ROMAN FUNERAL PILE.
Did the Romans throw corn, pulse, or beans on the flames of the funeral pile (rogus), or deposit them with the bones and ashes of the deceased in their sepulchres? The Query is suggested by a quantity of, to all appearance, calcined small field beans having recently been found by me, in small heaps, among a deposit of ashes embedded in sand, in the perpendicular cutting of a sand-pit at Comb Wood, near Kingston. The deposit is black, reduced to a fine powder, and, with the exception of the beans, homogeneous: it was perfectly distinct from the surrounding sand, and was about two feet under the surface of the soil. For centuries past Roman remains have been from time to time discovered at Comb Wood, and it is known to have been a Roman station. The locality in which I found the deposit is said to have been the sepulchre of the station; and from an intelligent person, engaged in excavating the sand, I learned that he occasionally came upon deposits similar to that in question, containing baked, but unglazed, clay vessels; some, of an oval form, about a yard in circumference and nearly a foot in depth, and others of the size and somewhat of the form of a flower-pot. These vessels fall to pieces after two or three days, through exposure to the air. He had also found pieces of copper or brass about an inch square, and of the thickness of a penny, as also coins.
Authorities (Virg. Æn. VI. 225.; Stat. Theb. VI. 126.; Lucan, IX. 175.) may be cited, showing that perfumes, cups of oil, ornaments, clothes, dishes of food, and other things supposed to be agreeable to the deceased, were thrown upon the flames; but I do not find corn or beans specifically mentioned as having been used on these occasions.
I may add, that the field containing the sand-pit (which is the property of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge) is close to the road leading by Putney Heath to Kingston, and on the brow of the declivity of Comb Hill, overlooking that ancient Saxon seat of royalty which is stated to have been built out of the remains of the adjoining Roman station.
JOHN AP WILLIAM AP JOHN.