derived from his personal observation and the assistance afforded by the learned and laborious researches of Bosio, Arringhi and others, we derive some very satisfactory illustrations of the devotional feelings entertained even by the Pagans. In the Lapidarian Gallery, at the Vatican, there is an inscription to the memory of Caius Julius Maximus, a child, which evinces deep feeling, and cannot be read without interest and sympathy. C. JVLIVS MAXIMVS ANN. II. M.V. ATROX O FORTVNA TRVCI QVE FVNERE GAVDES He, who lately used to lie, beloved, on my bosom. Another, in the Catacombs at Rome, is simple, concise, and expressive. BIRGINIVS PARVM "Virginius remained but a short time with us." The Consular Epitaphs afford perhaps the most precise means of establishing dates of burial. Boldetti' gives one from St. Lucina's cemetery of the year A.D. 98. D. M. P. LIBERIO VICXIT ANI N. II. MENSES N. III. DIES N. VIII. R. ANICIO FAVSTO ET VIRIO GALLO COSS. "Publius Liberio lived 2 years, 3 months, and 8 days. Amicius Faustus and Virius Gallus being Consuls." In the work of Dr. Maitland other examples will be found 1 Osservazioni sopra i Cimiterii dei Santi Martiri, ed Antichi Christiani di Roma. 1720, folio. The following is the inscription upon the tomb of a Christian Martyr : TEMPORE ADRIAN-IMPERATORIS MARIVS ADOLESCENS DVX MILITVM QVI SATIS VIXIT DVM VITAM PRO CHO CVM SANGVINE CONSVNSIT IN PACE TANDEM QVIEVIT BENEMERENTES CVM LACRIMIS ET METV POSVERVNT. I. D. VI. "In the time of the Emperor Adrian, Marius, a young military officer, who had lived long enough, when with his blood he gave up his life for Christ, at length rested in peace. The well deserving set up this with tears and in fear. On the 6th of the Ides of December." Arringhi, whose Latin edition of "Roma Sotterranea," by Bosio, is the best and most justly esteemed, has given to us a remarkable inscription belonging to the fifth century, to the wife of a Priest. LEVITE CONIVNX PETRONIA FORMA PVDORIS HIS MEA DEPONENS SEDIBVS OSSA LOCo PARCITE VOS LACRIMIS DVLCES CVM CONIVGE NATÆ DP IN PACE III. NON. OCTOBRIS FESTO VC CONSS.' "Petronia, a priest's wife, the type of modesty, in this place I lay my bones: spare your tears, dear husband and daughters, and believe that it is forbidden to weep for one who lives in God. Buried in peace, on the 3rd Nones of October, in the Consulate of Festus" (i.e. A. D. 472). In many parts of England, Roman Mortuary Memorials have been found. On a Decurion at Gloucester, who lived to the age of 86: DEC. COLONIE GLEV. VIXIT AN. LXXXVI. Another, to a child, who lived 3 years, 4 months, and 9 days; erected by an attendant or servant in the household: D. M. SUCC. PETRONIÆ VIX. ANN. III. MIIII. D. IX. V. PETRO MULUS ET VICT. SABINA 1 Conss, it will be observed, marks the plural; but the Eastern Consul is omitted, a carelessness in the sculptor often to be paralleled in later times. Diis Manibus Succia Petroniæ: vixit annos tres, menses quatuor, dies novem; Valerius Petronius famulus, et Victorina Sabina filiæ carissimæ fecerunt. D(IIS) M(ANIBUS) BLESCIUS DIOVICUS FILIE SUE VIXIT ANNUM UNUM ET DIE(S) VIGINTI UNUM. Blescius Diovicus erects this to the Divine Manes of his daughter: She lived one year and twenty-one days.' One of the most frequent expressions on the Roman tombs, both of the Pagan and Christian times, is to be found in the well-known passage from Tacitus, Sit tibi terra levis—“ Light lie the earth upon thy grave." It is handed down to our day, and often employed; and there is in it unquestionably an elegance and a feeling of the most delicate character, bearing the most affectionate application. The Romans did not confine themselves to the employment of this passage on their tombs, they placed it even on their lamps, upon those which they were in the habit of offering lighted at the tombs of the dead. Gruter has preserved some instances of this,—one of the most interesting of which is the following: HAVE. SEPTIMIA SIT. TIBI. TERRA. LEVIS. AVREA. TERRA. TEGAT. "Adieu, Septimia; may the earth lie light upon thee: whoever places a burning lamp before this Tomb, may a golden soil cover his ashes.” Gough hints that it is not improbable that the idea of the earth lying light on the party interred, this favourite wish of antiquity, should have suggested the raising of cells of stones or sods within the vast barrows afterwards heaped over them. In 1828 Orellius edited a work by Hagenbach relating to 1 The above-cited inscription is on a stone, the head of which is of a triangular shape, and encloses a bust, probably a likeness of the deceased; but which has the appearance of one of a more advanced age. It was obtained from the station at Risingham, held by the Vangiones (a people of Belgic Gaul), and the monument is preserved at Trinity College, Cambridge, and described by the Rev. C. Bruce, LLD., in the Archæological Journal for Sept. 1855, No. 47, p. 221. It is of a late Roman