One inscription might seem to indicate a different feeling, a husband saying of his wife on her monument, CUJUS IN DIE MORTIS GRATIAS MAXIMAS EGI APUD DEOS ET APUD HOMINES; and the editor, Orelli, remarks upon it "mirum dicterium!"--a strange sarcasm. It would, indeed, be not only strange, but brutal, in the sense which he attributes to it, but it surely admits the more candid construction that the husband had seen his wife suffering long and was grateful for her release. It may be illustrated by another. OMIDIA BASILISSA VIXIT ANNOS XXV. QUÆ POST LONGAS ET VARIAS INFIRMITATES HOMINIBUS EXEMPTA EST. MISERA VALE. MACEDO MARITUS.[99] Such too, was the import of the consolation which C. Publicius addresses to his parents. Tempera jam genitor lacrimis, tuque, O optima mater, Desine jam flere: poenam non sentio mortis. Poena fuit vita; requies mihi morte parata est.[100] Death sometimes came speedily to blight the prospects of happiness. D. M. L. ARULENUS SOSIMUS FECIT CLODIÆ CHARIDI SUÆ CONJUGI DULCISSIMÆ, QUÆ SI AD VITÆ METAM PERVENISSET, NON HOMINIBUS NEQUE DIS INVIDISSET; SET VIX SECUM VIXIT DIES XV.[101] The following inscription beautifully expresses the wish that the harmony in which P. Manlius Surus and his wife had lived might be prolonged in the joint resting-place of their remains; UT CONCORS VIVORUM ANIMUS STETIT, ITA CONCORS MORTUORUM CINIS HIC JACEAT.[102] It is sometimes recorded on the tombs of mothers by their husbands or their children, that they had fulfilled the duty which the philosopher Favorinus urged on the Roman matrons,[103] and Tansillo and Roscoe on the women of Italy and England, that of being nurse as well as mother. GRATIÆ ALEXANDRIÆ, INSIGNIS EXEMPLI AC PUDICITIÆ, QUÆ ETIAM FILIOS SUOS PROPRIIS UBERIBUS EDUCAVIT, PUDENS MARITUS. LICINIÆ PROCESSÆ, MATRI PIÆ NUTRICI DULCISSIMÆ, CRESCENS FECIT.[104] We find traces, however, of the effects of the facility of divorce. Northern superstition has represented a mother as disquieted in her grave by the ill-usage of her children, and coming in nightly visions to terrify their stepmother into better treatment of them; but a Roman mother lived to record on the tomb of her son that he had been poisoned by his stepmother. D. M. L. HOSTILI TER SILVANI ANN. XXIV. M. II. D. XV. MATER FILIO PIISSIMO. MISERA ET IN LUCTU ÆTERNALI BENEFICIO (VENEFICIO) NOVERCÆ.[105] Another conjugal tribute discloses a singular result of the same state of the law. T. Sentius Januarius and L. Terentius Trophimus jointly raise a memorial to Hostilia Capriola.[106] She must have been married to the one after having been divorced from the other; and as they agree in calling her CONJUGI BENE MERENTI, we must suppose the first marriage to have been dissolved without criminality on her part. Such an association would seem strange, even in those continental countries, where a divorced wife may sit at table between her first and second husband.