Inscriptions:
Tired of not being able to read all those clever secret messages the ancient
Romans left us? Very few ancient Romans spoke Modern English, and it doesn't
appear that any that did participated in the Ancient Roman sport of inscription
writing. Many ancient buildings and archeological sites have specialized
inscription guides for sale, or you can spend really big money at the better
bookstores in Rome for really big books of inscriptions (but then you usually
still have to translate from Italian as well as carry around that really
big book.) Or you can learn Latin! Latin language resources are available
at the Latin Home Page, http://latin.about.com/education/latin/?once=true&.
Even after you attain native fluency in Latin you will not be able to read
Roman inscriptions unless you also learn to decode Latin abbreviations
used by those pesky Roman stone masons who had to fit big inscriptions
into small spaces (or who just got tired of chiseling.) The link you want
is http://asgle.classics.unc.edu/abbrev/latin/,
which will take you to alphabetical lists of thousands of abbreviations.
P.S.: Another hint at decoding Latin inscriptions --
The Romans saw no real need to put spaces between words. After all, if
you could read, you already knew the Latin word endings.