date, and of very rude execution. C Latin Inscriptions, which has been learnedly and judiciously reviewed (Quart. Rev., vol. lxxviii. pp. 61-75); in which, among others of the Sepulchralia, it is observed that the word Dulciesimæ, so frequently applied to a deceased wife, never occurs in any inscription addressed to a living one. Carissimæ, Fidelissima, Piisima, Sanctissimæ, Amantissimæ, Incomparabili, and Bene-Merenti are of common application on the funeral monuments. The late Countess of Blessington forwarded to Mr. W. S. Landor the following Epitaph on Julia Alpinula, the daughter of Julius Alpinus, who was condemned to death by Albanus Cecina. His daughter could not survive him, and his friends erected a monument with an inscription commencing thus:— Julia Alpinula Hic Jacet, Infelices Patris Infelix Proles Vixit Annos xxiii. Landor, in reply, says, "Nearly all the Roman inscriptions were collected as early as the time of Scaliger, and no great quantity of others has been added to those of Grævius and Montfaucon. The Latin of that of Alpinula is very barbarous. Indeed, the lapidary skill, even of better and earlier times, is wonderfully so, on most occasions. It would be difficult to select five-and-twenty, which do not seem to have been left to the learning and taste of the stone-cutter." The Roman epitaphs relating to their Consuls and Cæsars are numerous, and are recorded on their statues and in their temples, and other colossal buildings. They usually give a narrative of the renowned exploits of their sovereigns and warriors, handing them down to posterity with fame and honour. An epitaph to the honour of the dead has justly been regarded as of all praise the most noble and the most pure, especially when it expresses the character and actions of the good man. Private virtues are assuredly as much entitled to this homage as public ones; and the titles of a good parent, a good friend, a good citizen, richly merit to be engraven on brass or in marble. The tomb of a good man may, in some degree, be made to supply the want of his presence, and by producing veneration for his memory, constitutes a substitute for the observation of his life and the benefit of his example. Epitaphs may be looked upon as a means of communication between the dead and the living; a means of giving serious instruction. "Records on tombstones," says Leigh Hunt, "are introducers of the living to the dead; makers of mortal acquaintances; and one touch of nature,' in making the 'whole world kin,' gives them the right of speaking like kindred to, and of, one another." An epitaph is, literally, any inscription upon a tomb. The tomb or grave is expressed in various ways, of which, perhaps, sepulcrum, the sepulchre,' is the most ancient and the best. Bustum seems to confine itself in the practice of the Romans in the cremation or burning of their dead. Monumentum clearly signifies memorial, and the word is commonly used as such; it does not necessarily imply a grave, and may be quite independent of it, although appertaining to it. Xenophon says they were erected only for soldiers whose bodies could not easily be found. Cippus is a term meaning simply a hillock of earth, a barrow; and by Mausoleum is generally conceived a sumptuous tomb. Puttenham, in his very curious little work, "The Arte of English Poesie," devotes a small chapter (lib. i. c. 28), "Of the Poeme called Epitaph, used 1 Sepulcra has been somewhat fancifully read semipulchra, half fair or beautiful, in allusion to the outer part of the tomb, which is ornamented, whilst the interior, containing only the mortal remains, is shrouded in darkness and obscurity. Cenotaph means an empty tomb: a monumental erection to one whose remains are not contained within it. 2 A term applied to the burial of a body in the same place in which it had been burnt, and from this, came to be used as signifying a tomb. My late friend, Mr. John Gage Rokewode, applied it to the barrows on the Bartley Hills in Essex so successfully examined by him, and of the sepulchral relics of which he has given an admirable account in the "Archæologia," (vol. xxv.) Cicero, in his Epist. ad Atticum. lib. vii., speaks of the Bustum Basili' and the Catuli Bustum.' De Expedit. Cyri, lib. vi. Its derivation is ascribed to the conduct of Artemisia, the wife and sister of Mausolus. So severely grieved was she at his death, that she drank in her liquor the ashes of his body, and erected so grand a monument, that it was esteemed one of the seven wonders of the world. The monument received the name of Mausoleum, which has since been applied to all similar erections of extraordinary extent or splendour. Rewards were offered by Artemisia to him who should compose the best elegiac pazegyric upon the deceased King of Caria, and they were assigned to Theopompus, 357 B.C. Lucian satirizes the loading of his body with huge stones, whereby he is pitifully pressed and crushed. |