EPITAPH FOR TWO FREEDMEN, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.82.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.82 AshLI 81

A plaque of white marble (0.17 0.297 0.028), in a modern mount, divided into two sections by a central dividing-line. The inscribed space is marked off by a wavy single-line border. The surface is rather worn, and the plaque is damaged on all sides. A small fragment in the top centre has been broken and subsequently re-attached. Roughly half way up on the left of the front surface is a hole with traces of metal, probably an original fixing-hole. There appears to have been a matching hole on the right side, which is partly visible where the stone has broken off. The rear is smoothly finished.

There are two inscriptions, each in its own space to right and left. The end of line 3 of the left-hand text overlaps the central dividing line, and encroaches upon the right-hand space. There are triangular interpuncts throughout.

 0.021 (line 1); 0.017 (line 2); 0.015 (line 3). The letters are the same height per line on either side of the plaque. It is of unknown provenance, but probably originates from Rome, given its columbarium context. c.AD 1-100 (from onomastics: Solin 2003: vol. 1, p.344; cf. Solin 1996: vol.1, p.153). Columbaria began to be constructed in Rome from the 20s BC, flourishing until the Hadrianic period. By the end of the second century AD, there had been a shift away from cremation to inhumation in burials at Rome (Bodel 2008). 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
Lucius Sestius Lucii libertus Epaphroditus
Marcus Fulvius U+2183mulieris libertus Tertius

Lucius Sestius Epaphroditus, freedman of Lucius. Marcus Fulvius Tert[ius], freedman of a woman.

The form of this epitaph suggests a provenance from a columbarium.

Prideaux (1676) p.143, no.86; Maittaire (1732) p.42, no.120; Chandler (1763) p.137, no.82; CIL VI.4 fasc.1 no.26463 [Hübner] (1894).

Online: EDCS-14200644 [accessed 06/09/15]

Bodel J. 2008 From columbaria to catacombs: communities of the dead in pagan and Christian Rome Commemorating the Dead: Texts and Artifacts in Context L. Brink O.P.Green and D. Green Berlin/ New York De Gruyter 177-242 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 Solin H. 1996 Die stadtrömischen Sklavennamen Stuttgart Steiner 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