ROMAN SEPULCHRAL INSCRIPTIONS.
In the year 1847 I brought from the Columbaria, near the tomb of Scipio Africanus at Rome, a small collection of sepulchral fictile vessels, statuettes, &c., in terra cotta. Among these was a small figure, resembling the Athenian Hermæ, consisting of a square pillar, surmounted by the bust of a female with a peculiar head-dress and close curled coiffure. The pillar bears the following inscription:
"ΥΣΤ
ΡΑΝ
Σ
ΑΝΙ
ΚΗΤ
Ο."
—a translation of which would oblige me much.
Another, in the form of a small votive altar, bears the heads of the "Dii Majores" and their attributes, the thunderbolt, two-pronged spear, and trident, and the inscription—
"DIIS PROPI
M HERENNII
(i.e. vivantis). VIVNTIS" (i.e. vivantis).
Of the meaning of this I am by no means certain; and I have searched Montfaucon in vain, to discover anything similar.
A third was a figure of the Egyptian Osiris, exactly resembling in every point (save the material) the little mummy-shaped figures in bluish-green porcelain, which are found in such numbers in the catacombs of Ghizeh and Abousir. As the Columbaria were probably the places of sepulture of the freedmen, these various traces of national worship would seem to indicate that they were still allowed to retain the deities peculiar to the countries from which they came, through their master might be of a different faith.
E. S. Taylor.
Ormesby, St. Marg., Norfolk.