EPITAPH OF CLAUDIA VENERIA, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.42.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.42 AshLI 41

A stele of white marble with grey veins (0.53 0.25 0.08), with a rounded pediment and decorated acroteria. In the pediment is depicted a bird about to eat fruit from an overturned krater. The bottom part of the stele is blank. The rear and sides are rough. It is in a good condition, in a modern mount.

Inscribed on the front face within a simple rectangular moulded frame. There are interpuncts through much of the text. In line 5, the letters VS at the end of PROBATVS are inscribed smaller to fit them in. The first and last lines are centred.

0.019 (lines 1-2); 0.018 (lines 3-7); 0.022 (line 8). It is of unknown provenance, but probably originates from Rome. possibly second century AD (use of DM formula/ tria nomina). Its first mention by Selden (1672) reports that it was in Arundel House in London. It was then published 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), 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 epitaph is currently in a storeroom. Photograph Photograph: pediment detail
dis manibus Claudiae Veneri ae coniugi sanc tissimae Quintus In steius Probatus sibi suisque posterisque eorum

To the spirits of the dead. To Claudia Veneria, most virtuous wife. Quintus Insteius Probatus for himself, and his family, and their descendants.

COIVGI (lapis); CONIVGI (Selden, Prideaux, Reinesius, Maittaire); SANCTISS/IMAE (Reinesius). IVSTEIVS (Selden, Reinesius, Maittaire); INSTEIVS (Prideaux). Reinesius: changes line division into just seven lines: D M/ CLAVDIAE VENERI/AE CONIVGI SANCTISS/IMAE Q IVSTEIVS/ PROBATVS SIBI SVIS/QVE POSTERISQVE/ EORVM.

This stele is set up by a husband for his wife, conventionally praised as sanctissimae.

Selden (1672) vol. 2, p.135; Prideaux (1676) p.92, no.25; Reinesius (1682) p.735, no.47 (following Selden); Maittaire (1732) p.37, no.69 + 561; Chandler (1763) p.134, no.42; CIL VI.3 no.15641 [Hübner] (1886).

Online: EDCS-09600516 [accessed 24/07/14].

Chandler R. 1763 Marmora Oxoniensia Oxford Clarendon Press Maittaire M. 1732, 2nd edn. Marmorum, Arundellianorum, Seldenianorum, Aliorumque Academiae Oxoniensi Donatorum London William Bowyer 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 Prideaux H. 1676 Marmora Oxoniensia ex Arundellianis, Seldenianis, aliisque conflata Oxford Reinesius T. 1682 Syntagma inscriptionum antiquarum Leipzig J.E. Hahn Selden J> 1672 De Dis Syris Syntagamata 2. Leipzig Sturdy D. and N. Moorcraft 1999 Christopher Wren and Oxford’s garden of antiquities Minvera 10.1 25-28