Maktaris, Africa Proconsularis, July 260
I was born from a poor family and to a father of meagre means
who had neither municipal wealth nor his own house.
From these beginnings by birth, I lived by cultivating the soil.
Never was there any rest for me or my land.
When each year produced the ripening crops, then
I was the first harvester out to cut the stalks
When our sickle-bearing band of men marched out to the fields,
whether to seek the nomad plains of Cirta or those of Jupiter.
Before everyone else, I was the first harvester into the fields,
leaving the land behind my back thick with sheaves.
I reaped twelve harvests beneath the raging fire of the sun.
Then I rose from field-hand and became a foreman.
For eleven years I led the bands of harvesters,
and my gang cut the fields of Numidia.
This work and life was good to a man of small means.
It made me the owner of a house and provided a farm
The house itself does not lack for any luxuries.
And now what I spent so much time doing in my youth
Separating the grain from the chaff, turning it into flour
All this I have machines to do in my stead.
And my life has reaped a harvest of honours:
I was registered in the ranks of the town’s senators.
Chosen by them, I too sat in the council's holy chamber.
From being a poor peasant, I even rose to be the pagus magistrate and censor.
I fathered, and lived to see my sons and my dear grandsons,
And to see them prosper in their own right and become my equals in the council
I have passed the bright years of my life as I have deserved,
years that no savage tongue can harm with blame.
Learn, mortals, to live a life free of wrongdoing.
He deserved to die thus, he who lived a life free of deceit.
--
This is an actual inscription found in Maktaris, Tunisia, to which I did add 4 lines and 3 words, the original is now at the Louvres in Paris
