Here’s how we got on:

Agrippina the Elder, Suetonius, Tiberius, 5.53

‘But in a mind so corrupted by lusts there was no trace of honour: Messalina’s tearful complaints were being drawn out pointlessly when the gates were broken open… that was the first moment she realized her true situation. She took the sword, and, while tremblingly moving it to her throat and chest in vain, a blow from the tribune drove it through her.’

Messalina, wife of Claudius, Tacitus, Annals 11.37-8

‘If he had come to commit a crime, Agrippina said… she would not believe it of her son, that he would order the murder of his mother. But the assassins surrounded her bed, and at first the ship’s captain struck her on the head with a club. Then, just as the centurion was drawing his sword to kill her, she held out her abdomen, crying out “Strike my womb!”, and with many wounds, she was dispatched.’

Agrippina the Younger, mother of Nero, Tacitus, Annals 14.8

The Death of Messalina, Georges Antoine Rochegrosse (1859-1938)

Dramatic Dominae

Reading the Roman historians, you’d be forgiven for thinking there was something just a little bit Game of Thrones about imperial women. If they’re not plotting to advance or avenge a male relative, they might be having dangerous affairs, or bringing their families into disrepute. Because the central thread of the histories told by Suetonius and Tacitus is the succession of emperors, imperial women most often appear as a means of helping the story along, characterising the men in their lives, or influencing their behaviour, each in her own way contributing to the historian’s explanation of how each man came to (and fell from) power.

It can be helpful to look at evidence which allows us to see the lives of imperial women on their own terms. Luckily, while searching through the smaller finds in the Ashmolean Latin Inscriptions collection, we found a collection of objects that gives us an insight into one imperial woman’s financial concerns – and it couldn’t be further from conspiracy and murder.

Roman Bricks

Roman bricks weren’t the rectangular things we think of today. Instead they were slim and square, like modern paving slabs.

The centre of the bricks were marked, usually with circular stamps giving the name of the brick-maker (the officinator), the clay-district (figlinae) and the estate (praedium) from which the clay came, and the name of the current consuls. These three pieces of information essentially amount to the brand, origin, and the date of manufacture that we still expect on our labels today.

These brick stamps become popular among nineteenth-century collectors, a way of owning real Roman inscriptions that were more plentiful and portable than carved stones. Unfortunately, to make them even more portable, the rest of the brick was often chiselled away, leaving only the stamped area. That’s why most brick-stamps in museums today have rough edges, and don’t give much idea of the size and shape of the brick they once belonged to. But at least they preserve the important names. In the Ashmolean Museum’s collection of brick stamps from Portus, the main harbour of Rome, the name of one particular imperial woman is a common sight. Domitia Lucilla Minor, the wife of Marcus Annius Verus and mother of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, was the owner of huge clay-fields and a major player in the brick business.

Portrait Bust identified as Domitia Lucilla Minor, mother of Marcus Aurelius. Found near the Forum in Ostia. Mid-second century AD. Vatican Museums, Sala a Croce Greca. Inv. 570.

Ladies and the Land

Of all the things that Domitia Lucilla Minor could have invested her money in, why did she choose a clay-field? Owning land was one of the few ways that aristocratic Romans could make money without being seen to engage in ‘trade’. Whether it was land that produced grain, or land that was mined for clay, many well-born Romans made themselves comfortable by having what we would now call a land portfolio, and employed staff to help them manage it.

Evidently, Domitia Lucilla’s clay-fields were so extensive that she could contract them out to more than one brick-maker. In the Ashmolean collection, we’ve found stamps showing several different officinatores, using the clay from the praedium of Domitia Lucilla in the middle of the second century AD:

Click to Enlarge

A Chip off the Old Block

In the particular case of Domitia Lucilla, her connection with brick-making was something she had inherited. Her family, the Domitii, were the most prominent family in brick manufacturing during the first and second centuries AD, and we find other bricks bearing the name of their clay-fields. In the Ashmolean Museum, we even have examples that seem to come from the clay-fields owned by her mother (Domitia Lucilla the Elder):

Naturally, certain successful brick-makers developed long-term business relationships with certain clay-field owners. The name and trident logo of officinator Ulpius Anicetianus, who appears on Domitia Lucilla’s bricks, also appears on bricks of her daughter, Annia Cornificia Faustina. It appears that, sometime after the death of Domitia Lucilla, in around AD 155/61, both the land and lucrative contracts that once belonged to her mother now passed to her.

