Epitaph
Fragments of his sarcophagus were discovered in the Tomb of the Scipios and are now in the Vatican Museums. They preserve his epitaph, written in Old Latin:
- L·CORNELIO·L·F·SCIPIO
- AIDILES·COSOL·CESOR
- HONC OINO·PLOIRVME·COSENTIONT R
- DVONORO·OPTVMO·FVISE·VIRO
- LVCIOM·SCIPIONE·FILIOS·BARBATI
- CONSOL·CENSOR·AIDILIS·HIC·FVET·A
- НЕС·CE PIT·CORSICA·ALERIAQVE·VRBE
- DEDET·TEMPESTATEBVS·AIDE·MERETO
which has been transcribed and restored in modern upper- and lower-case script as:
- Honc oino ploirume cosentiont Romai
- duonoro optumo fuise viro
- Luciom Scipione. Filios Barbati
- consol censor aidilis hic fuet apud vos,
- hec cepit Corsica Aleriaque urbe,
- dedet Tempestatebus aide meretod votam.
and also transcribed in classical Latin as:
- Hunc unum plurimi consentiunt Romae
- bonorum optimum fuisse virum
- Lucium Scipionem. Filius Barbati,
- Consul, Censor, Aedilis hic fuit.
- Hic cepit Corsicam Aleriamque urbem
- dedit tempestatibus aedem merito.
A translation is:
- Romans for the most part agree,
- that this one man, Lucius Scipio, was the best of good men.
- He was the son of Barbatus,
- Consul, Censor, Aedile.
- He took Corsica and the city of Aleria.
- He dedicated a temple to the Storms as a just return.
This inscription is number two of the elogia Scipionum, the several epitaphs surviving from the tomb.
Read more about this topic: Lucius Cornelius Scipio (consul 259 BC)
Famous quotes containing the word epitaph:
“Will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them
be well used, for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“And were an epitaph to be my story
I’d have a short one ready for my own.
I would have written of me on my stone:
I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)