FUNERARY ALTAR FOR FABIUS RUFINUS, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.8.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.8 AshLI 07

A rather plain funerary altar of white marble, with a focus on its upper surface (0.65 0.48 0.40). On the front is a relief dividing the inscription into two. This relief depicts a naked cupid, holding something in his raised right hand, and with his left hand originally lowered, but now missing. The rear of the stone is smoothly finished, and the sections of moulding continue around all sides. It is in a good condition.

The inscription is carved in two parts, with lines 1-2 on the moulded frame above the relief, and line 3 on the frame beneath it.

 0.03 (line 1), 0.035 (line 2), 0.04 (line 3). It is of unknown provenance, but probably originates from Rome. No clear dating criteria; perhaps second/third centuries AD, when filiation tends to be less common in inscriptions (Solin 1971: p.36). 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), and 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 funerary altar is included in the archive MS. ‘Marbles sent from Ashmolean Museum’ p.28, no.134, a list of antique marbles transferred in Jan. 1888 from the (Old) Ashmolean Museum basement room to the marble rooms of the Randolph Building on Beaumont Street, which had been built alongside the University Galleries. 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 altar is currently in a storeroom. Photograph: front face and right side, taken in the stores Photograph: front face, detail, lines 1-2, taken in the stores Photograph: front face, detail, lines 1-2, taken in the stores, including a scale Photograph: front face, detail, lines 1-2, taken in the stores, including a scale Photograph: front face, detail, line 3, taken in the stores, including a scale Photograph: front face, detail, line 3, taken in the stores, including a scale Photograph: overivew, taken in the stores, including a scale
Memoriae Fabi Rufini Fabius Iustus

To the memory of Fabius Rufinus. Fabius Iustus.

The names suggest a family tie between commemorator and commemorated, perhaps father and son, or two brothers. The cognomen Iustus points to freeborn status rather than freed (Kajanto 1965: p.133).

Prideaux (1676) p.286, no.159; Maittaire (1732) p.42, no.114; Chandler (1763) Part 3, Pl. I.viii, with drawing; Michaelis (1882) p.589, no.212; CIL VI.3 no.17559 [Hübner] (1886)

Online: EDCS-00600559 [accessed 26.05.14]; Arachne no. 50778 http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/objekt/50778 [accessed 30.01.14]

Ashmolean Museum Department of Antiquities Marbles sent from Ashmolean Museum Chandler R. 1763 Marmora Oxoniensia Oxford Clarendon Press Kajanto I. 1965 The Latin Cognomina Helsinki Commentationes humanarum litterarum 36 Maittaire M. 1732, 2nd edn Marmorum, Arundellianorum, Seldenianorum, Aliorumque Academiae Oxoniensi Donatorum London William Bowyer Michaelis A. 1882 Ancient Marbles in Great Britain translated by C.A.M.Fennell Cambridge Cambridge University Press 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. 1971 Beiträge zur Kenntnis der griechischen Personennamen in Rom I Helsinki Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 48 Sturdy D. and N. Moorcraft 1999 Christopher Wren and Oxford’s garden of antiquities Minerva 10.1 25-28