This imperial woman, the only sibling of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, led a quiet, successful life, and on her death left her own two children her considerable property portfolio. Unfortunately, reverting to type, these grandchildren of Domitia Lucilla Minor were involved in a failed attempt to assassinate the subsequent emperor, Commodus, and were both murdered. But that’s another, more dramatic story…

At the town of Perusia, forces loyal to Mark Antony found themselves besieged by the troops of Octavian, the young man who went on to become the Emperor Augustus.

Around the modern town, archaeologists have found large metal bullets from Roman slingshots, used in the siege. Many of them were decorated with images or text, as messages to the enemy. Some name the intended target, and some tell the unlucky recipient who sent it.

Slingshot of Atidius, Chief Centurion of the 6th Legion, Ashmolean Museum ANFortnum.V.242.

AshLI’s Jane Masséglia and Hannah Cornwell take a closer look at one example, which is now on display in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

So, for a Roman soldier, owning the bullet with your name on might not have been such a strange idea after all:

After some clever sleuthing from classics-lovers and amateur epigraphers, we published the solution and the story behind the plaque on our blog.

Now you can listen to members of the AshLI team talk about this little inscription, from inside the Ashmolean’s Rome Gallery, in the second podcast in the project’s new series.

Click here to launch the podcast in a new window.

(c) Ashmolean Museum

Bronze votive plaque from1^st-2^nd centuries AD. H. 4.9cm, W. 7.1cm, D. 1cm. Ashmolean Museum AN2001.1, on display in the Rome Gallery.

Latin:

Deo / Herculi/ Marus tribunus / legionis XX fecit

 English translation:

‘For the god Hercules, Marus, tribune of the 20th legion, made this.’

Click here to launch the podcast.

A more detailed discussion of the plaque, with full bibliographic references, will appear in the new catalogue of the Ashmolean Latin Inscriptions, which will be freely available online before 2016.

For those of us who’ve grown up describing years as BC and AD, it can be hard to imagine doing it any other way. But describing a date as Before Christ or Anno Domini is based on a Christian tradition that began in the 6^th century. So what did the Roman use before then?

Ab Urbe Condita

Romans living in 50 BC, for example, wouldn’t have thought of that year as being before anything in particular. Instead they had one of two choices when describing the year: the first was to give the date ab urbe condita, ‘from the founding of the City’. Rome, according to legend, had been founded in what we would call 753 BC, so 50 BC could have been described as DCCIII (703) ab urbe condita. But this kind of dating, linking back to a vague event, wasn’t particularly popular (except when it meant a party on big anniversaries).

Consuls and Calendars

Instead, most Romans preferred a more immediate system, one which suited their taste for honouring individuals: they described the year by saying which two men were consuls that year. The consulship was the highest elected position that a Roman man could achieve, and the top spot in the cursus honorum (the ideal career path for Roman politicians). The system was devised when Rome was a Republic, and the consuls were elected in pairs and changed annually to avoid either becoming too powerful. But, as time went on, the rules were gradually bent. When Rome became an Empire, and the Emperor was now the highest official, consuls lost much of their political power. Often the Emperor himself was one of the consuls, and effectively nominated the others, and some people held the position more than once.

This golden coin (aureus) was minted in AD 211-2, in the joint reign of the Emperors Caracalla and Geta. It shows the two brothers as consuls, sitting side-by-side in special “curule” chairs (a mark of office). This was not a good year for Geta. Click here to find out why.

But the names of the consuls were still used as a way of marking the year and, to avoid confusion, a Roman numeral was put after the names of those who had been consul before. So a consul’s name followed by III, for example, meant it was the third time they had held the position.

So, instead of 50 BC, a Roman would have said ‘the year that Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus and Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor were consuls’.

Sticky Dates

It was a method that had its pros and cons: the consuls took office on 1^st January, and there was a new pair every year, so the names of the consuls gave a year its own individual identity. Everyone would have known who the two consuls were in that year, so in the short-term, it was easy to use.

