Vatican Museums

After the formula consecrating the tomb to the Manes gods, the deceased Caius Sempronius Felix is commemorated, along with his wife Procilia Prisca, destined to be buried in the same altar as her husband, but still alive (indeed it states: hic situs est, “here he is buried”, therefore alone). The altar originally had an internal cavity for the ashes, eliminated when it was cut for the purposes of museum display, and only the front remains, similar to that of a kiosk. It has an engraved rounded top, flanked by two fluted pilasters surmounted with capitals with human faces at the front, shells and tridents at the sides. At the bottom there is a lunette in the form of a shell. Considering Felix’s profession – he was probably the owner of a marbleworker’s workshop (marmorarius), it is likely that the item was produced by the dedicant and curator of the tomb, Caius Sempronius Eucritus, freedman (libertus) and certainly Felix’s collaborator in the management of the family workshop.