an imprecation on those who had shortened her life by magic incantations. CARMINIBUS DEFIXA JACUIT PER TEMPORA MUTA, UT EJUS SPIRITUS, VI EXTORQUERETUR QUAM NATURÆ REDDERETUR. CUJUS ADMISSI VEL MANES VEL DI CŒLESTES ERUNT SCELERIS VINDICES.[39]

The wounded affections had their victims. P. L. Modestus raises a monument to Telesinia Crispinilla, CONJUGI SANCTISSIMÆ, QUÆ OB DESIDERIUM FILI SUI PIISSIMI VIVERE ABOMINAVIT ET POST DIES XV FATI EJUS ANIMO DESPONDIT.[40] Of a similar excess of maternal grief, causing the death of his wife, Cerialius Calistio gently complains; DUM NIMIS PIA FUIT FACTA EST IMPIA.[41] Communis and Casia inscribe a monument to the memory of a daughter who died at the age of fifteen, and of a son, QUI POST DESIDERIUM SORORIS SUÆ UNA DIE SUPERVIXIT.[42] The following distich records the death of Antonia Maura from her attendance on her sick husband:—

Itala me rapuit crudeli funere tellus,
Dum foveo nimia sedulitate virum.

The complaint that “physicians were in vain” is of ancient date.[43]

Ussere ardentes intus mea viscera morbi,
Vincere quos medicæ non potuere manus.

Pliny has not preserved the name of the unhappy man whose monument declared TURBA MEDICORUM SE PERIISSE,[44] that he had died of a multitude of doctors. Nor do the surgeons escape reproach for their want of skill. MEDICI MALE MEMBRA SECARUNT; CORPORI QUOD SUPER EST TUMULUM TIBI FECI appears to be the address of a master to his gladiator, who, though mangled, had gained the victory, but lost his life from unskilful treatment of his wounds.[45]

Inscriptions are curious to the scholar, as a record of the changes which the Latin language underwent in successive ages. Manuscripts imperfectly answer this purpose, because transcribers were very apt, either from habit or a desire to render their labours more saleable, to change old forms for new, especially in orthography. Sepulcral inscriptions, being commonly the work of private individuals, represent more exactly the language of common life than public monuments. They serve the same purpose to the philologer, as provincial dialects, in which the old language of a country is often preserved, when obliterated in correct and fashionable speech. From the inscriptions in the tomb of the Scipios in the beginning of the third century, B.C., down to the establishment of Christianity, after which a cessation of Pagan formulæ gradually takes place, we have a succession of about six centuries. I will mention a few instances, collected from funeral inscriptions, which either throw light on the history of the Latin language, or illustrate that vulgar idiom and pronunciation, which has influenced the formation of the modern Italian.

The analogy of the Greek, and the form paterfamilias, would lead to the conclusion that the genitive of the first declension had been originally formed in s, next deprived of its final letter and becoming aï, and finally contracted into æ.[46] I have not observed in the sepulcral inscriptions any genitives of common nouns of this declension formed in s, but we find Faustines, Bellones, Midaes, as genitives of proper names, which, according to grammatical rule, would be formed in æ. The dative feminine in abus is allowed by grammarians in cases where ambiguity of sex would arise from the use of is, as in deabus, filiabus, libertabus; but we find it used in inscriptions where no such ambiguity exists, as in nymphabus, fatabus, and even horabus. What is more remarkable is the extension of this formation of the dative to the second declension, in such words as diibus and amicibus. Some departures from ordinary usage may, no doubt, be accounted for by the circumstance that in Italy, as in England, the Muse of the cemetery was an “unlettered Muse.” “Hic jacit”[47] in a Latin inscription no more proves that there was no distinction between the neuter and the active verb, than “here lays” in an English churchyard. Nor can we argue from such constructions as “cum quam bene vixi,” “ab ædem,” that cum and ab governed the accusative; or from such a concord as hunc collegium, that nouns in um were once masculine. But in many instances what seem at first only vulgar solecisms will be found to have a warrant in analogy. Dua as a neuter for duo[48] is called a barbarism by Quinctilian (1, 5, 15); yet he acknowledges that every one said duapondo, and that Messala maintained it to be correct. Evento for eventui, spirito for spiritui, show that the double mode of declension was not confined to domus. Solo for soli has the authority of Cato, who used soli for solius, and of Terence, who used solæ for the same case.[49] “Fatus suus” on a monument might seem a blunder, but malus fatus occurs in Petronius Arbiter (p. 270). We find in an inscription[50]

Diva, precor, Tellus alvo complectere sancta
Ossua quorum in hoc nomina sunt lapide.

and ossuarium, the vase which received the burnt bones, shows that ossua was a legitimate form. The use of carere with an accusative[51] (“Filios duos caruit:” “Dulcem carui lucem, cum te amisi ego conjunx”) has a parallel in