On the other hand, it was a system which required people to remember who had been consuls in past years. Unlike BC/AD dating, which has a predictable order, the Roman system of consular dating didn’t follow any particular pattern. Someone in 2015, reading a plaque dedicated in 1995, could work out that it was set up 20 years ago. A Roman reading a plaque with the names of two consuls, would have to know when those men had been in office, to be able to do the same. Imagine having to describe a year by the Prime Minister in office at the time… and then imagine that there were two Prime Ministers… and that they changed every year.

Actually, it wouldn’t have been as bad as that. Most Romans, in their daily life would have described years in more personal ways (‘last year’, ‘four years ago’, ‘the year Marcus was born’), and reserved the consular dating system for more formal occasions, such as formal documents and inscriptions. And, of course, the state was keeping records, so there was no risk of forgetting the order in which the consuls held office.

DIY Dating

As is usual on inscriptions, the formula for giving the date was abbreviated to save space and effort. The year is described by giving the two men’s names, followed by the letters COS for consulibus, ‘while they were consuls’.

Why not try dating some Latin inscriptions for yourself? Below are three inscriptions from the Ashmolean collection which use consular dates. We’ve put the unabbreviated Latin and a translation beneath each one (so scroll gently if you don’t need help reading the inscription). To work out the equivalent BC/AD date, you can search for their names in this handy list.

The answers are at the bottom of the page. Good luck!

 ~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

1. Easy: An altar set up by a freedman for the god Silvanus (Ashmolean ANChandler.3.14):

C(aio) Mini-
cio Fundano et
C(aio) Vettennio Se-
vero co(n)s(ulibus)

“When Gaius Minicius Fundatus and Gaius Vettennius Severus were consuls”

2. Tricky: on this brick stamp, the consuls’ names are written in the inner ring, and the word COS is in the centre (Ashmolean AN1972.1497):

Serviano III et Varo co(n)s(ulibus)

“When Servianus (for the third time) and Varus were consuls”

3. Fiendish: on this brick-stamp, we have only the end of the first consul’s name, and a very abbreviated version of the second consul’s name before the COS (Ashmolean AN1872.1500):

…Tit(iano et) M(arco) Squil(la) Ga(llicano) co(n)s(ulibus)
“When … Titianus and Marcus Squilla Gallicanus were consuls”

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

Answers:
1.The consulship of Gaius Minicius Fundatus and Gaius Vettennius Severus was in AD 108
2. The consulship of Lucius Julius Ursus Silvianus (for the third time) and of Titus Vibius Varus was in AD 134.
3. The consulship of Titus Atilius Titianus and Marcus Squilla Gallicanus was in AD 127.

A more detailed discussion of these objects, with full bibliographic references, will appear in the new catalogue of the Ashmolean Latin Inscriptions, which will be freely available online before 2016.

As the shortest day of the year drew near, the Romans crossed their fingers for a kind winter and people from all walks of life made a break in their usual routine to honour the harvest god, Saturn.

The festival of Saturnalia began on the 17^th December and, at its longest, ran for a whole week until 23^rd December. It was a time for communal worship, present-giving, over-eating, decorations, silly hats, party games, and goodwill towards men, especially those divided by the strict Roman rules governing social class.

In our new version of this familiar carol, we’ve been thinking about what Saturnalia must have been like for a Roman slave, and would he would have been looking forward to at this festive time of year. Here it is, sung by some of our friends from the Oxford Classics Faculty. All together now:

VII shouts of “Io!”

The traditional greeting at this time of year was “io, Saturnalia!” (pronounced “Eee-yo” or “Yo”). Romans used it both as a greeting and as a reply, in the same way that we might use “Merry Christmas”, but much louder. It was a cross between a sound of celebration and surprise. Io!

VI sprigs of holly

Many people think of holly and ivy as Christmas greenery, but they were both popular decorations for Saturnalia, used in wreaths and garlands. Holly had a special significance as the sacred plant of Saturn, and small sprigs were given to friends as tokens. Since holly berries are one of the few splashes of colour in the winter, it’s not surprising that they’ve been an unbroken fixture in winter festivals for thousands of years.

