The boy who was “in love” with the Muses

Between the late 19th and early 20th century, work on the new Salario district partly destroyed and partly incorporated into the urban fabric the archaeological remains of a large necropolis, the Salario burial grounds. All that remains today is located at a lower elevation than the modern ground level and, in most cases, can only be seen by descending into underground passages, garage ramps and cellars: an underground world of tombs, hypogea, tunnels and ancient pozzolana quarries that extend for hundreds of metres beneath modern dwellings.

In 1871, under the direction of the architect Vespignani, the remains of the ancient Porta Salaria were also sacrificed in the name of rampant urbanisation: this is how some forgotten tombs, already incorporated into the ancient towers that flanked it, re-emerged. They were dismantled and reassembled several times, and were eventually placed at the intersection of Via Piave and Via Sulpicio Massimo, in a small area close to the Aurelian walls. And so, in spite of the chaos around Piazza Fiume, in this oasis of peace, people’s attention is drawn to a unique funerary monument.

Inside a marble aedicule is a young togatus [Roman wearing a toga] holding a scroll in his left hand which has a carme [ode] engraved on it: he is Quintus Sulpicius Maximus. Two long inscriptions, in Latin and Greek, tell us a melancholy story: the tomb was built by a pair of slaves, Quintus Euganeus and Lininia Ianuaria, for their beloved son, who died at only 11 years of age. He was a prodigy who, despite his very young age, had participated in the third Capitoline agon [contest], an impromptu Greek poetry competition, in 94 AD, competing against 52 poets. On that occasion, the child enchanted the audience with his skill and verses recounting Jupiter’s reproach of Apollo, guilty of having let the young and inexperienced Phaeton drive the chariot of the sun.

The judges and audience were so filled with admiration that his own masters, in order to reward him, arranged for his release in their wills. Unfortunately, the story did not have a happy ending, as “too much study and exaggerated love for the muses” made the boy so weak that he became ill and died prematurely.