SIMPLICITY OF ROMAN LAPIDARY STYLE 32 TOPICS OF PRAISE 35 PARENTAL REGRETS 36 FILIAL AFFECTION 38 CONJUGAL AFFECTION 40 LAW OF DIVORCE 45 INSCRIPTIONS ON FAVOURITE ANIMALS 47 RELIGIOUS FAITH AND SENTIMENT 48 TOPICS OF CONSOLATION 50 MORAL REFLEXIONS 51 BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY 52 EPICUREAN SENTIMENTS 54 DOUBTFUL HOPES 55 SUPERSTITION AND SCEPTICISM 56 THE OLD RELIGIONS OBSOLETE 57 WORSHIP OF STRANGE GODS 58 CONTRAST OF PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN MONUMENTS 59 WORKS ON INSCRIPTIONS 60 FORGERIES 61 ROMAN BURIAL CLUBS 65 ROMAN SEPULCRAL INSCRIPTIONS. The memorials of the dead hold a remarkable place among the materials of history. The very existence of nations is in many cases attested only by their sepulcral monuments, which serve to trace the course of their migrations, and yield us a scanty knowledge of their usages, and of the state of civilization among them. Where the art of writing has been unknown, this knowledge must, indeed, be vague and inferential; we may gather the race from the form of the skull, the rank or occupation from the contents of the grave; but we learn nothing of the individual character or social relations of its tenant; he is only one of the countless multitude who illacrimabiles Urguentur ignotique longa Nocte. Even among nations who have possessed the art of writing, and used it profusely for sepulcral purposes, we may be disappointed in the hope of gaining any idea of individual character from inscriptions on the dead. From the hieroglyphics with which the Egyptian mummies and funeral tablets are covered we seldom learn more than the state and function of the deceased. The Greek inscriptions are more communicative, but their [Greek: epigrammata epitymbia], of which so large a number are preserved in the Anthology, are rather poetical exercises than the expression of genuine, personal sentiment; and those which have come down to us in brass or marble are brief and meagre.