A nameless poor Roman
left words on a gravestone · Roman Empire · c. 1st–3rd century
Someone who set a small stone on the grave of a person close to them and had three lines cut on it. Whose grave it was, and who set the stone, is not recorded.
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c. 1st–3rd century · ⟨ ⟩ marks letters the stonecutter left out. The date is not known exactly; it is put here in the early centuries of the Roman Empire, when most such epitaphs were cut.
If I had had a fortune to match my heart and spirit, I would have built you a magnificent monument here. As it is, since all of us, once dead, know the same, this is enough.
Si pro virtute et animo fortunam habuissem,
magnificum monumentum hic aedifica⟨vi⟩ssem tibi.
Nunc, quoniam omnes mortui idem sapimus, satis est.Bücheler, Carmina Latina Epigraphica 204 (CLE 204)
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