V figurines

On 23^rd December, at the end of Saturnalia, the Roman celebrated Sigillaria. This was a day of gift-giving, exchanging expensive presents and small mementos. Even the Roman emperors joined in by giving gifts at Saturnalia (e.g. Augustus, Tiberius, and Vespasian).

Just like today, choosing the right present, and knowing how much to spend, was a tricky business. The 1^st-century poet Martial teased his friend who had “re-gifted” him with all his Saturnalia presents, which were heavy, but cheap:

“At Saturnalia, Umber, you sent me all the presents that the five days had brought you: a dozen three-page writing-tablets and seven toothpicks; these were accompanied by a sponge, a napkin, a cup, four quarts of beans and Picenian olives, and a black flask of Spanish grape juice. And also came little Syrian figs and glazed prunes, and a jar heavy with the weight of Libyan figs. I reckon the presents, which carried by eight huge Syrians, were hardly worth thirty coins in total. How much easier it would have been, without any effort, for a boy to have brought me five pounds of silver!” (Martial. Epigrams VII. 53)

But the traditional gifts, which gave this day its name, were simple figurines made of wax, terracotta or wood (“Sigillaria” literally means “Day of little figures”).

What exactly the figurines were originally intended to represent is difficult to say, and it seems that even the Romans weren’t sure. In the fifth century AD, the writer Macrobius wrote a book on the Saturnalia, in which two characters seem to have different attitudes to Sigillaria figurines. One man argues that they had a religious meaning, and that the figures stood in for the sacrificial victims once demanded by the cult of Saturn (Saturnalia, 1.11.47-9). But the other man argues that they were completely secular, and nothing more than toys for children (Saturnalia, 1.11.1).

But as inexpensive gifts which could be bought in bulk from specialist sigillaria-makers (who set up stalls at this time of year), these are just the kind of thing a slave might have been given to mark the last day of the festival.

IV knucklebones

As another marker that “normal service” had been suspended during Saturnalia, slaves were allowed to gamble. In theory, this festive gambling was never a risk to anyone’s savings, since the traditional stakes were nuts (hence Martial’s memorable advice to Varro to “lose your Saturnalian nuts” in Epigrams V. 30). But open gambling was an important part of the noise and excitement that gave the Saturnalia its special atmosphere.

Even priests joined in with the celebrations. In his poem, Saturnalia, the 2^nd-century poet Lucian has Cronos, a priest of Saturn say “During my week the serious is barred; no business allowed. Drinking, noise and games and dice, appointing of kings and feasting of slaves, singing naked, clapping of frenzied hands, an occasional ducking of corked faces in icy water—such are the functions over which I preside.” (Lucian, Saturnalia 1.2)

And even when the Roman Empire was officially Christian, the Saturnalian tradition of gambling was still so strongly associated with this time of year, that the famous Calendar of Philocalus (an illustrated Christian manuscript from AD 354), shows “December” throwing dice:

December, throwing dice, from the 4th century Calendar of Philocalus

So why is our slave singing about knucklebones? The small distinctive bones, usually from a sheep’s foot, were used by both the Greeks and the Romans as dice. The Romans also used the six-sided dice that we still use today, but knucklebones were a traditional alternative. Although roughly rectangular, they had two rounded ends and so could only land on one of four sides. These sides were given the values of 1, 3, 4 and 6 and, just like hands in modern poker, different combinations of values were given special names. A present of knucklebones for our slaves meant that his master was happy for him to take time off and do something he usually wasn’t allowed to do.

III good meals

Saturnalia meant large-scale public feasts at the temples to Saturn, but there was also lots of eating and drinking at home, and slaves were allowed to join in. In one of the amazing handwritten letters from Vindolanda in Roman Britain, we find one slave writing to another about a food order for Saturnalia:

“Regarding the … for the Saturnalia, I ask you, brother, to see to them at a price of 4 or six asses and radishes to the value of not less than ½ denarius.” A letter from one slave to another, from Vindolanda near Hadrian’s Wall inv. 87.748

Dining was a central part of Saturnalia, and this was often combined with the seasonal tradition of role-reversal, with masters serving their slaves for a change. If a slave was lucky, his master would give him especially good food and drink, and he would be allowed to overindulge in both.

Macrobius seemed to think that it was the successful gathering in of all this food for the winter, with slaves and master working together for the good of the household (Saturnalia, 1.10.22), that was the origin of one of Saturnalia’s most characteristic traditions: time off for the unfree.

