Stop and read, wayfarer

We are in the Portico dei Marmi of the Civic Museums of Reggio Emilia: here are the inscriptions of Regium Lepidi, a small Roman town in northern Italy. The city was located along the road “Aemilia”, a road that crosses the entire Po Valley, built by the ancient Romans during the conquest of Italy. Just outside the city limits, along the great road, there was the necropolis (the cemetery): rows of tombs, some large and majestic, told the story of the city's inhabitants.

The burial area was consecrated through very ancient religious rites and placed under the protection of the spirits of the deads (known as Manes), the ancestors of the family. Violating the tomb was a serious act: sometimes the measures of the area were engraved on the gravestones, to avoid trespassing, or were written threats of a fine or curses, or even formulas forbidding the burial of other family members. The size of the tomb reflected the wealth of the families.

On either side of the statue of Gaetano Chierici, who founded the museum, there are two funerary altars found close together which tell the story of a mother and a daughter, Hermione and Iulia Graphis. The two women were slaves of the Iulia family and were very much loved by their masters. Although slaves by law were property and not people, in the great Roman families they were also acknowledged for their affections and family ties. Little Graphis is allowed to remember Hermione as her mother.

The gens was a group of families with a common ancestor. The men and women born in a gens shared a common name that is similar to our last name. On the tombstone in the middle are commemorated some members of the gens of the Audaei: Titus, who pays the burial ground and the monument, his brother and his mother. Later was added the name of Munatia, a woman from another family. Date: Ist-IInd century a.D.

This stele belonged to Vennonius Felix and Habilis, his freedman. Vennonius chosed to tell only about his role of sevir. The seviri had functions halfway between sacerdotal and public offices, connected to the imperial cult. It was a prestigious office: for the rich freedmen it was an important occasion of social advancement, because former slaves were forbidden to enter other public offices.

The tribes were originally a sort of "constituency". All Roman citizens with full civil rights had to be enrolled in one of the 35 tribes. The citizens of Regium Lepidi were registered in the Pollia tribe, those of Brixellum (Brescello) in the Arnensis tribe. At the beginning of the Roman conquest adding the name of the tribe showed that they were Roman citizens and not indigenous. Gradually during the Roman empire the Roman citizenship was acknowledged to more indigenous populations and and only those who died far from home still mentioned the tribe, to remember their native land. The inscription in the center of the picture belongs to Publius Attiedius and Salia, perhaps his wife. This plate is one of the oldest of Regium Lepidi and is particular because it names the tribe Pollia ("POL").  Date: Ist century b.C.

In ancient Rome slaves could be considered as "talking instruments" or, otherwise, loved and treated as family. Their living conditions varied from one family to another.  It was possible to be enslaved for the impossibility of paying a debt, because caught in war or from birth. The one in the middle is the inscription of Agathyrsus, "servus publicus" of the city of Regium Lepidi, posed by his partner, the freedwoman Catia Ianuaria. Public slaves helped the magistrates and priests in their functions and did other errands for the community. Date: end of the Ist century b.C.

Women situations in the Roman world changed a lot throughout history. Even though they were always subject to a patriarchal system and excluded from public offices, over time the women obtained greater rights, including the right to own and inherit property, including slaves, and to free themself from the protection of a man: that is to say, to be totally master of themselves. This funerary monument was erected for a freedwoman of gens Cornelia: the inverted C indicates that she was freed by a woman. Her slave name was Melapio, "apple cheek".