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Today we have a combination picture-and-text post by Athayde Tonhasca Júnior, and the subject is epitaphs.  Athayde’s comments are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.  The epitaphs are in italics:

The long dead speak to us – again

Most ancient Greek and Roman texts that helped shape Western culture were written by white men high up the social ladder (unsurprisingly, woke warriors are determined to defund, distort or do away with Classic studies). Epitaphs, on the other hand, give us glimpses of the lives of ordinary people of whom we know little: tradesmen, women, soldiers, gladiators, slaves. Some of these inscriptions are surprisingly familiar and poignant, considering how odd, cruel and violent the Ancients may seem to us.

A while back we looked at some Greek and Roman epitaphs; here’s another batch with their accompanying translations, where parentheses indicate missing and presumed words. Epigraphy, the study of inscriptions on stone, metal and other durable materials, is skilled detective work. Fading, truncations, misspellings, initialisms and abbreviations make interpretation difficult, even for Classics scholars. Comments are my own.

All objects depicted but the last one are housed in the unmissable Capitoline Museums in Rome.

Epitaph of Geminia Agathe Mater, 2nd c. AD. Tartarus mentioned in the last line was the place for the punishment of sinners after death. Not an appropriate destiny for a little girl, so the author must have been theologically confused:

For the souls departed. For the sweet Geminia Agathe Mater. My name was Mater, but I was never destined to become a mother. In fact I do not deny having lived only 5 years, 7 months and 22 days. During the time that I lived, I enjoyed myself and I was always loved by everyone. In fact, believe me, I had the face of a little boy, not of a girl; as only those who generated me knew Agathe, of gentle temperament, of pleasing and noble appearance, with red hair, short on top and long behind. Now all of (you) offer me nice drinks and pray that the earth does not weigh heavily upon my remains. Do not despair too much about the remains of my little (body), Faventius, who raised me more than my parents and who loved only me. In fact, I have a mother and a father who preceded me some time ago and never grieved over (my) destiny. I also have a sister by (my) mother Amoena, who is also saddened by my death. Please, everyone comforts my family, (reminding) them of the pleasant life (that I lived), reciting prayers so that (their) pain does not increase and their sadness does not exceed the limits. You who read, if you wish to know my whole name will know Geminia Agathe, whose premature death stole and brought at a tender age to Tartarus. This is all, more cannot happen: this (is foreseen) for us.

Epitaph of Menophilos, written in Greek, 2nd c. AD. Greek was spoken widely in Rome and the Western Empire, where it was considered a second language. Mentioning the muses, Bacchus and Aphrodite, suggests that Menophilos lived a hedonistic and gratifying life, albeit short:

While I passed my entire life in joy, smiling, playing and happy, and I delighted my soul with all kinds of pleasures in the art of song, never sorry, I never pronounced offensive words, but (was) a friend of the Muses, of Bacchus and of Aphrodite. I arrived from Asia to Italy, now I rest among the dead while still youthful. My name is Menophilos.

Epitaph of Ammias, from one of Rome’s Jewish catacombs. 3rd-4th c. AD. Text in Greek and some Semitic words. Rome had a significant Jewish population since 27 BC, after many of them fled the Hellenistic wars in today’s Turkey and the Middle East. Things started turning sour for the Jews in 313, when Constantine made Christianity the Empire’s legal religion:

Here lies Ammias, a Jew from Laodicea, who lived 85 years. In peace.

Funerary inscription of Ovia Quarta, 2nd c. AD. The two figures flanking the tablet are laruae (sing. larua), wandering spirits of the dead. A larua was also the mask worn by a performer in the role of such ghost. With time, the Latin ‘u’ morphed into ‘v’, so larua became larva. Linnaeus, who knew Latin and the Classics like any other contemporary naturalist worth his salt, adopted ‘larva’ to define the life stage of an insect hidden behind the ‘mask’ of immaturity to be removed and reveal the adult’s appearance. The laruae were also known as lemures, another term snatched by Linnaeus to describe those eerie and secretive Malagasy primates:

Ovia Quarta lived 60 years.

