This document was written during the short reign of Berenice, the daughter of Ptolemy XII. The chronology of Berenice's reign is still poorly understood, and unfortunately the important word - the year number - has not been preserved at the start of the document. The first editor, J.R. Rea, whose translation is reproduced here, confidently translated it as 'the first year' of Berenice, which would equate to August 57 B.C. C. Bennett prefers to assign it to Berenice's second year, but then he arrives at the same Julian date, because he starts counting a year earlier (see his notes 14 & 15 on Cleopatra V).
In the [first] year of [the reign of] Berenice, Goddess Manifest, and the rest of the customary formulas as written in Alexandria, [month of Hyperberetaeus ] and Mesore , [in the city of the Oxyrhynchi ] of the Thebaid.
I, Straton son of Nicomachus, . . ., one of the queen's first friends and chiliarchs of swordbearers, one of the settler cavalrymen, swear by queen [Berenice, Goddess] Manifest, and by her ancestors, and by all the other gods, to Theon son of . . ., Persian, one of the settler cavalrymen and successor to his father's allotment, both of the street of Cleopatra Aphrodite, that I will abide in all respects by the provisions of the contract of agreement which I have made with you through the record-office of the remembrancers in the city of the Oxyrhynchi on the present day, according to which I have ceded to you from my allotment the five arouras by rectangular measurement of wheat-bearing sowable land which I hold from the allotment of Phaenippus near the village of Peenno, the boundaries of which are specified in the agreement, and that I, Straton, will practise no fraud in respect of the cession of the land or in respect of any other of the matters proclaimed in the agreement or in respect of this oath on any pretext. Otherwise(?) . . ., and whenever I am brought to account by you [or your representatives], apart from the fact that the cession of the land shall remain valid for you, as indeed it is, I concede too that my allotment shall be forfeit to the royal treasury and that I shall be liable to the penalty of the oath.
{Signed} I, Straton, have sworn the above-written oath.
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