The wounded affections had their victims. P. L. Modestus raises a monument to Telesinia Crispinilla, CONJUGI SANCTISSIMÆ, QUÆ OB DESIDERIUM FILI SUI PIISSIMI VIVERE ABOMINAVIT ET POST DIES XV FATI EJUS ANIMO DESPONDIT.[40] Of a similar excess of maternal grief, causing the death of his wife, Cerialius Calistio gently complains; DUM NIMIS PIA FUIT FACTA EST IMPIA.[41] Communis and Casia inscribe a monument to the memory of a daughter who died at the age of fifteen, and of a son, QUI POST DESIDERIUM SORORIS SUÆ UNA DIE SUPERVIXIT.[42] The following distich records the death of Antonia Maura from her attendance on her sick husband:-- Itala me rapuit crudeli funere tellus, Dum foveo nimia sedulitate virum. The complaint that "physicians were in vain" is of ancient date.[43] Ussere ardentes intus mea viscera morbi, Vincere quos medicæ non potuere manus. Pliny has not preserved the name of the unhappy man whose monument declared TURBA MEDICORUM SE PERIISSE,[44] that he had died of a multitude of doctors. Nor do the surgeons escape reproach for their want of skill. MEDICI MALE MEMBRA SECARUNT; CORPORI QUOD SUPER EST TUMULUM TIBI FECI appears to be the address of a master to his gladiator, who, though mangled, had gained the victory, but lost his life from unskilful treatment of his wounds.[45] * * * * * Inscriptions are curious to the scholar, as a record of the changes which the Latin language underwent in successive ages. Manuscripts imperfectly answer this purpose, because transcribers were very apt, either from habit or a desire to render their labours more saleable, to change old forms for new, especially in orthography. Sepulcral inscriptions, being commonly the work of private individuals, represent more exactly the language of common life than public monuments. They serve the same purpose to the philologer, as provincial dialects, in which the old language of a country is often preserved, when obliterated in correct and fashionable speech. From the inscriptions in the tomb of the Scipios in the beginning of the third century, B.C., down to the establishment of Christianity, after which a cessation of Pagan formulæ gradually takes place, we have a succession of about six centuries. I will mention a few instances, collected from funeral inscriptions, which either throw light on the history of the Latin language, or illustrate that vulgar idiom and pronunciation, which has influenced the formation of the modern Italian.