{"id":479,"date":"2024-07-16T13:19:33","date_gmt":"2024-07-16T17:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/?page_id=479"},"modified":"2024-12-20T14:15:20","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T19:15:20","slug":"underground-poetry-verse-epitaphs-in-the-monument-of-the-statilii","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/news-and-events\/scs-panel-2025\/underground-poetry-verse-epitaphs-in-the-monument-of-the-statilii\/","title":{"rendered":"Underground Poetry: Verse Epitaphs in the Monument of the Statilii"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grace Funsten, University of Pittsburgh<\/strong>
\nThe Monument of the Statilii, located on the Esquiline Hill, was a subterranean columbarium that served enslaved and freed people connected to the gens Statilia<\/em>. Remarkably, ten verse epitaphs have survived among its extant inscriptions, more than three times the number of poems found in any other columbarium. In this paper, I will offer a new approach to the Monument of the Statilii by examining its verse inscriptions through the lens of their enslaved and freed audience. I argue that the group it served was particularly interested in literary competition and that, as an enclosed and collective burial space, the Monument of the Statilii provided this community with an opportunity to show off poetic labor.<\/p>\n

The reports published after the Monument of the Statilii’s excavation from 1875 to 1877 (Brizio 1876; Lanciani 1877) have more recently been supplemented by Caldelli and Ricci’s 1999 monograph. The inscriptions found in its main chamber (CIL 6.6213-6594) suggest that it was built primarily for enslaved and freed people in the familia<\/em> of Titus Statilius Taurus (cos. 11 CE). Because 163 of the epitaphs preserved from the Monument of the Statilii include at least one job title, they have often been used to examine the roles of enslaved people in elite households and the connection between labor and identity among subaltern people in Rome (e.g., Treggiari 1975; Joshel 1992; Hasegawa 2005). My approach will differ by focusing on its verse inscriptions to consider how literary display and poetic labor function as commemorative strategies in this columbarium.<\/p>\n

I begin by introducing the Monument of the Statilii’s verse inscriptions. Some of these poems (CIL 6.6250, 6275, 6467) use formulae common in other verse epitaphs, suggesting that they were composed using a stonecutter’s handbook of sample texts (Bodel 2015, 750). Others, however, appear to be unique and three incorporate the name of the deceased into the verse while maintaining elegiac meter (CIL 6.6314, 6319, 6502). These three poems in particular demonstrate not only metrical, but also literary ambition. CIL 6.6319, for example, commemorates a three-year-old named Gratus using language drawn from Ovid (v. 4: uterque parens<\/em>; cf. Am<\/em>. 1.3.10; Her<\/em>. 6.62; Ibis<\/em> 262) and Roman elegy (v. 6: blanditiis<\/em>; see Keith 1994, 30-31). This poem is also the sole Latin inscription catalogued by Epigraphic Database Roma to use the word amabilitas<\/em> (v. 5), which appears only twice elsewhere in extant Latin (Plaut. Poen<\/em>. 1174, Stich<\/em>. 741). Many of the epitaphs in the Monument of the Statilii emphasize the literacy of their subjects, either through verse or through job titles, such as secretaries (CIL 6.6273), shorthand writers (CIL 6.6224), copyists (CIL 6.6314-15), record-keepers (CIL 6.6358-9) and teachers (CIL 6.6327-31). The emphasis on reading and writing in this columbarium suggests that the group it served valued literary skill in life and in death. The Monument of the Statilii thus offers a rare glimpse of the poetic labor of enslaved and freed people in Rome, as well as an opportunity to more fully understand the value of poetry to this community.<\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/p>\n

Bodel, John. “Inscriptions and Literacy.” In The Oxford Handbook of Roman Epigraphy<\/em>, eds. C. Bruun and J. Edmondson. Oxford UP, 2015. 745-63.<\/p>\n

Brizio, Edoardo. Pitture e sepolcri scoperti sull’Esquilino dalla Compagnia fondiaria italiana nell’anno 1875<\/em>. Tipografia Elzeviriana, 1876.<\/p>\n

Caldelli, Maria Letizia and Cecilia Ricci. Monumentum familiae statiliorum: un riesame<\/em>. Quasar, 1999.<\/p>\n

Hasegawa, Kinuko. The familia urbana during the Early Empire: A study of Columbaria Inscriptions<\/em>. Archaeopress, 2005.<\/p>\n

Joshel, Sandra. Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome<\/em>. University of Oklahoma Press, 1992.<\/p>\n

Keith, Alison. “Corpus Eroticum: Elegiac Poetics and Elegiac Puellae in Ovid’s Amores.” The Classical World<\/em> 88 (1994): 27-40.<\/p>\n

Lanciani, Rodolfo. “Notizie degli scavi di antichita comunicate dal socio G. Fiorelli nella seduta del 20 gennaio 1878,” NSc ser.<\/em> 3, vol. I, 1877. 287-336.<\/p>\n

Treggiari, Susan. “Jobs in the Household of Livia.” Papers of the British School at Rome<\/em> 43 (1975): 48-77.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grace Funsten, University of Pittsburgh The Monument of the Statilii, located on the Esquiline Hill, was a subterranean columbarium that served enslaved and freed people connected to the gens Statilia. Remarkably, ten verse epitaphs have survived among its extant inscriptions, more than three times the number of poems found in any other columbarium. In this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23724,"featured_media":0,"parent":142,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/no-sidebars.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/479"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23724"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":629,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/479\/revisions\/629"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}