18 CHRISTIAN EPITAPHS OF 



(c) Specimen of Palaeography : — 91. 



(See Plate III, 1.) 



{E coemet. Cyriacce ; De Rossi, n. 21.) 



Decesit (decessit) Serotina pride (pridie) Kal. Martias m (ensium') 

 X, dier(urn) XX, Diocl(etiano) 9 (YI) consule. 



" Serotina departed on the day before the Calends of March, (aged) tAi 

 months, twenty days, in the sixth Consulship of Diocletian," i. e, February 29th 

 296 A. D. 



(d) Use of D. M. by Christians :— 92. 



D- M- 

 P • LIBERIO J^IXIT ANN N • V • MENS 

 N III DIES JS VIII RANICIO 

 FAVSTO ET VIRIO GAL- 



(E coem. ?; De Rossi, n. 24.) 

 Diis Manihus. Puhlio Liherio, vixit annos niimero V, menses 

 numero III, dies numero Till. Recessit Anicio Fausto et Virio Gallo 

 (Consulibus). 



" To the Gods the Manes. To Publius Liberius. He lived years in number 

 five, months in number three, days in number eight. He retired (from this 

 world) in the Consulship of Faustus and Yirius Gallus, i. e. 298 a.d." 



We have here an example of the use of the heathen formula D. M., 

 Diis llanibus, in an epitaph that De Rossi and other scholars regard as 

 Christian. I have noticed this anomaly in Part XI of my " Notes on 

 Latin Inscriptions found in Britain" (^Canadian Journal, X. p. 95), 

 and ascribed it either to thoughtless use of the form, produced by 

 familiarity •with it as the ordinary commencement of a sepulchral 

 inscription, or to the fact, that grave-stones were kept for sale with 

 these letters cut on them, and were purchased by Christians without 

 consideration of their appropriateness. Fabretti insists that these letters 

 when they occur in a Christian epitaph, stand for Deo Magna, or Deo 

 Maximo ; but there is no doubt that his opinion is erroneous, for the 

 form is found, in at least one such inscription, in extenso, i. e. Diis 

 Manihus. See Orelli, n. 4458=4723, and compare Maitland, " Church 

 in the Catacombs," pp. 59, 60, 61, who regards this inscription to 

 Liberius as ' almost certainly Pagan.' The same view of it is taken by 

 Roestel. I incline, however, to the belief that it is Christian. My 

 reasons are that it was found in one of the Catacombs, that the stone 

 was not broken, and that we find in the inscription the letter R used 



