How the Romans Read Funerary Inscriptions: Neglected Evidence from the Querolus.

Abstract

The late antique comedy Querolus (or Aulularia) makes a number of references to the ways in which the text of an inscribed urn was read. This is important, hitherto neglected evidence for the way in which encounters and interactions with inscribed objects, especially from a funerary sphere, were imagined in the Roman world. Based on an in-depth discussion of relevant passages, initial conclusions are drawn and linked to related phrases and passages in surviving epigraphic evidence, giving reason to rethink the multi-layered, complex sensuous experience that is commonly just referred to as ‘reading inscriptions’.