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Isola Sacra necropolis

G0385 - REMEMBERING A GIRL

- From tomb 42, near a door.
- Calza 1940.
- Thylander 1956.

EGO MEMINI QVEMDA(M) CRISSASSE PVELLA(M)
CVIVS CINERES AVREA TERRA TEGAT

Interpretation: "I remember touching the buttocks of a certain girl, whose ashes the golden earth covers". As Pekka Tuomisto (Turku, Finland) explained, this is an elegiac couplet: a short poem used for epitaphs, composed of two lines. The first is a dactylic hexameter and the second a dactylic pentameter. Two parallels are mentioned by Thylander: "Hic ego me memini quondam futuisse puellam" (CLE 1810), and "Have Septima. Sit tibi | terra levis. Quisqu | e huic tumulo pos | suit ardente lucer | 5 | nam illius ciner | es aurea terra tegat" (CIL X 633 = CLE 1308 = ILS 8132; from Salerno).