EPITAPH FOR A FELLOW-FREEDMAN, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.127.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.127 AshLI 126

A rectangular stele (0.485 0.217 0.045) of white marble with grey veins (on a modern mount). It has a triangular pediment with a smoothed top, which is decorated with a flower in its centre and two small rosettes on either side. On either side of the pediment are acroteria decorated with frond-like strands. Two-thirds of the front face below are bordered by a wavy-line and dashes, leaving a blank space at the bottom third of the front face. It consists of three contiguous fragments, but is otherwise in good condition.

It is inscribed on the front face, within a wavy border, that encloses a blank space beneath the inscription, with more blank space further below. The inscription itself takes up only roughly half of the available space. There are triangular interpuncts throughout. The first line is centred.

0.024 (line 1); 0.021 (line 2); 0.02 (line 3); 0.019 (line 4); 0.018 (line 5); 0.016 (line 6); 0.015 (line 7). possibly second century AD (DM formula and onomastics – Solin 2003: vol. 2, p.1143). This inscription was first recorded in Rome by Smet in the sixteenth century, in the extensive collection of inscriptions belonging to Angelo Colocci (Lipsius [Smet] 1588: f.118 no.14). Shortly after his death in 1549, Colocci’s collection began to be dispersed widely (Verbogen, 1985: p.270-72), but this inscription is not recorded as seen again until it turns up in the museum of London antiquary John Kemp (1665–1717: Goodwin 2008; Ainsworth 1720). On his death in 1717, Kemp stipulated in his will that Robert Earl of Oxford or his son should inherit the collection and books for 2,000 pounds, but the bequest was not accepted on these terms. Kemp’s collection was subsequently sold in 293 lots for £1090 8s. 6d in total at an auction in the Phoenix Tavern, Pall Mall, Westminster, between 23rd-25th and on 27th March 1721: the auctioneer’s catalogue for March 1721 includes several entries for ‘Latin inscriptions’ (Online Catalogue, Sir John Soanes Museum). Whether Richard Rawlinson bought this inscription directly at this auction in 1721, or whether he acquired it from another source, such as Christopher Wren’s collection a few years later in 1749, as is the case for a number of the inscriptions in the Ashmolean’s collection, this inscription was one of a collection of Latin inscriptions given by Richard Rawlinson to Oxford University in 1753 (Chandler 1763: p.xx), and at first kept in the University Collection in the Bodleian Library (Enright 1956: p.340). At some point the inscription then ended up in the basement of the (Old) Ashmolean Museum on Broad Street (now the Museum of the History of Science) (Munby 2013), since in the archive MS. ‘Marbles sent from Ashmolean Museum’ (p.35, no.179), 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. It is currently in a storeroom. photograph photograph
dis manibus Lucio Venuleio Epaphrodito fecit Venuleia Moschis coll iberto suo bene merenti et sibi et suis

To the departed spirits. To Lucius Venuleius Epaphroditus. Venuleia Moschis set this up for her well-deserving fellow-freedman and for herself and for her family.

The mismatch between the size of the stele and the amount of space needed for the epitaph perhaps suggests that the stele itself may have been prefabricated, and then bought by Venuleia Moschis to commemorate Venuleius Epaphroditus. Both had originally been slaves of the same master and had been manumitted. It is possible that they were husband and wife, but this relationship is not specified.

Lipsius, I. [M. Smet] (1588) f.118 no.14; Ligorio Naples 1.39 (according to CIL); Gruter (1707) vol.2, p.1046, no.8 (following Smet); Ainsworth (1720) p.40 no.23; Chandler (1763) Part 3, Pl.IV.cxxvii, with drawing; CIL VI 28493 [Hübner]

Online: EDCS-14802453 [accessed 24/11/15]

Sir John Soane's Museum, Collection Online / Monvmenta vetustatis Kempiana http://collections.soane.org/b9499 [accessed 29/10/15] Ainsworth R. 1720 Monumenta vetustatis Kempiana London Vaillant Ashmolean Museum Department of Antiquities Marbles sent from Ashmolean Museum Chandler R. 1763 Marmora Oxoniensia Oxford Clarendon Press Enright B.J. 1956 Richard Rawlinson: collector, antiquary, and topographer (Bod. MS. D.Phil. d.1786) Goodwin Gordon 2008 Kemp, John (1665–1717) rev. Philip Carter, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford University Press (online edn) [accessed 24/07/14] Gruter J. 1707 Inscriptiones Antiquae Totius Orbis Romani Amsterdam Lipsius I.[M. Smet] 1588 Inscriptionum antiquarum quae passim per Europam liber accessit auctarium a Iusto Lipsio Lyon Plantiniana 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 Solin H. 2003 Die griechischen Personennamen in Rom. Ein Namenbuch (2nd edn) 3 vols Berlin De Gruyter Verbogen J. 1985 Martinus Smetius et Angelo Colocci. Une collection romaine d’inscriptions antiques au XVIe siècle Humanistica Lovaniensia 34A 255-272