A WIFE’S EPITAPH, ROME (?) Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.52.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.52 AshLI 51

A plain white marble rectangular slab with projecting cornice (set in a modern mount) ( 0.26 0.414 0.85 at the cornice + 0.035 elsewhere). Its rear is unfinished and sides roughly cut. The cornice is damaged at top left, and there is some damage at bottom right. The top of the first letter of line 2 is slightly damaged, but still clearly legible.

The text is inscribed on the front face. Each line of text is centred.

: 0.029 (line 1); 0.03 (line 2); 0.027 (line 3); 0.024 (line 4); 0.025 (line 5). There is a ligature in line 3 (ME). The lettering is rather irregularly cut, especially As and G. Of unknown provenance, it probably originated from Rome. possibly second century AD (use of DM formula/ tria nomina) (Solin 2003: vol. 2, p.724). 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 Cauliae Euopidi coniugi bene merenti Seixtus Caulius Marsicus fecit

To the spirits of the dead. For Caulia Euopis, well-deserving wife. Sextus Caulius Marsicus set this up’.

DM omitted (CIL; EDCS) EVPOLIDI (Prideaux, Maittaire). SIX (lapis); MARSIC (Prideaux, Maittaire).

This is a fairly conventional epitaph set up by a husband to his wife. Given that Caulius Marsicus and Caulia Euopis share the same nomen, they may both have been freed by the same master (or Euopis may be both the freedwoman and wife of Marsicus), although we cannot be certain whether they were full citizens or Junian Latin in status.

Prideaux (1676) p.91, no.20; Maittaire (1732) p.36, no.63; Chandler (1763) p.135, no.52; CIL VI.2 no.14620 [Hübner] (1882).

Online: EDCS-15600522 (accessed 27/12/14).

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