Funerary Altar of Aurelia Teofila

Roman art

Unearthed during excavations carried out between 1820 and 1821 at ‘Vigna Lucidi’ (Frascati), this four-sided funerary altar has an inscription on the front, framed by twisted columns, commemorating Aurelia Teofila, to whom Lucius Valerius Pontianus, either a fellow freedman or her patron, granted the right while alive to be buried together. Lucius Valerius Pontianus might be the man portrayed in the upper part of the altar, the beard of whom covers up some of the letters of the inscription. The sides of the monument are decorated with an urceus (ewer) on the left and a patera on the right. The formula for the arrangement of these ritual tools on cippi and altars derives from the position of the priest, holding the patera, and the camillus (the boy who assisted the priest during the sacrifice), holding the ewer, in front of the altar during the ritual The altar represents a type of funerary monument decorated on the front with colonnettes or pillars that was especially popular in metropolitan Rome starting in the middle of the first century CE.

Object details

Commentary

This funerary altar was unearthed during excavations carried out between 1820 and 1821 for Camillo Borghese in Frascati, specifically ‘Vigna Lucidi’, on land granted to Cesare Lucidi in emphyteusis. These excavations led to the discovery of other statues on view in the Galleria. The final excavation phase was led personally by Luigi Canina (Valenti 2004). In 1828, Evasio Gozzani arranged for the sculptor Antonio D’Este to restore the altar, which is cited in the early documents as a ‘cippus with a philosopher’s head’, in reference to the head of a bearded man in high relief that interrupts the inscription at the top of the front of the monument.

The four-sided altar is lacking a crown and rests on a moulded base with a stepped socle. The front is inscribed L(ucius) Valerius Ponti / anus se vivo con / ces(s)it Aureliae / Theophilae, framed by twisted columns with composite capitals. The inscription commemorates Aurelia Teofila, to whom Lucius Valerius Pontianus, her fellow freedman or her patron, granted while alive the right to be buried together. Lucius Valerius Pontianus might be the man portrayed in the upper part of the altar, the beard of whom covers up some of the letters of the inscription. Columns of this type are often found decorating altar fronts, creating a clearly defined typological classification of funerary monuments with pseudo-functional architectural elements and produced starting in the middle of the first century CE (Altmann 1905, cap. XII)

The sides of the monument are decorated with an urceus on the left and a patera on the right. The formula for the arrangement of these ritual tools on cippi and altars derives from the position of the priest, holding the patera, and the camillus (the boy who assisted the priest during the sacrifice), holding the urceus, in front of the altar during the ritual (Bowerman 1913, p. 87). The patera and urceus therefore symbolise the sacerdos and camillus, metaphorically translating their functions. Over time, the symbolic aspect of these attributes disappeared, and the urceus and patera became typical motifs used to decorate the sides of cippi and altars (Von Schaewen 1940, pp. 17–14).

Stylistic and palaeographic analysis allow us to generically date the altar to between the second and third centuries CE.

Jessica Clementi