Lives of the Romans by Joanne Berry

Author:Joanne Berry
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

56 | NUMERIUS QUINCTIUS

ACTOR

NVMERIVS QVINCTIVS · )) · L · COMICVS

SIBI · ET · QVINCTIAE · PRIMILLAE

COLLIBERTAE · ET · CONIVGI · SVAE

VIXI · CVM · EA · AN · XXX

The highly compressed and cryptic text above tells us much about Roman life and the relationships between masters and servants and men and women in society at the time. First, we can see it is in part a memorial to one Numerius Quinctius. This man was a freed slave, as the same line shows with the letter ‘L’ for libertus, which means ‘freed man’. We know he was a slave in the household of some branch the noble Quinctian family (descendants of Cincinnatus, no. 9) because on being freed he took their name, as was traditional. Roman inscriptions tend to be very compact and conventional – stonemasons cost money, and slabs of good stone were not cheap either. If, as has been argued, the abbreviation for ‘a woman’ was ‘)’ then Quinctius is saying that he was freed by two women. These would have been members of the Quinctian family, and therefore (by another Roman convention) named Quinctia. To a Roman this would be obvious, so there was no need for the names to be repeated. Thus the rudimentary ‘))’ showed no disrespect to women in general or Quinctius’ manumitters in particular.

Quinctius was freed at the same time as his wife Primilla (they are collibertae), who is called Quinctia not because she is married to Numerius, but because they were both freed from the Quinctian household. On being freed, Numerius made his career either as an actor or writer of comedies (comicus). It was not uncommon for actors to be slaves and to continue with their profession when freed. The profession was one of very low status in Rome, and many actors were regarded as just a step above prostitutes. Some comedies were elegant and witty, but many were bawdy, burlesque pantomimes staged for undiscerning holiday crowds.

Quinctius has erected this stone partly to his own memory, and that of those who freed him, but also to his wife, proudly pointing out, as Romans with happy marriages were wont to do, that he had lived with her (vixi cum ea) for 30 years.

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