AN IMPERIAL FREEDMAN’S EPITAPH, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL AN1873.172.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum AN1873.172 AshLI 136

A grey-veined white marble slab (0.285 0.365 0.045), broken off at both top and bottom; its sides and rear remain rough. There is also minor surface abrasion to its front surface.

The text is inscribed on the front face; there is a large empty space beneath the text. There are faint traces of red paint in the letters. There are triangular interpuncts.

 0.029 (line 1); 0.024 (lines 2-3) Rome. second century AD (Solin 1996: vol. 1, p.144). According to CIL, this epitaph was found ‘in vinea equitis Buidi’, in Rome, presumably during the late nineteenth century, given that it was edited for CIL in 1894 by Vincenzo Forcella. The Ashmolean Accessions Register records that it was, however, given in 1873 to the Ashmolean by John Henry Parker (Keeper of Antiquities from 1870 to 1884). It is listed in the archive MS. ‘Marbles sent from Ashmolean Museum’ (p.37, no.188), a list of ancient marbles transferred in Jan. 1888 from the (Old) Ashmolean Museum basement room to the marble rooms of the Randolph Building on Beaumont Street, which had been built alongside the University Galleries. 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. The inscription is currently in a storeroom. photograph photograph
Primus Augusti libertus fecit sivbi se vivo

Primus, emperor’s freedman, set this up for himself in his lifetime.

SIVI (lapis).

The epitaph is set up by the individual concerned during his own lifetime, to ensure his commemoration after his death. This was not an unusual practice at the time.

CIL VI.4 fasc.1 no.25000 [Forcella] (1894); Ashmolean Museum Collection List of Additions MS. 1873, no.172.

Online: EDCS-13801252 [accessed 24/11/15]

Ashmolean Museum Dept of Antiquities MS. Accessions Register 1873.172 Ashmolean Museum Department of Antiquities Marbles sent from Ashmolean Museum Solin H. 1996 Die stadtrömischen Sklavennamen Stuttgart Steiner