Incident at Senepta
2 November 188 AD
I never knew you, only your sad tragedy, little Epaphroditos. Eight years old, slave to the son-in-law of Leonides. I see you there, neglecting some dull chore, sneaking away to that beguiling window; loud in the street below, the castanet dancers were only 'giving their usual performance', but which of us, though older, could resist spinning bodies lithe to honelessness oiled and gleaming, glittering bangles, whirling coloured silks and snapping fingers? To you it must have seemed a Paradise inviting you to lean out, enter it; your small arrival silenced the castanets.
Ian Blake Oxyrhyncus papyri, Vol 3, 1903, no. 747 At a late hour yesterday (2 November 188 AD) while the castanet dancers were giving their usual performance at the house of my son-in-law Plution . his slave
Epaphroditos, about eight years old. . . intending to lean out from an upper room to see the castanet dancers, fell and was killed.'
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