Musee de l'Ancien Eveche | The funerary stele of Caius Sollius Marculus
As the visitor moves through the basement level of Grenoble’s Musee de l'Ancien Eveche they
will pass this rather remarkable funeral stele. It dates to the end of the
second century AD and commemorates a tax collector, Caius Sollius Marculus. At
this time Grenoble was known as Cularo and contained a tax office specifically
for the collection of the “quarantième des Gaules”, a 2.5% levy on all
goods in transit. The stele is not simply important for the light it sheds on
the financial history of Gaul and the Empire, but it this is the earliest
documented reference to the city name: ‘Cularo’.
Note:
‘quarantième’
is translated as ‘fortieth’, and one-fortieth is equivalent to 2.5%
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| The stele as photographed in 2003 |
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