EPITAPH SET UP BY FREEDWOMAN FELICISSIMA, ROME (?) Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.91.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.91 AshLI 90

A fragmentary unadorned slab of white marble (in a modern mount), missing its topmost portion (perhaps two or three lines of text) (0.099 0.31 0.027). The front surface has suffered some slight abrasion. Not much of the rear is currently visible, but it is possibly smoothly finished. A small hole in the centre of the top surface probably relates to its modern display.

Prideaux and Maittaire indicated another line above line 1, which is now lost. Given the incompleteness of the extant text, this is surely correct, but no trace of this lost line can now be discerned, and it is possible that they did not in fact see anything of it themselves, but intended to indicate from the sense that something must be missing. Interpuncts are clearly visible in lines 1-2. MES in line 1 should be understood either as an abbreviated form of MENSES or as a stonecutter’s error for the same. It is found in other inscriptions: see CIL VI.6.3 p.96 (2006).

 0.028+ (line 1, tops of letters damaged); 0.028 (line 2); 0.021 (line 3). It is of unknown provenance, but probably originates from Rome. possibly second or third century AD (on onomastic grounds) (Solin 1996: vol. 1 p.95) 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 epitaph is currently in a storeroom. Photograph Photograph
menses III fecit Felicis sima liberta bene me renti

(…lived x many years and) 3 months. Felicissima freedwoman set this up for him/her well deserving.

It is probable that two or three lines are missing from the start of this epitaph: these would have contained the name of the deceased, his/her relationship to Felicissima (perhaps patron, given that she is identified as freedwoman), and the number of years lived. The centring of RENTI at the end (and the fact this is a common concluding formula) implies that this is indeed the end of the text, and that nothing further has been lost below.

Prideaux (1676) p.146, no.96; Maittaire (1732) p.39, no.89; Chandler (1763) p.138, no.91; CIL VI.3 no.17808 [Hübner] (1886).

Online: EDCS-00600807 [accessed 18/07/14].

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 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