[Footnote 3: Compare an inscription from a heathen tomb:—
C. JVLIVS MAXIMVS ANN. II. M. V.
ATROX O FORTVNA TRVCI QVAE FVNERR GAVDES QVID MIHI TAM SVBITO MAXIMVS ERIPITVR QVI MODO JVCVNDVS GREMIO SVPERESSE SOLEBAT HIC LAPIS TN TVMVLO NVNC JACET ECCE MATER
C. Julius Maximus,
Two years, five months old.
Harsh Fortune, that in cruel death finds't joy,
Why is my Maximus thus sudden reft,
So late the pleasant burden of my breast?
Now in the grave this stone lies: lo, his mother!]
And Coritus, his master, and Cotdeus, his mother, might have rejoiced in knowing that their poor, rough tablet would keep the memory of her boy alive for so many centuries; and that long after they had gone to the grave, the good spirit of Florentius should still, through these few words, remain to work good upon the earth.—Note in this inscription (as in many others) the Italianizing of the old Latin,—the ispirito, and the santo; note also the mother's strange name, reminding one of Puritan appellations,—Cotdeus being the abbreviation of Quod vult Deus, "What God wills."[4]
[Footnote 4: Other names of this kind were Deogratias, Habetdeum, and Adeodatus.]
Here is an inscription set up by a husband to his wife, Dignitas, who was a woman of great goodness and entire purity of life:—
QUE SINE LESIONE ANIMI MEI VIXI MECVM ANNOS XV FILIOS AVTEM PROCREAVIT VII EX QVIBVS SECV ABET AD DOMINVM IIII
Who, without ever wounding my soul, lived with me for fifteen years, and bore seven children, four of whom she has with her in the Lord.