FUNERARY ALTAR OF CLAUDIA PISTE, 90-110 CE. VATICAN MUSEUMS This beautiful example of early imperial epigraphy begins as a conventional prayer to the departed shades, to Claudia Piste, wife of Primus, "best, holy, and dutiful, well-deserving". She and her husband were probably Greek citizens of the empire, and Primus must have been wealthy to afford this large marble altar. In fact there is a contemporary cinerary urn dedicated, in Greek, to one Claudia Piste, also in the VM, but we cannot know if it was the same woman. Primus might have hired a poet to write his lament for the death of his wife, or he might have written it himself. After the first five lines the script shrinks to fit each line, with difficulty, into the available space. The poem is a poignant lament addressed by Primus to the Fates, remonstrating with them on the brevity of Piste's life and expressing his despair over her loss. His grief for her death is artfully communicated using metre and language. It's written in dactylic hexameter, a metre used for epic poetry and an indicator of the solemn nature of the elegy, as well as a hint of high social status. She may have died in childbirth. "Nothing is as sad as losing all life without new life."
#EpigraphyTuesday returns us to the #VaticanMuseums to see a long #epitaph for one #Claudia Piste, written by her husband Primus sometime in the later C2 CE, a sad lament in fine professional #epigraphy. #AncientBluesky 🏺
