Description: White marble fragment, moulded above, with with upper and lower edges surviving (w: 0.23 × h: 0.20 × d: 0.12).

Text: Inscribed on upper fascia of moulding (line 1) and on face below (lines 2-3).

Letters: Standard forms; line 1, 0.018; lines 2-3, 0.02.

Date: Perhaps late second century A.D (lettering)

Findspot: Aphrodisias: Stray

Original location: Unknown

Last recorded location: Museum (1980)

Translation

See commentary

Commentary

In line 1 the purpose of the stops is unclear; if they mark breaks between sentences we have the end of one of which too little survivies for interprettion, and the whole of another which should mean 'and it is a care for me'; but if they are decorative only we could read τί at the beginning, and translate 'and why does it (should it) trouble me', in accord with funerary texts which urge that life is to be enjoyed and death is not upsetting.

Line 2 possibly refers to the male owner of the tomb, and line 3 to his provision of it for a wife and children.

Images

Fig. 1. Face (M. Roueché, 1980)