Abinneus, commander of the ala Quinta Praelectorum garrisoned at Dionysias, was clearly a stickler for paperwork, retaining his records long after they were received, since around 80 of these documents have survived, mostly letters and petitions with a handful of accounts and contracts. From these documents we know that the unit was mainly involved in tax collection, including grain for Italy, local disputes, and soldier recruitment, supplying conscripts to the army.
Piecing together lives from papyrus
Among the papers kept was a draft of a petition he made to the Emperors Constantius and Constans for his own command role. It is written in Latin, although almost all the other extant documents are in Greek (probably the main language, among others, used by the unit). The papyrus has been damaged, which means that Abinneus' early career is unknown, but it seems that he served 33 years as a cavalryman with a vexillation of Parthian archers, reaching the relatively high rank of ducenarius. It was in AD 342 that Abinneus was appointed to command of Quinta Praelectorum. Later letters show that he was peremptorily dismissed from his post in 345, but he succeeded in being reinstated the next year and then served until at least AD 351, when he was probably about 60 years old.
Abinneus may have retired to Philadelphia in the north-eastern Fayyūm, where the papyri may have
