Your Day in the Ancient Greek World

September 19

September 19 in ancient Greece is represented in our source-audited archive by one verified record dated AD 470. The entry below connects this calendar date with its surviving historical evidence and context.

Across the centuries

On This Day

  1. AD 470

    Life on This Day

    Oxyrhynchus, Roman Egypt Society & Daily Life High

    An Order Calls for Wheat for the Donkey Drivers of the Imperial Post

    On September 19, AD 470, a Greek order from the dossier of the landowner Flavia Cyria called for wheat to be supplied to donkey drivers working for the cursus velox, the fast branch of the imperial postal service. The fragment preserves a practical glimpse of the food, animals and local obligations that kept long-distance imperial communication moving.

    Sources

    Primary evidence

    • P.Lond. V 1798 = TM 19769

    Modern scholarship

    • British Library catalogue record
    • Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichnis

    Public links