μεγάλων
(δραχμῶν) κ καὶ μικρῶν (δραχμῶν) η. ἐὰν
οὖν μαθῇς ὅτι οὐκ ἠνέσχετο
αὐτὰ ἀγοράσαι απατρο̣βας,
δηλαδὴ σὺ αὐτὰ ἀγόρασον
καὶ ἐνέγκεις μοι αὐτὰ
ἐρχόμενος. ἀλʼ ὅρα μὴ ἄλλως.
ἐνέγκεις δέ μοι θερμίων χοί(νικας) δ
ἐρεβενθίων χ(οίνικας) β καὶ φαση-
λιων χ(οίνικας) β τήλεως χ(οίνικας) β.
ἐρρωσωθαί σε εὔχομαι.

Translation

“Heraclides to Petepsais, his brother, many greetings. First of all, I greet you. I explained the order to the brother Polydeuces, that is, the twenty birds at 4 drachmas each, or even more, and the large wheat cakes at 20 drachmas and the small ones at 8 drachmas. If you learn that he refused to buy them apatrobas [word of unknown meaning], then buy them yourself and bring them to me when you come. Be careful not to do otherwise. Bring me 4 measures of lupins, 2 measures of chickpeas and 2 measures of beans, 2 measures of fenugreek. I pray for your good health.”

Sources