Read: _Elia Vincentia. qui vixit an ... et mesis II, cum Virginis que vixit annu diem._ Elia Vincentia, who lived ... years and two months, and lived with Virginius a year and a day. Most of the early epitaphs are of touching brevity and simplicity. Frequently only a single word, the name given in baptism, is recorded on the tomb, as in Fig. 127, which exhibits also the Christian symbols of the monogram, cross, and palm. [Illustration: Fig. 127.--“Cassta.” (_sic._)] 405 In Fig. 128 the names of three individuals appear on the same slab, which is recognizable as Christian only by the symbol of the Good Shepherd: [Illustration: Fig. 128.--“Septimina, Aurelius, Galymedes.”] Frequently the phrase IN PACE, or DORMIT IN PACE, is added, in attestation of the Christian faith of the deceased, (see Figs. 122-124;) or, more briefly still, the word LOCVS is prefixed, as LOCVS PRIMI--“The place of Primus,”[676] as if descriptive of the last long home, the house appointed for all living. The later inscriptions are frequently far removed from this naive simplicity, being inflated in style and elaborate in execution, attesting the increased wealth and growing pride of the Christian community. Of these we shall hereafter have frequent examples. One very remarkable series is that executed, under the direction of Pope Damasus, in the latter part of the fourth century. He composed 406 numerous metrical epitaphs in honour of the martyrs, which were engraved in marble in a singularly elegant decorated character, designed by his secretary, Furius Dionysius Filocalus, who was also an accomplished artist. Hence the letters of these Damasine inscriptions are as distinct a characteristic in early Christian epigraphy as the celebrated Aldine type in the bibliography of the revival of learning. There are few of the Catacombs where these inscriptions have not been found; and De Rossi has been enabled thereby to reconstruct some valuable historical monuments from a few fragments, just as a skilful anatomist will reconstruct a skeleton from a portion of the vertebræ. Some of the most important of these have already been given; others will hereafter occur. The Latinity is often of a school-boy mediocrity; but they are of great value as determining the identity and elucidating the history of many important Christian tombs.