Funerary table of Alexander, 2nd c. AD. The DM initialism in the first line of text refers to dis manibus, translated as ‘for the souls departed’, ‘to the memory of’ or ‘to the spirits of the dead’, and is a conventional inscription commonly found on Roman tombstones. The last four letters, STTL, are also formulaic. They stand for sit tibi terra levis: ‘may the earth be light on you’. When Christians began replacing pagan nonsense with their own, STTL was swapped for RIP (requiescat in pace), which conveniently works in English:

For the souls departed. Alexander lived 3 years, 4 months and 19 days. His father, Quintus Canuleius Alexander, and his mother, Clarina, saw to (the making of this tomb) for their dear, devoted and well-deserving son. He is buried here. I beg you, when you pass (nearby), to say: may the earth be light upon your remains.

The humble funerary inscription of a head teacher, 1st c. AD:

To Lucius Sentius Index, head of tutors. He is buried here.

Funerary altar of freedman Tiberius Julius Xanthus, 1st c. AD. Freedmen in Rome could become citizens and climb high on the social ladder, amass money, buy property and own their own slaves. Tiberius the VIP masseur could have done worse, as suggested by the fancy altar dedicated to him. Certainly he seemed to have done better than the head teacher, who was left with a modest plaque. Some things never change. . . :

To the imperial freedman Tiberius Julius Xanthus, masseur of the emperors Tiberius Caesar and the Divine Claudius and vice-commander of the Alexandrian navy, dedicated by his wife Atellia Prisca and the freedman Lamyrus, his heirs; he lived 90 years.

Funerary inscription celebrating Crescens the charioteer, 2nd c. AD. The Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup and the Superbowl pale when compared to the popularity and social reach of chariot racing in Greece, Rome and Byzantium. Fortunes could be made and lost in bets, and racing events often degenerated into violence and riots. Owners of champion horses could become famous and rich, but drivers and horses often didn’t see the end of a race, being maimed or killed by collisions and crashes – which were some of the main attractions for the hoi polloi. Drivers could race alone or for the Blue, Green, Red or White teams. For an excellent take on Roman chariot racing, see Asterix and the Cauldron:

Crescens, charioteer of the blue faction, originally from Mauritania, 22 years old. He achieved his first victory with a quadriga in the 24th race (staged) when L(ucius) Vipstanus Messalla held the consulship, on the anniversary of the birth of the divine Nerva, with these horses: Circius, Acceptor, Delicatus and Cotynus. Between the consulship of Messalla and that of Marcus Acilius Glabrio, on the anniversary of the birth of the divine Claudius, Crescens raced 686 times. He won 47 competitions: 19 with one chariot, 23 with two chariots and 5 with three chariots; in one race he won thanks to his teammates; in 8 he was in the lead from the start, and from the last position he won 38. He came in second place 130 times; third place 111 times; he won 1,558,346 sesterces.

Inscription on the tomb of Caius Novius Mynias, 2nd c. AD. Caius must have been an unsentimental, no-nonsense chap, considering the information he chose to leave for posterity. But he shared a recurrent concern among people burying their dead: the defacing, theft or destruction of monuments. To prevent such affrontery, amulets, curses and magic spells were frequently attached to tombs, altars and crypts:

For the souls departed. Caius Novius Mynias saw to (the making of this tomb) for himself, his freedmen, freedwomen, for his and their descendants. To this funerary monument belongs a garden with an edifice, bordered by a wall, extending 280 feet along the front and 360 feet towards the countryside; these (structures) belong to the freedmen and freedwomen of Novius Mynias, those who are and who will be, and to whoever is born of them; to the same garden and edifice belongs a pathway through the main entrance of the gardens or the fundus Meropianus. May trickery and fraud stay away from this funerary monument.

Funerary altar of a humble poet, 2nd c. AD.:

For the souls departed. Here I lie, Claudius Diadumenus, poet by trade, once rich with imperial commissions, who was never possessed by the love for fame, but always maintained a modest way (of life). O Hyllus, o father, I have joined you. I do not wish to create a commotion: for us, this house is a hospitable place. Claudia Fructiane made this to the well-deserving (Diadumenus).

And finally, a coarse and facetious take on funereal epitaphs on a graffito scribbled on a Pompeii wall. The text, in cursive Latin and following a pentameter rhyme, warns those feeling the urge to squat behind a tomb about the dangers of stinging nettle (urtica). It reads:

Hospes adhuc tumuli ni meias ossa prec[antur],

nam si uis (h)uic gratior esse caca.

Urticae monumenta vides discede cacator

non est hic tutum culu(m) aperire tibi.

Stranger, my bones beg you not to pee at my tomb: if you wish to be more pleasing to the deceased, shit. You look upon the monuments of stinging nettle: go away, shitter. It is not safe for you to open your arse here.