Even the thoughtful mind of Pliny could extract no comfort from the 436 various theories concerning the future state, but looked forward to annihilation as the universal doom. “To all,” he says, “from the last day of life is there the same lot that there was before the first; nor is there any more consciousness after death than there was before birth.”[712] Of Agricola, the wise and good, the philosophic Tacitus could only say with an incredulous sigh, “Doubtless if there be a place for the departed spirits of the just, if great souls perish not with the body, thou dost calmly repose.”[713] “That the manes are any thing,” says Juvenal, “or that the nether world is any thing, not even boys believe, unless those still in the nursery.”[714] In sullen submission to fate, the pagan submits to the inevitable doom. When the name has issued from the fatal urn he leaves forever his woods, his villa, his pleasant home, and enters the bark which is to bear him into eternal exile.[715] The wisest sages can only fan the embers of their hopes into a flickering flame, and cry, “Ha! we have seen the fire.” The following are examples of the melancholy and despairing spirit often breathed by pagan epitaphs: PRAEVENERE DIEM VITAE CRVDELIA FATA ET RAPTAM INFERNA ME POSVERE RATE HOC LECTO ELOGIO IVVENIS MISERERE IACENTIS ET DIC DISCEDENS SIT TIBI TERRA LEVIS. The cruel fates have anticipated the term of life, and placed me, 437 snatched away, in the infernal bark. Having read this elegy pity the fallen youth and say departing, May the earth be light upon thee. INFANTI DVLCISSIMO QVEM DII IRATI AETERNO SOMNO DEDERVNT--“To a very sweet child, whom the angry gods gave to eternal sleep.” SVSCIPE NVNC CONIVNX SI QVIS POST FVNERA SENSVS DEBITA MANIBVS OFFICIA--“Receive now, O husband, if after death is any consciousness, the rites due to departed spirits.” The hopeless parting of a dying wife is thus expressed: CARE MARITE MIHI DVLCISSIMA NATA VALETE--“O husband, dear to me, and dearest daughter, farewell.” Or more briefly we read, AVE ATQVE VALE--“Hail and farewell.” Sometimes the desponding view of life is like the bitter experience of the Hebrew moralist, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!” One such example reads thus: DECIPIMVR VOTIS ET TEMPORE FALLIMVR ET MORS DERIDET CVRAS ANXIA VITA NIHIL. We are deceived by our vows, misled by time, and death derides our cares; anxious life is naught.