Book Third — The Inscriptions of the Catacombs
Chapter I General Character of the Inscriptions
Few places in Rome are more attractive to the student of Christian archæology than the Lapidarian Gallery in the palace of the Vatican. In this long corridor666 are preserved a multitude of epigraphic remains of the venerable past, shattered wrecks of antiquity, which have floated down the stream of time, and have here, as in a quiet haven, at length found shelter. The walls on either side are completely covered with inscribed slabs affixed to their surface. On the right hand are arranged the pagan monuments collected from the neighbourhood of the city—sepulchral and votive tablets, altar dedications, fragments of imperial rescripts and edicts, and other evidences of the power and splendour of the palmy days of Rome. On the left are the humble epitaphs of the early Christians, rudely carved in stone or scratched in plaster, and brought hither chiefly from the crypts of the Catacombs. Of greater interest to him who would rehabilitate the early ages of the church, and
To the sessions of sweet silent thought
Would summon up remembrance of things past,667
is this long corridor of inscriptions than any of the four thousand apartments of that vast palace of the popes, with their priceless bronzes, marbles, gems, frescoes, and other remains of classic art. He will turn away from the noble galleries where the Laocoon forever writhes in stone, and Apollo—lord of the unerring bow—watches his arrow hurtling toward its mark, to the plain marble slabs that line these walls. In the rude inscriptions here recorded he will discover some of the strongest evidences of revealed religion and most striking proofs of the purity of the faith, simplicity of worship, and uncorrupted doctrines of the early church. Thus primitive Christianity lifts its solemn protest in these halls of wealth and power, in the very palace of the popes, against the anti-Christian system of which they are the representatives.
Here the monuments of pagan and of Christian Rome confront each other. The spectator stands between two worlds of widest divergence, and cannot but be struck with the immense contrast between them. “I have spent,” says M. Rochette, “many entire days in this sanctuary of antiquity, where the sacred and profane stand face to face in the written monuments preserved to us, as in the days when paganism and Christianity, striving with all their powers, were engaged in mortal conflict.”668 On the one side are recorded the pride and pomp of worldly rank, the lofty titles and manifold distinctions of every class, from divinities to slaves. The undying historic names of Rome’s mighty conquerors, the leaders of her cohorts and legions, mingle with those of the proud patrician citizens, and alike display on their sepulchral slabs the august array of prænomen, nomen, and cognomen, which attest their lofty social position or civil power.669 The costly carving and elaborate bas reliefs of many of these monuments indicate the wealth of him whom they commemorate. The elegantly turned classic epitaph—with its elegiac hexameters breathing the stern and cold philosophy of the Stoa, or an utter blankness of despair concerning the future, or, perchance, a querulous and passionate complaining against the gods—shows how the races without the knowledge of the true God met the awful mystery of death. The numerous altars to all the fabled deities of the Pantheon, the vaunting inscriptions and lofty attributes ascribed to the shadowy brood of Olympus—“unconquered, greatest, and best”—read, by the light of to-day, like an unconscious satire on the high pretensions of those vanished powers. The fragmentary edicts of the emperors, the numerous military trophies, and the records of complicated political orders, indicate the might and majesty of the Empire in the days of its utmost power and splendour.
On the other side of the corridor are the humble epitaphs of the despised and persecuted Christians, many of which, by their rudeness, their brevity, and often their marks of ignorance and haste, confirm the truth of the Scripture, that “not many mighty, not many noble, are called.” Yet these “short and simple annals of the poor” speak to the heart with a power and pathos compared with which the loftiest classic eloquence seems cold and empty. It is a fascinating task to spell out the sculptured legends of the Catacombs—the vast graveyard of the primitive church, which seems to give up its dead at our questioning, to bear witness concerning the faith and hope of the Golden Age of Christianity. As we muse upon these half-effaced inscriptions—
Rudely written, but each letter
Full of hope, and yet of heart-break,
Full of all the tender pathos
Of the Here and the Hereafter—
we are brought face to face with the church of the early centuries, and are enabled to comprehend its spirit better than by means of any other evidence extant. These simple epitaphs speak no conventional language like the edicts of the emperors, the monuments of the mighty, or even the writings of the Fathers; they utter the cry of the human heart in the hours of its deepest emotion; they bridge the gulf of time, and make us feel ourselves akin with the suffering, sorrowing, yet triumphant Christians of the primitive ages.
