53 CIL 6.6275

This is one of the more prominent and artful inscriptions in the Monumentum Familiae Statiliorum, commissioned by Faustus for his overseer, Eros. 

Text

hic est ille situs, 

qui qualis amicus 

amico quaque fide 

fuerit, mors fuit indicio. 

f(unus) f(ecit)

Faustus Erotis 

dispensatoris vicarius.

Commentariolum (line numbers refer to original inscription)

1 hic est ille situs: a perfect half-hexameter (– ⏑ ⏑ – ⏑ ⏑ – ) the rest of the epitaph is unmetrical; the epitaph composed by the poet Ennius for Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal, began in this way. Does this affect your reading of this epitaph?

4 indiciō: dative of purpose; “death was (for him) the indication (of this); i.e., ”the measure (of the truth of the preceding) was his death” (AG 382).

Was this line added posthumously? What would make you think this might be the case?

the letter that looks like an upside down A in fuerit, is a V (i.e., a U). The next word begins with an F (not an E).