Decipimur votis et tempore fallimur, et mors
Deridet curas; anxia vita nihil,
is a distich which frequently occurs.[119] VIVE LÆTUS QUIQUE (quicunque) VIVIS. VITA PARVUM MUNUS EST MOX EXORTA EST SENSIM VIGESCIT DEINDE SENSIM DEFICIT, expresses a similar sentiment. The sentiment on the tomb of Vettius Hermes, MATER GENUIT ME, MATER RECEPIT, is not very different from that of Scripture, “Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return.” The inscription, C. POMPEIUS EUPHROSYNUS ET JUNIA GEMELLA UXOR EJUS EX OMNIBUS BONIS SUIS HOC SIBI SUMPSERUNT, that the grave in which they lay was all they had retained of their possessions, reminds us of the passage, “We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can take nothing out.”
These and similar sentiments express truths forced everywhere on man’s notice, and which may be looked for in many countries, and under many religions. The inquiry, to which we might especially expect that the sepulcral inscriptions would furnish a full reply, is, what was the belief of the Romans, in the ages to which these memorials belong, respecting the condition of man after death. The almost universal commencement of epitaphs with Diis Manibus, or the abbreviation D. M., might seem to indicate an universal belief in the continued existence of the spiritual part of his nature. For “the divine Manes” were the disembodied spirits of men, waiting, according to those who believed in the transmigration of souls, for reunion with another body; or, according to a more popular conception, lingering around the tomb, acutely sensitive to any violation or neglect, and gratified by the tokens of remembrance and affection; or in a still different view, the presiding deities of the world of spirits exercising a control over its inhabitants. Such must have been the conception of Furia Spes, when in the inscription upon her husband’s tomb she addresses a prayer to the Manes, that she might be permitted to see him in her nightly dreams. PETO VOS MANES SANCTISSIMÆ, COMMENDATUM HABEATIS MEUM CONJUGEM ET VELITIS HUIC INDULGENTISSIMI ESSE, HORIS NOCTURNIS UT EUM VIDEAM. ET ETIAM ME FATO SUO ADDERE VELIT, UT ET EGO DULCIUS ET CELERIUS APUD EUM PERVENIRE POSSIM.[120] How far the formulary mention of the Dii Manes on sepulcres may be taken as a proof of the continued existence of the belief in which it undoubtedly originated is a question very difficult to decide. Pliny, while he ridicules the superstition, acknowledges the existence of the belief.[121] Juvenal, on the contrary, declares that the belief in the Manes did not extend beyond the nursery:—
Esse aliquid Manes et subterranea regna——
Nec pueri credunt nisi qui nondum ære lavantur.
Sat. 2, 149.
I should receive with caution the testimony of a poetical censor of his age, who naturally fixes his eye on those circumstances only which justify his fierce indignation. Nor do I draw any inference unfavourable to the belief in a future existence from such expressions as “domus æterna,” “quies æterna,” and others of the same kind. They are found on Christian sepulcres, and may have a reference to the body, which it was hoped might never be disturbed in its peaceful resting-place. It is natural also to regard the grave as a place of repose from the toils, the pains, and the troubles of life, without believing it to be the “be-all and the end-all” of man’s history. Even the inscription, D. M. ET SOMNO ÆTERNALI. SECURITATI MEMORIÆQUE PERPETUÆ ÆLIÆ FLAVIÆ MELITANÆ,[122] may not involve that disbelief which the words “eternal sleep” seem to us to imply. From the list of doubters, at all events, must be excluded T. Claudius Panoptes, who erects a monument to his two daughters, in obedience to a vision (ex viso), and placed this challenge to sceptics on their tomb. TU QUI LEGES ET DUBITAS MANES ESSE, SPONSIONE FACTA INVOCA NOS ET INTELLIGES.[123] On the other hand, it is not to be denied that many inscriptions breathe a very Epicurean spirit. AMICI DUM VIVIMUS VIVAMUS, was an exhortation rather to the enjoyment than the improvement of life. The inscription on the tomb of Publius Clodius, QUOD COMEDI ET EBIBI TANTUM MEUM EST, seems copied from that of Sardanapalus.[124] Such sentiments, openly professed, revolt our moral taste. The most determined modern votary of luxury and pleasure would not imitate Claudius Secundus, in declaring, HIC SECUM HABET OMNIA. BALNEA VINA VENUS CORRUMPUNT CORPORA NOSTRA. SED VITAM FACIUNT BALNEA VINA VENUS.[125] Public opinion, and, indeed, public authority, now impose restraints on the profession of irreligious or immoral sentiments, which were unknown to the more free-spoken Romans. In truth, at the time to which our inscriptions belong, though there was a national cultus, there cannot be said to have been a national religion.
Even when their epitaphs imply a hope of a future existence, it is of that doubtful and hypothetical kind, with the expression of which Tacitus closes his life of Agricola. “Si quis piorum Manibus locus; si, ut sapientibus placet, non cum corpore extinguuntur magnæ animæ, placide quiescas.”
Suscipe nunc conjunx, si quis post funera sensus,
Debita sacratis Manibus officia.[126]
The expression of a more confident hope, as in the two following inscriptions, does not exclude the suspicion that there it may be rather poetical imagery than religious faith. Atilia Marcella thus speaks in the name of her deceased husband Fabatus:—
Terrenum corpus, cœlestis spiritus in me;
Quo repetente sedem suam nunc vivimus illic,
Et fruitur superis æterna in luce Fabatus.[127]
The mother of Theodote thus consoles herself for the loss of her daughter, who was hardly five years old.