Virginis hic teneræ, lector miserere sepultæ;
Unius huic lustri vix fuit acta dies.
O quam longinquæ fuerat dignissima vitæ
Heu! cujus vivit nunc sine fine dolor—
Sola tamen tanti restant solatia luctus
Quod tales animæ protinus astra petunt.[128]
Upon the whole the evidence, negative even more than positive, of the Roman sepulcral inscriptions, abundantly confirms the testimony of heathen as well as Christian writers, to the absence of any definite and practical belief in a future state, in the three or four first centuries after the Christian æra. Yet few would be able tranquilly to acquiesce in the doctrine of annihilation. They sought in other sources for that assurance which neither religion nor philosophy could afford them. Never was the practice of magic, incantations, necromancy, and mysteries more prevalent than during the period in which Christianity was slowly supplanting the ancient superstitions. It was evident that the fulness of the times was come, and that if the world were not to be divided between the victims of religious imposture and the disciples of Epicurus, light from on high must visit the earth.
Other inscriptions, not properly sepulcral, afford the same proof of the loss of all vital power in the old religion. Among all the religious monuments which the Museum of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society contains, there is not one to Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, or any of the great gods of the popular creed. There is one to Hercules—a hero, not a god; one to Fortune—a deified personification; one to the Genius of the place—an elegant creation of poetry; one to the fictitious deity of the Emperor. The gods of the barbarians have evidently dethroned those of Greece and Rome. The legate of a Roman Legion records that he has rebuilt from the foundation a temple of the Egyptian Serapis. A Roman commander must have constructed the cave in which the mystic rites of the Asiatic Mithras were performed. We have an altar to the tutelary goddess of Brigantia; to Viterineus, a local deity of the neighbourhood of Hadrian’s Wall; and, lastly, to the god Arciacon, wholly unknown but from this unique inscription. It is evident that the popular religion was altogether “a creed outworn.” Art had familiarized men with the human representations of their deities; and even by the perfection of its visible and material works had destroyed the belief in their spiritual existence and invisible power. Philosophy had exposed the folly of an anthropomorphic polytheism; poetry and the stage had made the gods contemptible. Nothing was left which could awaken reverence or love: instead of aiding, the popular religion checked the impulse of the mind to connect the ideas of infinitude and deity. But in the gods of the barbarous nations, who had remained without art, and without a mythology converting gods into men, there was something obscure, mysterious, and indefinite; something on which imagination could fasten, and which it could readily invest with supernatural attributes. He who looked on the Apollo of the Belvedere with no other feeling than that he beheld the triumph of the sculptor’s art in action and expression, was overcome with a religious awe when he gazed on the unmeaning faces and half-bestial forms of Egyptian deities. The genius of Rome was tolerant of all religions but the true; a hearty belief in the gods of his own Pantheon would not have prevented a Roman soldier from doing homage to those of the country in which he was quartered, and seeking thus to gain their favour or avert their displeasure. But this will not account for the extensive diffusion of the worship of Phrygia and Thrace, Persia and Egypt, throughout the Roman empire. It was certainly an indication of a restless longing for something that could supply nourishment to the craving for religious faith which exists in the heart of man, and feeds itself on superstition when it can find no purer aliment.
Among the sights of modern Rome there is none more interesting than that long gallery of the Vatican called Delle Lapidi. On the right-hand wall are encased the sepulcral and other monuments of emperors, consuls and commanders of legions, with their numerous and pompous titles; inscriptions to the gods and their priests. The elaborate and tasteful ornaments, the finely-cut letters, the classical Latinity—all indicate the rank and station of those by whom or in whose honour they were raised. On the left are the Christian monuments, chiefly supplied by the Catacombs, which, during the ages of the obscurity and persecution of the Church, served the Christians for sanctuary and cemetery, and even for a temporary dwelling-place. The slabs from their tombs are of coarse material—not Parian, or Carrara marble, or Egyptian porphyry; the letters are rudely made, the spelling and the syntax betray the humble rank and imperfect literary attainments of those who supplied them. No mention is made of ample space allotted to the tomb, no anxious care is expressed to perpetuate the inheritance or provide for a long succession of occupants. The Christian perhaps fell asleep in the expectation that the second coming of his Lord, to call the tenants of the tomb to judgment, would not be delayed beyond a few years. The Roman of family had three names; the Christian had no gens with which to claim affinity; he was a proletarian, a mere unit amidst the millions. One simple name served to identify him; his sepulcre might even be nameless—a circumstance of most rare occurrence in regard to Pagan tombs.[129] How strikingly does the contrast confirm the declaration of the Apostle, that “not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble were called.”[130] But to this contrast there is another side. The heathen monuments represent a decayed and dying superstition; the Christian, a living and triumphant faith—“the weak things of the world chosen to confound the strong.” Their inscriptions speak of resignation, peace, and confidence; their emblems, the Good Shepherd, the Dove, the Anchor, the Ark of Noah, all breathe the same peaceful, humble, and yet hopeful spirit.
