FRAGMENTARY EPITAPH Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL AN1966.660.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum AN1966.660 AshLI 152

A small marble plaque 0.119 0.151 0.029, broken off on all sides, then smoothed; rear smoothed.

Interpuncts in the form of small dots. There is a wavy line to the right of lines 3-5. Line 3 is centred.

 0.018 (line 1); 0.017 (line 2); 0.012 (line 3); 0.014 (line 4); 0.011 (lines 5-6). 1st/2nd c AD, from use of white marble and lettering No provenance is recorded for this fragment. It was given to the Ashmolean Museum by Sir John Beazley (Ashmolean Museum Department of Antiquities MS. Accession Register 1966.660). Photograph Photograph
vixit annos XVI[---?] frater vixit annos XIII frater eorum vixit annos XIX Iulia Thaliusa permissu Cnai Domiti Lem

[---] lived for sixteen(?) years [---]; [---] brother (?lived for) thirteen (years?); their brother(?) who lived for nineteen years; [---] Iulia Thaliusa [---] by permission(?) of Gnaeus Domitius Lem[?]

There are traces of possible B in front of FRATER in line 2.

The fragmentary nature of this epitaph makes its text and translation difficult to reconstruct, but it seems to deal with the burial of three individuals. The name Thaliusa is otherwise unattested; it is perhaps inscribed in error for the much more common Thallusa (Solin 2003: vol.2, p.739 records 107 individuals called Thallusa). Although the letters LEM could represent the voting-tribe Lem(onia), it would be odd for an individual’s voting-tribe to be listed but not his filiation, and so it seems better here to deduce that LEM is the start of a cognomen, such as Lemnus (AE 1969/70 no.385), Lemnius (CIL VI 8636) or Lemnaeus (CIL II 3597, 5970). Note especially that there is a L(ucius) Domitius Lemnus at Rome (CIL VI 8499) and a C. Domitius Lemnus at Volaterrae (CIL XI 1753). If the restoration of permissu is correct, then there is some legal formula here about permission to bury these individuals in a particular tomb-plot.

Unpublished. Ashmolean Museum Department of Antiquities MS. Accession Register 1966.660.

Solin H. 2003 Die griechischen Personennamen in Rom. Ein Namenbuch (2nd edn) 3 vols Berlin De Gruyter