I should receive with caution the testimony of a poetical censor of his age, who naturally fixes his eye on those circumstances only which justify his fierce indignation. Nor do I draw any inference unfavourable to the belief in a future existence from such expressions as "domus æterna," "quies æterna," and others of the same kind. They are found on Christian sepulcres, and may have a reference to the body, which it was hoped might never be disturbed in its peaceful resting-place. It is natural also to regard the grave as a place of repose from the toils, the pains, and the troubles of life, without believing it to be the "be-all and the end-all" of man's history. Even the inscription, D. M. ET SOMNO ÆTERNALI. SECURITATI MEMORIÆQUE PERPETUÆ ÆLIÆ FLAVIÆ MELITANÆ,[122] may not involve that disbelief which the words "eternal sleep" seem to us to imply. From the list of doubters, at all events, must be excluded T. Claudius Panoptes, who erects a monument to his two daughters, in obedience to a vision (ex viso), and placed this challenge to sceptics on their tomb. TU QUI LEGES ET DUBITAS MANES ESSE, SPONSIONE FACTA INVOCA NOS ET INTELLIGES.[123] On the other hand, it is not to be denied that many inscriptions breathe a very Epicurean spirit. AMICI DUM VIVIMUS VIVAMUS, was an exhortation rather to the enjoyment than the improvement of life. The inscription on the tomb of Publius Clodius, QUOD COMEDI ET EBIBI TANTUM MEUM EST, seems copied from that of Sardanapalus.[124] Such sentiments, openly professed, revolt our moral taste. The most determined modern votary of luxury and pleasure would not imitate Claudius Secundus, in declaring, HIC SECUM HABET OMNIA. BALNEA VINA VENUS CORRUMPUNT CORPORA NOSTRA. SED VITAM FACIUNT BALNEA VINA VENUS.[125] Public opinion, and, indeed, public authority, now impose restraints on the profession of irreligious or immoral sentiments, which were unknown to the more free-spoken Romans. In truth, at the time to which our inscriptions belong, though there was a national _cultus_, there cannot be said to have been a national religion. Even when their epitaphs imply a hope of a future existence, it is of that doubtful and hypothetical kind, with the expression of which Tacitus closes his life of Agricola. "_Si_ quis piorum Manibus locus; si, ut sapientibus placet, non cum corpore extinguuntur magnæ animæ, placide quiescas." Suscipe nunc conjunx, si quis post funera sensus, Debita sacratis Manibus officia.[126] The expression of a more confident hope, as in the two following inscriptions, does not exclude the suspicion that there it may be rather poetical imagery than religious faith. Atilia Marcella thus speaks in the name of her deceased husband Fabatus:-- Terrenum corpus, coelestis spiritus in me; Quo repetente sedem suam nunc vivimus illic, Et fruitur superis æterna in luce Fabatus.[127] The mother of Theodote thus consoles herself for the loss of her daughter, who was hardly five years old.