Due to the largely fragmentary condition, it is difficult to reconstruct the text of this Christian epitaph, which could have a hexametrical form at least in the first two lines, if one admits with Korhonen a metrical lengthening of the third syllable of βασιλίδος.
The clause τὸν κόσμον ἅπαντα recurs in a Christian inscription from Phrygia of the 3rd cent. CE (SEG 6.159 = SGOst Vol. 3 no.16/31/85). The word κόσμος might allude to the world (left by the deceased), rather than to the ornament of the tomb (Manganaro suggests both possibilities). Βασιλίς is frequently a proper name or an adjective (often referring to Rome, see e.g. IG 14, no.830 ll. 17, 31, 41): another example of the use of Βασιλίς as a personal name from Catania is IG 14, no.450 = [ISic001275](http://sicily.classics.ox.ac.uk/inscription/ISic001275), corrected by Manganaro (1988: 68 n. 346 = SEG 38.942, see also LGPN 3A: 89), although probably belonging to the high imperial period. On the contrary, Ferrua understands βασιλίς as a noun, synonymous of βασιλίσσα, and he suggests the integration at l. 2 βασιλ]έως καὶ βασιλίδος: Korhonen (2004: 272) accepts the integration, but excludes the possibility that this formula refers to sovereigns (“non siamo ancora ai tempi delle regine bizantine”), assuming an allusion to a theological concept. In this sense, βασιλίς perhaps occurs in a Byzantine inscription from Ikaria of 5th-6th cent. CE (SEG 53.904), which refers to the transformation of a temple into a church dedicated to Mary, to which the expression in B l. 2 ἀγαθὴ ἡμν βασιλίς καὶ δέσποινα refers. However, there do not seem to be any other evidences of this expression in combination with βασιλεύς.
Manganaro's interpretation, who reads Βασιλίς as a proper name, seems more advisable. The scholar assumed that the funerary inscription names two deceased individuals, the first (whose name was originally in the lacuna) would have died at the age of 14, the second, Βασιλίς, would have died at the age of 28: the likely integration at l. 4 ἔζησ]αν refers indeed to two persons. Manganaro's integration of ll. 4-5 ἕν (?) | [ἑτέρα], however, is unacceptable, since the neuter cannot refer to a male individual (unless one assumes an original error of the stonecutter). Ferrua, on the contrary, believed that the epitaph mentions only one deceased woman, of whom it first indicates the years, 14, that she lived ἐν γάμῳ (integration of ll. 4-5) with her husband, and then the total number of years she lived, 28.
The second part of the epitaph would have contained a curse formula against a possible violation of the tomb (for Christian curse formulas, see Feissel 1980: 464-470). The invocation to Παντοκράτωρ at l. 6 can be eventually preceded by τὸν θεόν, depending on the space in the gap, which cannot be easily quantified. An admonition not to violate the tomb follows: Manganaro’s integration of κληρονόμων (or κληρονομήσῃ) is based on a frequent formula in Christian inscriptions, which associates the verb with the expression τὸν μέλλοντα αἰῶνα (see IG 14, no.1563 ll. 2-4). The integration of Manganaro and Korhonen at ll. 9-10, κατ[ά-|θεσιν ---], is based on the vocabulary of Christian inscriptions, since in these texts κατάθεσις recurs often referred to the tomb. According to Ferrua instead, the last line contained the date of death, dies natales for Christians: τῇ πρ(ὸ) . ] νων(ῶν).