and most decisive triumph; and here it is that we come upon the
epigram in its inmost essence and utmost perfection. "Waiting to see
the end" as it always did, the Greek spirit pronounced upon the end
when it came with a swiftness, a tact, a certitude that leave all
other language behind. For although Latin and not Greek is
pre-eminently and without rival the proper and, one might almost say,
the native language of monumental inscription, yet the little
difference that fills inscriptions with imagination and beauty, and
will not be content short of poetry, is in the Greek temper alone. The
Roman sarcophagus, square hewn of rock, and bearing on it, incised for
immortality, the haughty lines of rolling Republican names, represents
to us with unequalled power the abstract majesty of human States and
the glory of law and government; and the momentary pause in the steady
current of the life of Rome, when one citizen dropped out of rank and
another succeeded him, brings home to us with crushing effect, like
some great sentence of Tacitus, the brief and transitory worth of a
single life. /Qui apicem gessisti, mors perfecit tua ut essent omnia
brevia, honos fama virtusque, gloria atque ingenium/[1]--words like
these have a melancholy majesty that no other human speech has known;
nor can any greater depth of pathos be reached than is in the two
simple words /Bene merenti/ on a hundred Roman tombs. But the Greek
mind here as elsewhere came more directly than any other face to face
with the truth of things, and the Greek genius kindled before the
vision of life and death into a clearer flame. The sepulchural reliefs
show us many aspects of death; in all of the best period there is a
common note, mingled of a grave tenderness, simplicity, and reserve.
The quiet figures there take leave of one another with the same grace
that their life had shown. There is none of the horror of darkness,
none of the ugliness of dying; with calm faces and undisordered
raiment they rise from their seats and take the last farewell. But the