INNOCENTISSISSIMAE ETATIS
  DVLCISSIMO FILIO
  JOVIANO QVI VIXIT ANN.  VII
  ET MENSES VI NON MERENTES
  THEOCTISTVS ET THALLVSA PARENTES

To their sweetest boy Jovian, of the most innocent age, who lived seven years and six months, his undeserving [or unlamenting] parents Theoctistus and Thallusa.

Here, without forcing the meaning, non merentes might be supposed to refer to the parents’ not esteeming themselves worthy to be left in possession of such a treasure; but the probability is that merentes is only a misspelling of maerentes for otherwise immerentes would have been the natural word.

But it is thus that the Christian inscriptions must be sifted, to find expressions at variance with their usual tenor, their general composure and trust.  The simplicity and brevity of the greater number of them are, indeed, striking evidence of the condition of feeling among those who set them upon the graves.  Their recollections of the dead feared no fading, and Christ, whose coming was so near at hand, would know and reunite his own.  Continually we read only a name with in pace, without date, age, or title, but often with some symbol of love or faith hastily carved or painted on the stone or tiles.  Such inscriptions as the following are common:—­

  FELICISSIMVS DVLCIS,—­GAVDENTIA IN PACE,
  —­SEVERA IN DEO VIVAS,—­

or, with a little more fulness of expression,—­

  DVLCISSIMO FILIO ENDELECIO
  BENEMERENTI QVI VIXIT
  ANNOS II MENSE VNV
  DIES XX IN PACE

  To the sweetest son Endelechius, the well-
  deserving, who lived two years, one month,
  twenty days.  In peace.

The word benemerenti is of constant recurrence.  It is used both of the young and the old; and it seems to have been employed, with comprehensive meaning, as an expression of affectionate and grateful remembrance.

Here is another short and beautiful epitaph.  The two words with which it begins are often found.

  ANIMA DVLCIS AVFENIA VIRGO
  BENEDICTA QVE VIXIT ANN:  XXX
  DORMIT IN PACE

  Sweet Soul.  The Blessed Virgin Aufenia,
  who lived thirty years.  She sleeps in peace.

But the force and tenderness of such epitaphs as these is hardly to be recognized in single examples.  There is a cumulative pathos in them, as one reads, one after another, such as these that follow:—­

  ANGELICE BENE IN PACE

  To Angelica well in peace.

  CVRRENTIO SERVO DEI DEP.  D. XVI.  KAL
  NOVEM.

  To Currentius, the servant of God, laid in
  the grave on the sixteenth of the Kalends of
  November.

  MAXIMINVS QVI VIXIT ANNOS XXIII
  AMICVS OMNIVM

  Maximin, who lived twenty-three years, the
  friend of all.

  SEPTIMVS MARCIANE
  IN PACE QUE BICSIT MECV
  ANNOS XVII.  DORMIT IN PACE