Training

Apprentice Contract
P. Mich. Inv. 5191
Karanis, 27-CA20-A
In this contract Aurelius Ision arranges to apprentice his young slave with a weaver. The contract was written in Greek on January 20, 271 A.D.

Aurelius Ision, son of Nilammon, a resident of Karanis, has given over to Aurelia Libouke, a resident of the quarter of the Bithynians and other areas, a weaver, acting without guardian by right of her children, the slave child of the same Ision, to learn with Aurelia Libouke the indicated craft in the period of one year from the first of the ensuing month Mecheir, the child being fed and clothed by her ... may receive from the weaver .... And for as many days as she is idle because of sickness or any other cause, she is to remain available an equal number of days as compensation after the end of the period. When the slave child has completed the agreed time without fault, the teacher shall return her after she has learned the craft with skill equal to those of her own age.

Neither party shall have authority to alter either one or another stipulation nor to transgress any part of the written agreement, but let whosoever does transgress give to the one abiding by it, as penalty, two hundred silver drachmai. The apprentice contract is valid, and when questioned, they reciprocally agreed. Aurelia Libouke, about 58 years of age, with a scar on her left shin: the slave child is receiving at the end of the time, to the account of Ision, sixty drachmai.

(Date) Year one of Lucius Domitius Aurelianus and Septimius Vaballathus Athenodorus, Tybi 26.