EPITAPH SET UP BY P. AELIUS PAEDEROS, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.49.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.49 AshLI 48

A tablet of white marble, with a moulded frame, in a modern mount 0.49 0.613 0.055). It is almost intact, with some damage at the bottom right corner, but the lettering is rather worn at the top right in particular. The moulded frame is badly chipped in places. The rear surface and sides are rough.

The text is inscribed on the front face. It is centred on lines 1, 3, and 8. Some interpuncts are visible.

0.035 (line 1); 0.031 (lines 2-3); 0.034 (line 4); 0.031 (line 5), with tall I 0.034;0.031 (line 6); 0.03 (line 7); 0.022 (line 8); 0.029 (line 9); 0.03 (line 10) Rome second century AD (from DM formula and onomastics; Solin 2003: I pp.133, 326). The inscription was reported found on the via Appia beyond the gate (Gude MS. 284, 1, according to CIL). It was then seen and copied by Giovanni Zaratino Castellini (1570-1641) at the Palazzo of Cardinal Crescenzi (who died in 1645), near the Pantheon in Rome, some time after 1611 (when Pier Paolo Crescenzi was created cardinal: Polverini Fosi 1984) (see also C3-12, 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). According to Reinesius (1682), this inscription was also seen in the same location by Sirmond. It was then brought to England to join 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 inscription is currently in a storeroom.
dis manibus Publius Aelius Paederos fecit sibi et Ulpiae Ianuariae coniugi bene merenti et Marco Ulpio Dionysio et Aniciae Fausti nae coniugi libertis libertabusque posterisque eorum

To the spirits of the dead. Publius Aelius Paederos set this up for himself and for Ulpia Ianuaria his well-deserving wife, and for Marcus Ulpius Dionysius and for Anicia Faustina his wife, and for their freedmen and freedwomen and for their descendants

PAEDEROΣ (Maittaire) LIBERTABVSQVE (Sirmond, Prideaux, Maittaire)

It is unclear what the relationship is between the two couples commemorated here by P. Aelius Paederos. Possibly the husband in the second couple, Ulpius Dionysius, is related to Paederos’ wife, Ulpia Ianuaria. Three of the names evoke the world of the imperial household of Trajan and Hadrian, but the individuals’ freed status is not certain.

Castellini, G. Zaratino (published by Minasi in 1893: p.217); Sirmond MS. BNF Paris suppl. Lat. 1419 = Lat. 10808, no.280; Gude MS. 284, 1 (according to CIL); Prideaux (1676) p.272, no.133; Reinesius (1682) section 14 p.723 no.8 (following Sirmond); Maittaire (1732) p.37, no.70; Chandler (1763) p.135, no.49; CIL VI.2 no.10754 [Hübner] (1882); CIL VI.4 fasc.3 (1933) p.3910

Online: EDCS-17200481 [accessed 28/07/15]

Chandler R. 1763 Marmora Oxoniensia Oxford Clarendon Press 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 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 Sirmond J. [Sirmondus] 1559-1651 Recueil d'inscriptions copiées par Sirmond. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Latin 10808 [consulted online 10/06/14 at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9077728w] 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