Slab with the epitaph of an archivist
Slab with the epitaph of an archivist
The wife Flavia Daphne commissioned and dedicated this tomb to the memory of her forty-year old husband Marcus Ulpius Eutychus, a freedman (libertus) of the emperor Trajan (Ulpius is his family name), responsible for the archive documents (tabulae) relating not only to the monitoring and conditions (pavement, practicability, bridges, infrastructure, ordinary and extraordinary maintenance, repair work and procurement) of the Appian Way - an ancient and important artery of communication between Rome and Brindisi - but also the collection of revenue derived from public lands located along its path. He was employed in the department of the curator of the street (curator viae Appiae), an office of imperial appointment (which previously fell under the competence of the censors, censores) entrusted to senior members of the Senate, the assembly of the ruling class of the Roman state.