New interpretation of the Roman funerary relief of the Gessii (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Archibald Cary Coolidge Fund, inv. 37.100 = ILLRP 503) from Viterbo and dated to the 2nd half of the 1st cent.
B. C. On this relief, the highest-ranking position (the first name and portrait seen when the relief is read from left to right) is held by Gessia Fausta, freedwoman of Publius.
That a freedwoman holds this prominent position is explained by the fact that she was the last surviving member of the family and the arbitrator of the will.
The inscriptions and iconography reveal her efforts to publicize her newly acquired social standing and suggest that her placement on the monument was not necessarily bound by her original birth status.
