CIRCA LATE 3RD-EARLY 4TH CENTURY A.D.

According to Simon, (pp. 268-269 in The Kurashiki Ninagawa Museum, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities), "As in many tomb epigrams the deceased addresses the reader and gives her name and that of her parents. The epigram is the 'mouth' with which she speaks, while her body has become 'useless', as it reads literally. In the first part, on the upper border, she names the three people who are to help her parents to get over the premature death of their daughter: the brother Semnos and the pair of twins she had given birth to (in her words: 'the double offspring of the birth from my pelvis'). It is not said how old these twins are and it is possible that the young woman died soon after their birth. The thrice repeated quiver-and-bow motif on the frieze indicates the act of Artemis, the goddess of birth and death, who 'with gentle arrows' laid women low (cf. Homer, Odyssey 11, 173 and passim). The language of the epigram proves that Semne's family knew very well the Homeric conception of Artemis."