Smallhope Bigg
b. 1605, England
d. 1644, Middlesex Co., MA
The tombstone was donated to the Musee du Cinquanternaire in Brussels, Belgium, shortly before World War I. It shows an image of a gladiator holding what appear to be two swords, standing above his opponent who is signalling his surrender. The inscription says that the stone marks the spot where a man named Diodorus is buried."After breaking my opponent Demetrius I did not kill him immediately," reads the epitaph. "Fate and the cunning treachery of the summa rudis killed me." The summa rudis is a referee, who may have had past experience as a gladiator.
'Tis notorious they went a begging to all the Congregations in the Town for Money to Erect their Edifice, which they call a Church (tho' by the way it was never Consecrated).