A hiker hunting for wild asparagus in the woods outside Livorno bit a Roman funerary marker instead. Retired firefighter Roberto Tessari was foraging after heavy rain last Wednesday when he noticed a rectangular stone slab on the water’s edge of a canal. He turned it over and saw that it read a funeral.
An active member of the Livorno Archaeological Paleontological Group, Tessari knew how to report the discovery to the Superintendency of Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Provinces of Pisa and Livorno and sent photos of the slab to official archaeologist Dr. Lorella Aldrighi, whom he knew personally. He then called his firefighter brothers to help pull him out of the water. He lifted the stone safely and transferred it to the superintendency. In a happy coincidence, Tessari’s son was among the firefighting team that rushed to the scene.
The slab is 45 cm (17.7 in) wide, 9 cm (3.5 in) thick and 29 cm (11.4 in) high, exactly one Roman foot. It dates to the second century AD and is in excellent condition, with an intact inscription framed by a deeply carved cornice. The letters are 4 cm (1.6 in) high and are expertly carved in capitals to carefully form three even lines.
Three lines of Latin text read:
T ANCONIUS SEVERUS
ANCONIVS PRISCVS
ET Sabinia Severa
Vf
It is a dedication to Titus Anconius Severus by his parents, father Anconius Priscus and mother Sabinia Severus. The abbreviation VF stands for Vivi Fecerunt, meaning that the parents made the grave and marker while they were alive.
The names are not documented in any known sources, but there are interesting details. The young Titus, for example, has his father’s family name Anconius and his mother’s family name Severus as cognates (third personal names). The identity began as a nickname to distinguish people from the same family because there were many repeated names (first names) and eventually became inherited. They were almost always inherited along the patrilineal line, but the mother’s family name could at some point be passed on to the son as an identity. For example, emperors of the Flavian dynasty used the mother’s name as a cognomena for other sons—Vespasian after his mother Vespasia Pola, Domitian after his mother Flavia Domitella. One of the reasons for adding the mother’s name to the son’s name was that if his family was more prominent, then the mother’s name was not necessarily adopted, but the maternal grandfather’s name was added.
“This discovery is extremely interesting because it is one of the rare Roman inscribed tombstones with a fully preserved text found in the Livorno area,” emphasizes Dr Aldrighi. “Given the isolation of the site, perhaps as in the past, with its wild and uncultivated nature, it cannot be ruled out that the tombstone marks the site of a stonemason’s workshop, or that it was never attached to a funerary structure, as no mortar marks are visible on the roughly hewn marble back.
The male names (Titus Anconius Severus, Anconius Priscus) and the female figure (Sabinia Severa) are unrelated to the known individuals, and only the first male figure is referred to. Additionally, men lack patronymic and clan names, and the gentile name is copied from the name of a city (Ankòn/Ancon). These are all factors that may indicate the status of the freedmen, or economically important social groups that left their traces in the written documents of northern Etruria between the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD.
The slab is now being cleaned and preserved by superintendence experts who will conduct an in-depth analysis of the stone, carvings and inscriptions.
