A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) eBook

Philip Thicknesse
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 132 pages of information about A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2).

A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) eBook

Philip Thicknesse
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 132 pages of information about A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2).

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 Cornucopiae, Paterae, &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 cornucopiae, 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 Paterae 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

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.