VERSE EPITAPH AND LAMENT FOR MARSIDIA AGATHEMERIS AND MARSIDIA STABILIS (ROME) Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.17.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.17 AshLI 16

An unadorned grey-white marble slab, with unfinished rear (set in a modern mount) (0.268 0.25 0.033). It consists of two contiguous pieces (one large, the other a small portion at the top right), with a further section missing to the right, where the stone has broken. It is also chipped on the front at its bottom left corner. Its left side is intact. At the top left on its front surface is a sizeable hole preserving traces of metal and oxidisation. It has suffered some surface damage; the letters are increasingly worn towards the right and become hard to read, but RTI has helped to evaluate alternative readings.

The text is carefully laid out, with a larger heading in the centre at the top identifying the two deceased women and probably dedicator, with each line indented futher than the previous, and the letters gradually decreasing from line to line. This is followed by two columns of verse lament, but only a tiny trace remains of the second of these. The elegiac couplets are formatted using indentations to distinguish pentameter from hexameter verse. Often the initial letter of each line is also bigger, some 0.015 tall. Triangular interpuncts occur in the heading; others are visible in the verse, but the worn surface probably obscures many of them. Long vowels are marked by apices in the verses and I longa, drawing attention to the text’s status as a verse composition.

0.017 (line 1); 0.014 (line 2); 0.008 (line 3); 0.006 (lines 4-13). The bottom left corner of B is visible at the end of line 2. Tall S at start of line 4; tall Q line 6; tall K line 7; tall S at start of line 9; tall Q line 10; tall T at start of line 12. Rome first century AD (Solin 2003: vol.I, p.6 and vol. II, p.859). This inscription was recorded in two different locations in Rome before it came to England to join Arundel’s collection. It was first seen by Langermann at the house of the sculptor Cristoforo Stati (who died in 1619) near the chuch of Sant’ Andrea delle Fratte on the Pincian (near the Spanish steps) (Gude, according to CIL; Reinesius 1682; Chandler 1763: p.xvi). Only half of the inscription was preserved even then. It was then seen and copied by Giovanni Zaratino Castellini (1570-1641) at the Palazzo of Cardinal Crescenzi (who died in 1645), near the Pantheon in Rome, some time after 1611 (when Pier Paolo Crescenzi was created cardinal: Polverini Fosi 1984) (see also C3-12, C3-30, C3-37). Three of Castellini’s folios were bought by Garrucci in around 1858, and subsequently published by Minasi in Civiltà Cattolica of 1893 (Ferrua 1958). According to Reinesius, this inscription was also seen in the same location by Sirmond. It was then brought to England to join 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), and 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 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 (EDCS) Photograph (CIL)
Marsidia Agathemeris filia vixit annos Marsidia Stabilis mater vixit annos LXX Euhemeris filia
si pietate aliquem redimi fatale fuisset Marsidia Stabilis prima redempta forem quam vis mater eram natarum prole decora nam geminas habui karus eratque nepos septuaginta super mensses natalibus egi summa senectuti praemia passa cremor quod si non cineres Agathemeris immatura auxisset nostros mater et ipsa foret tunc ego nobilior cunctarum sorte fuissem quippe superstitibus robore laeta forem
si p q

Marsidia Agathemeris, [daughter, lived for ? years.] Marsidia Stab[ilis, mother, lived for 70 years.] Euhemeris, daughter [? set this up].

If it had been destined for someone to be saved because of affection, I, Marsidia Stabilis, would be the first to be saved, even though I was a mother graced with offspring of daughters, for I had twins and a grandson was dear; I lived through some months in addition to my seventy birthdays, having experienced the highest rewards from old age I am being cremated; but had not Agathemeris in untimely fashion increased our ashes, she herself would also be a mother; in that case I would have been more illustrious than all women in my fate, inasmuch as [I would be fortunate?] in those surviving me as a source of strength.

If …

EVTHEMERIS FIL (Gude, according to CIL; Prideaux; Maittaire); EVHEMERIS FI (Reinesius; Chandler); EVPHEMERIS FI (Fleetwood); EVHEMERIS FIL[IA AGATHEMERIDIS FECIT] (EDCS); EVHEMERIS FIL[IA SORORQVE FECIT] (conj. AEC) REDEMTA (Burmann); REDEMPTA/REREMPTA (unclear which of these readings Castellini favoured, according to Minasi); FORET (Prideaux; Maittaire); FOREM (Reinesius; Meyer) I longa in HABVI (CIL); KÁRVS (CIL); CARVS (Prideaux; Maittaire; Meyer); KARVS (Castellini, Reinesius); LEPOS (Castellini in Minasi – surely a typographical error) SUPERMESSÉS lapis SENECTÚTIS (Castellini in Minasi; Prideaux; Maittaire; Fleetwood; Meyer; CLE; CIL); PÁSSA (CLE, CIL) CENERES AGATHEMERIS (Reinesius); AGÁTHEMERIS (CIL); AGATHEMORIS (Prideaux; Maittaire); INMATVRA (Burmann) SORTE FVISSEM (Langermann in Gude, according to CIL; Prideaux; Reinesius; Maittaire) – this supplement completes both sense and meter; [VIDERER] (CLE) QVIPPE ………… (Prideaux ; Maittaire); QVIPPE SVPERSTITIBVS ROBORI… (Castellini; Langermann in Gude, according to CIL; Reinesius; Fleetwood); ROBOR (Burmann) is visible via RTI; QVIPPE SVPERSTITIBVS ROBOR… (Meyer); SVPERSTITIBVS PONERE[R VNA MEIS] (Buecheler in CLE); PONERE[R HICCE MEIS], supplement proposed by Mommsen, recorded in CIL. SI (Prideaux, Maittaire)

