Archaeology and Memory – XIX
A shell-shaped aedicula carved in the upper part of the stele. The stele was originally crowned by a pediment framed by a Lesbian “kyma”, supported by two half-columns with capitals finely carved with laurel leaves and berries. The shell motif enclosing the portraits of the deceased frequently appears on stelae from northern regions. The rendering of the two portraits, although vigorous in their physiognomic characterization, is flat and simplified in execution.
Beneath the niche, an open scroll indicates the office of “sevir” held by the deceased, perhaps on three occasions, as suggested by the three voting tablets bearing the numerals I, I, and III placed beside it.
The carved cinscription reads:
V(ivus) f(ecit) / Q(intus) Titius Faustus (se)vir (ter ?) / sibi et Culciniae / Proculae uxori, / libertis lib(ertabus)q(ue).
“Quintus Titius Faustus, sevir (three times?), while still alive, made [this monument] for himself, for his wife Culcinia Procula, and for his freedmen and freedwomen.”
Together with the epigraphic evidence, the type of female coiffure in the form of a cap, the male hairstyle—almost Trajanic in style at the forehead—and the linear, metallic quality of the vegetal ornamentation date the monument to the end of the 1st century AD.
Source: Valnea Santa Maria Scrinari, “Museo Archeologico di Aquileia, Catalogo delle Sculture Romane”
Limestone stele
Dimesions [cm]: height 108 , width 75, depth 29
Late 1st century BC
Aquileia, Museo Archeologico Nazionale
Archaeology and Memory – XIX
A shell-shaped aedicula carved in the upper part of the stele. The stele was originally crowned by a pediment framed by a Lesbian “kyma”, supported by two half-columns with capitals finely carved with laurel leaves and berries. The shell motif enclosing the portraits of the deceased frequently appears on stelae from northern regions. The rendering of the two portraits, although vigorous in their physiognomic characterization, is flat and simplified in execution.
Beneath the niche, an open scroll indicates the office of “sevir” held by the deceased, perhaps on three occasions, as suggested by the three voting tablets bearing the numerals I, I, and III placed beside it.
The carved cinscription reads:
V(ivus) f(ecit) / Q(intus) Titius Faustus (se)vir (ter ?) / sibi et Culciniae / Proculae uxori, / libertis lib(ertabus)q(ue).
“Quintus Titius Faustus, sevir (three times?), while still alive, made [this monument] for himself, for his wife Culcinia Procula, and for his freedmen and freedwomen.”
Together with the epigraphic evidence, the type of female coiffure in the form of a cap, the male hairstyle—almost Trajanic in style at the forehead—and the linear, metallic quality of the vegetal ornamentation date the monument to the end of the 1st century AD.
Source: Valnea Santa Maria Scrinari, “Museo Archeologico di Aquileia, Catalogo delle Sculture Romane”
Limestone stele
Dimesions [cm]: height 108 , width 75, depth 29
Late 1st century BC
Aquileia, Museo Archeologico Nazionale