These inscriptions were found in situ in the explorations of the Catacombs, or were dug up in vineyards in the vicinity of the city. They have been diligently collected by antiquarians for the last three hundred years. Before the year 1578 there were not a thousand Christian inscriptions extant in all Italy. Of these not one was derived from the Catacombs, and the earliest date was the year 533. With all its boasted veneration for the past, and professed devotion to the antiquities of primitive Christianity, the Church of Rome allowed the memory of the Catacombs, the shrine and sanctuary of the faith in the early centuries, to be as completely forgotten as the site of Troy; and even after their rediscovery many of their principal records of the past were wantonly destroyed or recklessly lost through the ignorance or carelessness of their self-constituted guardians and preservers. Numerous invaluable inscriptions have perished from the effects of time; many have been scattered throughout the public and private collections of Europe; and many more have been defaced or ruined by the feet of generations of worshippers in the churches of whose pavements they form a part. Bosio describes many monuments extant in his day of which De Rossi saw only the fragments, and the latter pathetically deplores the destruction and devastation of those precious relics of Christian antiquity.670
Christian epigraphy, however, was not altogether neglected during the Middle Ages. A manuscript collection of epitaphs found at Einsiedlen, and attributed to the ninth century, is partly Christian; and another, found at Kloster Newburg, is exclusively so. A manuscript in St. Mark’s Library at Venice contains about a hundred and fifty early Christian epitaphs. The first collection after the revival of letters was made by Pietro Sabini, and another was published by Onofrio Panvini. Leo X. commanded Raphael, the capo architetto of St. Peter’s, to preserve from injury the inscriptions—res lapidaria—of the older structure; but no systematic attempt at their preservation was made till Benedict XIV. appointed Francesco Brambini to that task. He collected a large number in the long gallery of the Vatican; but they were not arranged till the close of the last century, when they were classified by the distinguished archæologist Geatano Marini at the command of Pius VI. A new collection was begun in the Lateran Museum by Padre Marchi, which has been greatly enlarged and admirably classified and arranged by Cavaliere De Rossi. There are also other collections in the Collegio Romano, and in the Kircherian and other Museums. Many sepulchral slabs are also affixed to the walls or inserted in the pavement of the churches of St. Paul, St. Gregory, St. Laurence, St. Mark, St. Maria in Trastevere, and in a few others in Rome.671
That distinguished scholar and epigraphist, De Rossi, has passed through the crucible of his critical examination all the extant inscriptions of the first six centuries found in the neighbourhood of Rome. In the first volume of his Inscriptiones Christianæ he gives all those with consular dates, thirteen hundred and seventy-four in number. He designs giving in future volumes the remainder of the series, classified according to their doctrinal, historical, or other characteristics. He treats the subject with the utmost candour and moderation, and illustrates these frequently obscure topics with exhaustive and various scholarship. There are now over eleven thousand of these epitaphs extant, which number is being continually increased by the progressive exploration of the Catacombs. From an analysis of their general characteristics and appearance the following results are derived.
The inscriptions are generally engraved on marble slabs from one to three feet long and one foot high, which are used to close the graves of the dead; many, however, are mere scratches on the soft surface of the plaster, hardened in drying; and some are written with red or black paint, or, more rarely, with charcoal. The letters vary from half an inch to four inches in height, and the incised surface is frequently coloured with a reddish pigment. Prudentius, alluding to this practice of chiseling the letters in stone, calls upon the faithful to “wash with their tears the furrows of those marble slabs.”672
The epitaphs are for the most part written in uncial characters, frequently without any separation of the words,673 although sometimes they are divided by spaces, points, or leaves. They frequently abound also in contractions and monogrammatic abbreviations, imposed by limit of space or economy of labour, as in the following figure:
Although sometimes well cut, the inscriptions are often wretchedly executed, presenting a straggling and scarce legible scrawl, as in the following examples, the second of which indicates a transition into the later cursive character.
