[66] Anthol. iv. 357. Lucian, περὶ ὀρχήσεως—Κάθησαι καταυλούμενος θηλυδρίαν ἄνθρωπον ὀρῶν, ἐσθῆσι μαλακᾶις καὶ ἄσμασιν ἀκολάστοις ἐναβρυνόμενον, καὶ μιμούμενον ἐρωτικὰ γύναια τῶν πάλαι τὰς μαχλοτάτας, Φαίδρας καὶ Παρθενόπας καὶ ’Ροδόπας τινάς. A truer representation, it is to be feared, of what pantomime actually was, than the semi-serious defence of Lucian, who makes the theatre a school of self-knowledge and self-control, and the education of the dancer a course of mythological and poetical learning.
[67] Bulletino dell Istit. Arch. 1838, p. 165. The inscription is, “Fuit Atistia uxor mihei, femina opituma, quoius corporis reliquiæ quod superant sunt in hoc panario.”—Henzen, 7268.
[68] Maitland on the Catacombs, p. 138.
[69] Archæol. Journal, 4, 55.
[70] P. 6.
[71] Gruter, p. 926-8.
[72] Gruter, p. 904.
[73] Fabretti, p. 560, who observes, “In tanto inscriptionum sepulcralium numero rari admodum reperiuntur qui longam senectutem expleverint.”
[74] Orelli, 4849.
[75] Such is that otherwise elegant epitaph on Fl. Merobaudes, of the year 435 A.D. “Æque forti et docto viro, tam facere laudanda quam aliorum facta laudare præcipuo. Castrensi experientia claro, facundia vol otiosorum studia supergresso, cui a crepundiis par virtutis et eloquentiæ cura. Ingenium ita fortitudini ut doctrinæ natum, stilo et gladio pariter exercuit, nec in umbra vel latebris mentis vigorem torpere passus. Inter arma literis militabat et in Alpibus acuebat eloquium. Ideo illi cessit in prœmium non verbena vilis nec otiosa hedera, honor capitis Heliconius, sed imago ære formata, quo rari exempli viros, seu in castris probatos, seu optimos vatum, antiquitas honorabat.” This inscription was engraved on the base of a statue dug out of the Forum Ulpii at Rome, in the beginning of the present century. Fragments of the poetry of Merobaudes, and his Panegyric on the consulship of Aëtius have been found by Niebuhr in a MS. at St. Gal, and are published in the Corp. Script. Hist. Byzant. vol. xxiv. The Christianity of Merobaudes, like that of Boethius, is ambiguous.