Carmina Latina Epigraphica: Carmina Latina Epigraphica: Nova Supplementa

A collection of Latin verse inscriptions published or discovered after the great corpus of Bücheler and Lommatzsch, gathered from various sources in the edition by Elisabetta Saltelli (2008). It includes epitaphs, dedications, building inscriptions and graffiti from across the Roman world, from short lines scratched on walls, such as a taunt to the envious, to Christian verses recording the restoration of churches and laments for the dead. The texts are presented in two parts and range widely in date, length and literary quality.

Verse inscriptions are the most direct evidence for the poetry composed and read by ordinary Romans, outside the literary tradition preserved in manuscripts. These newer finds extend the range of the classic corpus and show how the forms of literary verse were adapted, often with metrical freedom, to private grief, civic pride and religious devotion from the Republic to late antiquity. Many of the pieces are brief or fragmentary, but together they enlarge the picture of everyday verse composition across the Latin-speaking provinces.