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Title: Roman Sepulchral Inscriptions
Their Relation to Archæology, Language, and Religion
Author: John Kenrick
Release Date: June 1, 2012 [EBook #39894]
Language: English
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ROMAN SEPULCRAL INSCRIPTIONS.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER,
ANGEL COURT, SKINNER STREET.
ROMAN SEPULCRAL INSCRIPTIONS:
THEIR RELATION TO
ARCHÆOLOGY, LANGUAGE, AND RELIGION.
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FROM A SARCOPHAGUS IN THE YORK MUSEUM.
BY JOHN KENRICK, M.A., F.S.A.
LONDON.
JOHN RUSSELL SMITH, 36, SOHO SQUARE.
YORK:
R. SUNTER, STONEGATE; H. SOTHERAN, CONEY STREET.
M.DCCC.LVIII.
This little work originated in two papers, read before the Yorkshire
Philosophical Society. They were designed to direct the attention of the
members to the monuments preserved in their own Museum, and at the same
time to show how the labours of the antiquary connect themselves with the
history of manners, institutions, and opinions. The subject, I believe,
has not been specially treated of in this country before, and as the
remains of antiquity are now studied with more enlarged views than in a
former age, it may have an interest for a wider circle than that to which
the original papers were addressed.
J. K.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
IMPORTANCE OF SEPULCRAL MONUMENTS AS MATERIALS OF HISTORY 1
GREEK SEPULCRAL INSCRIPTIONS 2
ROMAN INSCRIPTIONS IN BRITAIN, GAUL, SPAIN, AND AFRICA 3
ROMAN SEPULCRES EXTRAMURAL 5
THE USTRINUM 7
ADDRESSES TO TRAVELLERS 8
WARNINGS TO VIOLATORS 9
RIGHT OF INTERMENT 11
PROTESTS AGAINST ALIENATION BY HEIRS 12
APPENDAGES TO SEPULCRES 14
COMMEMORATIVE RITES 15
MENTION OF CAUSES OF DEATH 18
COMPLAINTS OF THE INEFFICACY OF MEDICINE 19
OLD FORMS OF LANGUAGE 20
APPROXIMATION OF LATIN TO ITALIAN 23
RECORD OF TRADES AND PROFESSIONS 24
THEATRICAL PERFORMERS 26
IMPLEMENTS REPRESENTED ON TOMBS 28
AVERAGE LENGTH OF LIFE 30
SIMPLICITY OF ROMAN LAPIDARY STYLE 32
TOPICS OF PRAISE 35
PARENTAL REGRETS 36
FILIAL AFFECTION 38
CONJUGAL AFFECTION 40
LAW OF DIVORCE 45
INSCRIPTIONS ON FAVOURITE ANIMALS 47
RELIGIOUS FAITH AND SENTIMENT 48
TOPICS OF CONSOLATION 50
MORAL REFLEXIONS 51
BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY 52
EPICUREAN SENTIMENTS 54
DOUBTFUL HOPES 55
SUPERSTITION AND SCEPTICISM 56
THE OLD RELIGIONS OBSOLETE 57
WORSHIP OF STRANGE GODS 58
CONTRAST OF PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN MONUMENTS 59
WORKS ON INSCRIPTIONS 60
FORGERIES 61
ROMAN BURIAL CLUBS 65
ROMAN SEPULCRAL INSCRIPTIONS.
The memorials of the dead hold a remarkable place among the materials of
history. The very existence of nations is in many cases attested only by
their sepulcral monuments, which serve to trace the course of their
migrations, and yield us a scanty knowledge of their usages, and of the
state of civilization among them. Where the art of writing has been
unknown, this knowledge must, indeed, be vague and inferential; we may
gather the race from the form of the skull, the rank or occupation from
the contents of the grave; but we learn nothing of the individual
character or social relations of its tenant; he is only one of the
countless multitude who
illacrimabiles
Urguentur ignotique longa
Nocte.
Even among nations who have possessed the art of writing, and used it
profusely for sepulcral purposes, we may be disappointed in the hope of
gaining any idea of individual character from inscriptions on the dead.
From the hieroglyphics with which the Egyptian mummies and funeral tablets
are covered we seldom learn more than the state and function of the
deceased. The Greek inscriptions are more communicative, but their [Greek:
epigrammata epitymbia], of which so large a number are preserved in the
Anthology, are rather poetical exercises than the expression of genuine,
personal sentiment; and those which have come down to us in brass or
marble are brief and meagre.
Roman sepulcral monuments of the republican times are rare; but those of
the family of Scipio,[1] the earliest with which we are acquainted,
exhibit a character entirely different from the Greek. They at once
display the genius of the people, and give a picture of strong
individuality. The following Saturnian verses are inscribed on the tomb of
Publius Scipio, the son of the great Africanus.
Quei apicem, insigne Dialis Flaminis, gesistei
Mors perfecit tua ut tibi essent omnia brevia,
Honos, fama virtusque, gloria atque ingenium.
Quibus sei in longa licuisset tibi utier vita
Facile facteis superasses gloriam majorum.
Quare lubens te in gremium, Scipio, recipit
Terra, Publi, prognatum Publio, Corneli.
In the imperial times sepulcral inscriptions became very numerous,
especially as cremation fell into disuse, and the sarcophagus took the
place of the urn, which rarely exhibits any designation of the person
whose ashes it contains. They have furnished the philologer, the
archæologist, and the historian, with a multitude of materials for their
respective branches of study. The site of Eburacum has supplied a
considerable number of them, some of which have perished or been
removed,[2] while others are contained in the Museum of the Yorkshire
Philosophical Society. With the exception of one, they are formal and
jejune; yet the fact that the Society possesses so many may lead its
members to take an interest in an attempt to illustrate the whole subject
from the more ample treasures of other collections.
What has been said of the general brevity and dryness of our own
inscriptions is true of those found in England generally. There are very
few in the collections of Horsley and his successors, which are
distinguished either by their execution or their style. For the most part
they are a simple record of the age and status of the deceased, a large
proportion being the tombs of military men. The number and character of
sepulcral monuments are an index of the population and wealth of a
district or country; their language, of the prevalence of the Roman
dominion. Rome, of course, has furnished the largest number. The north of
Italy, when it ceased to be Gallic, became entirely Roman; and its chief
cities, Verona, Milan, Brescia, Padua, have proved more productive of
Latin inscriptions than the south, where the Greek language was
extensively used. The southern parts of Gaul early became a Roman
province; and its cities are full of Roman antiquities, among which
inscriptions bear a conspicuous part. Several classics of the Silver
age--Seneca, Martial, Quinctilian, Silius Italicus--were born in the
southern cities of Spain, and the Spanish inscriptions, though less
important than might have been expected from this circumstance, bear
testimony to the wide diffusion of the Latin language in that country.
Northern Africa was occupied by the Romans, with a temporary interruption
during the conquest of the Vandals, for eight centuries. Though the
country people retained the old Punic language,[3] the Latin must have
been in general use in the cities, for African bishops and writers were
the founders of Latin eloquence in the Christian Church. Since the French
possession of Algeria the ancient sites of Roman colonies have been
explored, and already a copious harvest of Latin inscriptions has been the
result. But Britain was remote and poor, late occupied by the Romans and
early abandoned. Even during its occupation they were rather garrisoned in
the towns, which they built and fortified, than mingled with the conquered
people. We need not wonder, therefore, that our inscriptions are chiefly
military, or that when the Romans withdrew they left few traces of their
occupancy in the language of Britain.
It was the all but universal practice in the ancient world to inter the
bodies or ashes of the dead beyond the limits of the cities. Even in
Egypt, where the practice of embalmment might have rendered it safe to
retain them in the vicinity of the living, the cemeteries of the great
cities were placed on the opposite side of the Nile. Lycurgus, indeed, is
said to have ordered interments to be made within the limits of Sparta,
with the view of producing familiarity with the aspect of death. The
Athenians, on the contrary, devoted the most beautiful suburb of their
city, the Ceramicus without the walls, to the interment of their dead, and
the space beyond the walls of the Piræus appears to have been occupied
with tombs.[4] If the Romans ever buried within their houses, it must
have been at a time when their territory did not extend beyond the walls
of the city, for the prohibition of the Twelve Tables is precise; HOMINEM
MORTUUM IN URBE NE SEPELITO, NEVE URITO. The principal roads at Rome seem
to have been lined with sepulcres for a considerable distance, especially
the Appian, the "Regina Viarum," as it is termed by Statius.[5] Atticus
was buried at the fifth milestone from the city on this road, Gallienus at
the ninth.[6] No urn or sarcophagus has been found within the walls of
Roman York, but the traces of interment begin immediately beyond the
gates. On the southern side, which was not included in the fortifications
of Eburacum, the ground near the river was occupied by suburban villas,
whose site is indicated by the elaborate pavements which have been dug up;
but at the Mount, half a mile from the river one of the principal
cemeteries of the city began, extending along the road which led to
Calcaria. Sepulcral remains have also been found near the other outlets
from the city. While we acknowledge that in thus banishing the remains of
the dead from the precincts of the living the ancients showed more wisdom
than modern nations, we cannot but wonder that they should have allowed
the disagreeable process of _burning_ the dead to be carried on so near
their habitations. The site of the _ustrinum_ at York has not been
clearly ascertained; if at Clifton, where many urns have been found, it
was at a moderate distance from the gate; but at Pompeii it was only about
a furlong from the gate on the principal road, and at Aldborough close to
the wall.[7] The Romans had, even in their smaller municipia, Boards of
Health--such, at least, I take to be the meaning of _Novemvir_ and
_Triumvir Valetudinarius_;[8] and it may seem extraordinary that they did
not remove the ustrinum to a greater distance. Its effect could scarcely
be neutralized, even by the profusion of odoriferous gums and oils which
were employed at funerals.[9] Augustus forbade the burning of bodies
within fifteen stadia of the city. The only one whose site has been
ascertained in the neighbourhood of Rome is near the fifth milestone on
the Appian Way.[10] The ustrinum at Litlington,[11] the only one of its
kind, I believe, whose site has been ascertained in England, was a
rectangular space enclosed by walls, and not in the vicinity of any large
town. Both here and at Aldborough the ustrinum was also a cemetery. The
cemetery of Roman London was in Spital-fields. (Arch. 36, 206.)
The position of the Roman sepulcres along the great thoroughfares explains
the frequent apostrophe from the tenant of the tomb to the traveller:
SISTE VIATOR; TU QUI VIA FLAMINIA TRANSIS RESTA AC RELEGE; VIATORES
SALVETE ET VALETE; forms which have sometimes been copied, not very
appropriately, in churchyards and cemeteries. The traveller is frequently
addressed with some moral reflexion; VIXI UT VIVIS, MORIERIS UT SUM
MORTUUS; occasionally of rather an Epicurean character, as that of Prima
Pompeia; FORTUNA SPONDET MULTA MULTIS, PRÆSTAT NEMINI, VIVE IN DIES ET
HORAS, NAM PROPRIUM EST NIHIL[12]. The tenant of the tomb sometimes
invites the passer-by to offer for him the customary prayer, SIT TIBI
TERRA LEVIS (S.T.T.L.).
