Elogium
An inscription on tombs, doors, images of ancestors, votive tablets, etc. Many of these
elogia (
ἐλεγεῖα) are preserved to us from the pedestals of
the statues with which Augustus adorned the colonnades of the temple of Mars in the Forum
(
Hor. Carm. iv. 8, 13) and from the
hermae in libraries. They are of some historical value, though not always
representing original sources of information. For specimens, see the
Corp. Inscript.
Lat. i. pp. 277, 281, and Wilmanns pp. 622 foll.; also the
Poetae Lat.
Minores (ed. Bährens), v. 396. For the etymology of the word
elogium see Curtius's
Kleine Schriften, ii. 230
(Leipzig,
1880); and for discussion, Hildesheimer,
De Libro de Viris Illustribus
Urbis Romae (Berlin, 1880).