It is usually assumed that Euhemeris is daughter of Agathemeris. Given the reference to Stabilis’ pride in her twin daughters (line 3), however, we suggest that this epitaph may rather have been set up by the surviving twin. Euhemeris and Agathemeris would thus be twin daughters of Stabilis, with Euhemeris also having a son (unnamed). On this interpretation, the heading reveals that the epitaph was set up by Euhemeris, one of the twin daughters of Marsidia Stabilis, commemorating her mother and twin sister Agathemeris. From the inscribed lament, we discover that Agathemeris was the first to die, followed by her mother, which accounts for the prominence given to Agathemeris in the first line. Following the heading, we find a lament in elegiac couplets, written in the voice of the deceased mother, Marsidia Stabilis. The choice of elegiac meter was appropriate to the tone of lament set in this epitaph, whilst the inscription’s status as a verse composition is made clear through its format, with the indenting of the pentameter verses and marking of long vowels with accents. In addition to the use of meter, the choice of vocabulary has poetic echoes (e.g., proles). She declares her pride in her family, but laments the premature death of her daughter Agathemeris, who was perhaps pregnant at the time. The theme of untimely death is common in Latin epitaphs, and is all the more striking here because it is perhaps rather unexpected to find it in an epitaph for a seventy-year old.

We may speculate whether the matching verses on the other side of the stone (now lost) may have been words attributed to Agathemeris. Given that mother (Marsidia Stabilis) and daughter (Marsidia Agathemeris) share the same nomen gentilicium, it is likely that Stabilis was a first generation liberta, although strictly speaking Agathemeris and Euhemeris should both be regarded as of uncertain status (Solin 2003: vol.I p.6; vol.II p.859).

Gude MS. 122, 1 from Langermann (according to CIL); Prideaux (1676) p.143, no.83; Reinesius (1682) p.709, no. 36 (following Sirmond); Fleetwood (1691) p.194; Maittaire (1732) p.44, no.136; Burmann (1759) p.232, Ep.314; Chandler (1763) p.131, no.17; Meyer (1835) no. 1405; CIL VI.3 no.22251 [Hübner] (1886); Buecheler (1897) CLE no.1127 (verses only); CIL VI.4 fasc.2 p.3527 (1902); CIL VI.4 fasc.3 p.3916 (1933)

Online: EDCS-13200539 [accessed 26/08/14]

BuechelerF. 1897 Carmina Latina Epigraphica II.2 Leipzig Teubner BurmannP. 1759 Anthologia Veterum Latinorum Epigrammatum et Poëmatum Amsterdam Ex Officina Schouteniana Chandler R. 1763 Marmora Oxoniensia Clarendon Press Oxford Ferrua A. 1958 Giovanni Zaratino Castellini raccoglitore di epigrafi Epigraphica 20 121-60 FleetwoodA. 1691 Inscriptionum antiquarum sylloge in duas partes distributa London Maittaire M. 1732, 2nd edn. Marmorum, Arundellianorum, Seldenianorum, Aliorumque Academiae Oxoniensi Donatorum London William Bowyer MeyerH. 1835 Anthologia Veterum Latinorum Epigrammatum et Poematum II Leipzig G. Fleischer Minasi G. 1893 Archeologia La civiltà cattolica ser.15 7 208-28 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 Polverini FosiI. 1984 Crescenzi, Pier Paolo Dizionario biografico degli italiani A.M. Ghisalberti and M. Pavan Rome Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana 648-49. Prideaux H. 1676 Marmora Oxoniensia ex Arundellianis, Seldenianis, aliisque conflata Oxford Reinesius T. 1682 Syntagma inscriptionum antiquarum Leipzig J.E. Hahn Solin H. 2003 Die griechischen Personennamen in Rom. Ein Namenbuch (2nd edn) 3 vols Berlin De Gruyter Sturdy D. and N. Moorcraft 1999 Christopher Wren and Oxford’s garden of antiquities Minerva 10.1 25-28