Roman Religion: Decoding Tombstones
- Centurion
- Feb 25, 2025
- 1 min read
Author: Marsden, D., (2011), “Decoding your Roman tombstones”, first published in The Imperial Courier, Volume 6, Issue 4, THE RMRS, pp. 8-10.
Introduction What follows was first produced by Anne Thomas © in 1987. Ever since it has been used as a beginners guide to deciphering Roman tombstones. Most inscriptions follow a set pattern, but there are many variations, omissions and additions. The working example below, therefore, is a combination of several tombstones. Furthermore, it is worth noting that:
If the pattern does not seem to work, then perhaps you are looking at an altar.
Many words in an inscription are abbreviated, so the rest of the word is shown below in small capitals after the inscribed letters.
Words are often squashed together or spill over from one line to the next, so the Romans separated them with dots or small triangles.
For praenominae, 'Spvrivs' is a very uncommon name. Manivs (Mn.) was far more common but is absent from the list here. 'Sextus is often shorted by Roman authors to 'S.', just to be confusing.