The eleventh book of the Æneas gives a description of an incineration among the ancient inhabitants of Latium.
Self-cremation seems to have been one of the favorite means of disposing of one’s self in ancient times, especially among the royalty and aristocracy. Both tradition and history report of many women, friends, and servants who, of their own free will, mounted the funeral pyre with the departed head of the family. Besides Hercules and Dido, already mentioned, Sardanapalus, the last king of the Assyrians, burned himself in the year 600 before Christ, because the Tigris had destroyed the fortifications of besieged Nineveh, and the following also mounted the pyre for the same purpose: Marpessa, Polydora, and Cleopatra (Vide Pausanias, 4, 2), three noble women of Messenia, and Euadne, the wife of Capaneus, who threw herself into the flames which consumed her husband. The pyre of Sardanapalus, we are told, was very large and contained many rooms, which were elegantly furnished, and in which the royal treasures were heaped up, before the king entered them with his women, while his servants set the pile on fire. It is well known that the widows of India, until very recently, perished of their own free will in the flames that consumed their husbands.
Herodotus states that the women of the Thracians, in Eastern Europe, who were probably of Germanic origin, frequently disputed among themselves as to which of them should be allowed to ascend the pyre together with the deceased husband. Œnone, the lawful wife of Paris, whom he had forsaken to live with Helen the beautiful, forgot all her grievances at the sight of his misfortune. When the man, whom she had formerly loved so ardently, wounded by the arrow of Philoctetes, fled to her into the Ida, she refused to cure him; but when the greedy flames, after death, devoured his form, she voluntarily ascended the pyre to intermix her ashes with his. Thus are the ways of the world; the noble deed of the faithlessly deserted wife is hardly ever mentioned, but frivolous Helena was made the subject of many works of art, and leads an immortal life in the songs and poems of man.
CREMATION IN CALCUTTA.
The ancient Etruscans practiced cremation, both before and after Etruria became a Roman province; they, no doubt, adopted it from the Greeks, who were first their rulers and afterward their close neighbors. The tombs of Etruria were rich in art; the urns in which the ashes of the dead were kept were either of alabaster or baked clay, the latter often being decorated with tasty paintings.
The ancient Latins, in turn, borrowed the practice of incineration from the Etruscans. According to Mazois, some cinerary urns, found in the neighborhood of Alba Longa, prove that the custom of burning the dead was current among the original population of Latium long before any recorded epoch of Italian history, for the place in which those urns were detected was covered entirely over with dense layers of lava, which apparently came from the mountain Albanus, a volcano, the eruptions of which have long been buried in oblivion. The urns mentioned are especially noteworthy, because many of them bear pictures of the habitations of the earliest residents of Latium, which shows that cremation was known to them at that time. Such a hut of the aborigines of Latium was preserved for a long time in the capitol at Rome and was regarded with great reverence. It is but natural that the Latins, on becoming the founders of Rome, should have introduced incineration into their new home. Pliny asserts that the burning of the dead was not customary among the Romans of old, but Virgil describes it as a usage that existed long before the foundation of Rome, and Ovid affirms that the body of Remus was committed to the flames.
Cremation was not in general favor among the Romans until towards the termination of the republic. Pliny relates that Sylla (78 B.C.) was the first of the patrician Cornelians who wanted his body to be burned; most likely because he feared that his remains would be dealt with as those of Marius had been treated, whose body was exhumed by the order of Sylla, and thrown into a glutted general grave. During the decline of the republic and the period of the empire, till the accession of the Christian emperors, incineration was very popular in Rome; it was not only general in the capital, but also in the provinces. Julius Caesar, Antonius, Brutus, Pompejus, Octavius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, and Plinius were cremated. The ashes of Tacitus, the model of historians, who was likewise consigned to the flames, were cast to the winds in the middle ages by Pope Pius the Fifth, in order to punish the heretic. Just think of it! a pontiff outraging a scholar’s remains to punish him! Caligula and Tiberius were only partially burnt, because they had been tyrants.
At Nero’s obsequies it was but with difficulty that the train achieved complete cremation. The Roman aristocracy looked upon partial cineration as a great disgrace, which adhered to the respective family a long time. Yet this infamy was often meted out to the poor and unfortunate, as we shall see later on.
During plagues cremation was compulsory in the city of Rome.