A Woman᾿s Application for the Appointment of a Guardian (tutor ad actum)

Abstract

The present article contains the first edition of a previously unpublished Greek text from the Collection of Papyri of the Austrian National Library (inv. no. P.Vindob. G 25822). The papyrus records the request of a woman who asks to be granted a legal tutor in order to carry out a legal act for which a tutor was required (tutor ad actum). The applicant claims to have no male relatives. The text concerns the applicant᾿s dowry, while the addressee of the request is most likely either the archiprytanis and exegetes of Alexandria or the exegetes of the Arsinoite metropolis of Ptolemais Euergetis. There are six parallels to our text coming from the Arsinoite nome and dated between 168/169 AD and 207 AD, which preserve applications to the archiprytanis and exegetes for the granting of a legal tutor. Unlike these texts, which are preserved as appendices to later documents, the Viennese fragment seems to preserve the original application of the woman in question.