Prævenere diem vitæ crudelia fata
Et raptam inferna me posuere rate.
Hoc lecto elogio juvenis miserere jacentis,
Et dic discedens, Sit tibi terra levis[13].
The traveller is called upon from the interior of the tomb to halt and
refresh himself, and give a portion to the deceased in the form of a
funeral libation; MISCE, BIBE, DA MIHI. Being placed beside public roads,
monuments were liable to pollutions of various kinds, which the Manes
deprecate, sometimes threatening vengeance on the offenders. One of the
most frequent of these violators was the writer on the wall, to whom the
side of a sepulcral monument offered a tempting field for the exercise of
his vocation. SCRIPTOR PARCE HOC OPUS is not the address of an author to
his critic, but of a husband to the wall-scribbler, entreating him not to
disfigure the monument of his wife.[14] As a frequent purpose of these
placards was to recommend candidates for office, success is promised, on
condition that the monument should not be written upon. ITA CANDIDATUS
FIAT HONORATUS TUUS, ET TU FELIX SCRIPTOR, SI HIC NON SCRIPSERIS.
INSCRIPTOR ROGO TE UT TRANSEAS HOC MONUMENTUM. QOIUS CANDIDATI NOMEN
INSCRIPTUM FUERIT, REPULSAM FERAT, NEQUE HONOREM ULLUM GERAT.[15]
In an early state of society there would be little danger that the site on
which interments had taken place should be converted to ordinary purposes.
The violation of a sepulcre was severely punished by the Roman law, and is
deprecated on grounds of humanity in some inscriptions, threatened with
divine vengeance in others. Fabius Augurinus offers this wish for him who
should spare the tomb of his wife and child;[16] SIC NUNQUAM DOLEAS ATQUE
TRISTE SUSPIRES QUANTUM DOLORIS TITULUS ISTE TESTATUR. Another pleads,[17]
Sacratam cunctis sedem ne læde viator.
Hanc tibi nascenti fata dedere domum.
Another[18] utters the awful imprecation, QUISQUIS HOC SUSTULERIT AUT
LÆSERIT, ULTIMUS SUORUM MORIATUR. The act of dedication is often recorded
on the tomb with the addition "Sub ascia," and the figure of an adze or
hatchet[19]. But Roman burial places had no legal sanctity, like that
which our churchyards enjoy; they were taken from out the fields and
gardens which bordered the highway, and the temptation was great on the
part of the heir to re-annex the ground to his property. The inscriptions
on Roman sepulcres indicate the care which those who caused them to be
erected took, to prevent their being either alienated to other purposes,
or taken possession of by others than those for whom they were designed.
The area which the tomb and its appurtenances should occupy, is carefully
defined; HIC LOCUS PATET IN FRONTEM PEDES XX.; IN AGRUM PEDES XXV.;
occasionally we meet with much larger dimensions. If the ground had been
granted by another for this purpose, the words of the grant were sometimes
inscribed on the monument. The right of using the sepulcre for placing
sarcophagi, or urns, is defined commonly by the words, SIBI SUISQUE FECIT;
frequently permission is given for the interment of freedmen and
freedwomen with their master. Sometimes leave is given to introduce into
the columbarium a limited number of _ollæ_, or funeral urns,[20] or, on
the other hand, an individual is prohibited by name from sharing or even
approaching the sepulcre; EXCEPTO HERMETE LIBERTO QUEM VOLO PROPTER
DELICTA SUA ADITUM, AMBITUM NEC ULLUM ACCESSUM HABEAT IN HOC MONUMENTO. In
another inscription, SECUNDINA LIBERTA, IMPIA IN PATRONUM SUUM, is
forbidden to be interred in his tomb.[21] The churlish declaration, IN HOC
MONUMENTO SOCIUM HABEO NULLUM is a rare exception, and in general the
sepulcral inscriptions give a pleasing idea of the relation between
masters and their households. The collection of Gruter contains many pages
of inscriptions expressive of the reciprocal feelings of masters and
patrons, slaves and freedmen; and an equally copious and pleasing record
of the feelings of slaves and freedmen towards their fellows.
The heir was the object of especial jealousy; HOC MONUMENTUM HÆREDEM NON
SEQUITUR (H.M.H.N.S.) is a regular formula; the contrary stipulation, that
the monument should go to the heir is most uncommon.[22] The prohibition
to alienate is expressed with all the fulness of legal phraseology; HOC
MONUMENTUM, CUM ÆDIFICIO SUPERPOSITO NEQUE MUTABITUR, NEQUE VÆNIET, NEQUE
DONABITUR, NEQUE PIGNORI OBLIGABITUR, NEQUE ULLO MODO ABALIENABITUR, NE DE
NOMINE EXEAT FAMILIÆ SUÆ,[23] and is sometimes enforced by a fine to the
municipality, to the Roman people or the vestal virgins and the
Pontifices, to secure the exaction of which one-fourth is to go to the
informer. Legal chicanery was greatly dreaded as the means of defeating
the purpose of the builder of the monument: hence we often find the
protestation, HUIC MONUMENTO DOLUS MALUS ABESTO; sometimes with the
addition ET JURISCONSULTUS, a combination which, in countries where the
civil law is practised, is a standing jest against the jurisconsults.[24]
To preclude one source of cavil we find a man protesting on his tomb, in
an inscription by which he directs a statue to be erected to him, that
when he made his will, he had "a sound and disposing mind;" SANUS, SANA
QUOQUE MENTE INTEGROQUE CONSILIO, MEMOR CONDITIONIS HUMANÆ, TESTAMENTUM
FECI.[25] It is recorded on the pyramid of C. Cestius that the monument
had been erected in 330 days, "arbitratu Pontii Cl. Melæ heredis et Pothi
liberti," the heir not having been trusted alone with the execution. So in
Horace (Sat. 2, 5, 105),
----Sepulcrum
Permissum arbitrio sine sordibus extrue.
In one inscription, it is made the condition of inheritance, that the
monument should be begun in three days after the testator's death, and its
model is prescribed. A son apologizes to his father for having erected a
humble monument to him on the ground of the smallness of the inheritance;
"Si major auctoritas patrimoni mei fuisset, ampliori titulo te prosecutus
fuissem, piissime pater."[26] With this distrust of posterity, it was
natural that men should erect their monuments in their own lifetime,
leaving to their heirs only the duty of inserting the years of their age;
for the year of the decease, which the Romans marked by the Consuls, is
rarely given. SIBI VIVUS FECIT (sometimes _se vivo, se vivis_ even _me
vivus, se vivus_) is often found, as on the sarcophagus of M. Diogenes
Verecundus, formerly in York. Mindus Zosimus Senior tells us plainly on
his tomb his reason for not leaving the choice to his heir; he was afraid
of his discharging the duty in a shabby way.
Vivus mi feci, ne post me lentius heres
Conderet exiguo busta suprema rogo.[27]
A body once placed in a tomb could not be transferred to another without
the permission of the pontiffs, nor could the tomb even be repaired, if
the reparation involved the moving of the remains, without the sanction of
the authorities. We find on the tomb of a freedman a copy of the petition
which he had presented to be allowed to remove the bodies of his wife and
son, which he had temporarily placed in an _obruendarium_, or sarcophagus
of clay, to a monument of marble, "ut quando ego esse desiero, pariter cum
iis ponar."[28]
Besides the monument itself, various appendages to it are mentioned in the
Roman sepulcral inscriptions. The area was occupied by buildings designed
to be used in the annual commemorations of the deceased for which his will
provided. We read of a _diæta_, or summer-house; a _solarium_, or open
balcony; an _accumbitorium_, or entertaining room; an _apparitorium_, in
which the tables and benches used by the guests were kept. The ground
annexed to the monument frequently contained a well, a cistern or a
_piscina_, whence water for the funeral rites might be drawn, and a grove,
whence wood might be cut for a sacrifice. If situated in a garden, the
monument was called _cepotaphium_. A building was erected, sometimes a
permanent _ædificium_, sometimes a simple _nubilare_ or shed, to receive
the person who guarded the tomb (locus habitationis tutelæ causa), and
this office was generally entrusted to a freedman, who was called
_ædituus_[29]. The inscriptions often record the sum which the deceased
has bequeathed for an annual celebration at his tomb, commonly on his
birthday. This was variously performed; sometimes by libations of wine and
milk (profusiones), or by the scattering of roses on the tomb (rosalia),
accompanied by a feast. L. OGIUS PATROCLUS, HORTOS CUM ÆDIFICIO HUIC
SEPULCRO JUNCTO VIVUS DONAVIT, UT EX REDITU EORUM LARGIUS ROSÆ ET ESCÆ
PATRONO SUO ET QUANDOQUE SIBI PONERENTUR.[30] We find a testator directing
that an annual feast, for which he leaves 125 denarii, should be held by
the pagani, or rural inhabitants of the district, on his birthday, or, if
this condition were neglected, that the building and the legacy should go
to the College of Physicians, and to his freedmen, that they might feast
on that day. QUOD SI FACTUM NON ERIT, TUM HIC LOCUS, UT SUPRA SCRIPTUM EST
CUM ANNUIS CXXV. (denariis) IN PERPETUUM AD COLLEGIUM MEDICORUM ET AD
LIBERTOS MEOS PERTINEAT, UT DIE NATALE MEO EPULENTUR.[31] We must not
attach ideas of too great dignity to the "College of Physicians." Every
legal incorporation among the Romans was a college, and the medical body
included practitioners of every grade, even to the veterinary surgeon and
the midwife.[32]
Another tribute of honour for which we find testators making provision is
the lighting a lamp in the monument, or feeding it with oil. All who have
explored the remains of Roman antiquities are aware how frequently lamps
are found in connection with sepulcral monuments. The following
inscription invites passers-by to perform this service:[33]--
Quisquis huic tumulo posuit ardente lucernam
Illius cineres aurea terra tegat.
In order that these rites might be duly performed, the monument carefully
secures the right "_puteum adeundi, hauriendi, coronandi, sacrificandi,
ligna sumendi, mortuos mortuasve inferendi_;" as well as of "_itus, actus,
aditus, introitus, ambitus_." Law delighted then, as now, in exhaustive
enumerations. To secure the perpetual celebration of these funeral honours
was one object for which the alienation of the ground was so strictly
forbidden. Titus Ælius, a freedman of Augustus, leaves the monument which
he and his wife had erected, to his freedmen, freedwomen, and their
descendants, ITA UT NE DE NOMINE SUO AUT FAMILIA EXEAT; UT POSSIT MEMORIÆ
SUÆ QUAM DIUTISSIME SACRIFICARI.[34] To these annual commemorative
offerings allusion is made in a poetical inscription by a husband to his
wife, snatched away in youth.[35]
Lac tibi sit Cybeles, sint et rosa grata Diones,
Et flores grati Nymphis et lilia serta.
