Vatican Museums

This fragmentary marble slab closed the loculus of the little child Ioustos in the Jewish catacomb of Monteverde. The text was laid out so as to leave the two ends free, perhaps to accommodate images; in the end, however, it proved to be too long, and so it was necessary also to occupy the remaining spaces, starting from the right and finishing on the left! Only a small stylised menorāh was inserted in the lower right area of the slab. The inscription, in poetic verse, begins with an unusual invocation from the child's adoptive father, Theodotus, who regrets not being able to lay his son in a tomb of gold; then, it goes on with a prayer to God, playing on the similarity of meaning between the child's name ("Ioustos", "right") and the Greek dikaíoma ("judgement"): "Lord, (ensure) in your good judgement that Ioustos, incomparable child, may rest in peace".