II pointy hats

The Romans were very particular about clothing. Certain colours, styles and accessories were often reserved for particular people. During Saturnalia, it was traditional for all men, regardless of status, to wear a pointed felt hat (called a pileus). This wasn’t just a party hat. It was the hat that a male slave began to wear after he had been freed, and had become a libertus (a freedman). Our slave is given two pilei: one for himself, and one to give back to his master. By allowing his slave to wear the pileus, our master was giving his slave a temporary promotion to freedom; and by offering to wear a pileus himself, the (freeborn) master was temporarily reducing himself to the level of the new freedman, a man at the bottom of the social ladder.

This tradition was a clever way of levelling the playing field between the two men, but in fact it was a fantasy. If our slave were ever freed, he would never really be on the same level as a freeborn man like his master. He would be labelled as an ex-slave for the rest of his life, and even if he became successful, wealthy and well-known (as many freedmen did), there would still be elements of Roman life that would be closed to him. Some people in the elite classes would never mix with freedmen. Pliny the Younger, for example, in Letters 7.29, calls successful freedmen “slime and filth”.

Roman naming conventions meant that a freedman took on part of his former master’s name, and in inscriptions we find the tell-tale letter L or LIB for “libertus” (for men) or “liberta” (for women) showing who they had originally belonged to. Even on the tombstones of people who had been free for years, building families and businesses on their own, the inscriptions often still acknowledge that they had once been slaves.

Tombstone for Gaius Caninius Tertius and Caninia Tertia, both of them recorded as C L, liberti of Gaius (Caius). Ashmolean ANChandler.3.31.

There was even a hierarchy among freedmen and freedwomen, depending on who their master had been. One inscription in the Ashmolean Museum belongs to a woman who had once been a slave in the emperor’s household:

Cremation urn of Phleguse, who was AUG LIB – “a freedwoman of the Emperor”. Ashmolean ANChandler.3.78, on display in the Randolph Gallery

… and a chance to pretend that I was free

As well as the pointy freedman-hats, the open gambling and the chance to eat the master’s food, there were other Saturnalia traditions which encouraged slaves and masters to step out of their usual roles.

In an ancient precursor to the “King” at the Feast of Fools (readers of Victor Hugo and Disney fans might remember this from The Hunchback of Notre Dame), Saturnalia allowed a member of a household, even one of the slaves, to be named the “King of Misrule”. In this reversal of the usual order, the male head of the family (the paterfamilias) had to do as he was told, and someone else was allowed to wear the master’s clothes, and make the decisions.

Saturnalia was an important festival for slaves, because it was the only time of the year when they really got to enjoy some time-off. And because Saturnalia was so strongly associated with freedom, Saturn became an important god for slaves. Martial’s Epigrams 3.29, describes a man named Zoilos dedicating his slave-chains to the god to mark his new freedom.

For many Roman citizens, Saturnalia was holiday to brighten up a dark winter. But for many Roman slaves, it was both a chance to step out of their present, and to dream about their future.

Io Saturnalia, everyone, and warm wishes from the AshLI team.

Following an opening lecture from Warwick’s Dan Orrells, the teachers took part in three 45-minute teaching sessions in the Ashmolean. Dr Zahra Newby led a session on ancient art, focusing on the Cast Gallery, Rome Gallery and newly refurbished Greece Gallery. The teachers were among the first to see the new displays since they opened at the end of October.

Dr Zahra Newby leading a group through the new Ashmolean Greece Gallery

Professor Alison Cooley and Dr Jane Masséglia led a crash-course on how to read inscriptions and how they might be presented to students, using material from the Rome and Randolph Galleries. Alison took charge of the monumental inscriptions in the museum’s Arundel collection, showing how epitaphs give information about Roman families, professions and social aspirations, while Janie focussed on everyday objects, like the sling bullets from the Roman Civil War inscribed with messages for the enemy.

Alison Cooley telling the story behind a Roman ash chest of an imperial freedwoman in the Randolph Gallery

Jane Masséglia talking about the importance of Roman plumbing, in the Rome Gallery.

