Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

< Back to Table of Contents This funerary stele is dedicated to the memory of one Gaius Papius Secundus, a cavalry officer (decurion) in the city of Vienne, approximately 75km to the north-west of Grenoble. Like the stele of Caius Sollius Marculus, which I discussed in a previous post , this also dates to the second century AD. This example has a triangular pediment containing a carved human head (now very worn) above a garland of some description. Below this, the letters D and M (for ‘Dis Manibus’ ‘To the gods’) are divided on either side of a representation of an ‘ascia’ or adze, a common symbol on steles of this period. The commemorative text is enclosed within a moulded, rectangular frame. Following the museum’s information card, the inscription text is on the left, while the expanded and corrected Latin is on the right: D M D(is) M(anibus). G • PAPIO • SECV G(aio) Papio Secu- NDO • DECVRIO ndo, decurio- NI • C • ...

< Back to Table of Contents As the visitor moves through the basement level of Grenoble’s Musee de l'Ancien Eveche they will pass this rather remarkable funeral stele. It dates to the end of the second century AD and commemorates a tax collector, Caius Sollius Marculus. At this time Grenoble was known as Cularo and contained a tax office specifically for the collection of the “quarantième des Gaules”, a 2.5% levy on all goods in transit. The stele is not simply important for the light it sheds on the financial history of Gaul and the Empire, but it this is the earliest documented reference to the city name: ‘Cularo’. Note: ‘quarantième’ is translated as ‘fortieth’, and one-fortieth is equivalent to 2.5% The stele as photographed in 2003