A Years Journey through France and Part of Spain | Page 5

thick upon the surface in the utmost disorder and confusion, insomuch, that one would think the Day of Judgment was arrived and the dead were risen. Neither Stepney church-yard, nor any one in or near a great city, shew so many headstones as this spot does stone coffins of an immense size, hewn out of one piece; the covers of most of which have been broken or removed sufficiently to search for such things as were usually buried with the dead. Some of these monuments, and some of the handsomest too, are still however unviolated. It is very easy to distinguish the Pagan from the Christian monnments, without opening them, as all the former have the Roman letters DM (_Diis Manibus_) cut upon them. It is situated, according to their custom, near the high-way, the water, and the marshes. You know the ancients preferred such spots for the interment of the dead.
The tombs of Ajax and Hector, HOMER says, were near the sea, as well as other heroes of antiquity; for as they considered man to be composed of earth and water, his bones ought to be laid in one, and near the other.
I will now give you a few of the most curious inscriptions; but first I will mention a noble marble monument, moved from this spot into the Cimetiere of the great Hospital. This tomb is ornamented with Cornucopi?, _Pater?_, &c. and in a shield the following inscription:
CABILIAE D.F. APPRVLLAE FLAM D DESIGNATAE COL. DEA. AUG. VOC. M O. ANNOS XIIII, MENS II. DIES V. MARITVS VXORI PIENTISSIMAE. POSUIT.
This poor girl was not only too young to die, but too young to marry, one would think; I wish therefore her afflicted husband had told us how many years he had been married to a wife who died at the age of fourteen, two months, and five days. The cornucopi?, I suppose, were to signify that this virtuous wife, I was going to say maid, was the source of all his pleasure and happiness. The _Pater?_ were vases destined to receive the blood of the victims.
Supponunt alij cultros, tepidumque cruorem Suscipiunt Pateris,--Says the Poet.
On each side of the tomb are the symbols of sacrifice. It is very evident from the fine polish of this monument, that her husband had obtained the Emperor's particular leave to finish it highly.
Rogum ascia ne Polito says the law of the twelve tables.
On another tomb, which is of common stone, in the middle of a shield supported by two Cupids, is the following inscription:
M IVNIO MESSIANO ----VTRICI. CORP. ARELAT. D EIVS D. CORP. MAG. III. F M QUI VIXIT ANN. XXVIII. M. V. D. X. IVNIA VALERIA. ALVMNO CLARISSIMO.
The first word of the second line is much obliterated.
There are an infinite number of other monuments with inscriptions; but those above, and this below, will be sufficient for me to convey to you, and you to my friend at Winchester.
L DOMIT. DOMITIANI EX TRIERARCHI CLASS. GERM. D PECCOCEIA VALENTINA M CONIUGI PIENTISSIMA.
Before I leave Arles, and I leave it reluctantly, whatever you may do, I must not omit to mention the principal monument, and pride of it, at this day, i.e. their Obelisque. I will not tell you where nor when it was dug up; it is sufficient to say, it was found here, that it is a single piece of granite, sixty-one feet high, and seven feet square below; yet it was elevated in the Market-place, upon a modern pedestal, which bears four fulsome complimentary inscriptions to Lewis the XIV. neither of which will I copy. In elevating this monstrous single stone, the inhabitants were very adroit: they set it upright in a quarter of an hour, in the year 1676, just an hundred years ago, amidst an infinite number of joyful spectators, who are now all laid in their lowly graves; for though it weighed more than two thousand hundred weight, yet by the help of capsterns, it was raised without any difficulty. The great King Harry the IVth had ordered the houses in the arena of the Amphitheatre to be thrown down, and this obelisk to be fixed in the center of it; but his death, and _Lewis_'s vanity, fixed it where it now stands; it has no beauty however to boast of but its age and size, for it bears neither polish, characters, nor hieroglyphicks, but, as it seems to have been an Egyptian monument, the inhabitants of Arles have, like those people, consecrated it below to their King, and above to the sun: on the top is fixed a globe of azure, sprinkled with _fleurs de lis d'or_, and crowned with a radiant sun, that is to say, as the sun was made by GOD to enlighten the world, so LEWIS LE GRAND was made to govern it.
I am sure