EPITAPH OF FREEDMAN CAESIUS FAUSTUS, ROME (?) Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.81.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.81 AshLI 80

Unadorned rectangular slab of white marble (in modern mount), in a fragmentary state (0.120.25 0.04): its left side appears intact, but the right side has broken off, and the top appears to have been cut down. As a result, there may have been further text above the first line preserved, as suggested in the edition below. There is a sizeable clamping hole to the left on the front surface, and a second clamping hole on the right probably occurred just where the right side has disappeared. A small hole in the centre of the top surface is likely to relate to its modern display.

Inscribed on the front surface. Inscription seems to be centred. Triangular interpuncts, except perhaps at the end. There is a large vacat below the inscribed text. There appears to have been another line (now lost) above the line currently visible.

 0.017 It is of unknown provenance, but probably originates from Rome. perhaps first century AD. 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). 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 epitaph is currently in a storeroom. Photograph
Marci Caesi Marci lliberti Fausti

[?] of Marcus Caesius Faustus, freedman of Marcus.

Line 1: Prideaux and Maittaire indicated that they could see traces of another line of writing above the line preserved.

A phrase such as ossa hic sita (compare C3-84) or dis manibus may originally have been inscribed above what now survives. Exiguous traces of the stems of letters appear to remain above M CAESI.

Prideaux (1676) p.146, no.93; Maittaire (1732) p.43, no.122; Chandler (1763) p.137, no.81; CIL VI.2 no.13976 [Hübner] (1882).

Online: EDCS-15500402 [accessed 08/07/14].

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 Sturdy D. and N. Moorcraft 1999 Christopher Wren and Oxford’s garden of antiquities Minerva 10.1 25-28