VERSE EPITAPH FOR NARCISSUS (ROME) Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.20.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.20 AshLI 19

A stele of white marble with an irregular triangular pediment etched above (in a modern mount) (0.63 0.308 0.07). The left side is smooth, the right side rough. The rear is rough, but with a smoothed vertical section 8 cm wide on the right. There is a small hole with a groove leading to it in the middle of the top edge. The bottom of the stone is missing, cutting off the end of the inscription. The top and left edges are slightly chipped.

Unlike Marsidia’s epitaph (C3-17), this inscription does not display its metrical character through its layout. As a general rule, each line of verse occupies two lines of inscription, but lines 11 and 14 contain single words (ademptum, torquet), perhaps to emphasise the sense of emotion and distress. Although the epitaph abandons verse at line 15, the basic layout remains the same. Small faint interpuncts occur throughout, except at line ends. The reading of the final line is very unclear, since only the tops of the letters in the final word remain, but the reading [---]DDIDIT seems the best fit, as seen by Orelli, or [---]RDIDIT; other previous readings of the line, by contrast (see apparatus below), are not compatible with what remains. This edition tentatively suggests restoring the text as ANNVM PERDIDIT, on analogy with the expression vita(m) perdidit in AE 1988 no. 870.

 0.015 throughout. first century AD (Solin 2003: vol.2, p.1183). This inscription was seen and copied by Giovanni Zaratino Castellini (1570-1641) at the Palazzo of Cardinal Crescenzi, near the Pantheon in Rome, at some time between 1611 (when Pier Paolo Crescenzi was created cardinal: Polverini Fosi 1984) and 1627 (by which time the stone had been transferred to England into Arundel’s collection) (see also C3-12, C3-17, 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). The same location is also recorded by Reinesius (1682), who states that it was seen there also by Sirmond and Langermann, and by Chandler (1763: p.xvi). Gude (according to CIL), however, recorded it at the house of the sculptor Cristoforo Stati near the church of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte on the Pincian (near the Spanish steps), who died in 1619. At least thirteen inscriptions from Cardinal Crescenzi’s residence at Rome ended up among the Arundel Marbles by 1628, when Selden’s first edition of Marmora Arundelliana appeared. The collection of marbles was displayed initially in Arundel House in London (Selden 1629), being subsequently given to the University of Oxford along with other inscribed marbles from the Arundel Collection in 1667 by Henry Howard, grandson of Thomas Howard 2nd Earl of Arundel (who died in 1646) (Prideaux 1676; Angelicoussis 2004: pp.143-44). 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 behind the University Galleries was opened in 1894, and finally the University Galleries and Ashmolean were amalgamated by statute in 1908. This inscription is currently in a storeroom. Photograph
quintum annum et decimum Narcissus flore iuventae hoc iacet abreptus conditus in tumulo quisquis ades lector fatum miserabile cernis Parcae nam inpubem quem rapuere mihi maeret cara soror quae fratrem luget ademptum mater habet natum Florum lux candida torquet hic septimum decimum frumentum publicum accepit sextum decimum perdidit

Snatched away in the flower of youth, Narcissus lies buried in this tomb for his fifteenth year. Whoever you are who approach, reader, you see a pitiable destiny: for a loving sister mourns the boy whom the Fates have stolen from me, a sister who laments her brother who has been stolen away; his mother has her son, bright light torments Florus. He received his seventeenth public corn-dole, but lost his sixteenth year(?).

ET omitted (Selden, Reinesius) TAM (Meyer); IMPVBEM (Selden, Reinesius) HEBET (Meyer) HORVM (Reinesius who suggests MORVM, but notes that Sirmond suggests FLORVM) written on 1 line (Orelli) this is the last line (Selden, Prideaux, Maittaire, Bonada); IXVM DECIMVM (Selden) [QVOD AFVIT PER]DIDIT (conj. CIL); DEDIT (Burmann); DDIDIT (Orelli); [VEN]DIDIT (Reinesius; Meyer); PERDIDIT (EDCS)