This ancient epigraphy often betrays extreme ignorance, and sets at defiance all the laws of grammatical construction. The spelling is frequently atrocious, and the general style and character utterly barbarous, rendering the meaning extremely obscure or altogether undecipherable. The language was much corrupted by the foreigners and slaves who formed so large a portion of the population. The later examples are often marked by the absence of terminal inflexions and the use of prepositions instead, and by other indications of the falling to pieces of the stately Latin tongue, which had been the vehicle of such a noble literature and such lofty eloquence, and of its degeneracy from the purity of the Augustan era into the mixed dialect of the Middle Ages, from which the modern Italian has sprung.675
The barbarous Latinity of the following indicates the degradation into which the language had fallen:
IIBER QVI VIXI QVAI QVO
PARE IVA ANOIVE I ANORV
M PLVI MINVI XXX I PACE.
Read: Liber, qui vixit cum compare sua annum I. Annorum plus minus XXX. In pace.
Liber, who lived with his wife one year. He lived thirty years, more or less. In peace.
Sometimes the inscription is found upside down, being probably thus placed by one unable to read. In the following example, from the Catacomb of St. Priscilla, a dove was afterward added, to correct in part the mistake of the ignorant fossor. Probably the epitaph may have been scratched on the stone by the dim light struggling through a luminare, but when brought to the grave it was too dark to see which side was uppermost.
In one example in the Lapidarian Gallery, represented in Fig. 126, the inscription is actually written backwards, like Hebrew text. Probably, as Maitland suggests, the stonecutter took the impression on marble from a written copy, and was too ignorant to perceive that it was, of course, reversed.
Read: Elia Vincentia. qui vixit an... et mesis II, cum Virginis que vixit annu diem.
Elia Vincentia, who lived... years and two months, and lived with Virginius a year and a day.
Most of the early epitaphs are of touching brevity and simplicity. Frequently only a single word, the name given in baptism, is recorded on the tomb, as in Fig. 127, which exhibits also the Christian symbols of the monogram, cross, and palm.
In Fig. 128 the names of three individuals appear on the same slab, which is recognizable as Christian only by the symbol of the Good Shepherd:
Frequently the phrase IN PACE, or DORMIT IN PACE, is added, in attestation of the Christian faith of the deceased, (see Figs. 122-124;) or, more briefly still, the word LOCVS is prefixed, as LOCVS PRIMI—“The place of Primus,”676 as if descriptive of the last long home, the house appointed for all living.
The later inscriptions are frequently far removed from this naive simplicity, being inflated in style and elaborate in execution, attesting the increased wealth and growing pride of the Christian community. Of these we shall hereafter have frequent examples. One very remarkable series is that executed, under the direction of Pope Damasus, in the latter part of the fourth century. He composed numerous metrical epitaphs in honour of the martyrs, which were engraved in marble in a singularly elegant decorated character, designed by his secretary, Furius Dionysius Filocalus, who was also an accomplished artist. Hence the letters of these Damasine inscriptions are as distinct a characteristic in early Christian epigraphy as the celebrated Aldine type in the bibliography of the revival of learning. There are few of the Catacombs where these inscriptions have not been found; and De Rossi has been enabled thereby to reconstruct some valuable historical monuments from a few fragments, just as a skilful anatomist will reconstruct a skeleton from a portion of the vertebræ. Some of the most important of these have already been given; others will hereafter occur. The Latinity is often of a school-boy mediocrity; but they are of great value as determining the identity and elucidating the history of many important Christian tombs.
Most of the epitaphs, as we might naturally expect, were written in Latin. Nevertheless, a considerable proportion are in Greek, to which circumstance several causes conduced. Although Latin was the language of the mass of the Roman population, yet Greek was also spoken largely by the educated classes. We know, too, from the pages of Juvenal677 and contemporary writers, that Rome swarmed with numbers of slaves and others from Greece and Asia Minor, who, although they might be able to speak Latin, would find it very difficult to write it. Moreover, Greek seems to have been in the early centuries a sort of ecclesiastical language at Rome, just as Latin is now throughout Roman Catholic Christendom. It was in this language that the glad tidings of the new evangel were first declared, and in it St. Paul wrote his epistle to the Roman church. The new wine of the gospel flowed from that classic chalice which so long had poured libations to the gods. Probably a religious sentiment led to the adoption, even by those to whom it was unfamiliar, of the language in which their holiest teachings and highest hopes had been originally conveyed, and in which the Apostolic Fathers and the greatest apologists, theologians, and historians of the early church had fought the battles of the faith. The responses of the Roman liturgy long continued to be uttered in this tongue, and traces of this practice still remain in the Kyrie, eleeson! Christe, eleeson! of the Order of the Mass. This primitive Greek influence has also left its indelible impression on our language in such words as church, bishop, presbyter, eucharist, baptism, catechism, liturgy, psalm, and hymn.
