Roman funerary practices include the Ancient Romans' religious rituals concerning funerals, cremations, and burials. They were part of time-hallowed tradition (Latin: mos maiorum), the unwritten code from which Romans derived their social norms. Elite funeral rites, especially processions and public eulogies, gave the family an opportunity to publicly celebrate the life and deeds of the deceased, their ancestors, and the family's standing in the community. Sometimes the political elite gave costly public feasts, games and popular entertainments after family funerals, to honour the departed and to maintain their own public profile and reputation for generosity. The Roman gladiator games began as funeral gifts for the deceased in high-status families. Funeral displays and expenses were supposedly constrained by sumptuary laws, designed to reduce class envy and consequent social conflict. The less well-off, and those who lacked the support of an extended family could subscribe to guilds or collegia which provided funeral services for members. Until their funeral and disposal, the dead presented a risk of ritual pollution. This was managed through funerary rituals which separated them from the world of the living, and consigned their spirit to the underworld. Professional undertakers were available to organise the funeral, manage the rites and dispose of the body. Even the simplest funerals of Rome's citizen and free majority could be very costly, relative to income. The poorest, and certain categories of criminal, could be dumped in pits or rivers, or left to rot in the open air. During plagues and pandemics, the system might be completely overwhelmed. Those who met an untimely or premature death, or died without benefit of funeral rites were believed to haunt the living as vagrant, restless spirits until they could be exorcised. In Rome's earliest history, both inhumation and cremation were in common use among all classes. Around the mid-Republic inhumation was almost exclusively replaced by cremation, with some notable exceptions, and remained the most common funerary practice until the middle of the Empire, when it was almost entirely replaced by inhumation. Possible reasons for these widespread changes are the subject of scholarly speculation. During the early Imperial era, the funeral needs of the poor were at least partly met by the provision of ash-tombs with multiple niches, known as columbaria ("dovecote" tombs). During the later Empire, and particularly in the early Christian era, Rome's catacombs performed a similar function as repositories for inhumation burials. By ancient tradition, cemeteries were located outside the ritual boundaries (pomerium) of towns and cities. Grand monuments and humble tombs alike lined the roadsides, sometimes clustered together like "cities of the dead". Tombs were visited regularly by living relatives with offerings to the deceased of food and wine, and special observances during particular Roman festivals and anniversaries; with correct funerary observances and continuity of care from one generation to the next, the shades of departed generations were believed to remain well disposed towards their living descendants. Families who could afford it spent lavishly on tombs and memorials. A Roman sarcophagus could be an elaborately crafted artwork, decorated with relief sculpture depicting a scene that was allegorical, mythological, or historical, or a scene from everyday life. Some tombs are very well preserved, and their imagery and inscriptions are an important source of information for individuals, families and significant events.
Care of the dead In Greco-Roman antiquity, the bodies of the dead were regarded as polluting. At the same time, loving duty toward one's ancestors (pietas) was a fundamental part of ancient Roman culture. The care of the dead negotiated these two emotionally opposed attitudes. When properly honoured with funeral rites and memorials by the living, the spirits of the dead were thought to become benevolent ancestors and protect their descendants. Those who died "before their natural term" or without proper funeral rites were thought to wander the earth, and haunt the living as vengeful, vagrant ghosts (Lemures). In Horace's Ode 1.28, the shade of a drowned, unburied sailor, trapped through no fault of his own between the worlds of the living and the dead, implores a passer-by to "sprinkle dust three times" on his corpse and give him rest, or suffer his revenge. Cicero (Laws 2.22.57) writes that "... until turf is cast upon the bones, the place where the body is cremated does not have a sacred character...." The ritualistic casting of earth or placing of turf on the cremated bones might have been the minimum requirement to make a grave a locus religiosus (a religious place, therefore protected by the gods). Burial rites, and burial itself, could be denied to certain categories of criminal after execution, a demonstration that through this simple omission, the power of the state could extend to the perpetual condemnation of souls. Rome had a high population, and disposal of the dead was an essential, practical and often urgent obligation for relatives, and for civic and religious authorities. Erker (2011) proposes that this had little connection with modern notions of public health and pollution, as the measure of "death-pollution in Roman burials varied according to the social status of the deceased." In cities and towns, the corpses of slaves and other impoverished persons were sometimes illegally dumped in the street under cover of darkness to evade the cost of their proper disposal. They were removed by contracted undertakers and disposed without ceremony, virtually as soon as found. The cleansing rituals prescribed for members of the elite minority, who might lie "in state" for several days prior to disposal, were complex, detailed, and sensitive to error. The nobility were thought responsible, above all others and even in death, for sustaining Rome's traditional identity, purity, and divine approval. Bodel describes the dumping of low-status corpses on the streets as public nuisances, listed by Roman authorities as civil offences, on a par with the dumping of dung and unwanted animal products, and public brawling, all of which were dealt with by fining perpetrators in the civil courts, not by the ritual cleansing that would have been consequent on religious pollution.
Mortality
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