Front Panel from a Sarcophagus

This fragment preserves the front panel of a four-sided sarcophagus. The inscription identifies its intended occupants as Titus Aelius Evangelus and his wife, Gaudenia Nicene. He reclines on a kline (couch) with a wine cup in one hand and a cluster of grapes in the other. A rooster is perched at his feet. His wife stands and the foot of the couch, a cup of wine raised high in one hand and a garland in her lowered hand. A goat looks out from behind her legs. In front of the couch stands a small three-legged table and a basket-wrapped bottle with its lid off. The scene suggests a funeral banquet and feast.

Vignettes depicting aspects of Titus’s daily life, notably his profession as a wool merchant, surround them. To the left, a bearded man seated on a stool holds a small comb in his left hand and with his right, pulls wool through a five-pronged tool attached to a chair-like frame; a ball of wool lies on the seat. At the far right, a young man seated at a low table pulls a thick strand of wool from a basket at his feet and winds it into a ball, likely onto a distaff in preparation for spinning. Other tools of the trade are nearby—a scale with large hooks for hanging wool and an amphora, possibly a weight. Collectively these scenes represent the combing, weighing, and spinning of wool, the steps for processing wool into fabric.

The other scenes convey a bucolic setting. The area near the far left edge is roughly worked. The lower part is damaged, but the upper area depicts a sketchy landscape with a projecting rock and a goat climbing a tree. The left and right ends of the panel are decorated with partially preserved sheep. In the upper right, a man leads a horse through an arched doorway and follows a second man moving to the right, who dances with his arms above his head. Both men wear long-sleeved belted tunics, trousers, shoes, and Phrygian caps. On the right, a woman looks back and waves at the two men. These three figures have eluded interpretation and might refer to a religious cult, perhaps the Dioscuri or the cult of Cybele and Attis.

The inscription, which runs across the upper edge of the panel and continues under the funeral couch, reads, “That there be after me and after Gaudenia Nicene any other person [inhumed in this sarcophagus], I forbid; whoever reads this inscription, [which] I have made for me and for her, let him pour unmixed wine for Titus Aelius Evangelus, a patient man." The inscription directly addresses those passing by, suggesting a prominent display in a tomb complex. This sarcophagus appears to be related to a marble panel in Stockholm (Museum of Mediterranean Antiquities, MM 1997:001). The Stockholm panel has an inscription that identifies the same-name dedicant, Titus Aelius Evangelus, and a similar scene of wool manufacture. This related panel was likely a separate loculus slab (a marble panel that would cover the side or end of a tomb).