The epitaphs are for the most part written in uncial characters, frequently without any separation of the words,[673] although sometimes they are divided by spaces, points, or leaves. They frequently abound also in contractions and monogrammatic abbreviations, imposed by limit of space or economy of labour, as in the following figure: [Illustration: Fig. 122.--“Gemella sleeps in peace.”] Although sometimes well cut, the inscriptions are often wretchedly 402 executed, presenting a straggling and scarce legible scrawl, as in the following examples, the second of which indicates a transition into the later cursive character. [Illustration: Fig. 123.--“Ligurius Successus, in peace.”] [Illustration: DOMITI IN PACE LEA FECIT. Fig. 124.--“Domitius in peace. Lea erected this.”[674]] This ancient epigraphy often betrays extreme ignorance, and sets at defiance all the laws of grammatical construction. The spelling is frequently atrocious, and the general style and character utterly barbarous, rendering the meaning extremely obscure or altogether undecipherable. The language was much corrupted by the foreigners and slaves who formed so large a portion of the population. The later examples are often marked by the absence of terminal inflexions and the use of prepositions instead, and by other indications of the falling to pieces of the stately Latin tongue, which had been the vehicle of such a noble literature and such lofty eloquence, and of its degeneracy from the purity of the Augustan era into the mixed 403 dialect of the Middle Ages, from which the modern Italian has sprung.[675] The barbarous Latinity of the following indicates the degradation into which the language had fallen: IIBER QVI VIXI QVAI QVO PARE IVA ANOIVE I ANORV M PLVI MINVI XXX I PACE. Read: _Liber, qui vixit cum compare sua annum I. Annorum plus minus XXX. In pace._ Liber, who lived with his wife one year. He lived thirty years, more or less. In peace. Sometimes the inscription is found upside down, being probably thus placed by one unable to read. In the following example, from the Catacomb of St. Priscilla, a dove was afterward added, to correct in part the mistake of the ignorant fossor. Probably the epitaph may have been scratched on the stone by the dim light struggling through a 404 _luminare_, but when brought to the grave it was too dark to see which side was uppermost. [Illustration: Fig. 125.--Inscription upside down.] In one example in the Lapidarian Gallery, represented in Fig. 126, the inscription is actually written backwards, like Hebrew text. Probably, as Maitland suggests, the stonecutter took the impression on marble from a written copy, and was too ignorant to perceive that it was, of course, reversed. [Illustration: Fig. 126.--Reversed Inscription.]