EPITAPH FOR LIVIA CASTA, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.45.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.45 AshLI 44

Squarish mensa sepulchralis of white marble (not a tabula marmorea, as stated in CIL), with infundibulum (funnel) at its centre beneath the inscribed epitaph, with four perforations, and a channel 0.11 in diameter at the rear, where a modern support has been added (0.318 0.30 0.07). From a columbarium. Very well preserved, with only very minor abrasions to front surface (line 2 T in FECIT is slightly damaged) and slight chipping around the edges.

Inscribed on the front face, above the infundibulum. Each line is roughly centred.

 0.014 (lines 1-2); 0.014-0.012 (line 3). In line 3, the lettering decreases in size from left to right, as the stonecutter realized he was running out of space. Interpuncts in line 1 only. It is of unknown provenance, but probably originates from Rome given its columbarium context. c.AD 50-150. Columbaria began to be constructed in Rome from the 20s BC, flourishing until the Hadrianic period, whilst the formula dis manibus became common at Rome only from the mid-first century AD. By the end of the second century AD, there had been a shift away from cremation to inhumation in burials at Rome (Bodel 2008). The lack of filiation might point to the second century (Rawson 1989: p.37). It was first recorded in Oxford 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). The inscriptions 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. At some point it ended up in the basement of the (Old) Ashmolean Museum on Broad Street (now the Museum of the History of Science) (Munby 2013), since it is included in the archive MS. ‘Marbles sent from Ashmolean Museum’ (p.30, no.144), 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. The epitaph is currently on display in the Reading and Writing Gallery. Photograph Photograph: back
dis manibus Liviae Castae coniugi Lucius Valerius Aprilis fecit et sibi

To the spirits of the dead. Lucius Valerius Aprilis set this up for his wife Livia Casta and for himself.

The form of this epitaph indicates a provenance from a columbarium: it would have been inserted into the ground-floor level of the columbarium, to allow libations to be poured onto the deceased’s ashes via the perforations.

Prideaux (1676) p.83, no.12; Maittaire (1732) p.36, no.67; Chandler (1763) p.134, no.45; CIL VI.3 no.21417 [Hübner] (1886); Cooley (2012) pp.377-78 no.69, fig. 3.10

Online: EDCS-12600479 [accessed 08/07/14]

Ashmolean Museum Department of Antiquities Marbles sent from Ashmolean Museum Bodel J. 2008 From columbaria to catacombs: communities of the dead in pagan and Christian Rome Commemorating the Dead: Texts and Artifacts in Context L. Brink O.P. Green D.Green Berlin/New York De Gruyter 177-242 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 Rawson B. 1989 Spurii and the Roman view of illegitimacy Antichthon 23 10-41 Sturdy D. and N. Moorcraft 1999 Christopher Wren and Oxford’s garden of antiquities Minvera 10.1 25-28