Septimus to Marciana in peace.  Who lived
  with me seventeen years.  She sleeps in peace.

  GAVDENTIA
  PAVSAT DVLCIS
  SPIRITVS ANNORVM II
  MENSORVM TRES.

  Gaudentia rests.  Sweet spirit of two years
  and three months.

Here is a gravestone with the single word VIATOR; here one that tells only that Mary placed it for her daughter; here one that tells of the light of the house,—­[Greek:  To phos thaes Oikias].

Nor is it only in these domestic and intimate inscriptions that the habitual temper and feeling of the Christians is shown, but even still more in those that were placed over the graves of such members of the household of faith as had made public profession of their belief, and shared in the sufferings of their Lord.  There is no parade of words on the gravestones of the martyrs.  Their death needed no other record than the little jar of blood placed in the mortar, and the fewest words were enough where this was present.  Here is an inscription in the rudest letters from a martyr’s grave:—­

  SABATIVS BENEMERENTI QVI VIXIT ANNOS XL

  To the well-deserving Sabatias, who lived
  forty years.

And here another:—­

  PROSPERO INNOCENTI ANIMAE IN PACE.

  To Prosperus, innocent soul, in peace.

And here a third, to a child who had died as one of the Innocents:—­

  MIRAE INNOCENTIAE ANIMA DULCIS AEMILEANVS
  QVI VIXIT ANNO VNO, MENS.  VIII D. XXVIII
  DORMIT IN PACE

  Aemilian, sweet soul of marvellous innocence,
  who lived one year, eight months, twenty-eight
  days.  He sleeps in peace.

At this grave was found the vase of blood, and on the gravestone was the figure of a dove.

Another inscription, which preserves the name of one of those who suffered in the most severe persecution to which the ancient Church was exposed, and which, if genuine, is, so far as known, the only monument of the kind, is marked by the same simplicity of style:—­

  LANNVS XPI MA
  RTIR HC*[Hic?] REQVIESC
  IT SVR [E-P-S] DIOCLITI ANO PASSVS

  Lannus Martyr of Christ here rests.  He
  suffered under Diocletian.

The three letters EPS have been interpreted as standing for the words et posteris suis, and as meaning that the grave was also for his successors.  Not yet, then, had future saints begun to sanctify their graves, and to claim the exclusive possession of them.

But there is another point of contrast between the inscriptions of the un-Christianized and the Christian Romans, which illustrates forcibly the difference in the regard which they paid to the dead.  To the one the dead were still of this world, and the greatness of life, the distinctions of class, the titles of honor still clung to them; to the other the past life was as nothing to that which had now begun.  The heathen epitaphs are loaded with titles of honor,