Papyrus Letter (Oxyrhynchus (Egypt), after 324 CE)
‘No doubt you had something better to do’
This informal and unexpectedly touching letter is one of more than 100,000 papyri recovered from the rubbish mounds of Oxyrhynchus during excavations between 1896 and 1907. Discarded in antiquity yet preserved by Egypt’s dry climate, such documents offer rare glimpses of everyday life.
The writer, Flavius Herculanus, thanks a woman named Aplonarion for her recent letter but writes chiefly to express hurt that she and her husband failed to attend his son’s birthday celebration: ‘No doubt you had something better to do – that’s why you looked down on us.’ The reproach is softened by affection. He tells her she was missed and warmly invites her to visit whenever she wishes, adding greetings from his family to hers. Across the centuries, the
mixture of complaint, fondness, and social obligation feels strikingly familiar.
An early editor described the letter as unusually sentimental, its tone suggesting a closeness beyond ordinary friendship. Yet, a detail on the reverse complicates this impression: Herculanus calls himself πάτρων (patron), a Greek loanword from the Latin patronus, a term often used in Roman society for the former owner of a freed slave. If used in this sense here, the relationship may have been defined less by affection than by obligation and hierarchy.
The letter itself, however, gives no explicit confirmation. Like many papyri, it leaves us with hints rather than certainties — a fragmentary but vivid trace of the social ties that shaped the ancient world.