BURIAL

Romans had enormous reverence for their ancestors, who were the focal point of family rituals. Naturally, the moment at which someone became an ancestor was when he or she died, so it is no surprise that death and burial were subjects of great concern to the Romans. Despite this reverence and concern, however, when a Roman died, the fate of his or her body was ultimately dependent on his or her economic status in life.

The very poorest Romans sometimes received no burial at all and were simply tossed into open pits called puticuli just outside the city walls. This name possibly derives from the verb putescare, meaning "to rot or decompose," or from the word putor, meaning "a terrible smell." These suggestively named pits contained a mixture of human and animal corpses, garbage, and excrement. Some of them were quite large, and one is estimated to contain 24,000 corpses. The Roman authorities were concerned that having these pits so close to Rome did not reflect well on the city, so they attempted to pass legislation aimed at forcing people fo dump their corpses farther away from the city. All around Rome, there were stones inscribed with senate decrees ordaining that corpses and garbage be carried farther than the marker. These warnings do not seem to have done much good, however.

Anyone who could afford to joined a burial club. The usual entry fee was around 100 sesterces, a fair amount of money for a person of average means, and new members sometimes also had to provide a jar of good wine. In addition, one had to pay monthly dues, which appear to have been quite modest. In one club, for example, the monthly dues were only one and one-quarter sesterces. Interestingly, some of these clubs seem to have consisted of mixtures of slaves and free people. If a member of the club died, the others would pay for the funeral expenses. If someone committed suicide, however, he was considered to have forfeited his right to a funeral. Burial clubs had elaborate sets of formal rules governing precisely what the members had to do for each other. For example, there were different requirements if someone died within the city, outside the city limits but within 20 Roman miles, or at a distance of more than 20 miles from the city.

At times, a burial club would pool its money to buy a mausoleum where urns containing the ashes of cremated members could be kept. These were sometimes dug into the ground like caves. These structures were called columbaria. Some of these are quite large, with niches provided for up to 700 urns. One way for the club to earn money was to rent out some of the extra spaces to nonmembers. Very often, attached to the columbaria were dining facilities, where they would hold their feasts. In addition to burying any members who died, the other main activity of the club was to hold a series of feasts, usually about one every other month. Some of the dues were used to fund fhese feasts, and at each one, several members were responsible for providing a certain minimum amount of food. The purpose of these feasts is somewhat unclear. They seem to have been a combination of a way to pay honor to the dead and an excuse to have a good party.

Only the truly wealthy could afford to have individual tombs built for themselves. These tombs were constructed along the roads leading into Rome. Thus, to reach the city of the living, one had to first pass through the city of the dead. Tombs were frequently very elaborate and took many forms. Perhaps the most common type resembled miniature marble houses. Others were shaped like columns, towers, or cones.

One of the most famous tombs, which can still be seen today, belongs to Gains Cestius. He had his tomb constructed in the form of a marble pyramid 20 meters high. The inscription on the tomb notes that it took 330 days to build it. Another man who seems to have taken pride in his profession as a bread baker had his tomb built to resemble a gigantic, marble bread oven, into which his body was placed.

Tombs often had pipes protruding out from the top of them. The idea behind these was that the family would come out from the city to have a picnic on the tomb and share the feast with the deceased by dropping food down the tube and pouring in wine.

It was traditional that rather than building one's own tomb, one's heir would construct it. To ensure that heirs built a suitably impressive structure, many wills contained detailed directions for the type of tomb the

Figure 6,5 Pyramid-shaped tomb of Gaius Cestius,

Person wanted. It was often stipulated that the heir could not receive his inheritance until he had buried the person in the specified manner. No doubt many heirs resented having to expend such effort and money on these monuments, but as a small consolation, they would include their own name on the monument as well. On over a quarter of the monuments excavated, the name of the commemorator who built it is given more prominence than the name of the deceased.

Because standard Roman religious beliefs did not really include a well-developed notion of an afterlife, Romans seemed particularly concerned with leaving some enduring memory of themselves behind. Elaborate tombs were one way to do this. Demands placed on your descendants— that they celebrate a feast on your tomb for instance—were another. Some men tried to make sure that they were remembered by setting up funds of money, the interest from which was to be used for certain activities. One man left a fund of 250,000 sesterces, the interest from which was to be used to provide an annual feast for the people of his hometown.

Despite aU the effort that went into leaving an enduring legacy, many of these measures were in vain. Tombs were often sold and their valuable marble reused. Poor people broke into mausoleums, threw out the corpses, and used them as dwellings. Christian churches plundered Roman cemeteries for building materials, and the reason why many Roman funerary inscriptions have surdved up to the present is because they were built into the walls of churches. Even the Romans sometimes seem not to have shown much reverence for their own tombs. The public toilets in the town of Ostia, for instance, were constructed out of old tombstones.

A full-fledged burial ceremony for a wealthy Roman nobleman could be very complex. The deceased was dressed in fine clothing, and a wreath was placed on his head. A solemn parade from his house to the Roman Forum then took place. The man's family, friends, and clients all marched in it. The wax masks of his illustrious ancestors were placed on current family members, who also dressed up in clothing indicating the highest rank that that ancestor had attained. Thus, for example, if one of the ancestors had celebrated a triumph, the person wearing his mask would wear the clothes of a trinmphor.

When they reached the Roman Forum, the people impersonating the ancestors sat on a row of ivory chairs placed on the Rostra. The corpse was also placed on the Rostra and propped upright. One of the sons or another close family member would deliver a eulogy in which he recounted the deeds of the deceased as well as of his ancestors. The procession then traveled outside the city boundaries, where the corpse was usually cremated. During the funeral procession, close female relatives were expected to scream, beat themselves, tear out their hair, scratch their cheeks until they bled, roll in the dirt, and pound their heads against the ground. The family also hired musicians and sometimes even professional mourners. The latter were people who made a living by screaming and wailing at funerals as if they were family members. Males were generally expected to be more restrained, although when a father was burying his son, he was expected to throw himself on the corpse and talk to it, asking why the deceased had abandoned him.

Certainly the most famous of all Roman funerals was that of Julius Caesar. Mark Antony supposedly gave a particularly moving speech on this occasion. The crowds at Caesar's funeral were so large that they could not see his body very well, so a large, wax copy was constructed. This figure, placed upright on a revolving platform, featured realistic depictions of the 23 stab wounds that he had suffered at the hands of Brufus and the assassins. The crowd was so moved by this sight and by Antony's words that they rioted and decided to cremate Caesar's corpse on the spot. They ripped apart whatever they could find to build the bonfire, including the benches of the senators, and in the ensuing chaos they burned down the senate house itself. Later, when Caesar had been deified as a god, the emperor Augustus built a temple dedicated to him on the spot in the Roman Forum where his body had been cremated.