In an ideal Roman cremation, the body was carried in procession from the house of the deceased to a place outside the city, where it was burnt on a pyre until it was reduced to bones and ashes (cineres or favilla). The pyre should be built specifically for the deceased; having to use someone else's pyre was a sign of poverty, or an emergency procedure. The cremated remains might be buried where they had been burnt, usually in a ditch which was filled in and covered or marked; in this case the tomb was called a bustum. More usually, the cremation was carried out somewhere other than the final resting place, at a spot designated ustrina in Latin literature. This might be within the same tomb-precinct or columbarium, as in many tombs at Ostia, or at a separate public site. The bones and ashes therefore had to be collected up and placed in a container, preferably a specially made and ornamented one (cinerarium, oss(u)arium, olla, urna), to be placed in the tomb. The force of the fire, the raking and collapse of the pyre during burning, and eventual quenching with cold liquid would together normally be sufficient to reduce the bones to small fragments which would fit easily into the container. This sort of burial of the remains is assumed in such wishes for the dead as:I pray that you rest quiet and safe in the urn, bones,And that the earth is not burdensome to your ashes.
Although there was a substantial Jewish population in Western Europe from at least the first century BC, literary evidence for it before the end of the sixth century AD is very sparse, amounting to a few mainly hostile references by Roman writers and some material of doubtful historical value in rabbinic and hagiographic sources. Knowledge of the Jewish communities of the West is therefore almost entirely dependent on inscriptions, which contain information on community organisation, the use of biblical texts and religious symbols, linguistic habits, naming practices and social status, and burial customs and beliefs about life after death. While Volume One provides ready access to the Jewish inscriptions from Italy and the islands, Spain and Gaul this second of two volumes concentrates on the inscriptions of the City of Rome. Hitherto it has been necessary to consult specialist publications to gain a complete picture of the inscriptions: this book fills a notable gap in the market.
f i e wicked stepmother is a figure of considerable importance it1 Roman literature. Jirno and Pfiaedra provided mythological models, and rhetorical training helped to perpetuate the stereotype. There are superficial reseniblances to the wicked stepniother of Eiiropean folklore, but Roman literature concentrates on one particular form of "wickedness'? the stepnrother who deprives her stepson of his paternal inheritance, either f o r tier own benefit or her children k. Classical inheritance law and the structure of the Roman family gave scope f o r this, birr imaginative writers made it ail issue of much more importance than the IegaI texts indicate it ever had.
The cities of the Roman Empire were, on the whole, plural societies, which had in them significant sub-groups, ethnic, religious, or, indeed, both together — for the two categories were still only sometimes distinguishable. Such an environment carries many resonances for us and it is surprising to realize its neglect as a subject for study. The classical Greek polis had been a theoretically homogeneous institution of look-alike citizens, with outsiders excluded or enslaved. The notional Roman approach was, in the early days, to deal with outsiders by assimilating them. When we look at the cities of the Hellenistic kingdoms, we observe that they often did consist of several racial elements, though how these were accommodated has been for some time an issue for debate, and this remains an open question. But beyond that, our concern seems to stop.
Until the second century A.D., the bodies of most people who died at Rome and in the western provinces of the Empire ended up on a funeral pyre, to be reduced to ashes which would be placed in a grave. The practical arrangements for this process have attracted some attention from archaeologists but virtually none from ancient historians. In this paper I shall try to combine literary and archaeological evidence to reconstruct how the pyre was prepared. I hope that this will provide a fuller background than currently exists for understanding the numerous brief references which can be found in Roman literature and the two surviving representations of a pyre (other than an emperor's) in Roman art. Cremation had different traditions in different areas, e.g. as an elite practice in parts of Gaul, even if ultimately it ‘may have been thought of as a sign of allegiance to Rome.’ There clearly were local differences, not just between provinces but between places quite close together, as well as changes over time, but many of the rites of cremation appear to have been similar throughout the Western Roman Empire, illustrating what Morris calls ‘a massive cultural homogenisation of the Roman world at a time when political and economic regionalism was increasing’.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.