Thread by @DocCrom

#EpigraphyTuesday – The Tombstone of Prima Florentia: ca. 2nd Century AD. Discovered in 1930 at Portus, a heart-breaking inscription, which also reflects the all-too-common domestic violence of the ancient world. #Latin

Image: Parco archeologico di Ostia antica; AE 1987.0177k

The stone was set up by a girl’s parents to commemorate her short life and brutal end: as the text refers to the murder of a teenage wife by her husband.

Text:

"Restutus Piscinesis
et Prima Restuta Primae
Florentiae filiae carissimae
fecerunt, qui ab Orfeu maritu in
Tiberi decepta est. December cognatu(s)
posuit. Q(uae) vix(it) ann(is) XVI s(emis?)"

Translation:

‘Restutus Piscinesis and Prima Restuta commissioned [this] for their deeply beloved daughter, Prima Florentia, who was thrown into the Tiber by her husband, Orpheus. Her kinsman, December, set up [this monument]. She lived for 16-and-a-half years.’

Of prime importance here are the details of her murder, although the verb 'decepta est' is not perhaps the clearest in communicating what happened.

Similarly, the details of her tragically short life are cramped in the lower margin, which - when combined with some of the unusual epigraphic elements - would seem suggestive of the relatively low social status of the family.

However, that her parents chose to commemorate the details of her death in so public a manner may lead us to speculate that no formal punishment was visited upon Orpheus, so perhaps the tombstone inscription was intended to ensure his condemnation in the court of public opinion.

Whatever the validity of such speculation, the inscription stands as ready testimony to a tragically short life, ended in what would appear to be brutal spousal murder.

For more, see:

Mustakallio, K. and Hänninen, M-J. ‘Women, Marriage and Family in Roman Society and the Community of Ostia’, in Karivieri, A. (ed.), 2020, ‘Life and Death in a Multicultural Harbour City’: 251-260.

Link -

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