A DOUBLE EPITAPH, ROME (?) Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL ANChandler.3.98.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.98 AshLI 97

None is available from autopsy, since the stone has been missing since at least 1763, but the text is recorded as having been inscribed in two sections, divided by a vertical line down the centre.

It is of unknown provenance, but probably originates from Rome. The inscription may perhaps be from the Julio-Claudian era (Solin 2003: vol. 1, p.496). 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.
Alfena Philema
Aiax frater

Alfena Philema. Aiax, brother.

This epitaph belongs to a humble social context, given the names of the individuals mentioned: it commemorates a sister whose name suggests she is a freedwoman, and her brother whose single name Aiax points to his still being a slave. This offers an example of one set of siblings whose different fates, with one being freed and the other not, have not disrupted their sense of kinship. It suggests that Philema remained part of the household after her manumission. It is one of a handful of inscriptions in our collection which all appear to relate to members of the senatorial household of P. Alfenus Varus, who is either the famous jurist who was consul in 39 BC or the consul of the same name in AD 2 (PIR2 A523) (cf. C3-88, C3-93, C3-102).

Prideaux (1676) p.115, no.52; Maittaire (1732) p.38, no.83; Chandler (1763) p.138, no.98; CIL VI.2 no.11438 (1882).

Online: EDCS-17201127 [accessed 21/07/14]

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 Solin H. 2003 Die griechischen Personennamen in Rom. Ein Namenbuch (2nd edn) 3 vols Berlin De Gruyter