The memorials of the dead hold a remarkable place among the materials of history. The very existence of nations is in many cases attested only by their sepulcral monuments, which serve to trace the course of their migrations, and yield us a scanty knowledge of their usages, and of the state of civilization among them. Where the art of writing has been unknown, this knowledge must, indeed, be vague and inferential; we may gather the race from the form of the skull, the rank or occupation from the contents of the grave; but we learn nothing of the individual character or social relations of its tenant; he is only one of the countless multitude who
| illacrimabiles Urguentur ignotique longa Nocte. |
Even among nations who have possessed the art of writing, and used it profusely for sepulcral purposes, we may be disappointed in the hope of gaining any idea of individual character from inscriptions on the dead. From the hieroglyphics with which the Egyptian mummies and funeral tablets are covered we seldom learn more than the state and function of the deceased. The Greek inscriptions are more communicative, but their ἐπιγράμματα ἐπιτύμβια, of which so large a number are preserved in the Anthology, are rather poetical exercises than the expression of genuine, personal sentiment; and those which have come down to us in brass or marble are brief and meagre.
Roman sepulcral monuments of the republican times are rare; but those of the family of Scipio,[1] the earliest with which we are acquainted, exhibit a character entirely different from the Greek. They at once display the genius of the people, and give a picture of strong individuality. The following Saturnian verses are inscribed on the tomb of Publius Scipio, the son of the great Africanus.
Quei apicem, insigne Dialis Flaminis, gesistei
Mors perfecit tua ut tibi essent omnia brevia,
Honos, fama virtusque, gloria atque ingenium.
Quibus sei in longa licuisset tibi utier vita
Facile facteis superasses gloriam majorum.
Quare lubens te in gremium, Scipio, recipit
Terra, Publi, prognatum Publio, Corneli.
In the imperial times sepulcral inscriptions became very numerous, especially as cremation fell into disuse, and the sarcophagus took the place of the urn, which rarely exhibits any designation of the person whose ashes it contains. They have furnished the philologer, the archæologist, and the historian, with a multitude of materials for their respective branches of study. The site of Eburacum has supplied a considerable number of them, some of which have perished or been removed,[2] while others are contained in the Museum of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society. With the exception of one, they are formal and jejune; yet the fact that the Society possesses so many may lead its members to take an interest in an attempt to illustrate the whole subject from the more ample treasures of other collections.
What has been said of the general brevity and dryness of our own inscriptions is true of those found in England generally. There are very few in the collections of Horsley and his successors, which are distinguished either by their execution or their style. For the most part they are a simple record of the age and status of the deceased, a large proportion being the tombs of military men. The number and character of sepulcral monuments are an index of the population and wealth of a district or country; their language, of the prevalence of the Roman dominion. Rome, of course, has furnished the largest number. The north of Italy, when it ceased to be Gallic, became entirely Roman; and its chief cities, Verona, Milan, Brescia, Padua, have proved more productive of Latin inscriptions than the south, where the Greek language was extensively used. The southern parts of Gaul early became a Roman province; and its cities are full of Roman antiquities, among which inscriptions bear a conspicuous part. Several classics of the Silver age—Seneca, Martial, Quinctilian, Silius Italicus—were born in the southern cities of Spain, and the Spanish inscriptions, though less important than might have been expected from this circumstance, bear testimony to the wide diffusion of the Latin language in that country. Northern Africa was occupied by the Romans, with a temporary interruption during the conquest of the Vandals, for eight centuries. Though the country people retained the old Punic language,[3] the Latin must have been in general use in the cities, for African bishops and writers were the founders of Latin eloquence in the Christian Church. Since the French possession of Algeria the ancient sites of Roman colonies have been explored, and already a copious harvest of Latin inscriptions has been the result. But Britain was remote and poor, late occupied by the Romans and early abandoned. Even during its occupation they were rather garrisoned in the towns, which they built and fortified, than mingled with the conquered people. We need not wonder, therefore, that our inscriptions are chiefly military, or that when the Romans withdrew they left few traces of their occupancy in the language of Britain.
