Rome, 1st century B.C. (ILLRP 803=ILS 5213=CIL I2.1214. L)
[The tomb] of Eucharis, freedwoman of Licinia, an unmarried girl who was educated and learned in every skill. She lived 14 years.
Ah, as you look with wandering eye at the house of death, stay your foot and read what is inscribed here. This is what a father’s love gave his daughter, where the remains of her body lie gathered. ‘Just as my life with its young skills and growing years brought me fame, the sad hour of death rushed on me and forbade me to draw another breath in life. I was educated and taught as if by the Muses’ hands. I adorned the nobility’s festivals with my dancing, and first appeared before the common people in a Greek play.
‘But now here in this tomb my enemies the Fates have placed my body’s ashes. The patrons of learning-devotion, passion, praise, honour-are silenced by my burnt corpse and by my death.
‘His child, I left lamentation to my father, though born after him, I preceded him in the day of my death. Now I observe my fourteenth birthday here among the shadows in Death’s ageless home.
‘I beg you when you leave, ask that the earth lie light upon me.’