EPITAPH FOR FREEDMEN, A FREEDWOMAN AND HER PATRON, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.28.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.28 AshLI 27

An unadorned white marble slab, with a small hole in the centre on its top surface, and an unfinished rear (set in a modern mount) (0.168 0.495 0.06). It is slightly chipped all around the edges.

Inscribed on the face. Some care has been taken over the layout of the inscription, with each name appearing on a new line, but the attempt to balance line lengths is not uniformly successful. Stonecutter’s shallow guiding-lines are still visible in lines 1-2.

 0.027 (line 1), 0.018 (line 2), 0.019 (line 3), 0.021 (line 4), 0.019 (line 5). Clear simple interpuncts divide most of the words. first century AD (Solin, 2003: vol.2, p.933) 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). 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 Prideaux (1676), it was one of the marbles in the Arundel collection. 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, being subsequently given to the University of Oxford 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). 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
Quintus Appuleius Quinti libertus Salvius Vigelia Marci liberta Arescusa Quintus Appuleius Qunti libertus Nico Marcus Vigelius Marci libertus Servius patronus Arescusaes

Quintus Appuleius Salvius freedman of Quintus, Vigelia Arescusa freedwoman of Marcus, Quintus Appuleius Nico freedman of Quintus, Marcus Vigelius Servius freedman of Marcus, patron of Arescusa

C for Q (Sirmond). VIGELIA (Reinesius); VICELIA (Prideaux, Maittaire); VIGELLIA (Fabretti). C for Q (Sirmond). VIGELIVS (Reinesius); VICELIVS (Prideaux, Maittaire); VIGELLIVS (Fabretti); SERVIVS / PATRONVS line-break (Fabretti). ARESGUSAES (CIL); PATRONVS ARESCVSAES on a single line (Sirmond; Reinesius, from Sirmond).

The epitaph is set up by a group of freedmen and a freedwoman. Two of the freedmen (Salvius and Nico) are freed slaves of the same master, a Quintus Appuleius. The last name is that of Arescusa’s patron, himself also a freedman. The genitive form Arescusaes is influenced by Greek.

Castellini, G. Zaratino (published by Minasi in 1893: p.217); Sirmond MS. Paris suppl. 1419 = Lat. 10808, no.274; Prideaux (1676) p.91, no.21; Reinesius (1682); p.867 no.3 (following Sirmond) Fabretti (1702) p.477 no.151; Maittaire (1732) p.39, no.86; Chandler (1763) p.133, no.28; CIL VI.2 no.12211 [Hübner] (1882); CIL VI.4 fasc.3 p.3911 (1933)

Online: EDCS-14800426 [accessed 25/06/14]

Chandler R. 1763 Marmora Oxoniensia Oxford Clarendon Press 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 Maittaire M. 1732, 2nd edn. Marmorum, Arundellianorum, Seldenianorum, Aliorumque Academiae Oxoniensi Donatorum London William Bowyer 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 Fosi I. 1984 Crescenzi, Pier Paolo Dizionario biografico degli italiani A.M. Ghisalberti 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 Sirmond J. [Sirmondus] 1559-1651 Recueil d'inscriptions copiées par Sirmond Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Latin 10808 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9077728w [accessed 03/10/2013] 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 Minvera 10.1 25-28.