The unrevised reprint of the late Jocelyn Toynbee’s Death and Burial in the Roman World (T.) appears at a time when mortuary studies have become an important focus of scholarship in classical studies. While sociologists, anthropologists, and archaeologists of other periods and areas have long studied mortuary practices as indices of social organization, 1 the study of death and burial in classical antiquity has only recently advanced beyond the stage of simple descriptive and comparative analysis. Although first published a quarter century ago in Cornell’s Aspects of Greek and Roman Life series, this book remains, surprisingly, one of the only comprehensive surveys on its vast topic in print, as well as the standard reference for many classicists, despite the growing number of related publications. 2 Since T. first appeared, mortuary studies have transformed so dramatically through theoretical advances and continued field work that a survey published today would have a very different look indeed. Recent research has addressed the complex relationships between funerary practices and such essential but abstract dimensions of ancient life as the social structures involving individual, family, and community, concepts of death and the afterlife, and self-expression through symbolic imagery. The most innovative work has been among archaeologists and art historians of Aegean society between the Bronze Age and the fourth century B.C. 3 Although Romanists are, generally speaking, a step behind, there has been considerable progress in the study of Roman funerary art and architecture, particularly in the areas of typology and the representation of social status. 4
In many respects, T.’s work, not unlike its sister volume on the Greeks, 5 represents the concerns of a prior generation. As a classicist and archaeologist with a distinguished career in Rome, T. had a detailed knowledge of her subject matter. Her focus was on the canonical authors and the spectacular monuments. Her approach was conventional formal analysis, with occasional speculation on social history but no explicit statement of methodology. Thus, while it still provides a reliable introduction to an important body of evidence, her book is limited by its Romanocentrism and its concentration on architectural history. Scholarship since T. has shown that the study of death and burial should encompass the deceased individual, the complex relationships between the individual and the interment, and what these relationships tell us about changes in ancient society, whether social, political, economic, or ideological. This reviewer—and, no doubt, many others—would be glad to see a review article of the deluxe variety covering Roman mortuary studies in the past 25 years. 6 Even so, it is not the intention here to fill in the gaps with a complete discussion and weighty annotation. Rather, this review aims to outline in broader terms current approaches and point out new areas for exploration, using T. as a point of departure.
In Chapter 1 (pp. 11-24) T. discusses Etruscan notions of death and the afterlife as reflected in art, compiles the evidence for funerary rites, and draws up a tomb typology. She asserts that the apparent transition in funerary iconography during the fourth century B.C. to more violent and gruesome themes and figures was the result of a new conception of death as a destructive process which severs the deceased from the living. She concludes with the Tomb of the Volumnii outside Perugia, “one of the most significant of the latest links in the chain that binds Roman to Etruscan burial customs” (p. 24). Since T., scholars have recognized that the Etruscans were one of many cultures on the peninsula, with international contacts through foreign colonies and commerce. Moreover, the regions and cities of Etruria are now considered to have been relatively independent while sharing a common culture. 7 A clearer picture has emerged of both regional variation and external influences, as well as the indigenous elements of Etruscan practices and their relationship with the Neolithic to Villanovan traditions. 8 T. was right to underscore the changes of the fourth century: it has since been demonstrated that this era of intense interaction between Etruria and Campania witnessed the elaboration of ethnic differences and local history, especially in sepulchral iconography. 9 Finally, much more can be said concerning the motivations (archaizing? prestige? creation of a cultural identity?) and mechanisms (diffusion? foreign craftsmen working for the local elite?) of interaction between the Etruscans and the early Romans. 10 Although T. does not examine these issues, the direct descent from the Etruscans of various Roman forms and practices becomes a recurring theme (pp. 47, 53-4, 73-4, 84, 143-4, 180, 214-5, 268).
