Description: White marble garland sarcophagus whose decoration was roughed out, but not carved; see description at Işık 81.

Text: Roughly inscribed on a recessed central tabella (w: 0.25 × h: 0.34) which is only approximately rectangular and not parallel to the sides. The lower part of its surface damaged.

Letters: Poorly designed, cut and aligned, giving the effect of hand-written letters; lines 1-2, ave. 0.015; lines 3 ff., 0.025. Lunate epsilon, sigma, omega, near cursive lambda.

Date: Probably third century CE (lettering, nomenclature)

Findspot: Aphrodisias: Necropolis, West area: in 1989 near New Geyre, with 13.603 and 13.604.

Original location: Unknown

Last recorded location: Museum (1990)

English translation

Translation source: Reynolds, 2007

The sarcophagus and the plot (on which it stands) belong to Marcus Aurelius Zenon son of Zenon the son of Ophellius Christos. In (his) memory.

Commentary

Lines 8-9 at least were presumably cut after the owner's death.

Another grandson of Ophellius Christos, Marcus Aurelius Atticus was the owner of 13.603 (=Sarcophagus 10), (the two were found in the same tomb). Atticus presumably died some years later than Zenon since he abbreviates his Roman nomen, which Zenon writes out in fulines This might suggest a period when the superfluity of Marci Aurelii created by Caracalla's grant of Roman citizenship to most free persons in the Roman Empire, in 212, had reduced pride in the name; but the criterion is an uncertain one. It appears that both Zenon and Atticus belonged to a family in which at least one grandfather was already a Roman citizen in the second century. Neither makes the status of his father clear (could each of them have been a non-citizen who married a daughter of Ophellius?) Both seem to have stressed their status as derived from the Caracallan Edict. In so far as their status is discernible, it seems likely to be modest.

Images

Fig. 1. Sarcophagus (M. Roueché, 1990)

Fig. 2. Inscription (M. Roueché, 1990)