Most of the epitaphs, as we might naturally expect, were written in Latin. Nevertheless, a considerable proportion are in Greek, to which circumstance several causes conduced. Although Latin was the language of the mass of the Roman population, yet Greek was also spoken largely by the educated classes. We know, too, from the pages of Juvenal[677] and contemporary writers, that Rome swarmed with numbers of slaves and others from Greece and Asia Minor, who, although they might be able to speak Latin, would find it very difficult to write it. Moreover, Greek seems to have been in the early centuries a sort of ecclesiastical language at Rome, just as Latin is now throughout Roman Catholic Christendom. It was in this language that the glad tidings of the new 407 evangel were first declared, and in it St. Paul wrote his epistle to the Roman church. The new wine of the gospel flowed from that classic chalice which so long had poured libations to the gods. Probably a religious sentiment led to the adoption, even by those to whom it was unfamiliar, of the language in which their holiest teachings and highest hopes had been originally conveyed, and in which the Apostolic Fathers and the greatest apologists, theologians, and historians of the early church had fought the battles of the faith. The responses of the Roman liturgy long continued to be uttered in this tongue, and traces of this practice still remain in the _Kyrie, eleeson! Christe, eleeson!_ of the Order of the Mass. This primitive Greek influence has also left its indelible impression on our language in such words as church, bishop, presbyter, eucharist, baptism, catechism, liturgy, psalm, and hymn. Sometimes the humble mourner had to be content with recording the Latin words in Greek characters, as in the following examples: ΛΕΙΒΕΡΕ ΜΑΞΙΜΙΛΛΕ ΚΟΙΟΥΓΕ ΑΜΑΝΤΙϹϹΙΜΑΕ ΦΙΚΙΤ ΕΝ ΠΑΚΕ. Read: _Liberæ Maximillæ conjugi amantissimæ, vixit in pace_--“To Libera Maximilla, a most loving wife. She lived in peace.” ΒΕΝΕ ΜΕΡΕΝΤΙ ΦΙΛΙΕ ΘΕΟΔΩΡΕ ΚΥΕ ΒΙΞΙΤ ΜΗϹΙϹ ΧΙ ΔΙΕΣ ΧVΙΙΙ. Read: _Bene merenti filiæ Theodoræ, qui vixit menses XI, dies XVIII_--“To our well-deserving daughter Theodora, who lived eleven months and eighteen days.”[678] In copying Latin inscriptions many errors arose from the mason mistaking the Roman characters for similar Greek ones, as A for 408 Λ, T for Γ, and the Latin H and P for the Greek _Eta_ and _Rho_. The Greek influence is also seen in the altered inflexion of Latin words, as _maritous_ for _maritos_, _filies_ for _filias_, and the like. The proportion of Greek inscriptions among those before the time of Constantine is estimated at one eighth.[679] After that period it is less, indicating the gradual decline of Greek influence. In Gaul and the western provinces the proportion is not so great. At Autun there is only one Greek epitaph.