Nor are inscriptions wanting which declare the vanity of human wishes, and the fallaciousness of human hopes;-- Decipimur votis et tempore fallimur, et mors Deridet curas; anxia vita nihil, is a distich which frequently occurs.[119] VIVE LÆTUS QUIQUE (quicunque) VIVIS. VITA PARVUM MUNUS EST MOX EXORTA EST SENSIM VIGESCIT DEINDE SENSIM DEFICIT, expresses a similar sentiment. The sentiment on the tomb of Vettius Hermes, MATER GENUIT ME, MATER RECEPIT, is not very different from that of Scripture, "Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return." The inscription, C. POMPEIUS EUPHROSYNUS ET JUNIA GEMELLA UXOR EJUS EX OMNIBUS BONIS SUIS HOC SIBI SUMPSERUNT, that the grave in which they lay was all they had retained of their possessions, reminds us of the passage, "We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can take nothing out." These and similar sentiments express truths forced everywhere on man's notice, and which may be looked for in many countries, and under many religions. The inquiry, to which we might especially expect that the sepulcral inscriptions would furnish a full reply, is, what was the belief of the Romans, in the ages to which these memorials belong, respecting the condition of man after death. The almost universal commencement of epitaphs with Diis Manibus, or the abbreviation D. M., might seem to indicate an universal belief in the continued existence of the spiritual part of his nature. For "the divine Manes" were the disembodied spirits of men, waiting, according to those who believed in the transmigration of souls, for reunion with another body; or, according to a more popular conception, lingering around the tomb, acutely sensitive to any violation or neglect, and gratified by the tokens of remembrance and affection; or in a still different view, the presiding deities of the world of spirits exercising a control over its inhabitants. Such must have been the conception of Furia Spes, when in the inscription upon her husband's tomb she addresses a prayer to the Manes, that she might be permitted to see him in her nightly dreams. PETO VOS MANES SANCTISSIMÆ, COMMENDATUM HABEATIS MEUM CONJUGEM ET VELITIS HUIC INDULGENTISSIMI ESSE, HORIS NOCTURNIS UT EUM VIDEAM. ET ETIAM ME FATO SUO ADDERE VELIT, UT ET EGO DULCIUS ET CELERIUS APUD EUM PERVENIRE POSSIM.[120] How far the formulary mention of the Dii Manes on sepulcres may be taken as a proof of the continued existence of the belief in which it undoubtedly originated is a question very difficult to decide. Pliny, while he ridicules the superstition, acknowledges the existence of the belief.[121] Juvenal, on the contrary, declares that the belief in the Manes did not extend beyond the nursery:-- Esse aliquid Manes et subterranea regna---- Nec pueri credunt nisi qui nondum ære lavantur. Sat. 2, 149.