EPITAPH FOR IUNIA SATURNINA, ROME (?) Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.54.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.54 AshLI 53

A highly ornate stele of white marble with grey veins ( 0.43 0.31 0.04). In the centre at the top is a four-petalled flower in deep relief inside a wreath of foliage and fruit (either laurel or olive), surrounded by stylized acanthus leaves. At the base of the wreath, in shallower relief, two decorated ribbons cross, with their tasselled ends lying horizontally. The inscription is framed by a decorative border of deeply incised vegetal patterns, formed of two splayed and one central petal. An additional plain border survives, bounding the right and left edges of the stone. The rear is unfinished. The stele has been damaged at both top and bottom, but what remains is well preserved. Small holes can be seen on the top and bottom edges of the stone (the latter with traces of metal oxidisation), for displaying the stele in modern times.

The text is inscribed within an ornate frame carved with a continuous leaf motif. Some thought has been given to the layout of the inscription, with centring of first and last lines, but it seems that the stonecutter failed to leave adequate space in lines 2 and 4. The V in HELENVS is smaller in size and, together with the final S, is squeezed in at the line end, whilst the mother’s cognomen has had to be abbreviated in Line 4. In their editions, Prideaux (1676) and Maittaire (1732) expanded the abbreviated name in line 4, where the stonecutter has lacked enough space to carve SATVRNINAE in full. Triangular interpuncts occur throughout except at line ends.

 0.03 (line 1); 0.021 (line 2); 0.027(line 3); 0.03 (line 4); 0.028 (line 5); 0.026 (line 6). It is of unknown provenance, but probably originates from Rome. possibly second century AD (use of DM formula, tria nomina) (Solin 2003: vol.1, p.515). 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: front face Photograph Photograph: left side Photograph: right side Photograph: back view
dis manibus Lucius Pontius Helenus matri suae Iuniae Saturninae bene merenti fecit

To the spirits of the dead. Lucius Pontius Helenus set this up for his well deserving mother, Iunia Saturnina.

SATVRNINAE (Prideaux, Maittaire).

The social status of neither L. Pontius Helenus nor Iunia Saturnina is specified in this inscription, but represents a fairly conventional commemoration of mother by son.

Prideaux (1676) p.77, no.5; Maittaire (1732) p.35, no.55; Chandler (1763) p.135, no.54; CIL VI.4.1 no.24721 [Hübner] (1894).

Online: EDCS-13800969 [accessed 17/07/14]

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 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