JOINT EPITAPH, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.47.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.47 AshLI 46

A white marble rectangular slab, with a single line creating a border around the inscribed text (0.236 0.26 0.03). It is now fragmentary (supported by a modern mount), broken off on the top right and down the left side; there is also one small contiguous fragment at bottom left. The rear surface is smoothly finished. The inscribed surface is slightly worn, but clearly legible.

The text has been carefully inscribed, with the first and last lines centred. Triangular interpuncts occur throughout, except at line ends. In their editions, Prideaux and Maittaire appear to have supplemented the surviving text with the usual formulae. A tendency towards small cross-bars on the letter T has led to some misreadings in past editions. Approximate line lengths can be calculated from restoring line 5, which must have filled the width available.

 0.028 (lines 1-2); 0.025 (line 3); 0.023 (line 4); 0.016 (line 5); 0.014 (line 6). It is of unknown provenance, but probably originates from Rome. 2nd/3rd century AD (use of DM formula and onomastics) (Solin 2003: vol. 2, p.914). 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, 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
dis manibus s Abascantus nia Restituta fecerunt sibi et suis et libertis libertabusque suis posterisque eorum

To the spirits of the dead. [?]s Abascantus and [?]nia Restituta set this up for themselves and their family, their freedmen and freedwomen, and their descendants.

D M (Prideaux, Maittaire). ABASCANIVS (Prideaux, Maittaire). …ET SIBI (Prideaux, Maittaire); I SIBI (CIL). LIBERTIS (Maittaire); LIBERTABVSQVE (Prideaux). POSTERISQVE (Prideaux, Maittaire).

The social milieu of the deceased couple is uncertain: their cognomina could be compatible with freed status (Solin 1996: vol. 2, p.445 for Abascantus; vol. 1, p.177 for Restituta as slave-names), but neither of them includes specific mention of their status as freed(wo)man, which would immediately precede their cognomina.

Prideaux (1676) p.264, no.127; Maittaire (1732) p.40, no.95; Chandler (1763) p.135, no.47; CIL VI.2 10443 [Hübner] (1882).

Online: EDCS-16200315 [accessed 08/07/14].

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 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