I'HE I-IRST SIX CENTURIES. T7 



■©"bjects, ia my judgment with good reason, to tliis ^interpretation. 

 He calls in question the genuineness or analogy of the other inscrip- 

 tions usually compared with this as confirming the sense assigned to it, 

 and points out the improbability that the stone marked a loculus in the 

 Catacombs, as the greatest number of bodies contained in such is 4. 

 He suggests that the inscription may be imperfect, and that thus N 

 may be regarded as the last letter of ANN. i.e. annorum, scil. annorum 

 Ji^XX, the person, whose name preceded, being of thirty years of age. 

 It is remarkable that in this De Rossi was anticipated by Maitland, 

 who (p. 58) " reads the words as the fragment of qui vixit ann. XXX 

 •iSyrra et Senec. coss, who lived thirty years. In the Consulate of 

 Syrra and Senecio ; that is, a.d. 102." I cannot concur in this expla- 

 nation. It suits this particular case, but is wholly inapplicable in 

 others e. gr. in Fabretti, p. 574, 61, we have the epitaph of 

 Leopardus, a boy whose age is stated to have been 7 years and 7 

 months. At the commencement of it are the letters-— DMASACRVM 

 XL, i.e. Dis Manibus Sacrum. 40. Again, in the Catacomb of St. 

 Agnes, De Rossi found LIX on the loculus of an infant. Nor can 

 Amati's positive assertion that they indicate loculorum ordines be 

 received, for this is contrary to the experience of those who have 

 personally examined the Catacombs. To me it seems evident that 

 there is no sufficient reason for believing either that these numerals 

 indicate the number of bodies buried within, or that the deceased were 

 Martyrs. I can offer no satisfactory solution : it has seemed to me, 

 however, not improbable that the numbers were the marks of workmen 

 ^ihefossores or their assistants^-who may have been paid according to 

 the number of loculi excavated or of slabs put up. I have observed 

 a similar notation in a Pagan epitaph, given by Orelli, n. 5008 : — 

 JV. III. Id. Nov. Diis Manibus Didias Q. F. Quintinse Luetina 

 Priscus tixori optimee V. A. XXVII. Labus remarks : — " Nuinero 

 iertio, Idibus Novembribus : cio^ la pietra, il cippo, il monumento ecc. 

 ■era posto nel terren sacro al No. 3." 



* This view might seem to be as old as the time of Pradentius {scil. the 4th 

 century), for he writes : — 



Sunt et multa tamen tacitas claudentia turhasi 

 Marmora quae solum significant numerum. 

 But the reference here seems to be to Folyandria — pits containing many dead 

 bodies — not to loculi, of which, so far as I am avy-are, there is no example of their 

 containing more than four. 

 2 



