The petition of the coloni — the tenant-farmers — of the saltus Burunitanus, an imperial estate in the Bagradas valley of Roman Africa, to the emperor Commodus, with his rescript: a complete petition-and-response dossier cut on one stone in AD 182. The estate's rents and labour-dues were farmed out to a conductor, a lessee; and the conductor, Allius Maximus, in collusion with the imperial procurators, exacted more days of forced labour than the estate-law allowed, and procured soldiers to seize, chain and flog the farmers — Roman citizens among them. Reaching past the procurators to the emperor himself, the coloni won a rescript in their favour: no more than the customary six days' labour a year. They then cut the whole file — petition, rescript, the procurators' covering letter, and a note of the monument's dedication — into stone, and set it up on the estate. It is one of the most important documents to survive from the Roman countryside. Verbatim Latin text, translation, apparatus and a section-by-section commentary.罗马治下阿非利加巴格拉达斯河谷之布鲁尼塔皇庄佃农致皇帝康茂德之请愿，连同其批复，于公元后182年同刻一石，成一完整之「请愿与回应」卷宗。皇庄之租赋与劳役承包于一名承租人；承租人阿利乌斯·马克西穆斯与皇庄财务官合谋，勒索超过庄园法所允之劳役日数，又调来军士拘捕佃农、加以镣铐、施以杖击——其中亦有罗马公民。佃农越过财务官、直诉皇帝，终获有利之批复：每年劳役不得超过惯例之六日。佃农遂将全卷——请愿、批复、财务官之转达函、及碑石竖立之题署——镌于石上，立于庄中。此乃罗马乡间传世文献中最重要者之一。附拉丁原文、译文、校勘与逐节笺注。