Prayer to Mother Earth and the Manes

A gravestone from Rome: Popillia Felicula, aged eighteen, and an inscription set up by her husband, who was also her fellow freedman. The last couplet is given here.

This is the commonest formula in Roman epigraphy: sit tibi terra levis, may the earth be light upon you. The request is physical, not abstract: the body lies beneath a mound, and the mound's weight is conceived as felt. The dead feel pressure.

It is divided between two deities by function. To the Manes the bones are "left" — they receive the dead; the Earth is told not to be heavy — she holds the mound. To one a person is handed over; of the other a mechanical favour is asked.

Contestor — I call to witness. The same legal verb as in the fetial formula for declaring war (janus-004). Burial is drawn up as a conveyance with an instrument executed: there is a party surrendering, a party receiving, and witnesses.

Ne gravis esse velis — be not willing to be heavy. With the powers below one speaks in the subjunctive and through "do not be willing": neither a command nor quite a request, but a courteous invitation to refrain.