Mary Lewis

Pd. 3

Ancient Roman Burial Sites

Romans were very critical about death and burial. They thought the soul would only find

rest after the body was properly laid to rest. Until this was done, the soul haunted the homes

bring unhappiness to people. Funeral offices were a serious religious duty suppose to be done by

the remaining members of the family. The funeral was viewed as a rite of initiation. The

transitions between life and death. The funeral procession was marked by the movement of

bodies, living and dead. The more wealthy and famous the deceased was, the more regal funeral

processions would include mimes, musicians, and other entertainment. For the less wealthy, a

few flute players may play music at the procession. Professional mourners took up a large part of

the procession. These were people, usually women, who were not members of the deceased’s

family, but had to be paid to participate. According to accounts of funerals they would “wail

loudly, rip out their hair, and scratch their faces in mourning.” A large number of professional

mourners meant that the deceased was a wealthy and powerful person. Freedmen, or associates

of the deceased also participated in the procession as a way of showing respect to their

friend. Actors with ancestral masks made up the next part of the procession. These actors would

dress up as the deceased’s ancestors and act upon their personas. Ancestor worship was central to

the Romans’ beliefs about death and the afterlife. The corpse was carried in a bed-like tray. The

family of the deceased followed, marking the end of the large procession, sometimes even bigger

then one at a wedding.

In the event of cremation, the body was taken to the “city of the dead” and put upon a

funeral pyre. It was then burned, and the ashes and fragments of bones and teeth were kept in a
funerary urn. It was believed that until the body was disposed of the spirit had not crossed the

River Styx yet. Because of this there was a sense that the deceased haunted friends and family,

and the spirit would become angered if anything negative was spoken about it. While cremation

was the more common method for the deceased in the mid-2nd century AD, burial eventually

took over as the preferred method. The body would be placed inside a coffin, or a sarcophagus,

which was often large and richly decorated. The body was not buried with any possessions. This

was a very old practice throughout the Mediterranean, but rarely used in Rome, especially when

cremation was the most popular method.

The Twelve Tables would not allow the burial or even the burning of the dead within the

walls of the city. For the very poor, places of burial were provided in local places outside the

walls, corresponding in some degree to modern cities. This made their burial places as

conspicuous as they would permit, with the hope that the inscriptions upon the monuments

would keep alive the names and virtues of the dead, and with the idea, perhaps, that the dead still

had some part in the busy life around them. To this end they lined the great roads on either side

for miles out of the cities with rows of tombs of the most elaborate architecture. In Rome the

Appian Way, as the oldest road, showed the monuments of the most ancient families. Many of

these tombs were standing in the sixteenth century; few still remain. The custom was followed in

the smaller towns, and an idea of the importance of the monuments may have flourished from the

“Street of Tombs” outside of Pompeii. There were other burial places near the cities, of course,

less conspicuous and less expensive.

The Roman burial practices always took place at night in order to prevent disruption of

the daily activities of the city. A funeral procession began in the city and ended outside the walls

at the cemetery. In order to maintain the boundary between the living and the dead (and also, no
doubt, simply for health concerns) no one could be buried inside the city. The corpse was then

either burned, and the ashes gathered in an urn, or interred in a tomb.

The proper burial of the dead was so important to the Romans that funeral societies,

known as collegia, were common in which members paid monthly fees to make sure their

funeral rites would be performed with tradition and their status in the community be

acknowledged. Those who were buried without the proper rituals could return as ghosts as

previously stated. In Rome, as in other civilizations, ghosts were as much a part of the natural

world as any other phenomena and were usually feared , but they also believed the spirit of a

loved one could deliver a message, they did not fear them. Proper burial of the dead with all

attendant rites, was considered vital in keeping the dead happily in their place and the living

untroubled by spirits in theirs.

Ancient Greece funeral rites were very similar to those in Ancient Rome also had burial under

the earth, they continued the tradition of the after-life existing below the ground. The ancient

Greeks (perhaps following an Egyptian tradition) made sure to provide their dead with carefully

carved stones to remind the living of who the deceased were and what honors were still due

them. Remembrance of the dead was very important and a religious duty, not simply a personal

concern, and was decided according to the concept of eusebia which, though frequently

translated into English as piety, was much closer to civic duty or social obligation.

Eusebia dictated how one should interact with one's social superiors, how the youth treated their

elders, how masters treated slaves, and how husbands treated their wives. Different places

observed their own burial rites but the one thing they all had in common was the remembrance of

the dead.
Work Cited

https://www.ancient.eu/burial/

https://www.ancient.eu/article/96/the-roman-funeral/

www.forumromanum.org/life/johnston_14.html