Sometimes the humble mourner had to be content with recording the Latin words in Greek characters, as in the following examples: ΛΕΙΒΕΡΕ ΜΑΞΙΜΙΛΛΕ ΚΟΙΟΥΓΕ ΑΜΑΝΤΙϹϹΙΜΑΕ ΦΙΚΙΤ ΕΝ ΠΑΚΕ. Read: Liberæ Maximillæ conjugi amantissimæ, vixit in pace—“To Libera Maximilla, a most loving wife. She lived in peace.” ΒΕΝΕ ΜΕΡΕΝΤΙ ΦΙΛΙΕ ΘΕΟΔΩΡΕ ΚΥΕ ΒΙΞΙΤ ΜΗϹΙϹ ΧΙ ΔΙΕΣ ΧVΙΙΙ. Read: Bene merenti filiæ Theodoræ, qui vixit menses XI, dies XVIII—“To our well-deserving daughter Theodora, who lived eleven months and eighteen days.”678
In copying Latin inscriptions many errors arose from the mason mistaking the Roman characters for similar Greek ones, as A for Λ, T for Γ, and the Latin H and P for the Greek Eta and Rho. The Greek influence is also seen in the altered inflexion of Latin words, as maritous for maritos, filies for filias, and the like. The proportion of Greek inscriptions among those before the time of Constantine is estimated at one eighth.679 After that period it is less, indicating the gradual decline of Greek influence. In Gaul and the western provinces the proportion is not so great. At Autun there is only one Greek epitaph.
Of the eleven thousand extant inscriptions only thirteen hundred and seventy-four bear dates. The period of the others can be only approximately determined by a comparison with those whose ages are known; by a careful examination of the execution, language, and general sentiment, those of earlier date being less florid and more classical in style; by the presence or absence of certain symbols, as the sacred monogram, of which no example is known before the period of Constantine; and by the position in the Catacombs, those in the lower piani being of later date.
Judging by these criteria, De Rossi has arrived at the following conclusions: About six thousand of the epitaphs belong to the first four centuries, and are from the Catacombs; the rest were found above ground. Of these six thousand, about four thousand are before the year 324 A. D., when Constantine became sole emperor.
Only one of the dated inscriptions belongs to the first century, (A. D. 71,) two are of the second, (A. D. 107 and 111,) and twenty-three of the third; the fourth century is represented by over five hundred; the fifth by nearly as many; the sixth by about three hundred, principally in its earlier half; and the seventh by only seven.
Of these dated inscriptions, all before the year 313 A. D., when the edict of Milan gave peace to the church, are from the Catacombs. After that event subterranean sepulture rapidly decreased. Of the epitaphs bearing dates between the years 313 A. D. and 337 A. D., two thirds are from the Catacombs, and one third from the basilicas and other places of burial above ground. From A. D. 337 to the time of Julian the proportion of each was about equal. Of the dated inscriptions of the last quarter of this century, about one fourth are subterranean. Of those between the years A. D. 400 and A. D. 410, not one in ten is from the Catacombs, and after that period not one subterranean example occurs.680 Sometimes, in epitaphs of late date, the name of the church and the position of the tomb are mentioned, as in the following: DEPOSITVS IN BASILICA SANCTORVM NASARI ET NABORIS SECVNDV ARCV IVXTA FENESTRA, (A. D. 404,)—“Buried in the basilica of Sts. Nasarius and Nabor, in the second arch near the window;” DEPOSITA IN CONTRA COLONNA VII, (A. D. 452,)—“Buried in the space opposite the seventh column.”
The Christian era was not adopted as a note of time till after the sixth century. The dates of the Roman inscriptions were therefore indicated by the names of the consuls for the year, generally written in an abbreviated form.681 Frequently the addition VC., for Vir Clarissimus—“An illustrious man”—or, in the case of imperial consuls, DN., for Dominus Noster—“Our Lord”—also occurs.682 In one instance the epithet DIVVS—“Divine”—assumed by the emperors, is employed in a Christian epitaph, in unthinking imitation of a heathen formula.
