Carmina Latina Epigraphica: Carmina Latina Epigraphica

The great collection of Latin verse inscriptions edited by Franz Bücheler and Ernst Lommatzsch (1895–1926), containing some two thousand poems carved, painted or scratched on stone and walls throughout the Roman world. It ranges from early Republican pieces in Saturnian verse, such as the dedication of Lucius Mummius after the capture of Corinth in 146 BC, to epitaphs, dedications, honorific and building inscriptions of the Empire and the Christian verse of late antiquity.

The Carmina Latina Epigraphica are the largest body of Latin poetry outside the literary tradition and the best evidence for verse among ordinary Romans: soldiers, freedmen, slaves, wives and children. Their epitaphs in particular, with their echoes of Virgil and Ovid, their formulas and their personal voices, give a moving picture of Roman family life and attitudes to death. The collection is indispensable for the history of Latin metre, language and popular culture.