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: pœnam non sentio mortis.
Pœna 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 Homonœa, 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.
HOMONŒA.
Illa ego quæ claris fueram prælata puellis
Hoc Homonœa 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
Mœror 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 Homonœa libens.
At nunc, quod possum, fugiam lucemque deosque
Ut te matura per Styga morte sequar.
HOMONŒA.
Parce tuam conjux, fletu quassare juventam,
Fataque mœrendo 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 (σπευδούσα), 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]