FRAGMENTARY EPITAPH, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL AN1956.239.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum AN1956.239 AshLI 146

A small white marble columbarium plaque (0.08 0.149 0.028), imitating a tabula ansata, with a double-lined frame around the text. There is an oxidisation mark with remnants of metal in the centre of the right side on the front surface. The rear surface is smoothly finished, whilst the top and bottom edges are roughly cut. The plaque is intact to its right side, whilst it is broken to the left.

The text is inscribed on the front face. There are interpuncts throughout, and guiding lines are visible. Lines two and three are centred, with an empty space to the right. There appears to be a vertical stroke (perhaps H, I, or N) in front of the first preserved letter.

0.015-0.016 (line 1); 0.015 (line 2); 0.011-0.012 (line 3) According to the Ashmolean Accessions Register, this inscription is recorded as originating from the ‘palace of the Caesars’ (i.e. the imperial residences on the Palatine), in Rome. This is an odd provenance for an epitaph from a columbarium, and suggests that, if this provenance is indeed correct, the inscription may have been found in a reused context. first century AD (from columbarium context) It was given to the museum by Miss Margaret F. Irvine, but was formerly the property of Mrs Alice Marcon (née Dryden: 1866-1956), a historian who lived in Oxford for over forty years. She, in turn had inherited the inscription from her father, Sir Henry Dryden (1818–1899) of Canons Ashby in Northamptonshire, known as ‘The Antiquary’, who had acquired it earlier in Rome (Dix 2004). It is currently in a storeroom. photograph photograph
a U+0186mulieris liberta Secunda Felicis bae

[---]a Secunda, freedwoman of a woman [---] of Felix [---]ba.

The first line records a woman’s name in the nominative case – presumably denoting the deceased. The second line includes the name FELIX in the genitive case, whilst the final [---]BAE might be either dative or genitive. Perhaps we should supply soror at the start of line 2 (compare C3-108). In line 3, it is possible that we should interpret this as the ending of another name, such as Probae. As a very tentative reconstruction, exempli gratia, we could read the text as ‘[---]a Secunda (mulieris) l(iberta) [soror] Felicis [et Pro]bae’.

Unpublished. Ashmolean Museum Dept of Antiquities MS. Accessions Register 1956.239

Dix B. 2004 Dryden, Sir Henry Edward Leigh, fourth baronet and seventh baronet (1818–1899) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford University Press http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/60772, accessed 29 Nov 2015