Marble Architrave with an Inscription in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2008

Marble Architrave with Inscription
Roman, 1st century AD

Accession # 26.60.69

The inscription, written in Greek and said to be from Rome, is unusual because since most large public inscriptions from Rome are in Latin. It appears to refer to the Statilii, originally an aristocratic family from Lucania in Southern Italy. Two men called Titus Statilius Taurus (father and son) rose to the consulship in the late 1st century BC as supporters of the emperor Augustus. The purpose and sense of this fragmentary inscription remain unclear. In addition to a T(itus) Sta[tilius], it lists two women with Roman names, Cornelia and Octavia, two men with Greek names, Leonides and Apollonios, and another woman, Gessia.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.