FUNERARY ALTAR FOR L. MARCIUS PACATUS, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHLI ANChandler.3.9.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.9 AshLI 08 ANMichaelis.202

A small funerary altar of white marble (0.415 0.272 0.208). It is topped by a small curved pediment flanked by decorated bolsters on either side. On each of the four sides is a picture carved in relief, each one related to myths of Hercules (Mander 2013: p.58, who confuses right and left sides). On the front, the inscription is wrapped around a picture of a Hercules grasping a five-headed Hydra by one of its necks, but he is depicted as a child with chubby features, thus conflating the myth of the infant Hercules strangling snakes in his cot with that of his encounter with the Hydra as one of his labours (Wrede 1981: p.249). On the right, an adolescent beardless Hercules is attacking a Stymphalian bird with a club. On the left, a bearded Hercules is striking a centaur with his club. On the rear appear Hercules’ weapons: a lion-skin, club, quiver, set of arrows, and bow. The altar is in reasonably good condition, with minor damage to details such as faces and heads in the reliefs.

The inscribing is not very neat, and has obviously been added later than the relief: some letters in the inscription are squashed in to avoid overlapping the relief (eg O at end of line 1; E in DOPE, line 5; A at end of line 8); the layout has not been planned very well, with just the first letter in dulcissimo appearing at the end of a line. There are triangular interpuncts throughout.

 0.019 throughout, but with smaller letters where space runs short. In line 9 the stonecutter has carved VIT, in place of VIXIT. Rome (according to Gude). perhaps AD 150-200 The altar belongs to the Arundel Collection, 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.135), a list of ancient 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 on display in the Randolph Sculpture Gallery. Photograph including scale Photograph: front face Photograph: back face Photograph: left side face Photograph: right side face Photograph: front face (EDCS) Photograph: composite of all sides (EDR)
Dis manibus Lucio Marcio Pacato filio d ulcissimo fecit Ro dope ma ter in feli cissima qui vixit annos XV menses VIIII dies VIIII

To the spirits of the dead. Rodope, unhappiest mother did this for Lucius Marcius Pacatus, sweetest son, who lived 15 years, 9 months, 9 days.

Lines 1-2: D. M/ L. MARCIO PACATO (Gude, in Hesselius). Line 2: DECATO (Prideaux, Montfaucon). Lines 2-3: FILIO. DVLCISSIMO (Gude, in Hesselius); FILIO DVL/CISSIMO (Sirmond). Lines 4-5: FECIT. RODO. MA (Sirmond; Prideaux). Lines 6-9: QVI VII/ ANNOS (Prideaux); QVI/ VIXIT ANNOS XV M VIIII D VIIII (Sirmond) Lines 9-10: VIXIT. ANNOS. XV. M. VIIII. D. VIIII (Gude, in Hesselius).

This funerary altar creates a vivid impression of a mother’s sense of loss at her son’s death aged fifteen. Rodope is probably a freedwoman, whose son was born as a freeborn citizen (possessing tria nomina) after she had been manumitted. The main question is what the relationship is between the reliefs depicting Hercules and the deceased commemorated in the inscription. The images depict the progress of Hercules through life, from childhood on the front of the altar, via his adolescence on the right side, to full maturity on the left. There is not a close fit between the picture of a young child on the front and the text commemorating a fifteen-year-old (Mander 2013: p.58), but it is possible that a contrast is being drawn with the deceased, Marcius Pacatus, who was only fifteen when he died, and that the images express his mother’s unfulfilled desire to see him grow up to adulthood. In addition, the juxtaposition of the epitaph with images of the exploits of a deified hero is generally thought to be indicative of a desire on the mother’s part to associate the deceased with a deified hero (consecratio), and of the sense of a life cut tragically short, before the youth could achieve his full potential (on representations of deceased children as gods and heroes more generally, see Mander 2013: pp. 55-59). This form of representation is typical of freedmen/women in Rome during the late first and second centuries AD, and is certainly intended to express the mother’s grief and affection for her son. The intimations of apotheosis might also have been a source of consolation (Mander 2013: p.59). Boschung (1987: p.114) suggests that the altar might originally have been dedicated to Hercules, apparently because the inscription is added later than the relief, but it is equally possible that the inscription was added, albeit clumsily, as part of the overall design. Boschung also suggests that this Rodope is to be identified with the Marcia Rhodope of CIL 6.22111: this seems plausible since she here commemorates her husband, L. Marcius Trophimus, whose name fits as father of Pacatus. It is possible that the father pre-deceased his son.

Sirmond MS. MS. Paris suppl. Lat. 1419 = Lat. 10808, no. 296; Prideaux (1676) p.275, no.139 (pictures of all four sides); Montfaucon (1724) Suppl. I Pl. LIV; Hesselius (= Marquard Gude) (1731) p.239 no.11; Maittaire (1732) p.45, no.139; Muratori (1740) p.1188 no.5 (following Montfaucon); Chandler (1763) Part 3, Pl. II.ix.1-4, with drawings; Michaelis (1882) p.586, no.202; CIL VI.3 no.22086 [Hübner] (1886); Reinach (1912) vol.2, p.524.1-4 (drawings); Wrede (1981) p.249 no.143; Boschung (1987) p.72 no. I231 + p.114 no. 960; Mander (2013) p.58 and catalogue no.121 + fig.44.

Online: EDCS-13200371 [accessed 12/06/14]

Ashmolean Museum Department of Antiquities Marbles sent from Ashmolean Museum Boschung D. 1987 Antike Grabaltäre aus den Nekropolen Roms Bern Acta Bernensia. Beiträge zur prähistorischen, klassischen und jüngeren Archäologie 10 Chandler R. 1763 Marmora Oxoniensia Clarendon Press Oxford Hesselius F. 1731 Antiquae Inscriptiones quam Graecae tum Latinae olim a Marquardo Gudio collectae Leovardia Maittaire M. 1732, 2nd edn Marmorum, Arundellianorum, Seldenianorum, Aliorumque Academiae Oxoniensi Donatorum London William Bowyer Mander J. 2013 Portraits of Children on Roman Funerary Monuments Cambridge Cambridge University Press Michaelis A. 1882 Ancient Marbles in Great Britain translated by C.A.M.Fennell Cambridge Cambridge University Press Montfaucon B. de 1724 Supplement au livre de l’antiquité expliquée et representée en igures 1 Paris 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 Muratori L.A. 1739, 1740, 1740, 1742 Novus thesaurus veterum inscriptionum I-IV Milan Prideaux H. 1676 Marmora Oxoniensia ex Arundellianis, Seldenianis aliisque conflata Oxford Reinach S. 1912 Répertoire de reliefs grecs et romains 2 Paris Ernest Leroux Sirmond [Sirmondus] J. 1559-1651 Recueil d'inscriptions copiées par Sirmond. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Paris suppl. Latin 1419 = Latin 10808 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9077728w [accessed 10/06/14] Sturdy D. and N. Moorcraft 1999 Christopher Wren and Oxford’s garden of antiquities Minerva 10.1 25-28 Wrede H. 1981 Consecratio in formam deorum. Vergöttlichte Privatpersonen in der römischen Kaiserzeit Mainz Philipp von Zabern