ASH CHEST OF IMPERIAL FREEDWOMAN, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.78.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.78 AshLI 77

An ash chest of white marble (0.182 0.295 0.255), decorated with relief carving. It is decorated with leaves and berries on either side of and below the inscribed panel] (0.075 0.136), which is placed in the centre at the top. The decoration extends onto the sides of the chest. No lid is preserved. There is a rectangular cavity inside the chest (0.222 0.19). There are remnants of metal clamps on the sides. It is currently in good condition, with only slight chipping on the top edge of the chest.

The epitaph is engraved within a rectangular panel on the front face. An interpunct appears in line 1 only.

 0.016 During the late sixteenth century, Aldus Manutius the Younger (= Aldo Manuzio, 1547-97) (MS cod. Vat. Lat. 5241) recorded the inscription in the house of Florentine banker Andrea Boni near the customs-house in the area of Piazza di S. Eustachio, Rome. possibly second/third century (from use of DM formula, onomastics) (Solin 1996: vol. 2, p.399). It was then 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. It is currently on display in the Randolph Gallery. Photograph
dis manibus Phlegusae Augusti libertae

'To the departed spirits of Phlegusa, freedwoman of the emperor.

PHLECUSE (Prideaux, Maittaire); PHLEGUSE (Manutius MS. cod. Vat. Lat. 5241).

The ash chest belongs to Phlegusa, a former slave freed by an emperor. The word ‘Augustus’ by this date has become a generic term designating ‘emperor’.

Manutius MS. cod. Vat. Lat. 5241 f.251 no.3; Prideaux (1676) p.103, no.41; Maittaire (1732) p.43, no.131; Chandler (1763) p.137, no.78; CIL VI.3 no.24148 [Hübner] (1886).

Online: EDCS-13800392 [accessed 29/12/14]

Ashmolean Museum Department of Antiquities Marbles sent from Ashmolean Museum Chandler R. 1763 Marmora Oxoniensia Oxford Clarendon Press Manutius 1566 MS. cod. Vat. Lat. 5241 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. 1996 Die stadtrömischen Sklavennamen Stuttgart Steiner Sturdy D. and N. Moorcraft 1999 Christopher Wren and Oxford’s garden of antiquities Minerva 10.1 25-28