Saturday, December 10, 2022
Be Happy
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VII 154 = Roman Inscriptions of Britain 292 (Wroxeter, 43 to 61 AD), tr. R.S.O. Tomlin, Britannia Romana: Roman Inscriptions and Roman Britain (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2018), p. 29 (I've placed the translation before the Latin):
Dear Mike,
Just a guess, but I wonder if the Roman through whom 'the gale of life blew high' and whose ashes are 'under Uricon' might not have been inspired at least in part by Titus Flaminius? Nikolaus Pevsner reports that Housman visited the early excavations (Buildings of England: Shropshire, 1958 p. 328) and he is likely to have seen the stone and read the inscription, either in person in Shrewsbury, a town he knew well, or in Thomas Wright's illustrated guide to the ruins (1863).
The theme of the last four lines
As a callow 17-year-old volunteer, I spent three weeks excavating at Wroxeter. With no prior experience I was assigned wheelbarrow duties mostly, though I did do a bit of feeble scraping with the trowel. The archaeologists directing the excavations were Philip Barker and Graham Webster, leading lights of the day.
Best wishes,
Eric [Thomson]
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Titus Flaminius, son of Titus, of the Pollia voting-tribe, from Faventia, aged 45, of 22 years' service, a soldier of the Fourteenth Legion Gemina. I served as the Eagle-bearer, now here I am. Read this and be happy, whether more or less, in your lifetime. The gods prohibit you from the wine-grape and water when you enter Tartarus. Live honourably while your star gives you time for life.The stone:
[T(itus) F]laminius T(iti filius) Pol(lia tribu) Fa[v(entia)]
[an]norum XXXXV stip(endiorum) XXII mil(es) leg(ionis)
[XII]II Gem(inae) militavi aq(uilifer), nunc hic s[u]m.
[Hoc] legite et felices vita plus min[us] e[ste:]
[d]i uva vini et aqua prohibent ubi
Ta[r]tar(a) aditis; vivite dum si[dus]
vitae dat tempus honeste.
Dear Mike,
Just a guess, but I wonder if the Roman through whom 'the gale of life blew high' and whose ashes are 'under Uricon' might not have been inspired at least in part by Titus Flaminius? Nikolaus Pevsner reports that Housman visited the early excavations (Buildings of England: Shropshire, 1958 p. 328) and he is likely to have seen the stone and read the inscription, either in person in Shrewsbury, a town he knew well, or in Thomas Wright's illustrated guide to the ruins (1863).
[Hoc] legite et felices vita plus min[us] e[ste:]is common to the Roman and the English yeoman ('The thoughts that hurt him they were there'). Underlying them is the brevity of human existence, which is also present in the poem ('the gale, 'twill soon be gone'). It's no more than a possibility, but it would be no surprise if the Wroxeter soldier who addressed posterity on the subject of life and death found a sympathetic listener in a poet obsessed with the grave.
[d]i uva vini et aqua prohibent ubi
Ta[r]tar(a) aditis; vivite dum si[dus]
vitae dat tempus honeste.
As a callow 17-year-old volunteer, I spent three weeks excavating at Wroxeter. With no prior experience I was assigned wheelbarrow duties mostly, though I did do a bit of feeble scraping with the trowel. The archaeologists directing the excavations were Philip Barker and Graham Webster, leading lights of the day.
Best wishes,
Eric [Thomson]