Sintque precor, meritæ qui nostra parent tibi dona
Annua, et hic manes placida tibi nocte quiescant,
Et super in nido Marathonia cantet aëdon.
It is not common to find in Roman sepulcral inscriptions specific mention
of the cause of death. A father thus records his son's early death by the
falling in of a well:[36]--
Parva sub hoc titulo Festi sunt ossa Papiri
Quæ moerens fato condidit ipse pater.
Qui si vixisset domini jam nomina ferret.
Hunc casus putei detulit ad cineres.[37]
The following inscription records the death of a male and female slave,
crushed by a crowd in the Capitol, who had, perhaps, come together to see
British captives led in chains, in a triumphal procession:[38]--
Ummidiæ Manes tumulus tegit iste simulque
Primigeni vernæ, quos tulit una dies.
Nam Capitolinæ compressi examine turbæ
Supremum fati competiere diem.
Ælius Proculinus, on the tomb of his wife, bestows 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 COELESTES 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 ja_cit_"[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 æd_em_," 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 Plautus. The usual construction of _compos_ is with a
genitive, but it is not a solecism, when L. Statius Diodorus inscribes a
tablet to God, "Quod se precibus compotem fecisset;" for Livy (3, 35)
uses it with an ablative. The use of susum for sursum explains the Latin
_sus_ (in susque deque) and the Italian _su_. Meses for menses, senu for
sinu, laguna for lacuna, longitia (lunghezza) for longitudo, _so_ for sum,
all occurring in sepulcral inscriptions, show the inclination of the Latin
language towards the Italian.
The Italian prefixes an _i_ to a word which begins with _s_ and a
consonant, when it follows one ending with a consonant, as iscambio,
iscoglio, ispirito; and we find in inscriptions iscribit, ispiritus.[52]
"Poor letter H" was treated with the same barbarous caprice of old as now,
being omitted where it should stand, and interpolated where it should not.
Thus we meet with ora, ortulus, omo, ospitium, onestus; and on the other
hand, hædiculus, helephantus, horiundus, hordini, Hosiris, and post
hobitum. Those who omit the aspirate, however, are always more numerous
than those who insert it; in Italy they ultimately gained the ascendancy,
and it is banished in pronunciation from modern Italian, which follows in
this respect the usage of the old Romans, who said ædos and ircos.[53] The
frequent substitution of _b_ for _v_ on later monuments, bibi for vivi,
bixit for vixit, lebo for levo, habe for ave, was caused by _b_ being
pronounced both in Greek and Latin with a slight aspiration,[54] whence
we find Greek writers representing Varro by [Greek: Barrhôn], and Flavius
by [Greek: Phlabios].
* * * * *
The record of the trades and professions of the deceased, which the Roman
sepulcral inscriptions contain, often afford a curious insight into the
differences of manners and customs between the ancient and the modern
world. They supply the deficiencies of the notices in books, or explain
obscure and solitary passages in the classics. One difference is obvious.
There was no false shame in acknowledging the humble station which the
deceased had filled in life. The dealer in pigs is recorded as a
"negotiator suarius;" the female greengrocer as a "negotiatrix frumentaria
et leguminaria," who kept a stall beside one of the flights of steps
descending to the Tiber.[55] It would not be mentioned now on the tomb of
a medical practitioner, that he had begun by practising his art in many
market-places "fora multa secutus."[56] Perhaps the most remarkable
instance of the difference between ancient and modern ideas in this
respect is furnished by the tomb of Æmilia Irene, whose husband calls
himself "stupidus gregis urbani," the clown of the city company of
mountebanks.[57] The profession still finds candidates, but their vocation
would hardly be recorded on their funeral monuments. The difference of
feeling in ancient times may, perhaps, be accounted for from the
circumstance, that these mountebanks exhibited at festivals in honour of
the gods, and so acquired a certain respectability. The Christian writer,
Arnobius, reproaches the Pagans with this practice. "Mimis dei delectantur
stupidorum capitibus rasis, factis et dictis turpibus, fascinorum
ingentium rubore."[58] L. Cornelius Januarius is recorded on his monument
to have been the _fanaticus_ of the temples of Isis, Serapis, and Bellona,
that is, one of those who were hired by the priests to stimulate the zeal
of votaries by wild and frantic gestures, supposed to indicate the
inspiration of the divinity.[59] The Grex Romanus inscribe a monument to
the actor of pantomimes, Pylades, who first brought the Ion and Troades of
Euripides on the Roman stage, and for his admirable acting had received
the compliment of decurional ornaments from the most considerable cities
of Italy.[60] The sepulcral inscriptions bear testimony to the minute
subdivisions of the arts of public amusement. We owe to one of them the
knowledge, that when Greek mimes (farces) were performed to the populace
at Rome, a _vivâ voce_ explanation in the Latin language answered the
purpose of a translated libretto.[61] Ursus Togatus glorifies himself in
his inscription, as the first who had exhibited feats of graceful
dexterity with a ball of glass, for the amusement of those who frequented
the baths of Trajan, Agrippa, Titus, and Nero.[62] The ancient
sleight-of-hand men appear to have at least rivalled the Indian jugglers.
One of them has even been thought worthy of commemoration by the Byzantine
historian, Nicephorus Gregoras.[63] He could throw up a glass-ball into
the air and catch it as it fell on the point of his finger-nail, the end
of his elbow, and other parts of his body. Another inscription boasts that
the subject of it could transfix an arrow in its flight with another
arrow. Instances are recorded of early proficiency in theatrical arts.
Eucharis, who died at the age of fourteen, declares herself on her tomb to
have been
Docta, erodita pæne Musarum manu;
Quæ modo nobilium ludos decoravi choro
Et Græca in scena prima populo apparui.
A still more remarkable instance of precocity is that of L. Valerius, who
in his thirteenth year was crowned in the Capitol in a contest of Latin
poetry.[64] The theatrical inscriptions, which generally relate to Greeks,
are of a boastful character, foreign to the genius of the Romans. The
death of Vitalis, an actor and mimic, must have been a public calamity,
"eclipsing the gaiety of nations," if we believe his epitaph.
Me viso rabidi subito cecidere furores;
Ridebat summus me veniente dolor.
Non licuit quenquam mordacibus urere curis,
Nec rerum incerta mobilitate trahi.
Vincebat cunctos præsentia nostra timores,
Et mecum felix quælibet hora fuit.
Fingebam vultus, habitus ac verba loquentum
Ut plures uno crederes ore loqui.
Ipse etiam, quem nostra oculis geminabat imago,
Horruit in vultu se magis esse meo.
_i. e._ the person imitated was startled to find the imitation look more
like him than himself![65] One instance, however, of a different kind we
may quote, which for its expressive simplicity might be placed on the
monument of a Macready. INGENUUM COMOEDUM, PROPTER SINGULAREM ARTIS
PRUDENTIAM ET MORUM PROBITATEM. The latter quality appears to have been
rare among theatrical performers, and we can forgive the fierce zeal of
the Christian Fathers against the stage, when we read on the tomb of a
girl who was training for pantomime,--
Cujus in octava lascivia surgere messe
Coeperat, et dulces fingere nequitias.[66]
Before leaving what may be called the external peculiarities of Roman
sepulcral inscriptions, we may notice the custom of placing on the tomb
representations of the implements employed by the deceased in his
occupation. The tomb of a baker, discovered a few years since near the
Porta Maggiore at Rome, was constructed in the form of an oven, and
sculptured on it were the loaves, the kneading trough, and the mill worked
by an ass.[67] From the tomb of Cossutius, a carpenter, we learn the form
of the square, plumb-line, compasses, callipers, and chisel, the last
being exactly in the form of the _celt_, about which antiquaries have
learnedly written. The ornatrix, or tirewoman, announces her vocation in
life by a mirror, with a phial of perfume; the tabellarius, or postman, by
a theca graphiaria, or pen-and-ink case; the mensor ædificiorum, by a
decempeda, or ten-foot rule; the cultrarius, or cutler, by knives. The
occurrence of these emblems on Christian tombs is said to have given rise
to the reputation of unauthorized martyrdoms, the cutler being supposed to
have been flayed alive, the wool-carder to have been torn to pieces with
iron combs, the blacksmith to have been tortured with the forceps, the
carpenter to have been sawn in two.[68] This custom continued in the
middle ages. A tombstone in the museum of the Yorkshire Philosophical
Society has a bell and a melting-pot engraved upon it, indicating that it
covered the tomb of a bell-founder, and similar emblems have been found in
Bakewell Church and elsewhere.[69] At the present day military and naval
monuments alone display professional emblems.
It does not appear possible from the inscriptions on tomb-stones to deduce
any inference respecting the average length of human life in the centuries
which they embrace. They usually record with exactness the age of the
deceased; often with the mention of the months, days, and hours; but they
are only fragments of the record of mortality as it originally existed,
and that record was itself very imperfect. Vast numbers were, of course,
burnt or buried, to whom no monument was raised. There were pits without
the Esquiline Gate, in which the common people were buried promiscuously.
According to the statement of Ulpian, who wrote in the reign of Alexander
Severus, registers of population, age, sex, disease and death had been
kept with exactness by the censors for ten centuries, and from
observations grounded on these, according to Dr. Bissett Hawkins's Medical
Statistics,[70] from which I quote, the expectation or mean term of human
life among the Romans was thirty years; while that of England, according
to Mr. Finlaison, is fifty for the easy classes of society, and forty-five
for the whole population. I do not put much faith in bills of mortality of
the time of Servius Tullius, considering the rarity even of historical
documents in the early ages of Rome. The monuments, too, are, in a large
proportion of cases, to military men, who appear to have been cut off at
very early ages. But many reasons may be given why the average of life
should be shorter than in England. There was no provision for the poor
among them, unless the irregular profusion of _congiaria_ can be called
so; there were no public hospitals; the city was in many parts unhealthy;
their clothing not favourable to cleanliness, though remedied, in some
measure, by the bath; and life was often shortened by suicide, which was
regarded as venial if not meritorious. The average yielded by the
inscriptions would certainly be low; I have noticed one death at 102
years,[71] 90 of which were passed without disease, and one at 100,[72]
one at 92,[73] but these are rare. Valerius Julianus inscribes a monument
to his son, who was three years old, and his mother (mammulæ), who was 80.
Dispara damna lege Parcarum et stamina dispara;
Hæc ridenda mihi est, hic lacrymandus erit.
Hæc namque emeritos bis quadraginta per annos
Vixit; at hic tertio Consule natus obit.
Cur modo tam præceps, iterum tam sera fuisti
Funeris amborum dic rea Persephone.
Vix lucem vidisse satis qui vivere posset;
Vivere quæ nollet vix potuisse mori.[74]
We now approach a more interesting inquiry. What light do the Roman
sepulcral inscriptions throw upon the social relations, the domestic
affections, the religious belief of the people from whom they originate?
