Laudator Temporis Acti

Richmond Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (1935; rpt. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962), p. 260:

There remain to be considered a number of additional epitaphs which might be classed, very loosely, as philosophical.³⁵⁹ Tolman calls them "frivolous," and the fact is that the "philosophy" is mainly that which has for a long time passed as Epicurean; the conclusion that since life is short and death certain, the best one can do is enjoy the fun as long as it lasts. This grows from meditations on the nature of life itself, concerning which a late Roman epitaph may be cited:

                                                   ἄστατος ὄντως
    θνητῶν ἐστι βίος καὶ βραχὺς οὐδ' ἄπονος.³⁶⁰

In truth the life of mortals is unsteady, short, and not without troubles.

³⁵⁹ Cf. Tolman 95-96; Lier (1904), 56-64.
³⁶⁰ EG 699, 5-6, (Rome, 3d cent. A.D.).

Lattimore cites as his source Georg Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca ex Lapidibus Conlecta (Berlin: Reimer, 1878), p. 282, number 699, which I print here with my own critical apparatus:

Νήπιον, ὠκύμορον κατέχω χθών, ὦ ξένε, παῖδα,
    ζώσαντ' ἐν μελάθροις ἐς λυκάβαντα τέταρτον.
οὔνομα δ' ἐν τοκέεσσι φίλοις κέκλητ' Ἀσιάρχης·
    αὐτοὶ δ' οἳ θρέψαν τήνδ' ἐπέθοντο κόνιν
καὶ δακρύοισιν ἔβρεξαν ὅλον τάφον· ἄστατος ὄντως        5
    θνητῶν ἐστι βίος καὶ βραχὺς οὐδ' ἄπονος.

versus 2 metro claudicat: μέχρις vel ὡς ante ἐς add. dub. Peek; λυκάβαντα lapis: λυκάβαν Wilhelm; τέταρτον lapis: τρίτον dub. Kaibel

Other editions include L. Moretti, Inscriptiones Graecae Urbis Romae III 1162 (unavailable to me), Inscriptiones Graecae XIV 1422, and Werner Peek, Griechische Vers-Inschriften (Berlin, 1955), p. 212, number 789.

I can't find a complete English translation of the inscription anywhere, so here is my rough version:

I, the earth, cover a prematurely dead infant child, o stranger,
who lived in his house up to his fourth year.
By name he was called Asiarches by his dear parents;
they who raised him buried these ashes
and drenched the whole tomb with their tears; unsteady in truth
is the life of mortals, and short, and not without troubles.

There is a Spanish translation in María Luisa del Barrio Vega, Epigramas funerarios griegos (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1992), p. 174:

Yo soy la tierra que guarda a un niño de corta edad, de prematura muerte, extranjero: cuatro años fueron los que vivió en su casa. Asiarques era el nombre con el que lo llamaban sus padres. Este polvo esparcieron quienes lo criaron, y con sus lágrimas han humedecido toda su tumba. Fugaz es, en verdad, la vida de los mortales, breve y llena de pesares.