[47] _Apol._, c. 37. [48] [Transcriber’s note: Footnote missing in the original.] [49] Religiosum locum unusquisque sua voluntate facit, dum mortuum infert in locum suum. _Marcian. Digest._, i, 8, 6, § 4. [50] _Cod. Justin._, lib. ix, tit. 19, _de Sepulchro Violato_, leg. 1, 5; _Cod. Theod._, lib. ix, tit. 17. Proximum sacrilegio majores semper habuerunt. So the poet exclaims: Res ea sacra, miser; noli mea tangere fata: Sacrilegae bustis abstinuere manus.-- “Touch not my monument, thou wretch; it is a sacred thing: even sacrilegious hands refrain from the violation of graves.” [51] Xen., _Mem._, ii, 2, § 13. [52] _Roman Sepulchral Inscriptions_, p. 9, London, 1858. [53] Mille pedes in fronte, trecentos cippus in agrum Hic dabat; heredes monumentum ne sequeretur. Hor., _I Sat._, viii, 12. [54] Literally, “the angry gods.” [55] Reinesius. [56] Corpora animadversorum quibuslibet petentibus ad sepulturam danda sunt. _Digest._, xlviii, 24, 2. [57] Both of these are given by Dr. McCaul in his _Christian Epitaphs of the First Six Centuries_, an admirable little volume, my indebtedness to which will be elsewhere acknowledged. He also quotes the following from Henzen’s _Inscr. Lat. Select. Col._, No. 6371: PETO A BOBIS [VOBIS] FRATRES BONI PER VNVM DEVM NE QVIS VI TITVLO MOLESTET POST MORTEM--“I beseech you, good brothers, by the one God, that no one by force injure this inscription after my death.” [58] Aringhi, lib. iv, c. xxvii. [59] Sometimes an anathema was invoked upon the disturber of the grave, as in the following interesting example, found in the island of Salamis, and quoted by Dr. McCaul from Kirchoff, _Corpus Inscript. Græc._, No. 9303: Οἶκος αἰώνιος Ἀγάθωνος ἀναγνώστου καὶ Εὐφημίας ἐν δυσὶ θήκαις ἰδίᾳ ἑκάστῳ ἡμῶν. Εἰ δέ τις τῶν ἰδίων ἢ ἕτερός τις τολμήσῃ σῶμα καταθέσθαι ἐνταῦθα παρὲξ τῶν δύω ἡμῶν, λόγον δῴη τῷ θεῷ καὶ ἀνάθεμα ἤτω μαραναθάν--“The everlasting dwelling of Agatho, a reader, and Euphemia, in two graves, one for each of us separately. If any one of our relatives, or any one else, shall presume to bury a body here beside us two, may he give an account of it to God, and may he be anathema maranatha.” [60] It is remarkable that Shakespeare’s epitaph should present almost as uncouth a specimen of epigraphy as any of the barbarous inscriptions of the Catacombs. See the following copy: Good Friend for Iesus SAKE forbeare To diGG T-E Dust EncloAsed HERe Blest be T-E Man T/Y spares T-es Stones And curst be He T/Y moves my Bones.