EPITAPH FOR A MIME ACTOR, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.89.xml> 274316 Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.89 AshLi 88

An unadorned rectangular slab of white marble with blue-grey veins (0.28 0.355 0.04), with its top right corner missing (in a modern mount). The rear is smoothly finished. A small hole at the centre of the top surface probably relates to its modern display.

The whole inscription is very worn and difficult to read: RTI has helped to confirm some of the readings handed down by earlier editors of the text. The complete text is recorded by Castellini, Sirmond, and Reinesius, from whom the underlined letters have been taken. In line 1, DM is presented as a heading. The words in the last line are also spread out. CIL (followed by ILS) mistakenly conflates lines 7-8 into a single line (despite mentioning that Sirmond, Gude, and Reinesius all presented this as two lines).

0.024 (line 1); 0.025 (line 2); 0.019 (line 3); 0.018 (lines 4-6). From RTI, line 2 appears to start with a tall D. The exact findspot of this inscription is unknown, although Gude recorded that he had seen it on the via Appia (according to CIL). possibly AD 150-250 (from use of DM formula; use of Aug. n. formula) (Solin 1996: vol. 2, p.278; Leppin 1992: p.232; Weaver 1972: p.55) It was seen and copied by Giovanni Zaratino Castellini (1570-1641) at the Palazzo of Cardinal Crescenzi, near the Pantheon in Rome, at some time between 1611 (when Pier Paolo Crescenzi was created cardinal: Polverini Fosi 1984) and 1627 (by which time the stone had been transferred to England into Arundel’s collection). This location in Rome was also noted by Reinesius, and was probably where Sirmond had also seen the inscription. Three of Castellini’s folios were bought by Garrucci in around 1858, and subsequently published by Minasi in Civiltà Cattolica of 1893 (Ferrua 1958). It was then brought to England to join 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 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 inscription is currently in a storeroom. Photograph Photograph
dis manibus Dionysio Augusti nostri vernae <supplied reason="lost" evidence="previouseditor"><surplus>h</surplus>ethol</supplied>og<supplied reason="lost" evidence="previouseditor">o</supplied> vixit annos XXII mensibus VII diebus XXIIII fecit Dionysius Socratis Augusti> libertus et sibi et suis

To the spirits of the dead. Dionysius Socrates, freedman of the emperor, set this up for Dionysius household slave of our emperor, mime-actor, lived 22 years 7 months 24 days, and for himself and his family.

Line 1: D M Ɵ (Castellini): the theta seems oddly placed here, whilst the layout in Castellini as published by Minasi implies that even when he recorded it, the stone was already damaged. Line 2: DIONYSIO AVG N (Castellini, Sirmond, Reinesius) ; ……MNIO AVG (Prideaux, Maittaire) Line 3: VERNA HETHOLOGO and line division before VIXIT (Reinesius); ETHOLOGO (Sirmond); HETHOLOGO (sic) (Gude) Line 4: ANNIS (Gude, Reinesius); XXII (Gude); XII (Castellini, Sirmond, Reinesius); IX (Hübner); line division MENSI/BVS (Reinesius) Line 6: SOCRATES (Gude)

The term ethologus was one of the words used to designate a performer of mimes, in this case a slave who belonged to an emperor (listed in catalogue of Leppin 1992: pp.231-232). His age when he died is unclear: the earliest transcriptions of the inscription by Castellini and Sirmond record the age as XII, which seems young for a mime-actor, whereas another early transcriber, Gude, recorded the numeral as XXII. Hübner is the only epigrapher to suggest IX, which might result in XXIIX, but even RTI is unable to reveal anything for certain on this extremely worn section of the stone.

Castellini, G. Zaratino (published by Minasi in 1893) p.215 no.38; Sirmond Paris suppl. Lat. 1419 = Lat. 10808, no.271; Hesselius (= Gude) (1731) p.109 no.4; Orelli (1828) I 2616 (following Gude); Reinesius (1682) section 9 p.557 no.20 (following Sirmond and Lambecius, who followed Sirmond); partial text in Prideaux (1676) p.263, no.123; Maittaire (1732) p.39, no.87; Chandler (1763) p.138, no.89; CIL VI.2 no.10129 [Hübner] (1882); CIL VI.4 fasc.3, p.3906 (1933); ILS 5227 (Dessau 1974).

Online: EDCS-19400170 [accessed 08/09/15]; EDR-108910 [accessed 08/09/15]

Chandler R. 1763 Marmora Oxoniensia Oxford Clarendon Press Ferrua A. 1958 Giovanni Zaratino Castellini raccoglitore di epigrafi Epigraphica 20 121-60 Hesselius F. 1731 Antiquae Inscriptiones quam Graecae tum Latinae olim a Marquardo Gudio collectae Leovardia Leppin H. 1992 Histrionen: Untersuchungen zur sozialen Stellung von Bühnenkünstlern im Western des Römischen Reiches zur Zeit der Republik und des Principats Bonn Dr. Rudolf Habelt GMBH Maittaire M. 1732, 2nd edn Marmorum, Arundellianorum, Seldenianorum, Aliorumque Academiae Oxoniensi Donatorum London William Bowyer Minasi G. 1893 Archeologia La civiltà cattolica ser.15 7 208-28 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 Orelli J.C. 1828 Inscriptionum Latinarum Selectarum Amplissima Collectio vols I-II I-II Turici Polverini FosiI. 1984 Crescenzi, Pier Paolo Dizionario biografico degli italiani A.M. Ghisalberti and M. Pavan Rome Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana 648-49. Prideaux H. 1676 Marmora Oxoniensia ex Arundellianis, Seldenianis aliisque conflata Oxford Reinesius T. 1682 Syntagma inscriptionum antiquarum Leipzig J.E. Hahn Sirmond J. [Sirmondus] 1559-1651 Recueil d'inscriptions copiées par Sirmond. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Paris suppl. Lat. 1419 = Lat.10808 [consulted online 10/06/14 at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9077728w] Solin H. 1996 Die stadtrömischen Sklavennamen. Ein Namenbuch Stuttgart Steiner Sturdy D. and N. Moorcraft 1999 Christopher Wren and Oxford’s garden of antiquities Minerva 10.1 25-28 Weaver P. R. C. 1972 Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor's Freedmen and Slaves Cambridge Cambridge University Press