EPITAPH OF YOUNG BOY, Q. NAEVIUS HILARUS, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.73.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.73 AshLI 72

A fragmentary slab (0.182 0.213 0.19) of white marble with grey veins, incised with a rounded pediment flanked by a pseudo-acroterion on each side (in a modern mount). The rear is smoothly finished. Only the top part of the monument has been preserved, and the pseudo-acroterion on the left has been lost. The front surface is very worn, especially in the centre of lines 2-3, where the letters are hardly visible now.

Inscribed on the front face. Only the tops of the letters on the final line are preserved. Triangular interpuncts occur fairly regularly. The standard of inscribing is not high, with variable letter heights within individual lines.

0.02 (line 1); 0.018 (line 2); 0.015-0.018 variable height (lines 3-4); line 5 incompletely preserved. Rome possibly second century AD (from DM formula and use of tria nomina) (Solin 2003: vol.2, p.1141). This inscription was reported found in 1610 beyond the Milvian bridge in Rome (Menestrier MS. Vat. Lat. 10545 f. 170, following schedae of Iulius Roscius; in 1609 according to Milesius, as recorded in CIL). 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). They 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. It is currently in a storeroom. Photograph
dis manibus Quinto Naevio Qunti filio Hilaro qui vixit annis III mensibus X diebus XXI Quintus Naevius Moschus pater filio

To the spirits of the dead. For Quintus Naevius Hilarus, son of Quintus, who lived 3 years, 10 months, 21 days. Quintus Naevius Moschus father, for his son.

DM omitted by Prideaux, Maittaire; DM (Maittaire p.561) NEVIO (Doni MS. Naples); NAEVIVS FILI LARO (Prideaux, Maittaire); Q NAE*IO PHILARO (Chandler) IIII (Doni MS. Naples)

In this epitaph a father commemorates his young son, a freeborn citizen. Moschus himself is of uncertain status, either freeborn or freed. If Moschus were a freedman, this would mean that Hilarus had been born after his father had been freed. The inscription may originally have been longer, with perhaps a dedicatory formula such as FECIT missing where the lower part of the slab has broken away.

Menestrier, MS. cod. Vat. Lat. 10545 f.170; Doni BN Naples, MS G.XII.75 fol. 278, no.7; Milesius MS. Ferrara 1,344 (according to CIL); Prideaux (1676) p.146, no.97; Maittaire (1732) p.34, no.48 + 561; Chandler (1763) p.137, no.73; CIL VI.3 no.22833 [Hübner] (1886); CIL VI.4 fasc.2 (1902) p.3528

Online: EDCS-13201117 [accessed 01/09/15]

Chandler R. 1763 Marmora Oxoniensia Oxford Clarendon Press Doni Giovanni Battista [Donius] 1594-1647 BN Naples, MS G.XII.75 Maittaire M. 1732, 2nd edn Marmorum, Arundellianorum, Seldenianorum, Aliorumque Academiae Oxoniensi Donatorum London William Bowyer Menestrier MS. cod. Vat. Lat. 10545 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 Minerva 10.1 25-28