Dr Clare Rowan and Dr Chris Howgego gave the teachers a chance to get even closer to their material with a coin-handling session in the Heberden Coin Room. For many, the chance to hold a real tetradrachm was one of the highlights of the day.

Dr Clare Rowan explaining how coins were struck, in the Heberden Coin Room in the Ashmolean

Teachers handling Greek coins from the Ashmolean collection

Georgina Gill from High Storrs School in Sheffield, with an Athenian ‘owl’

Mai Musié, Oxford’s Classics Outreach Officer, and Jo Rice, Head of Ashmolean Education, were also on hand to remind teachers of the variety of talks, teaching sessions and even language-teaching support available to school groups.

Mai Musié, Oxford Classics’s Outreach Officer, reminding the teachers that Oxford and Warwick have a full programme of talks and events to support Classics teachers and students

As long as the Ashmolean has the right objects, Jo Rice and her team can design a session especially for a visiting school group

Following the success of the day, AshLI is now planning a similar event for Primary teachers. As for ‘demystifying’ ancient objects, the team was delighted by one teacher’s comments: ‘I run a course called ‘An Introduction to the Classical World’… I will now definitely add sessions on Inscriptions and Coins; I have previously been wary of both.’

The JACT INSET “Teaching with Ancient Artefacts”, on 22nd November 2014 was free to all participants, and travel bursaries were offered to teachers from the State sector, thanks to the generosity of Oxford Classics Outreach and Warwick’s Institute for Advanced Study. The AshLI team would also like to thank the 8 postgraduate volunteers from both universities who accompanied each group between the sessions and kept the event running smoothly.

Ashmolean ANChandler.3.3, on permanent loan at Arbeia Museum (South Shields)

In 1672, a Roman altar was found on the south bank of the River Tyne at South Shields. Measuring over a meter in height, it had images of sacrificial tools and a wine-mixing bowl carved into three of its sides, while on top was a dish-shaped hollow (the focus) which once held the fire that sent burnt offerings up to the gods.

On the front of the altar is an 11-line inscription in Latin. In 1683, Martin Lister, the physician and naturalist, made the first attempt at reading it, but was disappointed to find that large sections of it were illegible.

Over the next 300 years, academics and enthusiasts worked on the stone, picking out new words and making corrections, until the text made sense. As you can see in this series of drawings, there were lots of changes along the way:

Comparison of previous readings, assembled by Paul Bidwell. A – Lister (1683); B – Chandler (1763); Bruce (1875); D – Collingwood (1923).

In 2009-10, two scholars from the University of Mainz, Bjorn Brecht and Bruno Kessler, scanned the image surface to reveal the remaining text, allowing Paul Bidwell, Head of Archaeology at Tyne and Wear Museums, to produce a near-complete reading. Today, we think it reads something like this:

New reading, based on a display from Arbeia Museum

Latin:

dis ║ conservato/rib(us) ° pro salu(te) / imp(eratoris) ° C(aesaris) M(arci) Aurêl(i) / Antonini / Aug(usti) Brit(annici) Max(imi) / [[[et imp(eratoris) C(aesaris) P(ubli) Sep(timi) Getae Aug(usti) Brit(annici)]]] /[n(umerus) [?] L[u]g[udun]ens(iu)m /ob reditu(m) ║v(otum) s(olverunt)

English:

‘To the preserving gods for the welfare of Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus Greatest Britannicus and of Imperator Caesar Publius Septimius Geta Augustus Britannicus. The corps of the Lugudunenses fulfilled their vow for their return.’

The Invisible Man

Part of the reason that Lister had found it so difficult to read the inscription was because someone had deliberately erased a large section of it, three-quarters of the way down. He thought that perhaps that it had originally recorded the names of the people who set up the altar. But Roman history suggests a different story.

The first name on the stone, Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus Greatest Britannicus, is the official title of the emperor we know better by his nickname ‘Caracalla’. Caracalla was the eldest son of the emperor Septimius Severus, and father and son were joint rulers when they came to Britain in AD 211. Their plan was to extend Rome’s control over the northern parts of the island.

But when Septimius Severus died unexpectedly at York in AD 211, Caracalla’s younger brother Geta was promoted to fill his father’s place and the two brothers were proclaimed joint emperors by the Roman army. It was an arrangement that wouldn’t last long. Before the year was out, Caracalla had Geta murdered and took sole control of the empire.