This verse epitaph was set up some time during the first century AD (judging from the style of lettering and name: CIL, CLE, Solin). The first fourteen lines of the inscription contain six lines of verse, lamenting the death of the young Narcissus. The opening words offer a pun upon the idea of Narcissus as a flower. The family scenario is not entirely clear from the text, but this edition suggests that Lines 12-13 imply that his mother had already died previously, leaving his sister and father Florus to mourn their joint loss. Alternatively, the name Florus refers once more to the deceased (see discussion in Buecheler and Riese 1897). This is followed by a statement about Narcissus having been in receipt of the corn-dole. He must have been registered as a member of the plebs frumentaria, a fixed number of inhabitants (in Augustan times around 200,000) of Rome eligible for the monthly handout of grain by the state. Generally, only male citizens (below senatorial or equestrian status) aged 11, or possibly 14, or more were eligible for registration on the corn-dole list. Narcissus is not, therefore, of ‘uncertain status ‘(contra Solin 2003 II: p.1183), but must have been a citizen. If we assume that he was fourteen years old when he first started to receive his monthly handout of grain, he died when he was fifteen years and five months old.

Membership of the plebs frumentaria was a matter for some pride, since not all citizens resident in Rome received this privilege, and this explains why it was sometimes mentioned in epitaphs (see Rickman 1980: pp.181-4). Later on, from the second century AD, the epitaphs of several children much younger than this, some of them girls, proclaim that they had been registered for the corn-dole (eg. CIL VI 10220, 10221 four-year old, 10224 three-year old, 10225 four-year old, 10227 four-year old, AE 1974 no.207 seven-year old). It is likely that such children belonged to even more privileged groups, of children enrolled onto the register by the emperor himself. Trajan, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius all admitted special groups of children. The epitaph of six-year old Sextia Saturnina proclaims that she was inc(isa) fr(umento) publ(ico) div(ae) Faust(inae) iunior(is), showing that she belonged to a group of girls given privileges to commemorate the deified Younger Faustina (CIL VI 10222).

Castellini, G. Zaratino (published by Minasi in 1893: p.212 no.33); Gude MS. 122,2 (following schedae of Langermann, according to CIL); Selden (1629) p.53 no.7; Prideaux (1676) p.274, no.137; Reinesius (1682) p.786, no.12 (following Selden); Fabretti (1702) p.189 no. 437 (following Prideaux); Maittaire (1732) p.44, no.137; p.520 (Reinesii notae); Bonada (1751) vol. 2 p.254-55 (following Fabretti); Chandler (1763) p.132, no.20; Burmann (1773) II Bk 4 p.71 Ep.102; Orelli (1828) II 3359; Meyer (1835) p.105 no.1235; CIL VI.2 no.10226 [Hübner] (1882); Buecheler and Riese (1897) II.ii.no.1119; Kholodnyak (1897) no.688; CIL VI.4 fasc.2, p.3500 (1902); CIL VI.4 fasc.3 p.3907 (1933) Photograph (CIL); ILS 6068 (Dessau 1955); CLE II.2 1119; Solin (2003) II p.1183

Online: EDCS-19600300 [accessed 20/07/15]

Angelicoussis E. 2004 The collection of classical sculptures of the Earl of Arundel, “Father of Vertu in England” Journal of the History of Collections 16.2 143-159 Bonada F.M. 1751 Anthologia seu collectio omnium veterum inscriptionum poeticarum, tam Graec. quam Lat. in antiquis lapidibus sculptarum Vol. 2 2 Rome Buecheler F. Riese A. 1897 Anthologia Latina sive Poesis Latinae supplementum II.2 Leipzig Teubner Burmann P. 1759 Anthologia Veterum Latinorum Epigrammatum et Poëmatum Amsterdam Ex Officina Schouteniana Chandler R. 1763 Marmora Oxoniensia Clarendon Press Oxford Fabretti R. 1702 Inscriptionum antiquarum quae in aedibus paternis asseruantur explicatio et additamentum Rome Ferrua A. 1958 Giovanni Zaratino Castellini raccoglitore di epigrafi Epigraphica 20 121-60 Kholodnyak I.I. 1897 Carmina Sepulcralia Latina Petropoli Maittaire M. 1732, 2nd edn. Marmorum, Arundellianorum, Seldenianorum, Aliorumque Academiae Oxoniensi Donatorum London William Bowyer Meyer H. 1835 Anthologia veterum Latinorum epigrammatum et poematum vol.1 1 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 Orelli J.C. 1828 Inscriptionum Latinarum Selectarum Amplissima Collectio vols I-II I-II Turici 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 Rickman G. 1980 The corn supply of ancient Rome Oxford Clarendon Press Selden J. 1629 Marmora Arundelliana London J.Billius 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