Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/514

Rh 494 EPITAPH cannot in the nature of things extend to the proportions that may be required in an elegy. The desire to perpetuate the memory of the dead being natural to man, the practice of placing epitaphs upon their graves has been common among all nations and in all ages. And the similarity, amounting sometimes almost to identity, of thought and expression that often exists between epitaphs written more than two thousand years ago and epitaphs written only yesterday is as striking an evidence as literature affords of the close kinship of human nature under the most varying conditions where the same primary elemental feelings are stirred. The grief and hope of the Roman mother as expressed in the touching lines Lagge fili bene quiescas Mater tua rogat tc, Ut me ad te recipias : Vale! find their echo in similar inscriptions in many a modern cemetery. Probably the earliest epitaphial inscriptions that have come down to us are those of the ancient Egyptians, written, as their mode of sepulture necessitated, upon the sarcophagi and coffins. Those that have been deciphered are all very much in the same form, commencing with a prayer to a deity, generally Osiris or Anubis, on behalf of the deceased, whose name, descent, and office are usually specified. There is, however, no attempt to delineate individual character, and the feelings of the survivors are not expressed other wise than in the fact of a prayer being offered. Ancient Greek epitaphs, unlike the Egyptian, are of great literary interest, deep and often tender in feeling, rich and varied in expression, and generally epigrammatic in form. They are written usually in elegiac verse, though many of the later epitaphs are in prose. Among the gems of the Greek anthology familiar to English readers through translations are the epitaphs upon those who had fallen in battle. There are several ascribed to Simonides on the heroes of Thermopylae, of which the most celebrated is the epigram &quot;Go tell the Spartans, thou that passest by, That here, obedient to their laws, we lie. &quot; A hymn of Simonides on the same subject contains some lines of great beauty, which may be regarded as a literary epitaph : &quot; In. dark Thermopylae they lie ; Oh death of glory, there to die ! Their tomb an altar is, their name A mighty heritage of fame ; Their dirge is triumph. Cankering rust, And time that turneth all to dust That tomb shall never waste nor hide, The tomb of warriors true and tried. The full-voic d praise of Greece around Lies buried in that sacred mound ; Where Sparta s king, Leonidas, In death eternal glory has. In Lacedaemonia epitaphs were inscribed only upon the graves of those who had been especially distinguished in war; in Athens they were applied more indiscriminately. They generally contained the name, the descent, the demise, and some account of the life of the person commemorated. It must* be remembered, however, that many of the so-called Greek epitaphs are merely literary memorials not intended for monumental inscription, and that in these freer scope is naturally given to general reflections, while less attention is paid to biographical details. Many of them, even some of the monumental, do not contain any personal name, as in the one ascribed to Plato : &quot; I am a shipwrecked sailor s tomb; a peasant s there doth stand: Thus the same world of Hades lies beneath both sea and land.&quot; Others again are so entirely of the nature of general re flections upon death that they contain no indication of the particular case that called them forth. It may be ques tioned, indeed, whether several of this character quoted in ordinary collections are epitaphs at all, in the sense of being intended for a particular occasion. Roman epitaphs, in contrast to those of the Greeks, con tained, as a rule, nothing beyond a record of facts. The inscriptions on the urns, of which numerous specimens are to be found in the British Museum, present but little variation. The letters D.M. or D.M.S. (Diis Manibus or Diis Manibus Sacrum) are followed by the name of the person whose ashes are inclosed, his age at death, and sometimes one or two other particulars. The inscription closes with the name of the person who caused the urn to be made, and his relationship to the deceased. It is a curious illustration of the survival of traces of an old faith after it has been formally discarded to find that the letters D.M. are not uncommon on the Christian inscriptions in the catacombs. It has been suggested that in this case they mean Deo Maximo and not Diis Manibus, but the explanation would be quite untenable, even if there were not many other undeniable instances of the survival of pagan superstitions in the thought and life of the early Christians. In these very catacomb inscriptions there are many illustrations to be found, apart from the use of the letters D. M,, of the union of heathen with Christian senti ment (see Maitland s Church in the Catacombs). The private burial places for the ashes of the dead were usually by the side of the various roads leading into Rome, the Via Appia, the Via Flaminia, &c. The traveller to or from the city thus passed for miles an almost uninterrupted succession of tombstones, whose inscriptions usually began with the appropriate words Siste Viator or Aspice Viator, the origin doubtless of the &quot; Stop Passenger, &quot; which still meets the eye in many parish churchyards of Britain. Another phrase of very common occurrence on ancient Roman tombstones, Sit tibi terra levis, Light lie the earth upon thee, has continued in frequent use, as conveying an appropriate sentiment, down to modem times. A remark able feature of many of the Roman epitaphs was the terrible denunciation they often pronounced upon those who violated the sepulchre. Two impressive examples may be quoted: &quot; Male pereat, Insepultus jaceat, Non resurgat, Cum Juda partem habeat, Si quis sepulcrum Irunc violaverit. &quot; The second is more refined but not less terrible in its male diction : &quot;Quisquis Hoc Sustulerit aut Iwserit Ultimus Suorum moriatur,&quot; Such denunciations were not uncommon in later times. A well known instance is furnished in the lines on Shake speare s tomb at Stratford-on-Avon, said to have been written by the poet himself : &quot; Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare, To digg the dust enclosed heare ; Bleste be y e man y* spares thes stones And curst be he y l moves my bones.&quot; The earliest existing British epitaphs belonged to the Roman period, and are written in Latin after the Roman form. Specimens are to be seen in various antiquarian museums throughout the country ; some of tke inscriptions are given in Bruce s Roman Wall, and the seventh volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum edited by Hiibner, containing the British inscriptions, is the most valuable repertory for the earlier Roman epitaphs in Britain. The earliest, of course, are commemorative of soldiers belong ing to the legions of occupation, but the Roman form was afterwards adopted for native Britons. Long after the Roman form was discarded, the Latin language continued to be used, especially for inscriptions of a more public