Political Tipp-Ex

As a demonstration of his absolute power, Caracalla decreed that all traces of his younger brother should be erased – a process that we now call a damnatio memoriae. On our altar from South Shields, Geta’s name has been intentionally scratched away. These erasures were carried out all over the empire as gestures of allegiance to Caracalla. A Roman painting from Algeria, now in the Staatliche Museum in Berlin, shows how Geta’s face was even rubbed out of a portrait of the imperial family.

Roman painting from Algeria. Clockwise from top left: Septimius Severus, Julia Domna, Caracalla and Geta (erased). (Paint on wood, Staatliche Museum zu Berlin, inv. 31.329. Diam. 30 cm). Image in Public Domain.

One of the strange things about these official erasures is that they often draw more attention to the alteration than if the stone or painting had been left alone. It’s unlikely that the process was ever intended to completely wipe out all traces of a person, but rather that these sometimes messy erasures were meant to stand out, and remind everyone who the winners and losers were.

Luckily for us, despite the erasure, the all-important letter G for ‘Geta’ has survived, precisely in the place we would expect it.

Dating by disasters

Although the inscription doesn’t have a date in its text, we can work it out from other events. The stone calls both brothers ‘emperor’, so it must have been set up after their accession on 4^th February 211 (a fixed start point for dating we call a terminus post quem). The fact that the altar originally included Geta’s name means that it must have been set up before his death in February 212 (an end-point we call a terminus ante quem). Combining these two historical dates, we can narrow down the altar’s date to the twelve-month period in between.

Up-to-date and out of trouble

The last line of the inscription gives us some idea about why the Lugudunenses (the local community at South Shields) set up the altar. We’re told that they had made a promise to set up an offering to celebrate the sibling emperor’s ‘return’. Very probably this means their safe return to Rome from Britain. The Roman historian Herodian tells us that Caracalla and Geta carried their father’s ashes back to Rome via Gaul. Perhaps South Shields was even the start point of their journey.

Roman Britain is sometimes thought of as a far outpost of the empire. But this altar shows us that the people in South Shields in the third century AD were keeping up-to-date with news from Rome. They had word of the two brothers’ safe return to Rome before setting up their altar, and later they received news of Geta’s damnatio memoriae and acted on it, just as the Roman community in Algeria did. Tyneside was as much a part of the Roman empire as any other, and the people there knew how important it was to stay on the right side of their unpredictable emperor.

AD 211-12 from South Shields. Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.3. H. 1.26, W. 0.61, D. 0.37. Currently on display in Arbeia Museum, South Shields, on permanent loan from the Ashmolean.

Further Reading:

Bidwell, P. (2014) ‘The Roman names of the fort at South Shields and an altar to the di conservatores’, in Life in the Limes. Studies of the people and objects of the Roman frontiers presented to Lindsay Allason-Jones on the occasion of her birthday and retirement, eds R. Collins and F. McIntosh (Oxford and Philadelphia: Oxbow) 49-58

Bruce, J.C. (1875) Lapidarium Septentrionale: or a Description of the Monuments of Roman Rule in the North of England (London)

Chandler, R. (1763) Marmora Oxoniensia (Oxford, Clarendon Press)

Collingwood, R.G. (1923) ‘An altar from South Shields, now at Oxford,’ Archaeologia Aeliana 3^rd series vol. 20, 55-62

A more detailed discussion of the altar, with full bibliographic references, will appear in the new catalogue of the Ashmolean Latin Inscriptions, which will be freely available online before 2016.

Click to enlarge

Latin:

d(is) m(anibus) / L(ucio) Annaio Firm(—) / vixit annis ° V / m(ensibus) II ^. d(iebus) °VI ^. h(oris) ° VI ° /⁵ qui ° natus est / nonis °Iuliis / defunctus / est °IIII idus / Septembres /¹⁰ Annaia Feru-/sa vernae su-/o karissimo

 Translation :

‘To the spirits of the dead. For Lucius Annaius Firm(ius?), who lived 5 years, 2 months, 6 days, 6 hours, who was born on the 7^th July and died on the 10^th September. Annaia Ferusa set this up for her dearest household slave.’