This mode of indicating dates, to which the name hypatic (from ὕπατος, consul) has been applied, continued in vogue till the latter part of the sixth century, and is the last recognition of that venerable institution, the Roman consulate. The year of the emperor, which was enjoined by Justinian, A. D. 537, for the dating of all public acts, appears after that time.
Towards the close of the fourth century the date is sometimes indicated by the name of the presiding bishop of the church at Rome, as SVB LIBERIO EPISCOPO, SVB DAMASO EPISCOPO, or TEMPORIBVS SANCTI INNOCENTII, the last expression used probably after the death of the pope named. The names of the bishops of other dioceses than that of Rome are also used, an indication of the parity of episcopal rank in the primitive ages. Thus we have in the year A. D. 397 the name PASCASIO EPISCOPO, according to De Rossi, probably the bishop of an ancient diocese in the immediate vicinity of the city. In the sixth century the names of certain priests, and even deacons, were used as local marks of time.
In a large number of inscriptions the day of the month is mentioned, although the year is not. Cardinal Wiseman attributes this to the custom of commemorating the anniversary of the death of the departed as that of his birth into a higher life.683 But a similar usage is observed also in pagan epitaphs; and Dr. McCaul has well remarked684 that it is the day of burial that is mentioned more frequently than that of death. The date of birth is seldom given,685 but the length of life is almost invariably indicated, frequently with great minuteness. Not only are the number of years, months, and days mentioned, but often, with loving exactness, the hours, half-hours, and even the “scruples” or twenty-fourths of an hour, as in the following example: BENE MERENTI IN PACE SILVANA QVAE HIC DORMIT VIXIT ANN. XXI. MENS. III. HOR. IV. SCRVPLOS VI.—“To the well-deserving Silvana, who sleeps here in peace. She lived twenty-one years, three months, four hours, and six scruples.” Six scruples are a quarter of an hour.
When the exact number of years was unknown, the expressions PLVS MINVS, ΠΛΕΟΝ ΕΛΑΤΤΟΝ—“more or less”—were used.686 Frequently the duration of married life is also mentioned with extreme definiteness, as in the following:687 SILVANA NICIATI MARITO BENE MERENTI CUM QVO VIXIT ANNIS TRIBVS MANSIBVS DVABVS HORIS UNDECIM,—“Silvana to her well-deserving husband Niciatis, with whom she lived three years, two months, eleven hours.”
The day of the month is generally indicated in the ordinary way with reference to the divisions of Calends, Nones, and Ides.688 The days of the week are mentioned by their usual classical names, as Dies Solis, Sunday; Dies Lunæ, Monday; Dies Martis, Tuesday; Dies Mercurii, Wednesday; Dies Jovis, Thursday; Dies Veneris, Friday; and Dies Saturni, Saturday. Sometimes, however, the first and last days of the week are indicated by the Christian designations Dies Dominica, the day of the Lord, and Dies Sabbati, the day of rest.
The Christian inscriptions also habitually ignore all mention of the birth-place or country of the deceased, as if in recognition that the Christian’s true country is beyond the grave.689 As if, also, in obedience to the injunction to forsake father and mother in order to follow after Christ, details of family or descent, which are so conspicuous in some heathen inscriptions, almost never occur.
Mr. Burgon has briefly expressed the principal points of contrast between modern epitaphs and those of the early Christians, as follows: “They never mention the date of birth,690 we seldom omit it. They constantly record the day of burial, we never. They seldom mention the year of death, we never omit it. We never allude to burial, they always. They frequently record the years of married life, we never. In theirs the survivors appear prominently, even by name, and are sometimes mentioned exclusively. With us the dead are always named, the living seldom.”691
There are among these inscriptions several examples of opisthographæ, as they are called,692 that is, Christian epitaphs written on slabs that had originally borne one of pagan character. The latter are generally defaced or obliterated, filled with cement or turned to the wall, or placed upside down or sideways, so as to indicate their rejection by the Christian artist. Sometimes, however, they are still legible, but they have manifestly no connection with Christian sepulture whatever. Some are not funeral epitaphs at all, and some which are commemorate an entire family, though affixed to a single Christian grave. The appropriation of heathen monuments for the reception of Christian inscriptions will appear less strange when we reflect that the very temples of the gods have been the quarries from which many of the churches and palaces of later times were built.
