A Latin acronym, frequently inscribed on Roman gravestones. It stands for non fui, fui, non sum, non curo, which translates as "I was not; I was; I am not; I don't care."

The mere fact that this formula was reduced to an acronym -- thus implying that it was perceived as a mere cliché -- is often used as evidence that cynicism and despair were endemic to Roman culture. Christian authors, both ancient and modern, take "NFFNSNC" as proof that Roman pagans had no hope: no hope for an afterlife, no hope of a lasting effect on the world, no hope that anything has any kind of meaning at all. One Harry Emerson Fosdick, a Baptist clergyman who lived early in the twentieth century, declared that the phrase epitomized "the essence of surrender"; in his mind, it formed a stark contrast with the Christian message of eternal bliss.

I don't know about that. It seems to me that the phrase could just as easily express the joyful urge to focus on the moment, on this world -- in other words, to refuse to shunt pleasures into some imaginary afterlife. The obsession with the now, by the way, is also an attitude ascribed to the Romans.

The historian Eugene McCartney records a few variations on the phrase found in the CIL, including "Non fui, fui, memini, non sum, non curo" and "Non fui, fui, non sum, non desidero." Richard Lattimore, the famed classicist and translator, wrote a book on Roman epitaphs in 1942 which discusses NFFNSNC at some length.

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