Ureret implicitum cum scelerata lues,
Cavimus et domini ius omne remisimus aegro:
Munere dignus erat convaluisse meo.
Sensit deficiens sua praemia, meque patronum
Dixit, ad infernas liber iturus aquas.
(Demetrius left us in the first years of his bloom; the fourth summer was but just added to his three lustres. We took all means to save our faithful house-slave from descending to the shades of Styx, when he was consuming under a malignant contagion that had fastened upon him, and remitted all my master’s rights for the sick lad,—who indeed well deserved to win recovery at my hands. On his death-bed he recognized what I had done for him, and called me his master, though so soon to go forth a free man to the streams of the nether world.)
Was this famulus (house-slave) the same person as the puer (boy, slave), who is mentioned by Martial, bk. XI. 95.?
That not boys only, but girls too, had to suffer in this way among the Romans, and lost their lives from the complaint in question, is shown, we think, by the following Epigram of Martial, Bk. XI. Epigr. 91.:
Aeolidon Canace iacet hoc tumulata sepulchro,
Ultima cui parvae septima venit hiems.