The literature of what the Germans call Epigraphik, that branch of archæology which treats of inscriptions, is uncommonly rich—so rich, indeed, as to be embarrassing. The scholars of Italy, with Muratori and Maffei at their head, have been pre-eminent in their labours, which alone would form a library. The inscriptions of Gaul and Helvetia, and of the Roman settlements on the Rhine and Danube, have been illustrated in special works. Those of our country may be found in Horsley’s “Britannia Illustrata,” in the later work of Lysons, in Dr. Bruce’s “Roman Wall,” and Stuart’s “Caledonia Illustrata.” The great repository, in which all that was known at the commencement of the eighteenth century has been collected, is the “Inscriptiones Antiquæ totius orbis Romani,” four volumes, folio, begun by Joseph Scaliger, and enlarged by the successive labours of Gruter and Grævius. These, with the folios of Fabretti and Reinesius, are indispensable in the library of an archæologist, who devotes himself to the study of inscriptions. The general scholar will find an admirable selection in the work of Orelli, to which a supplemental volume has been lately added by Henzen.[131] The monuments are carefully classified; they are illustrated, without being overwhelmed with notes, and more care is taken than in any previous collection, to separate the spurious from the genuine inscriptions. Nowhere has mischievous ingenuity been more actively at work than in the forgery of Latin inscriptions, especially in the sixteenth century, when the revival of classical studies gave value to every relic of antiquity, and the infancy of archæological science rendered imposture easy. Among those who have deserved the reprobation of scholars by their forgeries, Pyrrhus Ligorius stands pre-eminent. Ligorio was a Neapolitan by birth, a skilful artist and architect, who, with considerable taste for antiquities, but little knowledge, employed himself in making collections of drawings of ancient buildings, and copies of inscriptions and medals, which, when bound in volumes, he sold at high prices to the munificent patrons of learning who then abounded in Italy. Thirty-five of these volumes, in imperial folio, are in the Royal Library of Turin, and others are, or were, in the Library of the Vatican, and of the princely families of Rome. The temptation of gain was too strong for his honesty, and finding invention easier than research and discovery, he began to forge inscriptions in order to make up his volumes. He is said to have been ignorant of the Latin language, but either this must be a mistake, or he was aided by some one of superior attainments to his own: for many of his forgeries prove the skill with which they were made, by the currency which they have obtained. He has frequently combined fragments of different inscriptions; or taken names from the “Consular Fasti,” and inserted them so as to give his patchwork an air of genuineness. There can be no doubt that he really copied many inscriptions; but his bad faith has cast a shade over everything which rests on his sole authority. He is by no means the only one who has brought on himself the malison of antiquaries and historians, by thus corrupting the sources of historical evidence. The greatest caution is necessary in citing an inscription, of which the alleged original no longer exists, if it be not vouched by unexceptionable authority. On the other hand, some reputations which had been tarnished by the suspicion of the forgery of ancient inscriptions, have been vindicated by Time. The name of Cyriac of Ancona was once a bye-word among scholars for a shameless impostor, who had passed his own inventions on the world as genuine remains of antiquity. Yet he is now admitted to have acted with good faith,[132] although through haste and ignorance he may have copied inaccurately and been imposed upon by others. It is ascertained that the collection of Spanish inscriptions which has passed under his name, and which has given rise to the heaviest imputations against him, was fraudulently put forth and attributed to him.
Inscriptions have also been rejected on grounds of taste by critics, who did not sufficiently reflect, that in an age when all other style had been corrupted by affectation and bombast, the lapidary style could hardly have retained its original character of modesty, conciseness, and simplicity.
Many sepulcral inscriptions, some of which have been quoted in the preceding pages, are preserved in MS. collections, and have been introduced into the “Anthologia Latina,” which was begun by Scaliger, and continued by Pithœus; and attained its most complete form in the hands of Peter Burmann.[133] About 400 sepulcral inscriptions are included in it, extending from the time of the Scipios, even down to the twelfth century after the birth of Christ, and including of course many which are the production of Christian authors. Some of more recent composition have found their way into these collections; but the majority attest their own genuineness by their unrefined phraseology, and their violation of the laws of prosody—faults which no modern scholar would have allowed himself to commit.