It was the all but universal practice in the ancient world to inter the bodies or ashes of the dead beyond the limits of the cities. Even in Egypt, where the practice of embalmment might have rendered it safe to retain them in the vicinity of the living, the cemeteries of the great cities were placed on the opposite side of the Nile. Lycurgus, indeed, is said to have ordered interments to be made within the limits of Sparta, with the view of producing familiarity with the aspect of death. The Athenians, on the contrary, devoted the most beautiful suburb of their city, the Ceramicus without the walls, to the interment of their dead, and the space beyond the walls of the Piræus appears to have been occupied with tombs.[4] If the Romans ever buried within their houses, it must have been at a time when their territory did not extend beyond the walls of the city, for the prohibition of the Twelve Tables is precise; HOMINEM MORTUUM IN URBE NE SEPELITO, NEVE URITO. The principal roads at Rome seem to have been lined with sepulcres for a considerable distance, especially the Appian, the “Regina Viarum,” as it is termed by Statius.[5] Atticus was buried at the fifth milestone from the city on this road, Gallienus at the ninth.[6] No urn or sarcophagus has been found within the walls of Roman York, but the traces of interment begin immediately beyond the gates. On the southern side, which was not included in the fortifications of Eburacum, the ground near the river was occupied by suburban villas, whose site is indicated by the elaborate pavements which have been dug up; but at the Mount, half a mile from the river one of the principal cemeteries of the city began, extending along the road which led to Calcaria. Sepulcral remains have also been found near the other outlets from the city. While we acknowledge that in thus banishing the remains of the dead from the precincts of the living the ancients showed more wisdom than modern nations, we cannot but wonder that they should have allowed the disagreeable process of burning the dead to be carried on so near their habitations. The site of the ustrinum at York has not been clearly ascertained; if at Clifton, where many urns have been found, it was at a moderate distance from the gate; but at Pompeii it was only about a furlong from the gate on the principal road, and at Aldborough close to the wall.[7] The Romans had, even in their smaller municipia, Boards of Health—such, at least, I take to be the meaning of Novemvir and Triumvir Valetudinarius;[8] and it may seem extraordinary that they did not remove the ustrinum to a greater distance. Its effect could scarcely be neutralized, even by the profusion of odoriferous gums and oils which were employed at funerals.[9] Augustus forbade the burning of bodies within fifteen stadia of the city. The only one whose site has been ascertained in the neighbourhood of Rome is near the fifth milestone on the Appian Way.[10] The ustrinum at Litlington,[11] the only one of its kind, I believe, whose site has been ascertained in England, was a rectangular space enclosed by walls, and not in the vicinity of any large town. Both here and at Aldborough the ustrinum was also a cemetery. The cemetery of Roman London was in Spital-fields. (Arch. 36, 206.)
The position of the Roman sepulcres along the great thoroughfares explains the frequent apostrophe from the tenant of the tomb to the traveller: SISTE VIATOR; TU QUI VIA FLAMINIA TRANSIS RESTA AC RELEGE; VIATORES SALVETE ET VALETE; forms which have sometimes been copied, not very appropriately, in churchyards and cemeteries. The traveller is frequently addressed with some moral reflexion; VIXI UT VIVIS, MORIERIS UT SUM MORTUUS; occasionally of rather an Epicurean character, as that of Prima Pompeia; FORTUNA SPONDET MULTA MULTIS, PRÆSTAT NEMINI, VIVE IN DIES ET HORAS, NAM PROPRIUM EST NIHIL[12]. The tenant of the tomb sometimes invites the passer-by to offer for him the customary prayer, SIT TIBI TERRA LEVIS (S.T.T.L.).
Prævenere diem vitæ crudelia fata
Et raptam inferna me posuere rate.
Hoc lecto elogio juvenis miserere jacentis,
Et dic discedens, Sit tibi terra levis[13].