EPITAPH OF L. POMPEIUS NIGER, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.87.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.87 AshLI 86

An almost intact plaque of white marble (0.10 0.164 0.022) (in a modern mount), although the bottom edge as set into the modern mount may not be its original. A small part of the top right corner has broken off. An ornamental single-line frame encloses the inscription within a rectangular area. At the top, the frame is decorated with six small semicircles, and its right and left sides are decorated with oblique strokes. Two circular marks still with traces of metal and oxidisation occur half way up on both right and left of the front surface. A small hole in the centre of the top surface probably relates to its modern display.

The inscription is enclosed by a decorative border. Triangular interpuncts occur except at line ends.

 0.021 (line 1); 0.018 (line 2) It is of unknown provenance, but probably originates from Rome. : probably first century AD (from inclusion of tria nomina, filiation and voting-tribe). CIL notes the existence of two such inscriptions (CIL VI 244861/b), one seen by Detlefsen in the Lateran Museum’s stores, the other in Oxford (as recorded first by Prideaux), which Hübner did not himself see, however. It is of unknown provenance, but probably originates from Rome. 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 on display in the Reading and Writing Gallery Photograph
Lucius Pompeius Lucii filius Collina tribu Niger

Lucius Pompeius Niger, son of Lucius, of the Colline voting-tribe.

The Colline voting-tribe was one of four urban tribes allocated to citizens of the city of Rome. The same name (L. Pompeius L.f. Col. Niger) is also found on CIL VI 24487-88, a marble plaque also seen by Detlefsen in the Lateran, and on an ash chest. In both of these cases, the name of Pompeius Niger is associated also with a freedwoman named Olia Acume or Acme. The name Olia Acume also occurs on an inscription from the Ashmolean, C3-95, which is long lost. Exactly what the relationship is between the various inscriptions of Pompeius Niger and Olia Acume remains unclear.

Prideaux (1676) p.102, no.32; Maittaire (1732) p.42, no.116; Chandler (1763) p.137, no.87; CIL VI.4.1 no.24486 (1894).

Online: EDCS-13800734 [accessed 15/07/14]

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