Note 757 — Chapter III

We have also illustrations of the fatal facility of divorce under the Empire, and of the domestic strife and crime resulting therefrom. In the following epitaph a discarded wife laments the murder of her child by the usurper of her rights: MATER FILIO PIISSIMO MISERA ET IN LVCTV ETERNALL VENEFICIO NOVERCAE—“To her most affectionate son, the wretched mother, plunged in perpetual grief by the poison of his step-mother, (raised this slab.)” There is also a curious inscription, written jointly by two living husbands to the same deceased wife, in which she is designated, CONIVX BENE MERENTA (sic)—“A well-deserving consort.” Another slab is dedicated to both the wife and the concubine—VXORI ET CONCVBINAE—of a Roman lictor.