Vatican Museums

Asclepius,Asclepius who died on 20 February – X k(a)l(endas) Mar(tias) – at the age of eighty, was buried in Rome, where he was staying at the time of his death. However, he had arrived from the Syro-Palestinian coast, more precisely from the city of Sidon in Phoenicia, in present-day Lebanon. His foreign origin (Σιδόνιος τῆς Φυνίκης) is declared in the second part of the text, supplementing the first part in Latin and written in the mother tongue of the deceased – Greek – possibly addressed mainly to other foreign immigrants like him. The majority of immigrants noted in urban inscriptions dating from the second to the fourth century seem to originate from Syria, and it appears that they came to Rome for commercial reasons, not always declared as in the case of Asclepius. His name is common among Christians in the capital.