(Ut rosa amoena homini est quom primo tempore floret.
Quei me viderunt, seic Amoena fui.)

There is a touch of pathos in the inscription which a mother put on the
stone of her son:[58] "A sorrowing mother has set up this monument to a
son who has never caused her any sorrow, except that he is no more," and
in this tribute of a husband:[59] "Out of my slender means now that the
end has come, my wife, all that I could do, this gift, a small small one
for thy deserts, have I made." The epitaph of a little girl, named
Felicia, or Kitty, has this sentiment in graceful verse:[60] "Rest lightly
upon thee the earth, and over thy grave the fragrant balsam grow, and
roses sweet entwine thy buried bones." Upon the stone of a little girl who
bore the name of Xanthippe, and the nickname Iaia, is an inscription with
one of two pretty conceits and phrases. With it we may properly bring to
an end our brief survey of these verses of the common people of Rome. In a
somewhat free rendering it reads in part:[61] "Whether the thought of
death distress thee or of life, read to the end. Xanthippe by name, yclept
also Iaia by way of jest, escapes from sorrow since her soul from the body
flies. She rests here in the soft cradle of the earth,... comely,
charming, keen of mind, gay in discourse. If there be aught of compassion
in the gods above, bear her to the sun and light."




II. Their Dedicatory and Ephemeral Verses


In the last paper we took up for consideration some of the Roman metrical