The voice of nature speaks more truly from the tomb than anywhere else;
and if monumental phrases at last become formulary and unmeaning, in their
origin at least they carry with them a deep significance, and express a
genuine sentiment. We feel curious to know how a people so different from
ourselves in manners and religion 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 Crassi_pes_, 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.[84]
Mothers regret, under the loss of their children, that they had ever
become mothers.
Cernis ut orba meis, hospes monumenta locavi,
Et tristis senior natos miseranda requiro.
Exemplis referenda mea est deserta senectus,
Ut steriles vere possint gaudere maritæ.[85]
Hæc quæcunque legis, devoto pectore, mater
Da lacrimas, et me sic peperisse dole.
Hic jacet, extinctus crudeli funere, natus
Ultima vivendi qui mihi causa fuit.[86]
The sentiment of the following inscription frequently occurs on monuments,
and has been imitated in modern times. MATER MONUMENTUM FECIT MOERENS
FILIO, EX QUO NIHIL UNQUAM DOLUIT, NISI CUM IS NON FUIT.[87]
We learn from the sepulcral inscriptions that the Romans had the same
familiar substitutes as ourselves for the formal appellations of father
and mother, _mamma_ and _tata_. The following inscription is found at
Rome: D.M. ZETHO CORINTHUS TATA EJUS ET NICE MAMMA. VIXIT. ANN. I. D.
VI.[88] These again had their affectionate diminutives, _mammula_ and
_tatula_. It is probable, however, that the use of them was confined to
freedmen, and to that class of society. In one instance[89] a man erects a
monument to his aged _bonne_, NONNÆ SUÆ. The word is not found in
classical Latinity; but it is the undoubted original of _nun_, and may
suggest that conventual vows were originally taken chiefly by aged
females. In Italy at the present day it is the familiar name for
grandmother.
The inscriptions of children on the tombs of their parents, as might be
expected, are more brief and general, expressive of gratitude and filial
piety: MATRI DULCISSIMÆ, PIENTISSIMÆ, or PIISSIMÆ, CARISSIMÆ, OPTIMÆ;
PATRI AMABILI, OPTIMO; or conjointly PARENTIBUS OPTIMIS, is the usual
style of these inscriptions. The monument of Meia records that she was
the mother of seven sons who had joined in raising a monument of Parian
marble to her memory.
Meia fui, felix septem circumdata natis;
Dum vixi adstabat turba tenella mihi.
Ut mihi grata vicem natorum turba referret
Hoc mihi de Pario marmore struxit opus.[90]
I must observe here, by way of caution, that the authors of fictitious
inscriptions have been nowhere more active than in producing _sentimental_
inscriptions. That on Julia Alpinula was received as genuine by Johannes
Müller, the historian of Switzerland and pronounced by Lord Byron to be
the most pathetic of human compositions. JULIA ALPINULA HIC JACEO.
INFELICIS PATRIS INFELIX PROLES DEÆ AVENTICÆ SACERDOS. EXORARE PATRIS
NECEM NON POTUI. MALE MORI IN FATIS ILLI ERAT. VIXI ANN. XXIII. The hint
was taken from Tacitus (Hist. 1, 68), where Cæcina is said to have put
Julius Alpinus, the chief man of Aventicum, to death. It was sent by
Paulus Gulielmus, a notorious literary impostor, to Lipsius, but the
original has never been seen, and it is now universally admitted to be a
forgery. Not a few of the poetical inscriptions in Burmann's "Anthologia"
are of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was certainly,
however, by no fraud of the author that the beautiful lines in Jortin's
"Lusus Poetici" beginning,--
Quæ te tam tenera rapuerunt Poeta juventa,
have been received into collections as ancient.
Among the sepulcral inscriptions arising out of the relations of life,
those of husbands and wives are naturally the most common. The celebrated
speech of Metellus Numidicus the Censor, when exhorting the Romans to
marriage, does not indicate a high appreciation of the female sex. "If,"
said he, "O Quirites, we could do without wives, we should all like to be
free from the annoyance; but since nature has so arranged things that we
can neither live comfortably with them nor at all without them, we should
put up with a temporary inconvenience for the sake of a permanent
benefit." Gellius, who reports the speech, naturally remarks that this was
no very powerful recommendation of matrimony, and that he should rather
have said that in general marriage had no troubles; that if they sometimes
seem to occur, they were few and light and easy to be borne, and were
thrown into the shade by greater pleasures and advantages; and that the
troubles which did arise did not happen to all, nor by the fault of
nature, but from the fault and injustice of husbands. Castricius, on the
other hand, vindicated Metellus, and maintained that as Censor he was
bound to tell the whole truth, known to himself and admitted by every one
else.[91] On such a subject it is not fair to take the evidence of books,
in which, in ancient times at least, only one side is heard; or of
satirists, who are, one and all, caricaturists, and very generally
ill-tempered men; or of poets, whose own lives were flagrantly licentious;
nor to draw conclusions respecting the character of Roman women generally
from a few notorious examples of vice in elevated stations. I believe that
we may obtain a truer as well as a more favourable conception of the
conjugal relation in the imperial times, from the sepulcral inscriptions.
They proceed from the middle classes, who give its moral character to a
community; they are very numerous, and I cannot but believe the testimony
which they bear to the general happiness of the married state.
The few inscriptions on women which have come down to us from the times of
the republic, show what were the practical, unostentatious, and
home-keeping qualities which were prized in the Roman matron, yet not
without those gifts of pleasant speech and graceful carriage which set off
the more solid virtues of female character.
Hospes quod deico paullum est: asta ac pellige.
Heic est sepulcrum pulcrum pulcrai feminæ.
Nomen parentes nominarunt Claudiam.
Suom mareitom corde dilexit souo.
Gnatos duo creavit: horunc alterum
In terra linquit, alium sub terra locat.
Sermone lepido, tum autem incessu commodo,
Domum servavit, lanam fecit. Dixi. Abei.[92]
The same qualities are predominant in an inscription of later date. HIC
SITA EST AMYMONE MARCI OPTIMA ET PULCHERRIMA, LANIFICA, PIA, PUDICA,
FRUGI, CASTA, DOMISEDA.[93] Intellectual accomplishments, however, were
not overlooked. JULIÆ LUC. FILIÆ TYRANNIÆ VIXIT ANN. XX.M.VIII. QUÆ
MORIBUS PARITER ET DISCIPLINA COETERIS FEMINIS EXEMPLO FUIT, AUTARCIUS
NURUI. LAURENTIUS UCSORI.[94] The married life of the Romans appears to
have been remarkably free from those domestic differences which Paley,
according to a well-known anecdote, considered to be a useful corrective
of its dulness. CONJUX INCOMPARABILIS, CUM QUA VIXI XXX ANNOS SINE
QUERELA; SINE JURGIO; SINE DISSIDIO; SINE ÆMULATIONE; SINE ULLA ANIMI
LÆSIONE, are testimonies constantly occurring on the part of husbands to
their wives. The collection of Fabretti contains several inscriptions,
declaring that this harmony had continued during half a century of married
life.[95] The monuments erected by wives to their husbands are less
numerous, but they bear the same testimony to conjugal harmony. D.M. D.
JUNI PRIMIGENIO QUI VIXIT ANNIS XXXV JUNIA PALLAS FECIT, CONJUGI KARISSIMO
ET PIENTISSIMO DE SE BENEMERENTI, CUM QUO VIXIT ANNIS XV MENSES VI
DULCITER SINE QUERELA.[96] We find a husband recording on the tomb of his
wife his vow never to contract a second marriage. TEMPIUS HERMEROS CONJUGI
CARISSIMÆ FECIT CON (sic) QUA VIXIT ANNOS XVIII SINE QUERELA. CUJUS
DESIDERIO JURATUS EST SE POST EAM UXOREM NON HABITURUM.[97] It is not an
unfrequent sentiment, that the death of the wife was the very first cause
of sorrow that she had given to her husband, as in the following example
at Rome. T. FL. CAPITO CONJUGI CASTISSIMÆ PIISSIMÆ ET DE SE OPTIME MERITÆ,
DE QUA NULLUM DOLOREM NISI ACERBISSIMÆ MORTIS EJUS ACCEPERAT.[98]
One inscription might seem to indicate a different feeling, a husband
saying of his wife on her monument, CUJUS IN DIE MORTIS GRATIAS MAXIMAS
EGI APUD DEOS ET APUD HOMINES; and the editor, Orelli, remarks upon it
"mirum dicterium!"--a strange sarcasm. It would, indeed, be not only
strange, but brutal, in the sense which he attributes to it, but it surely
admits the more candid construction that the husband had seen his wife
suffering long and was grateful for her release. It may be illustrated by
another. OMIDIA BASILISSA VIXIT ANNOS XXV. QUÆ POST LONGAS ET VARIAS
INFIRMITATES HOMINIBUS EXEMPTA EST. MISERA VALE. MACEDO MARITUS.[99] Such
too, was the import of the consolation which C. Publicius addresses to his
parents.
Tempera jam genitor lacrimis, tuque, O optima mater,
Desine jam flere: poenam non sentio mortis.
Poena fuit vita; requies mihi morte parata est.[100]
Death sometimes came speedily to blight the prospects of happiness. D. M.
L. ARULENUS SOSIMUS FECIT CLODIÆ CHARIDI SUÆ CONJUGI DULCISSIMÆ, QUÆ SI AD
VITÆ METAM PERVENISSET, NON HOMINIBUS NEQUE DIS INVIDISSET; SET VIX SECUM
VIXIT DIES XV.[101] The following inscription beautifully expresses the
wish that the harmony in which P. Manlius Surus and his wife had lived
might be prolonged in the joint resting-place of their remains; UT CONCORS
VIVORUM ANIMUS STETIT, ITA CONCORS MORTUORUM CINIS HIC JACEAT.[102] It is
sometimes recorded on the tombs of mothers by their husbands or their
children, that they had fulfilled the duty which the philosopher
Favorinus urged on the Roman matrons,[103] and Tansillo and Roscoe on the
women of Italy and England, that of being nurse as well as mother. GRATIÆ
ALEXANDRIÆ, INSIGNIS EXEMPLI AC PUDICITIÆ, QUÆ ETIAM FILIOS SUOS PROPRIIS
UBERIBUS EDUCAVIT, PUDENS MARITUS. LICINIÆ PROCESSÆ, MATRI PIÆ NUTRICI
DULCISSIMÆ, CRESCENS FECIT.[104]
We find traces, however, of the effects of the facility of divorce.
Northern superstition has represented a mother as disquieted in her grave
by the ill-usage of her children, and coming in nightly visions to terrify
their stepmother into better treatment of them; but a Roman mother lived
to record on the tomb of her son that he had been poisoned by his
stepmother. D. M. L. HOSTILI TER SILVANI ANN. XXIV. M. II. D. XV. MATER
FILIO PIISSIMO. MISERA ET IN LUCTU ÆTERNALI BENEFICIO (VENEFICIO)
NOVERCÆ.[105] Another conjugal tribute discloses a singular result of the
same state of the law. T. Sentius Januarius and L. Terentius Trophimus
jointly raise a memorial to Hostilia Capriola.[106] She must have been
married to the one after having been divorced from the other; and as they
agree in calling her CONJUGI BENE MERENTI, we must suppose the first
marriage to have been dissolved without criminality on her part. Such an
association would seem strange, even in those continental countries, where
a divorced wife may sit at table between her first and second husband.