Sometimes, as in the example given in Fig. 59, the heathen formula of consecration to the “Divine Spirits”—D. M., for Dis Manibus—is obliterated, and the sacred monogram gives the slab a Christian character. Occasionally, however, these letters appear in manifestly Christian inscriptions, in which case Fabretti and others have maintained that they were capable of the interpretation Deo Magno or Deo Maximo—“To the Supreme God.” With still less probability M. Rochette renders them Divis Martyribus—“To the divine martyrs,” for which expression no countenance is to be found in the entire range of the Catacombs. Both interpretations are entirely gratuitous suppositions, for which Christian epigraphy furnishes absolutely no warrant. It is more probable that they were careless or conventional imitations of a common heathen formula, which was occasionally adopted by the Christians without thought, or perhaps in ignorance of its meaning, just as they also imitated the winged genii and other classic accessories of pagan art in the ornamentation of the Catacombs. Dr. McCaul has suggested that the Roman mortuary sculptors probably kept sepulchral slabs on sale, as is often done now, with the common formulæ already engraved, which were purchased without regard to their appropriateness, and that in filling up the inscription the Christians sometimes neglected to obliterate the letters of pagan significance. Possibly, also, some lingering remnants of heathen superstition may sometimes be indicated by their use.
The letters BM., which frequently occur in these inscriptions, have been erroneously interpreted as standing for Beatus or Beata Martyr, for which there is no authority whatever. They unquestionably indicate the ever-recurring phrase, both in pagan and Christian epigraphy, Bene Merenti—“To the well-deserving,” or Bonæ Memoriæ—“Of happy memory.”
Notes
666 It is eight hundred feet in extent, and contains about three thousand inscriptions.
667 Shakspeare’s Sonnets, No. XXX.
668 Tableau des Catacombes, p. x.
669 Cf. Juv., “Gaudent prænomine molles auriculæ.” These are very rare in Christian inscriptions. See postea.
670 Demolita et horrendum in modum vastata.—Prolegomena to Inscr. Christ. He has often to complain that he is unable to read part of the inscription:—Reliqua legere haud potui. Marangoni tells us that thousands of epigraphs were taken from the Catacombs to the church of St. Maria in Trastevere; seven cartloads to St. Giovanni de Fiorentini; two cartloads to another church of St. Giovanni in Rome; yet there are at present only about twenty in the portico of the former and not one in either of the two latter churches. See Heman’s Sac. Art. in Italy, pp. 58, 59.
671 The latter works of Fabretti, Muratori, Orelli, Martigny, Cardinal Mai, and Perret contain numerous examples. These have all been laid under tribute in preparing these pages.
[672] Nos pio fletu, date, perluamus
Marmorum sulcos.—Peristeph., hymn vii.
673 We append the following examples by way of illustration:
CALEVIVSBENDIDITAVINTRISOMVVBIPOSITIERANT
VINIETCALVILIVSETLVCIVSINPA.
Calevius sold to Avinius a place for three bodies, where both Cavilius and Lucius had (already) been placed in peace.—De Rossi, Inscr. Christ., No. 489.
ΤΡΙΑΚΟΝΤΑΠΕΝΤΑΕΤΗϹΕΝΘΑΔΕΚΙΤΕΥΠΑΤΙΑ
ΘΥΓΑΤΗΡΑΝΤΩΝΙΟΥΚΩϹΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΠΟΛΙΤΙϹϹΑ.
Here lies Hypatia, thirty-five years of age, daughter of Antonius, a native of Constantinople.—De Rossi, No. 583.
The originals are more difficult to decipher, but with a little practice it becomes comparatively easy. Sometimes the letters are of greatly varying sizes, as in the following:
LoCVSavgvStileCToRis.
The place of Augustus, the Reader.
674 See, also, the uncouthness of the epitaph of Martyrus, Fig. 19, and of Tesaris, Fig. 58.
675 The distinctions of case gradually disappear, the accusative and genitive are often used indiscriminately, and the former is frequently substituted for the ablative, as in the following phrases, cum uxorem, cum fratrem, sine aliquam, pro caritatem, decessit de seculum, etc. The transition into Italian is indicated by the prefixing the letter i, as in the words ispiritus, iscribet; by affixing e, as posuete for posuit, and by the general softening of the pronunciation, as santa for sancta, meses for menses, and sesies for sexies. The names Stefano and Filipo have also a very modern appearance.
