What He Didn't Write
My poem and my process
A Roman father in the first or second century AD mourns his three year old daughter. What he wrote. And what he didn’t write.
What He Wrote
This is the inscription from the first or second century AD, in Rome, Italy, translated by Elisabeth Campbell.
To the Spirits of the dead and to Saturnina She lived three years Tiberius Claudius Eclectus Her father made this.
What He Didn’t Write
My wife died last year, In childbirth with our second Son. He died at birth. Two other children Remained. Saturnina was Two. My boy was four. No money or time To spend on an epitaph When they needed a mother. I married again. It wasn't enough. So now this epitaph is For Saturnina. Her mother's joy. Her mother, mine.
My analysis
To the Spirits of the dead.
The Manes. They are Roman pagans, not Christians.
Saturnina.
Is now one of the Manes, the spirits of the dead, of his family.
She lived three years.
She almost made it out of infancy. Was she weaned too soon, leaving her sickly? Was there a hard year, making her mother’s milk dry up? Did her mother get pregnant again, and lose her milk?
Tiberius Claudius.
Was he a freedman of the emperor’s house? Of the emperor Claudius? Or a freeborn man descended from a freedman of Claudius? The inscription doesn’t indicate he was a freedman, but the naming system calls it to mind.
Eclectus.
More indications that he may have been descended from a freedman.
Slaves were often Greek, or even if not, were often given a Greek cognomen. If the name is related to “eclectic”, it could be a cognate of “elect.” It would be from Greek, not Latin, ἐκλεκτικός (eklektikós) and mean “selective.”
Etymology (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eclectic)
Her father made this.
Dimensions of the plaque: Height: 12.2 cm, Width: 19.6 cm, Thickness: 2.6 cm. It is too small for a family. This is from Rome, but where? What columbarium? Are there other epitaph plaques that have been lost, that show more of his family? Is her mother still alive? If not, why is she not on the epitaph? Or why is Saturnina not added to her mother’s epitaph?
The Roman equivalent of a tombstone.
Here lies my daughter
not quite three
nobody will miss her
as much as me.