I will conclude this subject of the "affectus conjugum" by the quotation
of a beautiful inscription, said to have been found on a monument at Rome,
which is figured in Gruter.[107] It purports to be a dialogue between
Atimetus, a freedman of Tiberius Cæsar, and his deceased wife (collibertæ
et contubernali) Claudia Homonoea, the husband professing his desire to
die and rejoin his wife; the wife expressing her hope, that what had been
taken from her own life might be added to his. It has not escaped
suspicion, though the majority of critics admit its genuineness. If
genuine, it proceeds from the golden age of Latin literature; if the work
of a scholar of the sixteenth century, it will still have an interest for
the reader of taste.
Tu qui secura procedis mente parumper
Siste gradum quæso, verbaque pauca lege.
HOMONOEA.
Illa ego quæ claris fueram prælata puellis
Hoc Homonoea brevi condita sum tumulo.
Cui formam Paphie, Charites tribuere decorem;
Quam Pallas cunctis artibus erudiit.
Nondum bis denos ætas mea viderat annos:
Injecere manus invida fata mihi.
Nec pro me queror hoc, morte est mihi tristior ipsa
Moeror Atimeti conjugis ille mei.
ATIMETUS.
Si pensare animas sinerent crudelia fata
Et posset redimi morte aliena salus,
Quantulacumque meæ debentur tempora vitæ
Pensarem pro te, cara Homonoea libens.
At nunc, quod possum, fugiam lucemque deosque
Ut te matura per Styga morte sequar.
HOMONOEA.
Parce tuam conjux, fletu quassare juventam,
Fataque moerendo sollicitare mea.
Nil prosunt lacrimæ, nec possunt fata moveri:
Viximus: hic omnes exitus unus habet.
Parce: ita non unquam similem experiare dolorem,
Et faveant votis numina cuncta tuis.
Quodque mihi eripuit more immatura juventæ
Id tibi victuro proroget ulterius.
We know from the Latin poets that favourite animals were honoured by a
monument ("Lusciniæ tumulum si Thelesina dedit," Martial, 7, 86). The
following inscription on a pet greyhound is found in the "Anthologia:"--
Docta per incertas audax discurrere silvas
Collibus hirsutas atque agitare feras;
Non gravibus vinclis unquam consueta teneri,
Verbera nec niveo corpore sæva pati.
Molli namque sinu domini dominæque jacebam,
Et noram in strato lassa cubare toro.
Et plus quam licuit muto canis ore loquebar;
Nulli latratus pertimuere meos.[108]
D. M. is even prefixed to the epitaph on a Barbary mare (equa Gætulica),
named Speudusa ([Greek: speudousa]), who is declared to be fleet as the
wind, "flabris compar." After the example of the Greeks, the Romans gave
significant names to their race and chariot horses, several of which are
preserved on the monument of Diodes, the driver of the Red Faction.[109]
* * * * *
There still remains the most interesting of all the subjects of inquiry
which the Roman sepulcral inscriptions suggest, what was the state of
religious feeling and belief among the people with whom they originated?
The natural affections, springing from sources which exist in every human
breast, will express themselves with a certain similarity in all ages and
countries. But there is a wide difference in the religious faith and
sentiment with which the bereavements of life are met, and which find
their record on the funeral monument. One remarkable contrast strikes us
on comparing ancient with modern, Heathen with Christian inscriptions--the
entire absence in the former of anything like resignation to the will of a
superior Power, or any acknowledgment of a benevolent purpose in a painful
dispensation. If the gods are alluded to it is in the way of complaint.
MANUS LEBO (levo) CONTRA DEUM QUI ME INNOCENTEM SUSTULIT,[110] is a bold
defiance of Providence. Cornelius Victor, who died at the age of
thirty-one, complains that his virtues had not secured him a longer life.
VIXI SEMPER BENE UT VOLUI. NEMINEM LÆSI. CUR MORTUUS SIM NESCIO;[111]
while Marsilia Stabilis regrets that her eminent piety could not purchase
exemption from the common destiny.
Si pietate aliquam redimi fatale fuisset,
Marsilia Stabilis prima redemta forem.[112]
If such a feeling of impatience and complaint could be allowed, we might
sympathize with T. Claudius Hermes, who inscribes a monument, MERULÆ UXORI
BENE DE SE MERENTI ET CAMPILIO ALBUNO INFANTI DULCISSIMO QUOS DII IRATI
UNO DIE ÆTERNO SOMNO DEDERUNT.[113] Antinous and Panthea, who placed on
the tomb of their infant daughter Isiatis the sentiment, QUAM DI AMAVERUNT
HAC MORITUR INFAS, appear from their names to have been Greeks, and to
have copied the Greek poet Menander.[114]
Nor does the deceased speak from the tomb with any words of consolation
to those who are left behind, except that cold comfort, the "solamen
miseris socios habuisse doloris." C. Gavius Primigenius, who died at the
age of seven, thus addresses his mother:--
Desine jam mater lacrimis renovare querelas
Namque dolor talis non tibi contigit uni.[115]
The possibility that longer life might have been vicious or unhappy is
urged as a motive to abstain from grief, as in the inscription on Lucia
Toreuma, who died at the age of nineteen:--
Exiguo, vitæ spacio feliciter acto
Effugi crimen longa senecta tuum.[116]
There would be no difficulty in deciding between the two following
inscriptions, in each of which a deceased mother addresses her surviving
husband and children, which of them proceeded from a Heathen and which
from a Christian source:--
Care marite mihi, dulcissima nata valete,
Et memores nostris semper date justa sepulcris.[117]
Parcite vos lacrimis dulces cum conjuge natæ
Viventemque Deo credits flere nefas.[118]
Nor are inscriptions wanting which declare the vanity of human wishes,
and the fallaciousness of human hopes;--
Decipimur votis et tempore fallimur, et mors
Deridet curas; anxia vita nihil,
is a distich which frequently occurs.[119] VIVE LÆTUS QUIQUE (quicunque)
VIVIS. VITA PARVUM MUNUS EST MOX EXORTA EST SENSIM VIGESCIT DEINDE SENSIM
DEFICIT, expresses a similar sentiment. The sentiment on the tomb of
Vettius Hermes, MATER GENUIT ME, MATER RECEPIT, is not very different from
that of Scripture, "Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return." The
inscription, C. POMPEIUS EUPHROSYNUS ET JUNIA GEMELLA UXOR EJUS EX OMNIBUS
BONIS SUIS HOC SIBI SUMPSERUNT, that the grave in which they lay was all
they had retained of their possessions, reminds us of the passage, "We
brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can take
nothing out."
These and similar sentiments express truths forced everywhere on man's
notice, and which may be looked for in many countries, and under many
religions. The inquiry, to which we might especially expect that the
sepulcral inscriptions would furnish a full reply, is, what was the belief
of the Romans, in the ages to which these memorials belong, respecting the
condition of man after death. The almost universal commencement of
epitaphs with Diis Manibus, or the abbreviation D. M., might seem to
indicate an universal belief in the continued existence of the spiritual
part of his nature. For "the divine Manes" were the disembodied spirits of
men, waiting, according to those who believed in the transmigration of
souls, for reunion with another body; or, according to a more popular
conception, lingering around the tomb, acutely sensitive to any violation
or neglect, and gratified by the tokens of remembrance and affection; or
in a still different view, the presiding deities of the world of spirits
exercising a control over its inhabitants. Such must have been the
conception of Furia Spes, when in the inscription upon her husband's tomb
she addresses a prayer to the Manes, that she might be permitted to see
him in her nightly dreams. PETO VOS MANES SANCTISSIMÆ, COMMENDATUM
HABEATIS MEUM CONJUGEM ET VELITIS HUIC INDULGENTISSIMI ESSE, HORIS
NOCTURNIS UT EUM VIDEAM. ET ETIAM ME FATO SUO ADDERE VELIT, UT ET EGO
DULCIUS ET CELERIUS APUD EUM PERVENIRE POSSIM.[120] How far the formulary
mention of the Dii Manes on sepulcres may be taken as a proof of the
continued existence of the belief in which it undoubtedly originated is a
question very difficult to decide. Pliny, while he ridicules the
superstition, acknowledges the existence of the belief.[121] Juvenal, on
the contrary, declares that the belief in the Manes did not extend beyond
the nursery:--
Esse aliquid Manes et subterranea regna----
Nec pueri credunt nisi qui nondum ære lavantur.
Sat. 2, 149.
I should receive with caution the testimony of a poetical censor of his
age, who naturally fixes his eye on those circumstances only which justify
his fierce indignation. Nor do I draw any inference unfavourable to the
belief in a future existence from such expressions as "domus æterna,"
"quies æterna," and others of the same kind. They are found on Christian
sepulcres, and may have a reference to the body, which it was hoped might
never be disturbed in its peaceful resting-place. It is natural also to
regard the grave as a place of repose from the toils, the pains, and the
troubles of life, without believing it to be the "be-all and the end-all"
of man's history. Even the inscription, D. M. ET SOMNO ÆTERNALI.
SECURITATI MEMORIÆQUE PERPETUÆ ÆLIÆ FLAVIÆ MELITANÆ,[122] may not involve
that disbelief which the words "eternal sleep" seem to us to imply. From
the list of doubters, at all events, must be excluded T. Claudius
Panoptes, who erects a monument to his two daughters, in obedience to a
vision (ex viso), and placed this challenge to sceptics on their tomb. TU
QUI LEGES ET DUBITAS MANES ESSE, SPONSIONE FACTA INVOCA NOS ET
INTELLIGES.[123] On the other hand, it is not to be denied that many
inscriptions breathe a very Epicurean spirit. AMICI DUM VIVIMUS VIVAMUS,
was an exhortation rather to the enjoyment than the improvement of life.
The inscription on the tomb of Publius Clodius, QUOD COMEDI ET EBIBI
TANTUM MEUM EST, seems copied from that of Sardanapalus.[124] Such
sentiments, openly professed, revolt our moral taste. The most determined
modern votary of luxury and pleasure would not imitate Claudius Secundus,
in declaring, HIC SECUM HABET OMNIA. BALNEA VINA VENUS CORRUMPUNT CORPORA
NOSTRA. SED VITAM FACIUNT BALNEA VINA VENUS.[125] Public opinion, and,
indeed, public authority, now impose restraints on the profession of
irreligious or immoral sentiments, which were unknown to the more
free-spoken Romans. In truth, at the time to which our inscriptions
belong, though there was a national _cultus_, there cannot be said to have
been a national religion.