Born a slave

The inscription was not set up by a mother for a son, but a mistress for a slave. The Latin word she uses to describe him is a verna, usually used to describe slaves who were born and brought up within a household. If an enslaved woman had a child, that child was also a slave and part of the master or mistress’ household property. Child-slaves were a familiar part of Roman life but not a group which often appear in Latin literature.

Some masters may have seen vernae as a convenient way of increasing their stock of slaves. Once child-slaves reached the age of five, they took on a monetary value, meaning that they could be counted among the master’s assets, and even be sold. But it’s also clear from many texts that some masters formed a particular attachment to the slave-children they saw growing up in their household. The last line of our inscription describes just this. It tells us that the little boy had been born a slave in the household of Annaia Ferusa, and it was she who set up his tombstone.

Dying free

But, reading between the lines, the text also tells us that he didn’t die a slave.

The tombstone gives him three names: the praenomen Lucius, the nomen Annaius, and a cognomen beginning with the letters FIR, perhaps short for ‘Firmius’, meaning ‘Steadfast’. But the three-name format was the mark of a Roman citizen, a free man. Slaves usually only had one name.

When they were freed, slaves added part of their master’s name to their own slave name. In this case, the feminine name of his mistress, Annaia, became Annaius for the little boy, and was added before his slave-name, ‘Fir…’. He had become a libertus, a freedman.

So there seems to be a bit of a mix-up in the text. We can tell from his name that he was free when he died, but his mistress still calls him her ‘dearest household slave’. One solution may be that Annaia Ferusa was using the world verna to show how close she was to the little boy, to explain why she, of all people, was qualified to set up his tombstone. Another solution might be that the Romans sometimes used the word verna to describe a person’s origins, no matter what happened to him later in life. Or it might be that his freedom was such a recent event that Annaia Ferusa simply hadn’t got used to the idea of calling him anything else.

‘He lived 5 years, 2 months, 6 days, 6 hours’

A libertus, a freedman, of only five years old is unusual. The majority of slaves had to reach the age of thirty before they could be granted their freedom. But, importantly for this little boy, different rules applied to slaves born into a household as vernae: they were allowed to be freed much younger. But for how many of his five years of life had L. Annaius Fir. been free? If we think that Annaia Ferusa was still calling him her verna because she wasn’t yet used to him being a freedman, the answer is probably ‘not long at all’. One of the more likely (and most poignant) scenarios is that she freed him on his death bed, giving the little boy his citizen name so that that he could die free.

This last-minute grace would be entirely in-keeping with a mistress who was clearly paying close attention to what happened to the little boy. Although it was commonplace to include the age of the deceased on a Roman tombstone, inscriptions usually only include years and months. Annaia Ferusa, on the other hand, knew to the hour how long he had lived. With heart-breaking precision, she recorded exactly how long he had been in her household and so in her life. She described him as karissimus (a Greek-influenced spelling of carissimus), her ‘dearest’ or ‘most beloved’, and inscribed it on a marble tombstone. It is a monument which testifies to the emotional realities which blurred the strict legal lines between slave and free. It is also an important reminder that sometimes it’s the least attractive artefacts that tell the most beautiful stories.

c. 2^nd centuries AD (?), from Rome. Ashmolean Museum ANChandler.3.90. H. 0.38, W. 0.21, D. 0.4. Currently in storage at the Ashmolean Museum.

A more detailed discussion of the plaque, with full bibliographic references, will appear in the new catalogue of the Ashmolean Latin Inscriptions, which will be freely available online before 2016.

Related Objects

This beautiful funerary portrait of a child-freedman from elsewhere in the Roman Empire, this time from Egypt, can be seen on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Further Reading

• Chandler, R. (1763) Marmora Oxoniensia (Oxford, Clarendon Press)
• Herrmann-Otto, E. (1994) Ex Ancilla Natus (Franz Steiner: Stuttgart) (in German)
• Prideaux, H. (1676) Marmora Oxoniensia ex Arundellianis, Seldenianis aliisque conflata (Oxford)
• Weaver, P. (2001) ‘Reconstructing lower-class Roman families’, in S. Dixon, ed. Childhood, Class and Kin in the Roman World (Routledge: London and New York) 101-14