[audio:http://blogs.dickinson.edu/archive/images/xanthius-the-notarius.mp3]

Hoc carmen, haec ara, hic cinis

pueri sepulcrum est Xantiae,

qui morte acerba raptus est,

iam doctus in compendia

tot literarum et nominum

notare currenti stilo

quod lingua currens diceret.

iam nemo superaret legens,

iam voce erili coeperat

ad omne dictatum volans

aurem vocari at proximam.

heu morte propera concidit

arcana qui solus sui

sciturus domini fuit.

note: the slight spelling irregularities in the Latin are present in the original inscription, which was found at Cologne: CLE 219 = CIL 13.8355 = ILS 7756 = Courtney, Musa Lapidaria 131. In my discussion I refer to Quintilian, The Orator’s Education 10.3.18 ff., and to William Fitzgerald, Slavery and the Roman Literary Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 14-15.The image is a detail of so-called “circus monument” from Neumagen; relief as a whole depicts a commercial scene, probably selling of goods and keeping accounts (3rd c. AD; Trier, Landesmuseum. photo: Barbara McManus, 1988)