Even when their epitaphs imply a hope of a future existence, it is of that
doubtful and hypothetical kind, with the expression of which Tacitus
closes his life of Agricola. "_Si_ quis piorum Manibus locus; si, ut
sapientibus placet, non cum corpore extinguuntur magnæ animæ, placide
quiescas."
Suscipe nunc conjunx, si quis post funera sensus,
Debita sacratis Manibus officia.[126]
The expression of a more confident hope, as in the two following
inscriptions, does not exclude the suspicion that there it may be rather
poetical imagery than religious faith. Atilia Marcella thus speaks in the
name of her deceased husband Fabatus:--
Terrenum corpus, coelestis spiritus in me;
Quo repetente sedem suam nunc vivimus illic,
Et fruitur superis æterna in luce Fabatus.[127]
The mother of Theodote thus consoles herself for the loss of her daughter,
who was hardly five years old.
Virginis hic teneræ, lector miserere sepultæ;
Unius huic lustri vix fuit acta dies.
O quam longinquæ fuerat dignissima vitæ
Heu! cujus vivit nunc sine fine dolor--
Sola tamen tanti restant solatia luctus
Quod tales animæ protinus astra petunt.[128]
Upon the whole the evidence, negative even more than positive, of the
Roman sepulcral inscriptions, abundantly confirms the testimony of heathen
as well as Christian writers, to the absence of any definite and practical
belief in a future state, in the three or four first centuries after the
Christian æra. Yet few would be able tranquilly to acquiesce in the
doctrine of annihilation. They sought in other sources for that assurance
which neither religion nor philosophy could afford them. Never was the
practice of magic, incantations, necromancy, and mysteries more prevalent
than during the period in which Christianity was slowly supplanting the
ancient superstitions. It was evident that the fulness of the times was
come, and that if the world were not to be divided between the victims of
religious imposture and the disciples of Epicurus, light from on high must
visit the earth.
Other inscriptions, not properly sepulcral, afford the same proof of the
loss of all vital power in the old religion. Among all the religious
monuments which the Museum of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society
contains, there is not one to Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, or any of the great
gods of the popular creed. There is one to Hercules--a hero, not a god;
one to Fortune--a deified personification; one to the Genius of the
place--an elegant creation of poetry; one to the fictitious deity of the
Emperor. The gods of the barbarians have evidently dethroned those of
Greece and Rome. The legate of a Roman Legion records that he has rebuilt
from the foundation a temple of the Egyptian Serapis. A Roman commander
must have constructed the cave in which the mystic rites of the Asiatic
Mithras were performed. We have an altar to the tutelary goddess of
Brigantia; to Viterineus, a local deity of the neighbourhood of Hadrian's
Wall; and, lastly, to the god Arciacon, wholly unknown but from this
unique inscription. It is evident that the popular religion was altogether
"a creed outworn." Art had familiarized men with the human representations
of their deities; and even by the perfection of its visible and material
works had destroyed the belief in their spiritual existence and invisible
power. Philosophy had exposed the folly of an anthropomorphic polytheism;
poetry and the stage had made the gods contemptible. Nothing was left
which could awaken reverence or love: instead of aiding, the popular
religion checked the impulse of the mind to connect the ideas of
infinitude and deity. But in the gods of the barbarous nations, who had
remained without art, and without a mythology converting gods into men,
there was something obscure, mysterious, and indefinite; something on
which imagination could fasten, and which it could readily invest with
supernatural attributes. He who looked on the Apollo of the Belvedere with
no other feeling than that he beheld the triumph of the sculptor's art in
action and expression, was overcome with a religious awe when he gazed on
the unmeaning faces and half-bestial forms of Egyptian deities. The genius
of Rome was tolerant of all religions but the true; a hearty belief in the
gods of his own Pantheon would not have prevented a Roman soldier from
doing homage to those of the country in which he was quartered, and
seeking thus to gain their favour or avert their displeasure. But this
will not account for the extensive diffusion of the worship of Phrygia and
Thrace, Persia and Egypt, throughout the Roman empire. It was certainly an
indication of a restless longing for something that could supply
nourishment to the craving for religious faith which exists in the heart
of man, and feeds itself on superstition when it can find no purer
aliment.
Among the sights of modern Rome there is none more interesting than that
long gallery of the Vatican called _Delle Lapidi_. On the right-hand wall
are encased the sepulcral and other monuments of emperors, consuls and
commanders of legions, with their numerous and pompous titles;
inscriptions to the gods and their priests. The elaborate and tasteful
ornaments, the finely-cut letters, the classical Latinity--all indicate
the rank and station of those by whom or in whose honour they were raised.
On the left are the Christian monuments, chiefly supplied by the
Catacombs, which, during the ages of the obscurity and persecution of the
Church, served the Christians for sanctuary and cemetery, and even for a
temporary dwelling-place. The slabs from their tombs are of coarse
material--not Parian, or Carrara marble, or Egyptian porphyry; the letters
are rudely made, the spelling and the syntax betray the humble rank and
imperfect literary attainments of those who supplied them. No mention is
made of ample space allotted to the tomb, no anxious care is expressed to
perpetuate the inheritance or provide for a long succession of occupants.
The Christian perhaps fell asleep in the expectation that the second
coming of his Lord, to call the tenants of the tomb to judgment, would not
be delayed beyond a few years. The Roman of family had three names; the
Christian had no _gens_ with which to claim affinity; he was a
proletarian, a mere unit amidst the millions. One simple name served to
identify him; his sepulcre might even be nameless--a circumstance of most
rare occurrence in regard to Pagan tombs.[129] How strikingly does the
contrast confirm the declaration of the Apostle, that "not many wise men
after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble were called."[130] But to
this contrast there is another side. The heathen monuments represent a
decayed and dying superstition; the Christian, a living and triumphant
faith--"the weak things of the world chosen to confound the strong." Their
inscriptions speak of resignation, peace, and confidence; their emblems,
the Good Shepherd, the Dove, the Anchor, the Ark of Noah, all breathe the
same peaceful, humble, and yet hopeful spirit.
* * * * *
The literature of what the Germans call _Epigraphik_, that branch of
archæology which treats of inscriptions, is uncommonly rich--so rich,
indeed, as to be embarrassing. The scholars of Italy, with Muratori and
Maffei at their head, have been pre-eminent in their labours, which alone
would form a library. The inscriptions of Gaul and Helvetia, and of the
Roman settlements on the Rhine and Danube, have been illustrated in
special works. Those of our country may be found in Horsley's "Britannia
Illustrata," in the later work of Lysons, in Dr. Bruce's "Roman Wall,"
and Stuart's "Caledonia Illustrata." The great repository, in which all
that was known at the commencement of the eighteenth century has been
collected, is the "Inscriptiones Antiquæ totius orbis Romani," four
volumes, folio, begun by Joseph Scaliger, and enlarged by the successive
labours of Gruter and Grævius. These, with the folios of Fabretti and
Reinesius, are indispensable in the library of an archæologist, who
devotes himself to the study of inscriptions. The general scholar will
find an admirable selection in the work of Orelli, to which a supplemental
volume has been lately added by Henzen.[131] The monuments are carefully
classified; they are illustrated, without being overwhelmed with notes,
and more care is taken than in any previous collection, to separate the
spurious from the genuine inscriptions. Nowhere has mischievous ingenuity
been more actively at work than in the forgery of Latin inscriptions,
especially in the sixteenth century, when the revival of classical studies
gave value to every relic of antiquity, and the infancy of archæological
science rendered imposture easy. Among those who have deserved the
reprobation of scholars by their forgeries, Pyrrhus Ligorius stands
pre-eminent. Ligorio was a Neapolitan by birth, a skilful artist and
architect, who, with considerable taste for antiquities, but little
knowledge, employed himself in making collections of drawings of ancient
buildings, and copies of inscriptions and medals, which, when bound in
volumes, he sold at high prices to the munificent patrons of learning who
then abounded in Italy. Thirty-five of these volumes, in imperial folio,
are in the Royal Library of Turin, and others are, or were, in the Library
of the Vatican, and of the princely families of Rome. The temptation of
gain was too strong for his honesty, and finding invention easier than
research and discovery, he began to forge inscriptions in order to make up
his volumes. He is said to have been ignorant of the Latin language, but
either this must be a mistake, or he was aided by some one of superior
attainments to his own: for many of his forgeries prove the skill with
which they were made, by the currency which they have obtained. He has
frequently combined fragments of different inscriptions; or taken names
from the "Consular Fasti," and inserted them so as to give his patchwork
an air of genuineness. There can be no doubt that he really copied many
inscriptions; but his bad faith has cast a shade over everything which
rests on his sole authority. He is by no means the only one who has
brought on himself the malison of antiquaries and historians, by thus
corrupting the sources of historical evidence. The greatest caution is
necessary in citing an inscription, of which the alleged original no
longer exists, if it be not vouched by unexceptionable authority. On the
other hand, some reputations which had been tarnished by the suspicion of
the forgery of ancient inscriptions, have been vindicated by Time. The
name of Cyriac of Ancona was once a bye-word among scholars for a
shameless impostor, who had passed his own inventions on the world as
genuine remains of antiquity. Yet he is now admitted to have acted with
good faith,[132] although through haste and ignorance he may have copied
inaccurately and been imposed upon by others. It is ascertained that the
collection of Spanish inscriptions which has passed under his name, and
which has given rise to the heaviest imputations against him, was
fraudulently put forth and attributed to him.
Inscriptions have also been rejected on grounds of taste by critics, who
did not sufficiently reflect, that in an age when all other style had been
corrupted by affectation and bombast, the lapidary style could hardly have
retained its original character of modesty, conciseness, and simplicity.
Many sepulcral inscriptions, some of which have been quoted in the
preceding pages, are preserved in MS. collections, and have been
introduced into the "Anthologia Latina," which was begun by Scaliger, and
continued by Pithoeus; and attained its most complete form in the hands of
Peter Burmann.[133] About 400 sepulcral inscriptions are included in it,
extending from the time of the Scipios, even down to the twelfth century
after the birth of Christ, and including of course many which are the
production of Christian authors. Some of more recent composition have
found their way into these collections; but the majority attest their own
genuineness by their unrefined phraseology, and their violation of the
laws of prosody--faults which no modern scholar would have allowed himself
to commit.
ADDENDUM TO PAGE 7, NOTE 2.
As I have not seen the existence of burial clubs among the Romans noticed
in any work on Roman antiquities, I will give some extracts from the
monument referred to. It was found at Lanuvium, a town of ancient fame for
the worship of Juno Sospita, about nineteen miles from Rome on the Via
Appia. The inhabitants of this town appear, out of flattery towards the
Emperor Hadrian, in whose reign the marble was erected, to have formed
themselves into a college for paying divine honours to Diana and Antinous;
a singular combination, which shows at once the degraded condition of the
people, and the heartless formality of the established religion, which
could be prostituted to such a purpose. The privilege of forming a
college--or as we should say a body corporate--was most sparingly
conceded, and most jealously restricted under the Emperors, who dreaded
all secret associations as nurseries of treason. With this primary object
of forming a college of the "Cultores Dianæ et Antinoi" they combined
that of a burial club, not forgetting the festivities which formed so
important a part of all acts of religion among the Romans. To prevent
disputes, the laws of the association were inscribed on marble, and
probably set up in the temple of the two deities.