Chapter 2 (pp. 33-42) covers Roman conceptions of the survival of the soul as spirits ( Di Manes, Lemures, Larvae), connections between the living and the dead, and the cosmic location and topography of the afterworld. T. collects the testimony of inscriptions and literary authors, with Plautus and the Augustan poets looming large, and mentions the possible influence of Epicurean and Stoic eschatology. The resulting picture pertains primarily to Rome from the Late Republic through the High Empire and to an affluent and cultivated sector of urban society. Given the geographic and historic tendencies of this book, it is understandable but regrettable that Greek prose authors are not treated in detail, although Christopher Jones, among others, has shown such writers as Plutarch, Lucian, and the novelists to be abundant sources for the social history of the East during the Empire. T. concludes that
… belief in the survival after death of personal individuality prevailed and views on the nature of the life that awaited the soul beyond the grave were, in the main, optimistic. Both literature (to some extent) and funerary art (to a high degree) do, in fact, reveal that there was in this age a deepening conviction that the terror and power of death could be overcome and that a richer, happier and more godlike life than that experienced here was attainable hereafter, under certain conditions, by the souls of the departed. (p. 38)
Having established this position, she addresses the question of the epidemic shift from cremation to inhumation during the second century A.D. by first citing some pertinent loci classici. 11 She rejects both the famous thesis of A. D. Nock that shifts in fashion preferred extravagant forms of interment 12 and the arguments that Christian or Jewish doctrine or habit dictated the preservation of the body. 13 T. offers her own explanation, asserting that “the change of rite would seem to reflect a significant strengthening of emphasis on the individual’s enjoyment of a blissful hereafter” (p. 41). Such “intellectualist,” or psychological, approaches typically explore practices only on the formal level and read specific, simplistic meanings into multivalent symbols (e.g., Dionysiac triumph and revelry in sepulchral iconography = prevalent notion of salvation in death and the “ecstatic bliss” of afterlife, p. 39). 14 Given the evidence currently available and the nature of the problem, it must be admitted that any unified theory for this complex phenomenon is not possible without a clearer understanding of geographic variation over time. Ultimately, the shift may be most significant not strictly because it reflects changes in religion, taste, or ideology, but rather because it represents a widespread, homogenized pattern of ritual behavior at a critical time in the history of the Empire, and therefore a degree of broad cultural assimilation on at least one level. 15
Chapter 3 (pp. 43-72) is a lucid summary of the evidence for Roman funerary customs ( funus translaticum, funus militare, funus publicum, and funus imperatorium) from the moment of death through the rites after burial. T. adduces as evidence literature as well as sculpture and inscriptions but does not consider essential problems date, genre, or intention. The section on the artifactual assemblage of Roman interments is too schematic (pp. 52-4). The chapter concludes with the cult of the dead, the dual purpose of which, according to T., was to preserve the memory of the deceased among living relatives and friends and to secure the comfort of the deceased by maintaining the tomb itself (pp. 61-2). However, she does not recognize that the rituals surrounding death, interment, and commemoration also expressed and perpetuated the social status and identity of the deceased, and they offered an opportunity among the survivors to compete for status within a social structure tranformed by death. One practice which played an important role in the formation of public memory, the obituary oration, is not discussed. 16 Similarly, T. touches on wills as directives for hosting funerary banquets and protecting tombs but not the legal act of testation “as a complicated interaction of personal wishes and external pressures,” in the words of Edward Champlin. 17 Finally, T. restricts her discussion of the cult of the dead to pagan Rome. Yet, scholars of the cult of the saints have demonstrated that, while Christianization brought momentous shifts in mentalité, the influence of paganism on contemporary Christian mortuary practices was varied and profound. 18 Examining where and how the two coincided or diverged can elucidate the nature of both.
Chapter 4 (pp. 73-100) begins with a discussion of the layout of cemeteries. T. addresses inscribed precautions against the alienation, misappropriation, or destruction of tombs as well as their delimitation by ownership, using as examples the necropoleis at Ostia, Isola Sacra, Aquileia, and the Vatican. 19 Recent studies have shown that epitaphs also provide evidence for family and demographic structures, and their claims to preserve memory are significantly formulaic. 20 Moreover, the omission of rural settlements and the lower classes hardly allows for a balanced picture. In the countryside, the residents of villas could bury their dead on their property, sometimes to delineate boundaries; 21 in the city, those of low birth and modest means could be mass-buried outside the walls. 22 Next, T. (optimistically) associates various mausolea and cemeteries surrounded by walls in Britain and Gaul with Italian precincts like the Tomb of the Concordii at Boretto near Reggio Emilia. The chapter concludes with the tantalizing evidence for funerary gardens ( cepotaphia), which includes the celebrated passage in the cena Trimalchionis (Petron. 71), assorted inscriptions from across the Mediterranean, and two marble formae, but no actual sites (pp. 94-100). Aside from their mystical, romantic, and philosophical associations familiar from literature and wall painting, gardens were also an important medium for landscape design. The scientific excavation of one 23 could reveal a great deal concerning the use of natural elements in creating a context for viewing the tomb.
