Item: Roman tablet with Latin inscription

Material: Marble

Place of origin: Found on Via Appia outside Rome

Date of origin: 1st - 2nd Century AD

Accession number: 71/142

Description: Tablet erected by Titus Aelius Dionysius an imperial Freedman, for himself and his wife, and for his comrade, Aelius Perseus. Originally found by the antiquary Francisco Ficoroni in the mid-18th Century in 'the Morona vineyard' on the Via Appia outside Rome. He sold it to the 2nd Earl of Bessborough and later it passed into the Lonsdale Collection at Lowther Castle.

It was published in Volume VI of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, and the reference is given with the prefix CIL 10676. It is quite possible that the tablet is from a columbarium [literally dovecote], a rectangular chamber, partly above partly below ground, its interior walls with rows of niches for cinerary urns with a tablet centred above each.

The inscription reads:

D M
T • AEL • DIONYSIVS •
AVC • LIB • FECIT • SE VIVO
ET • AELIAE • CALLITYCENI
COIVGI • SANCTISSIME
CVN QVEM • VIX • ANN • XXX • SEN
VILLA • QVERELLA • FEMINE
INCONPARABILI • ET • AEL .
PERSEO • COLLIBERTO • ET • LIBER
TIS • LIB • POSTERIQ • EORVM

* * *

To the Blessed Souls
Titus Aelius Dionysius
A Freedman of the Emperor, had this made during his
Lifetime,
also for Aelia Callitycenis,
his most respected wife,
with whom he lived for thirty years, without
any complaint, a woman without equal, and for Aelius
Perseus his fellow-Freedman and [all] male and female Freedman and their descendants