Horion II’s Petition through Ammon to the Prefect

Abstract

Through 3 we learn of Ammon’s intervention with the high-priest of Alexandria and All Egypt in the attempt to secure for his nephew Horion II appointment to the propheteia of the Panopolite nome in succession to his father Horion I, Ammon’s elder half-brother now deceased. Although the required fee (είσκριτκόν) seems to have been paid, it appears that neither Ammon’s efforts nor Harpocration’s appeal to the emperor have been successful, for the following petition of Horion II apparently to the prefect, composed and written for him by Ammon in his best formal hand, seeks the prefect’s authority to overrule the high-priest. Obviously this copy of the petition was not submitted, for reasons that can be only speculated, perhaps because the high-priest complied in the meantime.