EPITAPH FOR FREEDMAN ALFENUS ARISTO, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.102.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.102 AshLI 101

None is available from autopsy, since the stone has been missing since at least 1763. Neither Prideaux nor Maittaire offers a description, either.

It is of unknown provenance, but probably originates from Rome. This epitaph dates from the late first century BC/early first century AD, if this probable freedman was part of the household of Alfenus Varus who was consul of AD 2 (as suggested by PIR2 A523). An Augustan date is also suggested by Solin (2003: vol. 2, p.779). It was first recorded in Oxford by Prideaux as part of the Arundel Collection, which was given to the University of Oxford by Henry Howard, Earl of Arundel, in 1667 (Prideaux 1676). The Arundel marbles were first displayed in the ‘Garden of Antiquities’ outside the new Sheldonian Theatre from 1668/9 (Sturdy and Moorcraft 1999). The inscriptions were subsequently transferred indoors in 1715 to ‘The Marble School’, an upper gallery in the Bodleian Quadrangle. In 1749, they were transferred downstairs to the ground floor in the former School of Moral Philosophy, and at some point then ended up in the basement of the (Old) Ashmolean Museum on Broad Street (now the Museum of the History of Science) (Munby 2013). The inscription had gone missing by 1763, when Chandler (1763: p.xviii) had to derive his edition of it from Maittaire.
Alfenus Vari libertus Aristo

? Alfenus Aristo, freedman of Varus.

Line 2: VARI F (Prideaux, Maittaire) ; L (CIL)

This epitaph dates from the late first century BC/early first century AD, if this probable freedman was part of the household of Alfenus Varus who was consul of AD 2 (as suggested by PIR2 A523). An Augustan date is also suggested by Solin (2003: vol. 2, p.779). For similar epitaph from the same household, see C3-93, C3-98 (cf. also C3-88).

Prideaux (1676) p.127, no.70; Maittaire (1732) p.42, no.118; Chandler (1763) p.138, no.102 (following Maittaire); CIL VI.2 no.11426 (1882).

Online: EDCS-17201116 [accessed 09/02/15]

ChandlerR. 1763 Marmora Oxoniensia Oxford Clarendon Press MaittaireM. 1732, 2nd edn Marmorum, Arundellianorum, Seldenianorum, Aliorumque Academiae Oxoniensi Donatorum London William Bowyer MunbyJ. 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 PrideauxH. 1676 Marmora Oxoniensia ex Arundellianis, Seldenianis aliisque conflata Oxford SolinH. 2003 Die griechischen Personennamen in Rom. Ein Namenbuch (2nd edn) 3 vols Berlin De Gruyter SturdyD. and N.Moorcraft 1999 Christopher Wren and Oxford’s garden of antiquities Minerva 10.1 25-28