In 2 CE, Lucius Caesar, the younger of Augustus’s two adopted sons, died en route to his first command Spain.1
His body was carried back to Rome by the military tribunes of his legions and by the leading men of the cities through which the cortege traveled. After the funeral, he was interred in the Mausoleum of Augustus on the campus Martius.
The senate decreed a set of lasting commemorative honors in memory of the dead prince, including annual offerings (inferiae) to Lucius’s manes on the anniversary of his death.[123] [124] A copy of the decree itself was displayed at the entrance to the Mausoleum. No copy survives for us (although later references to it that confirm some of its contents).[125] However, in response to the Roman decree, the town council at Pisa passed a decree of its own that also established annual inferiae for Lucius’s manes there. An epigraphic copy of this municipal decree does survive.[126] It provides the best description of what, as John Scheid (1993) and others have demonstrated, was a new kind of public commemoration for members of the domus Augusta that began with Lucius.In this article I examine more closely one particular aspect of the inferiae at Pisa, which has been overlooked but which is key to understanding the new memorial ceremony in relation to the new imperial status and the developing relationship between the emperor and his subjects: the ability of private citizens to offer gifts as part of the annual public ceremony. I begin with a brief discussion of the Pisan decree before turning to the new imperial inferiae. I then examine the significance of participation privatim, first by commenting on the rites at Pisa in relationship to Ovid's description of inferiae in the Fasti; second by considering the limits placed on the extravagance of the private offerings; and finally by examining one of the particular objects chosen for the private inferiae.