Beginning of a letter of the acting prefect Mussius Aemilianus

edition of a greek papyrus with the beginning of a letter of L. Mussius Aemilianus directed to Dius, president of the town council of the city of Arsinoe, and probably dealing with a problem concerning the nomination of an exegetes.not often does one find the original version of a letter sent by a famous person from Antiquity.the papyrus published below, however, contains the beginning of an original letter of the acting prefect of egypt, Lucius Mussius Aemilianus. he is known from various sources. 2he was probably born in italy and was of equestrian rank.An inscription dated 247 ce and found in ostia, on what must have been the base of his statue, informs us about his early career. 3 After passing quickly through the ranks of the military, Mussius Aemilianus had started his administrative career as praefectus vehiculorum trium provinciarum Galliarum (commander of transportation in the three provinces of gaul; probably under Philippus Arabs). he then became procurator Alexandreae Pelusi Paraetoni (manager of the three harbours of egypt on the Mediterranean coast), which 1 the papyrus published in this article is privately owned in Wilrijk, Belgium. it formerly belonged to the gerald e. Wellburn collection, which was described in Wellburn's handwritten album A Postal History Collection of Great Britain (1938) (displayed online at the webside of Victoria Stamps: http://www.vicstamps.com/displays/postal_history_collection_gb/table_contents.html[accessed March 2016]; see no. 8 of the online exhibit for this papyrus).i thank the present owner for bringing