yi 8 Legends of Sepulchral [November, 
body of a young woman in a remarkable state of preserva- 
tion. Her flesh was uncorrupted,* * * § and her tresses were still 
bound with a small plate of gold curiously chased and 
enamelled. A burning lamp hanging in the vault was extin- 
guished as soon as the air entered. On the walls was carved 
the inscription “ Tulliola filice me<z ” which was thought to 
refer to Tulliola, the daughter of Cicero, whose death he 
laments in his letters to Servius Sulpicius.t One authority 
states that the lamp burned several hours after opening the 
tomb, though it must have been closed more than fifteen 
hundred years. This legend was the subjedt of much 
comment. Montfaucon, I the eminent French antiquary 
and philologist, repudiates the story, and maintains that it 
is merely the revival of an older tale concerning the disco- 
very of an uncorrupted body, in March, 1485, related by 
Etienne de Infestura and Alexander ab Alexandro. The 
latter describes the marvellously perfedt preservation of the 
remains, and adds — “ To see the body one would have 
have thought it interred but a short time ; there was no in- 
scription, though Pomponius thought it to be the body of 
Tulliola, daughter of Cicero, or that of Priscilla, wife of 
Abascantius.” 
Another legend, which supplied partisans with one of their 
strongest arguments, was that of the Lamp of Olybius. In 
the year 1500 some peasants, digging the earth to a consi- 
derable depth, near Padua, discovered a tomb containing 
lighted lamps, one of silver and the other of gold ; or, ac- 
cording to another authority, there was but one lamp, placed 
in an urn between two phials, one filled with liquid gold and 
the other with liquid silver, by virtue of which the light had 
been maintained since the days of the Romans. According 
to inscriptions§ on the urns the lamp had been prepared 
with great labour by Maximus Olybius. Representations of 
the two vases, with their inscriptions, are given in Kriegs- 
mann’s “ Taaut,” and in several less rare works. || Licetus, 
* Perhaps converted into adipocere (?). 
f Ad Familiares, iv., 6. 
J L’Antiquite Expliquee. Paris, 1719. 
§ On the smaller urn: — Abite hinc pessimi fures ! Vos quid voltis vestris 
cum occulis emissitiis ? Abite hinc vestro cum Mercurio petasato cadu- 
ceatoque. Maximus maximo donum Plutoni, hoc sacrum facit. 
On the larger urn ; — 
“ Plutoni sacrum munus ne attingite fures ! 
Ignotum est vobis hoc quod in urna latet ; 
Namque elementa gravi clausit digesta labore 
Vase sub hoc Modico Maximus Olybius. 
Adsit foecundo custos sibi copia cornu, 
Ne pretium tanti depereat laticis. 
]| See Petri Afriani, Incriptionibus, p. 337 ; also Licetus, Ferrari, and 
Mgntfaucon. 
