THE FIRST SIX CENTURIES. ' 299' 



died out, but, since then, it has been revived by Dr. Maitland and 

 by *Bishop Kip. Neither of these writers seems to have been aware 

 of the discussion which had taken place. Maitland's observatiohs on 

 it are : — " The date of this Consulate is 392, in which year no bishop 

 of Rome died. Siricius was made pope in 385, and lived to 396; 

 yet the reference to a perpetual fseat, added to the title papa sanc- 

 iissimus, strongly indicates episcopal rank. This Fapa may have 

 been an anti-pope, th^ being a schism at that time in Rome.'' 

 De Rossi derides his ignorance totius controversies vel lippis ac ton- 

 sorilus notcB, and ridicules his object in citing the epitaph. There 

 is no doubt that Maitland was unacquainted with the literary history 

 of the inscription, and that he misread and misinterpreted the words 

 papas Antimio. But De Rossi's censures are too strong, and he 

 seems to have misunderstood Maitland's object. Maitland was not 

 the only one, besides Paoli, who was mistaken relative to this inscrip- 

 tion. Fea — haud sordidus auctor — held the same opinion, that it 

 was the epitaph of some bishop; and Maitland was evidently not 

 ignorant of the fact, that papa was the common appellation of all 

 bishops, whether in or out of the City, for he distinctly states this, 

 and gives in illustration the application of the term to the Bishops 

 of Carthage and Hippo. 



The author of these verses was a reader of Virgil, but does not 

 seem to have profited by the perusal. The first line was, probably^ 

 suggested by the opening of the seventh book of the JEneid, in 

 which the grave of Caieta — ^neia nutrix — is mentioned. The words 

 magnis defuncte periclis are taken from JEn., vi., 83. See, also, 

 ix., 98. The verses, that are found in ancient epitaphs, present 

 many examples of violation of the ordinary rules of syntax and 

 prosody. "In [Greece] and Italy, as in England, the Muse of the 

 cemetery was an 'unlettered Muse.'" See Kenrick, "Roman Sepul- 

 chral Inscriptions," p. 21. 



Northcote, "The Roman Catacombs," p. 136, observes: — "It is a 

 very singular fact, that there are actually more instances of alumni 



* His remarks are merely a reproduction of •Maitland's. 



t Maitland's reference here, seems to te to the use of sedere in the sense 

 " to hold a bishopric," and we find such expressions as sedit ajinos decern 

 denoting the time during which a person occupied the office of Bishop. 

 This use of sedere is, however, not peculiar to Episcopi. In De Kossi 

 n. 879, an epitaph of a Presbyter, we find the words QVI SEDIT PBB. 