Chapters 5 and 6 (pp. 101-244) present a long typological analysis of funerary architecture along the lines of a catalogue raisonné, but in descriptive prose which makes for very dry reading. William L. MacDonald has since offered a useful typology based strictly on formal criteria with two broad classes, scenic (single facade or multilateral) and unitary (verticalized or volumetric). 24 In contrast, T.’s classification is rather idiosyncratic, proceeding roughly chronologically and eastward and covering the most famous monuments. There is a distinct focus on Rome, with some consideration of Gaul, central Europe, and Britain, less of North Africa and the Near East, and only rare reference to Asia Minor and Greece. As archaeologists in the provincial lands study and publish burial sites, following the lead of the British in their own country, 25 this picture should continue to change substantially.
T. begins by only briefly discussing the more mundane forms of interment (pp. 101-3). However, these were, to be sure, at least as diverse as the more elaborate tombs, as well as being far more numerous and more representative of common practices. Her discussion of columbaria, a form which reflects significant developments in the mortuary concerns of the urban populace, only addresses their design (pp. 113-7). But the institution of burial clubs and the construction of columbaria offered both financial security and individualized interment to those who could not afford something more extravagant and who lacked the support or tradition of close familial bonds, such as slaves and freedmen. 26 Her discussion of built tombs begins with that of the Cornelii Scipiones (pp. 103-13) and moves to other well-known examples, including the tombs outside the Herculaneum Gate at Pompeii, 27 the tombs of C. Poplicius Bibulus and Cornelia, the pyramid of C. Cestius, and the tomb of M. Vergilius Eurysaces (the baker) at Rome, “La Conocchia” at Capua, and the mausoleum of the Julii at St. Remy (pp. 118-30). Here T. emphasizes the eccentric tastes of the deceased and the capacity for creative variation in architectural form. Next she describes rectangular temple-tombs and house-tombs, with long sections on the Isola Sacra and Vatican necropoleis (pp. 130-43). There is no clear examination of the origins of these types, although T. points to both Hellenistic Asian and early Imperial prototypes (pp. 130-1). T. does, however, expressly derive other large circular and polygonal tombs across the Empire directly or indirectly from the Etruscan tumuli, locating the Mausoleum of Augustus at the head of a Roman series which includes the tomb of Caecilia Metella and the Mausoleum of Hadrian (Castel Sant’Angelo) (pp. 143-63). Yet certainly the Mausoleum of Augustus is not only linked to the Etruscan tumuli or R. Ross Holloway’s Trojan mounds: 28 its Greek name and imposing dimensions alone draw associations with the royal architecture of the Hellenistic East, whether specifically the Carian original, the Tomb of Alexander, or the Arsinoeion on Samothrace, and in other respects it seems to recall a triumphal monument. 29 T. is on shakier ground when she later suggests that the Italian tumuli were a “stimulus” for the development of tumuli in central Europe, northern Gaul, and Britain during the Early Empire but admits at the same time that the barrow tradition had existed in those regions since the Bronze Age (pp. 180, 184-5). Finally, T. notes the tetrachic and Constantinian efflorescence of rotund mausolea (e.g., of Romulus, son of Maxentius, on the Via Appia; of Diocletian at Split; possibly that of Galerius at Thessaloniki [Agios Georgios]; of Constantina and Helena, daughters of Constantine, on the Via Nomentana [S. Costanza]) and places the “gasometer” of Theoderic (d. 526) at Ravenna at the end of the series, but she offers no social or historical explanation for this Late Roman revival. Among the tetrachs, it may well have been been connected with dynastic aspirations; as for the Ostrogoth king, it accords well with other Romanized aspects of Germanic self-representation in Italy. 30
The second part of T.’s typological essay is a sort of catch-all for other monumental forms, with many examples from the “fringes” of the Empire. Throughout T. polarizes East and West without explicit justification, although she cites as a central distinction “the Semitic practice of inhumation” (pp. 188, 190, 219). Under the category of tower-tombs she discusses the salient examples from both the West (e.g., “La Torre de los Escipiones” near Tarragona, the numerous tombs in Algeria recorded by Gsell) and the East (Palmyra, Dura Europus) (pp. 164-72). Again she is unclear about origins, suggesting only the Hellenistic Tomba di Terone near Agrigento as a prototype (p. 164) with no consideration of the possible influence of indigenous architectural traditions (e.g., the late third or second century B.C. Punic-Numidian Mausoleum of Ateban at Dougga). This is followed by a misplaced section on the exceptional funerary monuments at Celeia and Ghirza (pp. 172-9). Her discussion of eastern tombs with rock-cut facades concentrates on individual monuments from the Kedron Valley near Jerusalem and Petra (pp. 188-99). T. grossly oversimplifies oriental funerary practices during the Empire by stating that in the East “large and elaborate hypogaea owned by wealthy families, or somewhat less sophisticated ones belonging to professional or religious groups, were the characteristic and prevailing form of sepulchre, and extremely numerous” (p. 219). Indeed, the hypogaea at Dura and Palmyra display astounding variation in plan and decoration (pp. 199-234), but elsewhere she discusses tower-tombs at both sites, and nowhere addresses the elaborate temple-tombs at Palmyra or, needless to say, the numerous simple, non-monumental interments. 31 T. concludes with a brief discussion of Jewish and Christian catacombs which touches on issues of sepulchral iconography (pp. 235-6, 238-9, 244) but for the most part only describes architectural features. She does not address the broader issue of the transformation of the pagan tradition, which is particularly germane to the study of Christian funerary motifs. 32 Also overlooked is the role of Christian burial in the dramatic changes in urban topography during Late Antiquity, when the focus of settlement was realigned according to an ecclesiastical, not a civic, community. 33
