EPITAPH OF CLAUDIUS SUPERUS, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL AN1836 p.127.191.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum AN1836 p.127.191 AshLI 134 R.134

A white marble stele with a rounded top (0.26 0.29 0.023), in a modern mount. It is in a good condition, with some chipping to the top edge. Sides and rear are smooth.

The first line is centred. The formula BMF in the final line is spread out across the second half of the line. There are interpuncts. Guiding lines are still faintly visible.

 0.022 (line 1); 0.02 (line 2); 0.022 (lines 3-4); 0.02 (lines 5-6); I in VIXT shorter (0.012), and squeezed in, midway in the air above the line. Rome, from the area of the via Nomentana, near S. Agnese. possibly second century AD (from use of DM formula and tria nomina) Although CIL notes that the inscription is of unknown origin, according to Duncan et al. (1836: p.127 no.191), it originated in Rome, from the area of the via Nomentana, near S. Agnese, and was given to the Museum in 1824 by the Rev. Peter Elmsley (1774–1825), Principal of St Alban Hall and Camden Professor of Oxford University from October 1823. Elmsley had travelled extensively in Italy during the mid-1810s and may well have brought this inscription back from Rome himself (Collard 2004). It must have been incorporated into the existing collection of ancient inscriptions in the basement of the (Old) Ashmolean Museum on Broad Street (now the Museum of the History of Science) (Munby 2013), since it is included in the archive MS. ‘Marbles sent from Ashmolean Museum’ (p.36, no.185A), a list of antique marbles transferred from the Ashmolean Museum basement room to the marble rooms of the Randolph Building in January of 1888. The Ashmolean Museum in its current location was built behind the University Galleries, was opened in 1894, and finally the University Galleries and Ashmolean were amalgamated by statute in 1908. It is currently in a storeroom. photograph photograph
dis manibus Claudio Supero Clau dius Maximus filio dulcissimo qui vixit annis XIII mensibus VII bene merenti fecit

To the departed spirits. To Claudius Superus. Claudius Maximus set this up for his sweetest son who lived 13 years, 7 months, well-deserving.

VIXT (sic) (CIL)

A father, Claudius Maximus, here commemorates his deceased 13-year old son in conventional fashion, as his ‘sweetest’ son.

Duncan et al. (1836) p.127 no.191; Ashmolean Archive MS ‘Handlist, Inscriptions Acquired’ no.154; CIL VI.3 no.15274 [Hübner] (1886)

Online: EDCS-09600149 [accessed 27/08/14]

Ashmolean Museum Department of Antiquities Marbles sent from Ashmolean Museum Collard C. 2004 Elmsley, Peter (1774–1825) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford University Press online edn, May 2008 http://ezproxy.ouls.ox.ac.uk:2204/view/article/8737, accessed 27 Aug 2014 Duncan P.B. Collingwood S. Jewitt T.O.S. Delamotte W.A. Le Keux J. Mackenzie F. 1836 A Catalogue of the Ashmolean Museum, descriptive of the zoological specimens, antiquities, coins, and miscellaneous curiosities Oxford S. Collingwood Munby J. 2013 A rare collection: Oxford museums past and present Excalibur: Essays on Antiquity and the History of Collecting in Honour of Arthur MacGregor H.Wiegel and M.Vickers Oxford BAR Int. ser. 2512 75-85