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Inscribed Block (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Inscribed Block: Latin Funerary Inscription for Rubellia Helione
- Date
- 1st century AD?, Roman
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- NoEx95.005
- Material
- Marble, Stone
- Object Type
- Inscription
- Inscription Type
- Funerary Inscription
- Inscription language
- Latin
- Inscription Text
Dis Manibus Rubelliae Heliones
- Inscription Translation
- “To the Divine Shades of Rubellia Helione.”
- Inscription Comment
- Findspot
- Found in a field between Sart and Mersindere near the necropolis hill, south of the İzmir-Ankara highway.
- Description
Block of white marble, the upper and lower edges with moldings; except for damage at the upper right side, perfectly preserved. On the upper surface there are a circular hole and six clamp-holes, probably for the fixation of a statue.
- Dimensions
- Block: H. 1.23, W. ca. 0.83, Th. 0.83, H. of letters 0.055–0.07; hole: Diam. 0.35, Depth: ca. 0.18.
- Comments
Summary of Herrmann’s commentary:
It is probable that the conspicuous funerary monument belonged to a well-to-do lady. It seems to have originally been decorated by a statue and erected in the necropolis (remains of limestone sarcophagi in the neighborhood). Her cognomen Helione, presumably derived from Ἥλιος, points to her Greek origin; an inscription from Rome mentions Κλ(αυδία) Ἡλιόνη (IGUR II, 2, 1023; see L. Moretti’s commentary on the name; and Solin, Personennam. Rom I, pp. 596 and 401).
Rubellia may have been a freedwoman. Tacitus, ann. 14, 22, 3 mentions that (Sergius?) Rubellius Plautus (“among the illustrious victims of the Neronian tyranny,” R. Syme, Roman Papers IV [1934]) possessed inherited estates (avitos agros) in Asia. Following Nero’s order, he moved there, together with his wife Antistia Pollitta, in 60 AD. Nero had him murdered in 62 AD (ann. 14, 57–59). Were Rubellius’s estates located near Sardis, and was Rubellia Helione a freedwoman of that family?
- See Also
- Bibliography
- Unpublished (mentioned by C. H. Greenewalt, jr., in KST 18, 1 [1998], p. 514); Herrmann, ms.
- Author
- GP