Thirteen Latin Funerary Inscriptions at Harvard University

Abstract

Presented here are 14 Roman epitaphs of early Imperial date from the epigraphic collections of Harvard University. All but three were published in 1909 by Clifford H. Moore, who purchased a small collection of Latin inscriptions in Rome in 1905 and 1906 for Harvard's Department of the Classics. Most of the stones collected by Moore are simple grave markers of first-or second-century date from the city of Rome; more than half reportedly came from the Early Imperial necropolis unearthed around the turn of the century outside the Aurelian Wall between the Porta Salaria (Piazza Fiume) and the Porta Pinciana. In general the material in Moore's collection reflects the humble character of the cemetery as a whole: slaves and freedmen (some of prominent families), freeborn city dwellers of modest means, and soldiers of the praetorian guard are commemorated on columbarium stones (including mensae sepulchrales), larger slabs originally set into the facades of standing tombs, grave stelae, and funerary altars. A brief overview of Moore's collection precedes a catalogue in which 11 of his inscriptions, newly edited, are furnished with commentaries designed to set the texts more fully into their historical context. Two stones not part of Moore's collection (one an unpublished columbarium marker, the other an opisthograph funerary relief from Liguria) are included in the final two entries in order to complete the survey of Harvard's Latin epigraphic holdings.