EPITAPH FOR AN IMPERIAL FREEDMAN, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.70.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.70 AshLI 69

A large, plain white marble tablet (0.475 0.655 0.07), with a moulded frame (in a modern mount). The rear remains rough. There is a small hole in the centre of the top surface.

The inscription is inscribed on the front face, within the moulded frame. There is an attempt (not entirely successful) to centre line 1. There are no interpuncts. Line 4: LIBERTO first inscribed as LIAERTO, and then corrected. Some extra letters are included by error in line 6.

 0.032 (line 1-5); 0.03 (line 6). This inscription originates from Rome (Reinesius 1682; Chandler 1763: p.xviii), possibly from the Janiculum (Gude, according to CIL). c.AD 161-250 (from DM formula and onomastics) (Solin 2003: vol. 1, p.76; Weaver 1972: p.24). It was first recorded in Oxford by Prideaux (1676), as part of the Arundel Collection, given to the University of Oxford by Henry Howard, Earl of Arundel, in 1667. The Arundel marbles were first displayed in the ‘Garden of Antiquities’ outside the new Sheldonian Theatre from 1668/9 (Sturdy and Moorcraft 1999), and this inscription is visible in the proof-engraving depicting this display in the papers of Henry Aldrich (Vickers 2006: pp.40-41). The marbles 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 on Beaumont Street, was opened in 1894, and finally the University Galleries and Ashmolean were amalgamated by statute in 1908. The inscription is currently in store. Photograph Photograph Photograph Photograph: detail top left Photograph: detail top right Photograph: bottom left Photograph: bottom right
dis manibus Baleria Theodote fecit Aur elio Alexandro Augustor um liberto bene mere nti et libertis libertabu sque postaerisque aeorum

To the departed spirits. Baleria Theodote set this up for Aurelius Alexander, freedman of the emperors, well-deserving, and for her freedmen and freedwomen and their descendants.

LIBERTO first inscribed as LIAERTO, and then corrected POSTERISQVE (Reinesius apud Maittaire 562)

Baleria Theodote is of uncertain status, but was perhaps the wife of the deceased whom she is commemorating. The imperial connections of the freedman Aurelius Alexander cannot be pinpointed, since, on the basis of his nomenclature, he could equally have been freed jointly by Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (AD 161-69), or Marcus Aurelius and Commodus (AD 177-180), or Septimius Severus and Caracalla (AD 198-211).

Gude MS. 131, 3 (following Langermann, according to CIL); Prideaux (1676) p.147, no.103; Reinesius (1682) section 9, p.574, no.58 (following Langermann); Maittaire (1732) p.40, no.96 + 562; Chandler (1763) p.136, no.70; CIL VI.4 fasc.1 no.28283 [Hübner] (1894)

Online: EDCS-14802244 [accessed 29.08.15]

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 Reinesius T. 1682 Syntagma inscriptionum antiquarum Leipzig J.E. Hahn 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 Vickers M. 2006 The Arundel and Pomfret Marbles in Oxford Oxford Ashmolean Museum Weaver P. R. C. 1972 Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor's Freedmen and Slaves Cambridge Cambridge University Press