A personal letter found in the Athenian agora

A lead tablet found in the Athenian Agora, presented here for the first tim e, preserves the text of a personal letter inscribed in the 4th century B.C . by a professional. It is from a boy, his non-Attic name suggesting perhap s a metic background, who complains that the master of the foundry to which he has been sent, evidently as an apprentice, is mistreating him. The ques tion raised concerning the legal rights of (metic?) apprentices is of speci al interest, as is the location of the text, at least part of which is in t he boy's own excited words.