EPITAPH OF OBELLIA SECULARIS, ROME (?) Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.94.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.94 AshLI 93

None is available from autopsy, since the stone has been missing since at least 1763. Neither Prideaux nor Maittaire offer a description, either.

It is of unknown provenance, but probably originates from Rome. The inscription may perhaps be second- or third- century AD in date, given the use of the formula DMS. 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 inscription had gone missing by 1763, when Chandler (1763: p.xviii) had to derive his edition of it from Maittaire.
dis manibus sacrum Obelliae Secu lari vixit annos LXXV>

Sacred to the spirits of the dead. To Obellia Secularis (who) lived for 75 years.

It is possible that this epitaph offers an example of the practice of age-rounding that was prevalent in Roman epitaphs, whereby the deceased’s age was rounded to numbers ending in 5 and 0 (cf. Hopkins 1966).

Prideaux (1676) p.124, no.60; Maittaire (1732) p.43, no.127; Chandler (1763) p.138, no.94 (following Mattaire); CIL VI.3 no.23199 (1886).

Online: EDCS-13300394 [accessed 18/07/14]

Chandler R. 1763 Marmora Oxoniensia Oxford Clarendon Press Hopkins K. 1966 On the probable age structure of the Roman population Population Studies 20.2 245-64 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