expressed themselves, in reference to the most solemn event of human existence. For what qualities did they praise their departed friends? Whether true or false, in reference to the individual, the monumental panegyric will, at all events, teach us what was the standard of virtue in the conceptions of the times. In what language did they express their affection or regret? With what hopes respecting the future did they bid them farewell?

The Roman lapidary style was well adapted to express feeling or describe character with energetic conciseness, and in this respect stands in striking contrast with the diffuse and overloaded epitaphs in which the moderns delight. A loquacious or boastful epitaph in Latin excites the suspicion of the critic of inscriptions, unless it is evidently of the latest age of heathenism.[75] The use of the Latin language has been of no avail in checking the prolixity of modern composers; the Italians alone have caught the true spirit of classical antiquity, and can compress much meaning into a few words. The language of genuine sorrow is simple and concise. What could convey to the heart the feeling of a mother’s grief and affection more forcibly, than the apostrophe, AVE LUCI, PRÆREPTE MATRI! or FILI BENE QUIESCAS! MATER TUA ROGAT TE UT ME AD TE RECIPIAS. The inscription of the sarcophagus in our Museum, D. M. SIMPLICIÆ FLORENTINÆ, ANIMÆ INNOCENTISSIMÆ, QUÆ VIXIT MENSES X., SIMPLICIUS PATER FECIT, would have gained nothing in pathos by the elaborate description of a father’s sorrow. Neither would the inscription placed by her parents on Cornelia Anniana, who died just when her prattle was beginning to delight their ears. FILIÆ DULCISSIMÆ, JAM GARRULÆ, BIMULÆ NONDUM.[76] The great majority of records of the dead content themselves with the mention of the name, station, and age, or with such a brief and modest encomium as is expressed in the words HOMINI OPTIMO ET SINGULARIS EXEMPLI.

We sometimes, indeed, find in epitaphs a play upon a name, hardly consistent with our notions of the true style of such compositions. Yet a genuine sorrow might be struck with the relation between the name and the character, such as the second of these inscriptions notices, or find relief in the playful allusion in the third. On the tomb of Aper[77] was inscribed this distich:—

Innocuus Aper ecce jaces, non Virginis ira
Nec Meleager atrox perfodit viscera ferro.

And on the tomb of Glyconis,[78]—

Hoc jacet in tumulo secura Glyconis honesto.
Dulcis nomine erat, anima quoque dulcior usque.

On that of Floridus, inscribed, it should seem, with a flower,[79]—

Quod vixi, flos est. Servat lapis hoc mihi nomen.
Noli Deos Manes; flos satis est titulo.

What our writers on heraldry call canting and the French, armes parlantes, i. e. figures allusive to family names, was not unknown to the Romans; it is found on their coins; as a steer (vitulus) on the denarius of Q. Voconius Vitulus; a murex, on that of Furius Purpureo; a foot, on that of Crassipes, and a flower on that of Aquillius Florus.[80]

In those inscriptions which enter into a fuller enumeration of public services, one difference is striking to a person accustomed to modern ones, namely, the absence in the former of all mention of acts of social benevolence. It is true that the erection of a fountain, the construction of a road, the dedication of a temple, the exhibition of gladiatorial and floral games, the bequest of a legacy for an annual feast, and similar acts of popular munificence, are often commemorated, as titles of honour; but I do not remember to have met with a record, originating in pagan times, of a life devoted to the alleviation of misery, to the relief of indigence, to the removal of ignorance and vice. Such virtues belong especially to the school of Christianity. The following inscription would be proved by its tenor to relate to a Christian woman, even if the date did not fix it to the middle of the fifth century of our æra. DEO FIDELIS, DULCIS MARITO, NUTRIX FAMILLÆ, CUNCTIS HUMILIS, PLACATO PURO CORDE, AMATRIX PAUPERUM.[81]

When parents erect a funeral monument to their children, the inscription very frequently embodies the sentiment of Cato the elder, in Cicero de Senectute (c. 23), the inversion of the order of nature which the performance of such a duty by the parent involves. “Catonem, cujus a me corpus crematum est; quod contra decuit ab illo meum.” Thus in an inscription at Naples by Calvidius to his son, who had died at the age of 20; QUOD FILIUS PATRI FACERE DEBUIT PATER FECIT FILIO; and in another; QUOD FILIA PATRI FACERE DEBUERAT MORS IMMATURA FECIT UT FACERET PATER. The sentiment is concisely expressed in the following distich:—

Quod decuit natam patri præstare sepulto
Hoc contra natæ præstitit ipse pater.[82]

A mother, burying her son, who died at the age of 35, complains, HUNC LEGES LETI PRÆPOSTERÆ ERIPUERE MATRI, QUÆ UT ANNIS MORTE QUOQUE ESSET PRIOR. Parents not only call themselves infelicissimi, for the loss of their children, but impii and crudeles, because they survive them.

Children from their premature grave endeavour to moderate their parents’ grief, by laying the blame upon the Fates.

Nec tibi nec nobis æternum vivere cessit:
Quod pueri occipimus Fata querenda putes.[83]

A father justifies himself to his daughter, for not having died and mingled his ashes with hers, by his duty to his surviving children.

Quæ tibi cunque mei potuerunt pignora amoris
Nata, dari, populo sunt lacrumante data.
Et volui majora nimis; sed cura meorum
Fida tui prohibet me cinerem esse rogi.