It was not to be expected, however, that Christian epitaphs should always remain so brief and bare a record. In the light of Christian doctrine, death had altogether changed its character; it was no longer an everlasting sleep, though here and there a Christian epitaph may still be found to call it so; it was no longer a final and perpetual separation from those who were left behind; it was recognised as the necessary gate of admission to a new and nobler life; and it was only likely, therefore, that some tokens of this change of feeling and belief should, sooner or later, find expression in the places where the dead were laid. Amid the almost innumerable monumental inscriptions of Pagan Rome that have been preserved to us, we seek in vain for any token of belief in a future life. Generally speaking, there is a total silence on the subject; but if the silence is broken, it is by faint traces of poetical imagery, not by the distinct utterances of a firm hope, much less of a clear and certain belief. The Christian epitaphs first broke this silence by the frequent use of a symbol, the anchor indicating hope, carved or rudely scratched beside the name upon the gravestone. Presently they added words also; words which were the natural outpourings of hearts which were full of Christian faith and love. On a few gravestones in those parts of the Catacomb of Sta. Priscilla already spoken of, we read the Apostolic salutation, _Pax tecum_, or _Pax tibi_; on one in the Cœmeterium Ostrianum, _Vivas in Deo_, and these are the first germs, out of which Christian epigraphy grew.