Menches, village scribe of Kerkeosiris, informs Ptolemaios, probably the strategos, about damage done to a dike by certain persons who had carried off earth from it for their own use.
Translation: Menches, village scribe of Kerkeosiris in the division of Polemon, to Ptolemaios, greeting. On the 16th of Epeiph of the 3rd year as I was inspecting, in company with Horos the komarches and Patanis and other elders of the farmers, the embankment works near the village, when we came along the drain … the banking up of the surrounding dike of the great god Soknebtunis, the lands near the village being situated between, we found that certain persons in the employ of Philonautes son of Leon, one of the catoecic cavalrymen at Berenikis Thesmophorou, had dug away part of the aforesaid drain, (undermining) the mounds of the surrounding dyke called that of Themistos for the length of eight schoinia, and had heaped the earth from it on to the mounds of the holding of the said Philonautes. Whereupon we immediately seized one of the above-mentioned persons and sent a message to Polemon who is performing the duties of Epistates of the village, asking him to bring the offenders before you … I send this report therefore in order that you may, if you please (give instructions), first of all that the mounds are made secure … and that Philonautes and his agents … may appear before you and receive the punishment which they deserve for their (offences).