The misplacing of the aspirate is seen to be by no means a cockney peculiarity, as in the following examples:—Hossa, hordine, Hosiris, helephantus, post hobitum, Hoctobris, heterna, etc. In the following the h is omitted: Onorius, ora, omo, ilaris, ospitium, onestus, oc, and ic. The permutation of the letters t and d, and v and b, is also common, as adque for atque, and bibit for vivit. We also find such forms as vicxit, visit, bissit, or visse, for vixit; michi for mihi; pake or pache for pace; opsequia for obsequia; quisquenti for quiescenti; depossio for depositio; vocitus for vocatus; pulla for puella; omniorum for omnium; restutus for restitutus; pride for pridie; que or qae for quæ, and the like. Many of these peculiarities, however, are common to later pagan as well as to Christian inscriptions.
676 See Fig. 45.
677 See his “Græculus esuriens,” (Sat., iii, 78,) and the expression, “In Tiberem defluxit Orontes.”—Ib., 62.
678 Sometimes the two languages are strangely blended in the same epitaph; and occasionally we find a Greek inscription in Latin characters, as in the following: PRIMA IRENE SOI. Read: Πρῖμα εἰρήνη σοι—“Prima, peace to thee.”
679 In the dated inscriptions the proportion is less, as the Latin-speaking Christians would be the more likely to employ the consular dates as indications of time.
680 Of the four hundred Gaulish inscriptions in Le Blant few bear dates, and of these none are earlier than the time of Constantine. The first is of the year A. D. 334; the next, at Autun, of the year A. D. 374. They are also more artificial and rhetorical in style than those of Rome.
681 For example, POL · II · ET · APR · II · COS, which, expanded, reads thus: Pollione iterum et Apro iterum Consulibus, that is, 176 A. D.
L · FAB · CIL · M · ANN · LIB · COS—Lucio Fabio Cilone, Marco Annio Libone Consulibus, that is, 204 A. D. To save space we have generally omitted the names of the consuls, giving merely the date.
682 Sometimes we have the forms VVCC., Viri Clarissimi; DD. NN., Domini Nostri; and AVGG., or AAVVGG., Augusti.
683 Fabiola, p. 146.
684 Christian Epitaphs, Introd., p. xxii, note ✝. We are indebted to this masterly prolegomena for several of the illustrations cited.
685 In one example it is minutely indicated thus: Ora noctis · IIII. ··· VIII Idus Madias die Saturnis luna vigesima Signo Apiorno,—“In the fourth hour of the night, the eighth day before the Ides of May, the twentieth day of the Moon, in the sign of Capricorn.” De Rossi regards this as an astrological horoscope—a relic of heathen superstition.
686 The greatest age we have observed in Christian epitaphs is ninety-one years. See Fig. 19. The youngest is three months—Mens. III. We have noticed in Muratori (p. 382, No. 5) the following remarkable instance of longevity: M. Flavius Secundus filius fecit Flavio Secundo patri q. vixit ann. CXII, et Flaviæ Urbanæ matri piæ vixit ann. CV.—“M. Flavius Secundus, the son, made this to Flavius Secundus, his father, who lived one hundred and twelve years, and to his pious mother, (who) lived one hundred and five years.” Kenrick quotes an epitaph of a child of three and his mother (mammula) of eighty; and another of a man of one hundred and two years, ninety of which were passed without disease. The average duration of life, according to Ulpian, was thirty years.
687 The relationship is generally expressed by such phrases as vixit mecum, duravit mecum, vixit in conjugio, fecit mecum, fecit cum compare. McCaul, Christ. Epitaphs, Introd. xv.
688 Ib., xxvii.
689 Of 5,000 epitaphs in Squier’s Index, only forty-five mention the country of the deceased. See one example, page 401, second footnote, and also the following, of date A. D. 388: Rapetiga, medicus, civis Hispanus, qui vixit in pace annos plus minus XXV,—“Rapetiga, a physician, a citizen of Spain, who lived in peace twenty-five years, more or less.”
690 This is not quite correct.
691 Letters from Rome, pp. 202, 203.
692 From ὀπίσθιος and γράφω, to write again.