In addition to these specific comments, two general observations can be made. First, the interpretive significance of typologies is limited if they are neither based on a representative range of variation nor associated with other essential elements of design, such as location and iconography. Investigation of popular burial types and those associated with rural settlements is crucial for an accurate field of view. It also casts in high relief the unique monuments, such as the Mausoleum of Augustus. If it was erected as anti-Antonian propaganda in the years before Actium, its location on the Campus Martius heralded Octavian as the ruler of Rome; when the Ara Pacis and the horologium were later built, the Mausoleum became a reference point in a symbolic program marrying topography and astrology; the display of the res gestae of the deified emperor contributed to this architecture and imagery of power. 34 T. does not discuss another imperial tomb, the Column of Trajan, which was conspicuous for its location inside the pomerium, its integral part in the plan of the Forum, and the narrative relief of the Dacian campaigns, perhaps a Hadrianic addition. 35 Consider also the context of the tomb of C. Julius Antiochus Philopappus within the urban landscape of Athens. It has been pointed out that the monument’s eclectic decoration reflects the remarkable career of a man who was grandson of Antiochus IV of Commagene, suffect consul at Rome (A.D. 109), and archon at Athens. 36 Yet, it should also be remembered that this was an intramural burial, 37 and one of the most visible monuments in the city. Second, T. does not offer a clear rationale as to how and why funerary forms evolved, sometimes implying that they gradually spread from Italy and sometimes invoking the circulation of copy-books (e.g., pp. 190, 194, 195, 236). 38 Nor does she adequately address the considerable influence of the Hellenistic East on Mediterranean funerary architecture, scarcely mentioning Asia Minor. 39 It is misguided, others have warned, 40 to draw a sharp architectural dichotomy between East and West while pinpointing diagnostic features for each. Moreover, forms and motifs can bear some meaning and function beyond the merely decorative, and so the act of borrowing must also be on some level an acculturative process.
Chapter 7 (pp. 245-81) begins with grave reliefs and free-standing stelae, which T. rightly affiliates with classical Greek predecessors while noting the fusion of Greek and Roman traits in the Imperial Attic series (pp. 248-50). Her sections on cineraria, funerary altars, and funerary couches concentrate mostly on the formal aspects of the more elaborate forms with few iconographic considerations (pp. 253-70). These funerary types have been the subject of many publications offering refined typologies and linking them with certain classes of patrons. 41 In the subsequent section on sarcophagi she suggests that narrative scenes in relief were allegories of death and the afterlife, discusses the commercial dimensions of quarrying, manufacturing, and commissioning sarcophagi, follows the form through its Early Christian development, and observes that the intended context of viewing influenced their appearance (pp. 272-5). Here T. sounds perhaps most ahead of her time. Recent scholarship has also focused on the symbolic content of the mythological scenes on sarcophagi, as well as their function in commemorating the deceased, whether explicitly or analogically. 42
The above observations on this wide-ranging book are only meant to indicate some, but not all, of the broad currents in research over the past two and a half decades. Two other areas of noteworthy progress since T. are the analysis of human remains and regional studies. Human remains can reveal genetic relationships between populations and the various impacts of occupational stresses, fluctuating health standards, and mortality rates on individuals. 43 It is important that physical anthropologists work closely with classical archaeologists at all stages of research in the field and the lab, not as detached consultants, for it is only through such collaboration that a clearer sense of the complex cross-influences between biology and culture will emerge. An excellent example is the project on the Poundbury cemetery outside Dorset containing well over a thousand residents from the fourth century A.D. settlement. Meticulously excavated and examined, this enormous population sample provides considerable information not only on mortuary practices, paleodemography, and paleopathology in Late Roman Britain, but also on other mundane aspects of life and death like the coiffure of the corpses, the construction of wooden caskets, vitamin deficiencies, and child abuse. 44 Secondly, field survey has revolutionized classical archaeology, particularly in the Eastern Mediterranean, and established the region as the basic unit for investigating settlement and social organization. 45 Defining a region means tracing not only its operative and figurative limits but also its interaction with other regions. The study of funerary practices at both urban and rural sites on a regional level can provide a more accurate sense of local variation and the significance of supralocal attributes.
