Part 2

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.