An amphora of good wine was to be presented to the club by a new member;
the sum of one hundred sesterces to be paid as entrance-money, and five
_asses_ per month as subscription. Their meetings were not to take place
oftener than once a month. If any one omitted payment for ... months (the
marble is here mutilated) no claim could be made, even though he had
directed it by will. In case of the death of one who had paid his
subscription regularly, three hundred sesterces were allotted for his
funeral expenses, out of which, however, fifty were to be set apart for
distribution at the cremation of the body. The funeral was to be a walking
one. If any one died more than twenty miles from Lanuvium, and his death
was announced, three delegates from the college were to repair to the
place where he had died to perform his funeral, and render an account to
the people. Fraud was to be punished by a fourfold fine. Twenty sesterces
each were to be allowed the delegates for travelling expenses, going and
returning. If the death had taken place more than twenty miles from
Lanuvium, and no notice had been sent, the person who had performed the
funeral was to send a sealed certificate, attested by seven Roman
citizens, on the production of which the usual sum for the expenses was to
be granted. If a member of the college had left a will, only the heir
named in it could claim anything. If he died intestate, the
_quinquennales_, or magistrates of the municipium, and the people
generally, were to direct how the funeral should take place. If any member
of the college in the condition of a slave should die, and his body,
through the unjust conduct of his master or mistress, should not be given
up for burial, his funeral should be celebrated by his bust being carried
in procession. No funeral of a suicide was to take place. There are many
other rules tending to preserve order and promote good fellowship, but
these are all which relate to the burial club. I subjoin extracts from the
original. The purpose of the incorporation of the college is thus
declared:--
COLLEGIUM SALUTARE DIANÆ ET ANTINOI CONSTITUTUM EX SENATUS POPULIQUE
ROMANI DECRETO QUIBUS COIRE CONVENIRE COLLEGIUMQUE HABERE LICEAT. QUI
STIPEM MENSTRUAM CONFERRE VOLEAT IN FUNERA, IN ID COLLEGIUM COEANT,
NEQUE SUB SPECIE EJUS COLLEGII NISI SEMEL IN MENSE COEANT, CONFERENDI
CAUSA UNDE DEFUNCTI SEPELIANTUR.
TU QUI NOVOS (_NOVUS_) IN HOC COLLEGIO INTRARE VOLES, PRIUS LEGEM
PERLEGE ET SIC INTRA, NE POSTMODUM QUERARIS, AUT HEREDI TUO
CONTROVERSIAM RELINQUAS.
LEX COLLEGI PLACUIT UNIVERSIS, UT QUISQUIS IN HOC COLLEGIUM INTRARE
VOLUERIT, DABIT KAPITULARI NOMINE H.S. (_SESTERTIOS_) C. NUMMOS, ET
VINI BONI AMPHORAM, ITEM IN MENSES SING. ASSES V.
ITEM PLACUIT UT QUISQUIS MENSIBUS CONTINUIS ________ NON PARIAVERIT,
ET EI HUMANITUS ACCIDERIT, EJUS RATIO FUNERIS NON HABEBITUR, ETIAM SI
TESTAMENTUM FACTUM HABUERIT.
ITEM PLACUIT UT QUISQUIS EX HOC CORPORE NUMMOS PARIATUS DECESSERIT EUM
SEQUENTUR EX ARCA H.S. CCC NUMMI, EX QUA SUMMA DECEDENT EXEQUIARI
NOMINE H.S. L. NUMMI, QUI AD ROGUS (_ROGOS_) DIVIDENTUR, EXEQUIÆ AUTEM
PEDIBUS FUNGENTUR.
ITEM PLACUIT QUISQUIS A MUNICIPIO ULTRA MILLIARIA XX DECESSERIT, ET
NUNTIATUM FUERIT, EO EXIRE DEBEBUNT ELECTI EX CORPORE NOSTRO HOMINES
TRES, QUI FUNERIS EJUS CURAM AGANT ET RATIONEM POPULO REDDERE DEBEBUNT
SINE DOLO MALO, ET SI QUIT (_QUID_) IN EIS FRAUDIS CAUSA INVENTUM
FUERIT EIS MULTA ESTO QUADRUPLUM QUIBUS (_FUNERATICIUM_) EJUS
DABITUR. HOC AMPLIUS VIATICI NOMINE, ULTRO CITRO, SINGULIS H.S. XX
NUMMI.
QUOD SI LONGIUS A MUNICIPIO SUPRA MILLIARIA XX DECESSERIT ET NUNTIARI
NON POTUERIT, TUM IS QUI EUM FUNERAVERIT TESTATOR REM TABULIS SIGNATIS
SIGILLIS CIVIUM ROMANORUM VII ET PROBATA CAUSA FUNERATICIUM EJUS
SATISDATO.
NEQUE PATRONO NEQUE PATRONÆ NEQUE DOMINO NEQUE DOMINÆ NEQUE CREDITORI
EX HOC COLLEGIO ULLA PETITIO ESTO NISI SI QUIS TESTAMENTO HERES
NOMINATUS ERIT. SI QUIS INTESTATUS DECESSERIT IS ARBITRIO
QUINQUENNALIUM ET POPULI FUNERABITUR.
ITEM PLACUIT QUISQUIS EX HOC COLLEGIO SERVUS DEFUNCTUS FUERIT, ET
CORPUS EJUS A DOMINO DOMINAVE INIQUITATE SEPULTURÆ DATUM NON FUERIT,
NEQUE TABELLAS FECERIT, EI FUNUS IMAGINARIUM FIET.
ITEM PLACUIT QUISQUIS EX QUACUMQUE CAUSA MORTEM SIBI ADSCIVERIT EJUS
RATIO FUNERIS NON HABEBITUR.
ITEM PLACUIT UT QUISQUIS SERVUS EX HOC COLLEGIO LIBER FACTUS FUERIT,
IS DARE DEBEBIT VINI BONI AMPHORAM.
This curious document affords an additional proof how much ancient life is
found to resemble the modern, when we gain an insight into its interior
through the medium of its monuments. By this means institutions and
customs which have been thought peculiar to recent or mediæval times may
be traced upwards, through Rome and Greece, even to the fountains of
civilization in Egypt and the East.
THE END.
Woodfall and Kinder, Printers, Angel Court, Skinner Street, London.
The ground on which the Museum, Library, and Lecture-Theatre, with the
Botanic Garden and Observatory, of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society
stand, was originally covered by the monastic buildings of the abbey of
St. Mary. In a portion of the same buildings was established the court and
palace of the Lord President of the Council of the North. The tyrannical
proceedings of this Council, especially under the presidency of the Earl
of Strafford, had a great share in bringing about the fate both of the
Earl himself and his royal master. This remarkable succession of occupancy
suggested the following inscription, in which it may be observed that it
is to monkery, not to the religion of the Middle Ages universally, that
the epithet in the ninth line is applied.
QUO· PRIMUM· LOCO
COENOBIUM· BEATÆ· VIRGINIS· MARIÆ
DEINDE· PROCURATORIS· REGII· PALATIUM· STETIT
COMITATUS EBORACENSIS
HAS· ÆDES· COLLATA· PECUNIA· EXSTRUCTAS
OMNIUM· DISCIPLINARUM· STUDIIS· DICAVIT.
TU· QUI· LEGIS· AGNOSCE
NOSTRI· SÆCULI· FELICITATEM
QUO· ANIMIS· HOMINUM· SUPERSTITIONE· LIBERATIS
TYRANNORUM· VIOLENTIA· LEGIBUS· FRÆNATA
HARUM· IPSIS· IN· SEDIBUS· LICUIT· PHILOSOPHIÆ
DOMICILIUM· SUUM· COLLOCARE.
PUBLICATIONS BY THE REV. JOHN KENRICK.
AN ESSAY ON PRIMÆVAL HISTORY.
_Price 5s._
Ambagibus ævi
Obtegitur densa caligine mersa vetustas.
SILIUS ITALICUS.
ANCIENT EGYPT UNDER THE PHARAOHS.
_2 Vols. 8vo. Price 30s._
[Greek: Ariprepeôn genos andrôn,
Hoi prôtoi biotoio diestêsanto keleuthous,
Prôtoi d' himeroentos epeirêsanto arotrou,
Prôtoi de grammêsi polon diemetênrêsanto,
Thymô phrassamenoi loxon dromon êelioio.]
DIONYSII _Periegesis_, 232.
PHOENICIA.
_1 Vol. With Maps and Illustrative Plates. Price 16s._
Phoenices, solers hominum genus et ad belli pacisque munia eximium;
literas et literarum opera aliasque etiam artes, maria navibus adire,
classe confligere, imperitare gentibus commenti.--POMP. MELA, I. 12.
LONDON:
T. FELLOWES, LUDGATE STREET.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The tomb of the Scipios on the Appian Way was discovered in the year
1780, and its inscriptions have been illustrated by the two Viscontis.
They are now in the Vatican. The oldest of them, that of L. C. Scipio
Barbatus, is of the beginning of the third century B.C.
[2] See Proceedings of Yorkshire Philos. Society, vol. i. p. 53.
[3] Hieronym. ad Es. 7, 14. Augustin Tract. 15 in Evang. Joann.
[4] Kirchmann de Funer. Rom. c. 20, 21. Dodwell, 1, 428.
[5] Sylv. 2, 2, 13.
[6] C. Nep. Att. 22. Vict. Epit. 60.
[7] H. E. Smith, Reliquiæ Isurianæ.
[8] Morcelli de Stylo Inscr. Lat. p. 363. Orelli, Inscr. 3998, 9. The
Romans had also their Burial Clubs. See the regulations of one, Henzen,
6086.
[9] Plin. N. H. 1241. Periti rerum asseverant non ferre Arabiam tantum
annuo foetu, quantum Nero novissimo Poppææ suæ die concremaverit. Juv.
Sat. 4, 108. "Matutino sudans Crispinus amomo, Quantum vix redolent duo
funera."
[10] Fabretti, p. 230.
[11] Archæologia, vol. 26, p. 270.
[12] Gruter, p. 898. Orelli, 6237.
[13] Anthol. 4, 271.
[14] Mommsen, Inscr. Neap. 4135.
[15] Henzen, Suppl. ad Orell. 6976, 7.
[16] Fabretti, p. 612.
[17] Orelli, 4859.
[18] Reines, p. 1000.
[19] The various and unsatisfactory conjectures of the learned respecting
this phrase may be seen in Facciolati s. v. _Ascia._ It occurs especially
on monuments in Lyons and Southern Gaul.
[20] Reines, p. 763.
[21] Gruter, pp. 844, 862. Augustus forbade his daughter Julia to be
interred in his monument.--Sueton. Octavianus, c. 101.
