They say a picture is worth a 1000 words. It basically runs down to meaning that the picture speaks for itself. What is often overlooked is the fact that pictures aren't always as clear as they present themselves. Sometimes they need a voice to add a story to it. In this series of images I'll continue to show a single image and give you some back story to bring out a new meaning to the image.
A simple Roman Epigraphy, right? Wrong.
It translates to:
“Publius Grattius Celer, son of Spurius
of the tribe of Collina,
Now I, this unlucky Grattius lie
beneath protection of the earth,
with my beard deposited, surviving
thirty-three years.
Unlucky (and) put below without worth,
killed by a sharp and unrighteous death,
by a kick and punches, outside
of fate, thrust forward into these shades.
I choose this, that you should die a worse
example, even yourself put to the rack.
Does it not now please you, how
you deprived me of seeing light?
And (I choose) that you should pay the penalties which [you deserve?],
having warded off [unequally?]…
you now…
In other words Publius Grattius (sometime around 1st Century AD) got stomped in a fight and through the dedicator of this stone calls out for vengence against those who killed him. Like the graffiti on the wall in HBO's Rome I love things that show how much we are still the same people we were two thousand years ago.
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