page_title: Sulpicia Lepidina
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Sulpicia Lepidina / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Roman writing tablet from the Vindolanda Roman fort of Hadrian's Wall, in Northumberland (1st-2nd century AD). Tablet 291: Letter inviting Sulpicia Lepidina, the commander's wife, to a birthday party, about AD 97-103. British Museum (London)
context_page_description: Sulpicia Lepidina was the wife of Flavius Cerialis, prefect of the Ninth Cohort of Batavians, stationed at Vindolanda in Roman Britain about the turn of the 1st century AD. She is known from her correspondence, including a birthday invitation she received from Claudia Severa.
context_section_description: Sulpicia Lepidina received two letters from Claudia Severa, wife of Aelius Brocchus, commander of a nearby fort. One of the letters from Severa is an invitation to a birthday party, which is perhaps the best-known of the Vindolanda tablets now at the British Museum.
  The invitation is partly written by a scribe and partly by Severa herself. Along with another tablet (a fragment with a closure written in Severa's hand), the invitation is thought to be the oldest extant writing by a Roman woman found in Britain, or perhaps anywhere. The subject-matter of the letters is social and personal, and Severa calls Lepidina her sister.
  Sulcipia Lepidina also received a letter from another woman. While the name of the woman is difficult to read, the subject matter is legible. In this letter the woman, thought to be called Paterna, speaks of remedies that she plans to bring to Lepidina.
  The letters were written in ink on wooden tablets found during excavations at Vindolanda in the 1970s. Vindolanda was a Roman fort built where two streams conjoined and, as a result, the floors of the fort were thick with mosses, bracken and straw. The Vindolanda tablets were found in this thick carpet and filled-in ditches. Their preservation was due to the waterlogged soil conditions on parts of the Vindolanda site.
caption: A letter from Claudia Severa inviting Sulpicia Lepidina to her birthday party.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 400D DIGITAL", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2008:07:28 01:36:57", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2188", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8880", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/50", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1600", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:07:28 01:36:57", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:07:28 01:36:57", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "92469/16384", "EXIF ApertureValue": "162885/32768", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "35", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3888", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2592", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "3888", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2592", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2024", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "3888000/877", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "432000/97", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Custom", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}