[22] Orelli, 4397. Fabretti p. 91.
[23] Gruter, p. 762, 5.
[24] Orelli, 4390.
[25] Orelli, 4360.
[26] Morcelli, de Stilo Inscr. p. 103.
[27] Meyer, Anthol. Lat. 1178. Singular is the inscription, "Semiramiæ
Licinianæ, quam loco filiæ diligo, ob merita ejus _vivus vivæ
feci_."--Orelli, 4676.
[28] Gruter, p. 607, 1.
[29] Reines, p. 388, 53. We find (Gruter, p. 399, 1) ten jugera of land
bequeathed "tutelæ nomine."
[30] Orelli, 4070.
[31] Fabretti, p. 232.
[32] Medicus jumentarius. Orelli, 4229, 4231. Valeria Verecunda is called
on her monument "Iatromeia (physician-midwife) regionis suæ prima."--Grut.
p. 1110.
[33] Gruter, p. 1148, Petron. Arb. p. 388. I have printed these lines as
hexameter and pentameter, for which they appear to have been intended,
though the author was "ill at these numbers." Faults of prosody are very
common in the poetical inscriptions, and prose and verse are sometimes
singularly intermixed.
[34] Fabretti, p. 715.
[35] Anthol. Lat. 4, 155.
[36] Meyer Anthol. 1438.
[37] Orelli, 2990.
[38] Anthol. 4, 101.
[39] From a monument recently discovered at Lambæsa, in Northern Africa.
The ellipsis of _magis_ before _quam_ is found in Latin authors,
especially Tacitus.--See Germ. 7. Cedere loco consilii quam formidinis
arbitrantur. A similar complaint of death by magic occurs on the grave of
a boy of four years old at Verona.--Maffei, Mus. Veron. 170.
[40] Mommsen, Inscr. Neap. 4870.
[41] Gruter, p. 831, 6.
[42] Orelli, 4600.
[43] Gruter, p. 340.
[44] Nat. Hist. 29, 1.
[45] Orelli, 4944.
[46] See Priscian, vi. 1, who quotes from old Latin authors, monetas for
monetæ; escas for escæ; and vias for viæ.
[47] Orelli, 2778. He observes, "_jacit_ est etiam in aliis Britannicis."
[48] Orelli, 4544. Dua obrendaria.
[49] Prisc. vi. 1.
[50] Anthol. Meyer, 1424.
[51] Gruter, p. 572.
[52] Fabretti, pp. 113, 575.
[53] Quinct. 1, 5, 20.
[54] B nec penitus caret aspiratione, nec eam plene possidet. Prisc. 1, 5,
26.
[55] Ab scala Mediana. Orelli, 3093. The grammarians condemn the use of
scala in the singular as a solecism. (Quinct. 1, 5, 16). M. Abudius
Luminaris, who raises this monument, had married his own freedwoman;
"Patronus idemque conjux." There are inscriptions by freedmen to patronæ,
who were also their wives. Such marriages were forbidden by Severus,
unless under the sanction of a judge; and when the patrona was of such
humble rank, "ut ei honestæ sint vel liberti sui nuptiæ." Fabretti, p.
290. Anicia Glycera (Orell. 4649) records her gratitude to her husband,
"qui ex imo ordine ad summum me perduxit honorem," as from a slave he had
made her his wife. The Greek slave would often be, in manners and culture,
superior to the Roman master.
[56] Spon. Misc. p. 143. There has been a great controversy respecting the
medical men of Rome--whether they were slaves; the monuments show them to
have been commonly Greek freedmen.
[57] Orelli, 2645.
[58] P. 239. Juv. 5, 170. An imitation of the _caput rasum_ appears to be
still the professional costume of the clown.
[59] Grut. p. 312, 7. Juv. 2, 112. Quinct. 11, 3.
[60] See in Smith's Dictionary, s. v. Bathyllus, an account of the
_furore_ of the Romans for the pantomimic representations and their
vicissitudes of imperial favour or prohibition.
[61] L. Marius Austus Enuntiator ab scæna Græca. Orelli, 2614.
[62] Grut. p. 637, 1.
[63] Hist. 8, 10.
[64] Grut. p. 332. The contest took place A.D. 110.
[65] Mai Auct. Class 5, p. 414.
[66] Anthol. iv. 357. Lucian, [Greek: peri orchêseôs--Kathêsai
katauloumenos thêludrian anthrôpon orôn, esthêsi malakais kai asmasin
akolastois enabrunomenon, kai mimoumenon erôtika gynaia tôn palai tas
machlotatas Phaidras kai Parthenopas kai 'Podopas tinas.] A truer
representation, it is to be feared, of what pantomime actually was, than
the semi-serious defence of Lucian, who makes the theatre a school of
self-knowledge and self-control, and the education of the dancer a course
of mythological and poetical learning.
[67] Bulletino dell Istit. Arch. 1838, p. 165. The inscription is, "Fuit
Atistia uxor mihei, femina opituma, quoius corporis reliquiæ quod superant
sunt in hoc panario."--Henzen, 7268.
[68] Maitland on the Catacombs, p. 138.
[69] Archæol. Journal, 4, 55.
[70] P. 6.
[71] Gruter, p. 926-8.
[72] Gruter, p. 904.
[73] Fabretti, p. 560, who observes, "In tanto inscriptionum sepulcralium
numero rari admodum reperiuntur qui longam senectutem expleverint."
[74] Orelli, 4849.
[75] Such is that otherwise elegant epitaph on Fl. Merobaudes, of the year
435 A.D. "Æque forti et docto viro, tam facere laudanda quam aliorum facta
laudare præcipuo. Castrensi experientia claro, facundia vol otiosorum
studia supergresso, cui a crepundiis par virtutis et eloquentiæ cura.
Ingenium ita fortitudini ut doctrinæ natum, stilo et gladio pariter
exercuit, nec in umbra vel latebris mentis vigorem torpere passus. Inter
arma literis militabat et in Alpibus acuebat eloquium. Ideo illi cessit in
proemium non verbena vilis nec otiosa hedera, honor capitis Heliconius,
sed imago ære formata, quo rari exempli viros, seu in castris probatos,
seu optimos vatum, antiquitas honorabat." This inscription was engraved on
the base of a statue dug out of the Forum Ulpii at Rome, in the beginning
of the present century. Fragments of the poetry of Merobaudes, and his
Panegyric on the consulship of Aëtius have been found by Niebuhr in a MS.
at St. Gal, and are published in the Corp. Script. Hist. Byzant. vol.
xxiv. The Christianity of Merobaudes, like that of Boethius, is ambiguous.
[76] Henzen, 7374.
[77] Gruter, p. 624.
[78] Gruter, p. 654.
[79] Anthol. Meyer, 1228.
[80] Eckhel, Doctr. Num. pl. II. vol. v. p. 90.
[81] Orelli, 4657.
[82] Anthol. iv. 231.
[83] Gruter, p. 718.
[84] Gruter, p. 1000. Anthol. iv. 222.
[85] Anthol. iv. 265.
[86] Anthol. ii. 466.
[87] Orelli, 4609.
[88] Orelli, 2813. Several examples may be seen in Gruter, p. 663. _Tata_,
for father, is still in use among the lower classes in Rome. See Bunsen,
Philosophy of Universal History, vol. i. p. 103.
[89] Orelli, 2815.
[90] Gruter, p. 733, 9. More correctly in Meyer, Anthol. 1403.
[91] Noctes Att. 1, 6.
[92] Gruter, p. 769, 9.
[93] Fabretti, p. 252.
[94] Orelli, 4658.
[95] Fabretti, p. 267.
[96] Gruter, p. 797.
[97] Orelli, 4623.
[98] Fabretti, p. 275, where many similar examples are collected.
[99] Gruter, p. 813, 3.
[100] Gruter, p. 1036, 2. Liberties are taken with prosody in this as in
other poetical epitaphs.
[101] Gruter, p. 758, 4.
[102] Gruter, p. 435, 2.
[103] See his exhortation in Gellius, Noct. Att. 12, 1.
[104] Fabretti, p. 187. That feeding by hand was also common among the
Romans is evident from the occurrence of earthen bottles used for this
purpose. The Museum of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society contains
several specimens of them. See also the Abbé Cochet's Normandie
Souterraine, p. 130.
[105] Orelli, 4604.
[106] Orelli, 2660.
[107] Gruter, p. 607. Meyer, Anthologia, 1274.
[108] Antholog. iv. 402.
[109] Gruter, p. 337. Comp. Gibbon, c. xl. 2.
[110] Gruter, p. 820. The hands uplifted in protest are sculptured on the
monument.
[111] Gruter, p. 908.
[112] Reines, p. 709.
[113] Orelli, 4796.
[114] [Greek: On hoi theoi philousin apothnêskei neos.] Menander, [Greek:
Dis Exapatôntos]. Gruter, p. 688.
[115] Orelli, 4829.
[116] Ibid., 4852.
[117] Ibid., 5070.
[118] Maitland on the Catacombs. Its date is A.D. 472.
[119] Gruter, p. 677, 12. Orelli, 4845.
[120] Gruter, p. 786, 5.
[121] Post sepulturam variæ Manium ambages. Omnibus a suprema die eadem
quæ ante primum, nec magis a morte sensus ullus aut corpori aut animæ,
quam ante natalem. Eadem enim vanitas in futurum etiam se propagat et in
mortis quoque tempora ipsa sibi vitam mentitur, alias immortalitatem
animæ, alias transfigurationem, alias sensum inferis dando, et Manes
colendo, et Deum faciendo qui jam etiam homo esse desierit, 7, 55.
[122] Gruter, p. 751, 3.
[123] Orelli, 7346.
[124] Cic. Tusc. v. 35. A similar inscription is given by Morcelli, p.
431. D. M. T. Flavius Martialis H. S. E. Quod edi bibi, mecum habeo; quod
reliqui perdidi.
[125] Gruter, p. 615, 11.
[126] Fabretti, p. 80.
[127] Gruter, p. 772, 8.
[128] Anthol. iv. 131.
[129] Fabretti, p. 545.
[130] Maitland, Church in the Catacombs, p. 10.
[131] Inscriptionum Latinarum selectarum amplissima collectio. Edidit Jo.
Casp. Orellius. 2 voll. Turici, 1828. Vol. tertium, edidit Gulielmus
Henzen. Turici, 1856.
[132] See Orelli, vol. I, p. 35, who quotes Tiraboschi Storia della
Litteratura Italiana, T. VI. P. I. p. 263. Ed. di Milano.
[133] A useful and critical edition has been published under the following
title:--Anthologia Veterum Latinorum Epigrammatum et Poematum. Editionem
Burmannianam digessit et auxit Henricus Meyerus, Turicensis. Tom II. 8.
Lipsiæ, 1835.
Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
The original text contains letters with diacritical marks that are not
represented in this text version.
The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these
letters have been replaced with transliterations.
The original text includes an intentional blank space. This is represented
by ________ in this text version.
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