This epigram brings us to the last class of extant epitaphs, that in which the passer-by is addressed in friendly or in threatening language. This kind is not exclusively late: we have already seen that the Spartan epitaph at Thermopylae addresses the wayfarer, and bids him carry a message to Sparta. But it is very common on late tombs. In an epitaph from Crete[278], of the first century, the wayfarer is requested to say as he passes, ‘May earth lie light on thee.’ In another, of the same age, from Pholegandros[279], we read, ‘Having duteously greeted me, the dead Diogenes, go, stranger, to thine own affairs, and may they prosper at thy will.’ The gentle custom of giving a passing greeting at the tomb, in the word χαῖpε, seems to have been usual among the Greeks. Thus easily one kept on good terms with the dead, and won their friendly wishes. On the other hand, any sort of violence done to a grave or its inmates brought down on the sacrilegious violator all kinds of plagues and miseries, which are sometimes, in late Roman times, set forth in the epitaph itself, _in terrorem_. Sometimes a sum of money is mentioned which the violator must pay as a fine to redeem his guilt; but sometimes he is threatened with direr penalties, gout and fever and many other diseases. The tomb of Annia Regilla, wife of Herodes Atticus, at Athens, bears an inscription in which the prayer is set forth that for any one who disturbs the grave the earth may refuse to bear fruit and the sea refuse to bear his ships, and that he and his race may perish miserably. Blessings are heaped on all who may honour the burial-place. Our minds naturally pass to the well-known epitaph on Shakespeare’s tomb at Stratford, which may perhaps have been framed on an ancient model. At a decidedly higher literary level than the epitaphs collected from Greek gravestones are many of those put together in the seventh book of the _Palatine Anthology_. All real lovers of Greek letters are acquainted with the delightful epigrams written by poets of the Hellenistic age to adorn the tomb: gems of Callimachus, of Meleager, of Leonidas of Tarentum, and others. English poets, from Dr. Johnson to Mr. Andrew Lang, have devoted hours of leisure to rendering in English verse these flowers of ancient poetry, which are best characterized in the well-known words as slight things but roses, βαιὰ μὲν ἀλλὰ ῥόδα. If, however, we accept the comparison of the Epigrams of the _Anthology_ to roses, we must remember that our roses are highly cultivated and civilized flowers. No person with any literary discernment would compare them to the brier-rose, the anemone, or the primrose.