EPITAPH FOR A MOTHER, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.59.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.59 AshLI 58

Top half of a mensa sepulchralis of white marble (0.157 0.363 0.023) (set in a modern mount), with half of an infundibulum preserved at its centre beneath the inscribed epitaph, with just two perforations visible. According to Castellini, Sirmond, and later Fabretti, line 4 followed beneath the infundibulum, which consisted originally of six holes. What survives is in two contiguous fragments, and the right edge is also missing.

inscribed on the front face. Line 4 presumably followed beneath the infundibulum originally.

 0.021 (line 1); 0.018-0.02 (line 2); 0.017 (line 3) Rome 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). This inscription was seen and copied by Giovanni Zaratino Castellini (1570-1641) (Minasi 1893) in its entirety at the Palazzo of Cardinal Crescenzi, near the Pantheon in Rome, at some time after 1611 (when Pier Paolo Crescenzi was created cardinal: Polverini Fosi 1984). Three of Castellini’s folios were bought by Garrucci in around 1858, and subsequently published by Minasi in Civiltà Cattolica of 1893 (Ferrua 1958). The inscription was recorded somewhere in Rome by Sirmond and Gude (according to CIL). This would fit with Reinesius, who states that it was seen at the Palazzo of Cardinal Crescenzi, near the Pantheon in Rome (for other inscriptions from this location, which also ended up in the Arundel collection, see C3-12, C3-17, C3-21, C3-28, C3-30, C3-37, C3-49, C3-71, C3-80, C3-89, C3-97). It was published by Prideaux (1676) 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 inscription is currently in a storeroom. Photograph Photograph Photograph
dis manibus Lucius Aurelius Sabinus Fabiae Sabinae matri pientissimae fecit

To the spirits of the dead. Lucius Aurelius Sabinus set this up for Fabia Sabina, his most devoted mother.

Line 4 is recorded by Castellini and Sirmond

The form of this epitaph indicates a provenance from a columbarium. It seems to have suffered some damage between the time when it was first seen in Rome and its arrival in Oxford, since the earliest records of it include a fourth line, now missing, which must have appeared beneath the (now halved) infundibulum. It was set up by a son to his mother. They appear to be freeborn citizens, with the son deriving his cognomen from his mother.

Castellini, G. Zaratino (published by Minasi in 1893) p.210, no.27; Sirmond MS. BNF Paris suppl. Lat. 1419 = Lat. 10808, no.276; Reinesius (1682) part 13, p.699 no.8 (following Sirmond); Gude MS. 295, 4 (according to CIL); Fabretti (1702) p.65 no. 5 (from Barberini schedae); Prideaux (1676) p.129, no.77; Maittaire (1732) p.35, no.56; Chandler (1763) p.135, no.59; CIL VI.2 no.13211 [Hübner] (1882); CIL VI.4 fasc.3 (p.3911) (1933).

Online: EDCS-15300495 [accessed 11/08/15]

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 ChandlerR. 1763 Marmora Oxoniensia Oxford Clarendon Press Fabretti R. 1702 Inscriptionum antiquarum quae in aedibus paternis asseruantur explicatio et additamentum Rome 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, Paris suppl. Lat. 1419 = Lat. 10808 [consulted online 03/10/13 at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9077728w] Sturdy D. and N. Moorcraft 1999 Christopher Wren and Oxford’s garden of antiquities Minvera 10.1 25-28