Nevertheless, there is much of value in T.’s ambitious, if dated, book, which offers a broad overview of the ancient testimony and the monumental funerary forms with full citations (774 endnotes) of the previous century and more of research. Hopefully, art history, classical archaeology, and related fields will continue to integrate different kinds of evidence in addressing complex social and historical issues. Indeed, the sources available to the modern classicist for mortuary analysis are as numerous as they are diverse, coming from many geographic regions and periods and ranging from the literary, documentary, and epigraphic to the architectural, iconographical, and the biological in nature. The reprint of T.’s landmark study sets the stage for new introductions to this lively field of study, and this is perhaps its greatest contribution.
1. For discussions of anthropological method and theory, see S.C. Humphreys and H. King eds., Mortality and Immortality: The Anthropology and Archeology of Death (London 1981), M. Bloch and J. Parry eds., Death and the Regeneration of Life (Cambridge 1982), and P. Metcalf and R. Huntington, Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual (2nd ed., Cambridge 1991). On the progress in New World and prehistoric archaeology since the 1960s, see L. A. Beck ed., Regional Approaches to Mortuary Analysis (New York 1995).
2. Two short introductions are S. Walker, Memorials to the Roman Dead (London 1985), a guide to the British Museum with a discussion of the economy of marble trade and sarcophagi, and R. Jones, “Burial Customs of Rome and the Provinces,” in J. Wacher ed., The Roman World II (London 1987) pp. 812-44, which uses cemeteries in Spain, Gaul, and Britain to illustrate, among other things, settlement shifts. To the latter should be added the same author’s comments in his review, “Backwards and Forwards in Roman Burial,” JRA 6 (1993) 427-32. R. Reece ed., Burial in the Roman World (London 1977), somewhat dated but still relevant, covers other important issues, such as prehistoric and Christian practices, rural burial sites, and quantitative applications. See also the wide-ranging F. Hinard ed., La mort, les morts et l’au-delà dans le monde romain (Caen 1987) and the excellent H. von Hesburg and P. Zanker eds., Römische Gräberstrasse: Selbstdarstellung-Status-Standard (Munich 1987).
3. E.g., the diverse papers in R. Laffineur ed., Thanatos: Les coutumes funéraires en Égée à l’âge du bronze (Liege 1987) and R. Hägg and G. C. Nordquist eds., Celebrations of Death and Divinity in the Bronze Age Argolid (Stockholm 1990), and two quite different studies, I. Morris, Burial in Ancient Society: The Rise of the Greek City-State (Cambridge 1987) (cf. rev. S. C. Humphreys, Helios 17 [1990] 263-8) and C. Sourvinou-Inwood, ‘Reading’ Greek Death to the End of the Classical Period (Oxford 1995).
4. See D. E. E. Kleiner, “Funerary Art and Architecture: Observations on the Significance of Recent Studies,” JRA 1 (1988) pp. 115-9 and H. von Hesburg, “Neuere Literatur zu römischen Grabbauten,” JRA 2 (1989) pp. 207-13 for discussion and references.
5. D. Kurtz and J. Boardman, Greek Burial Customs (Ithaca 1971).
6. This purpose is partly served by I. Morris, Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge 1992), an introduction to important problems in both Greek and Roman archaeology from a multidisciplinary perspective with a fine bibliographic essay (pp. 205-57).
7. L. Bonfante ed., Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies (Detroit 1986).
8. On Prehistoric to Archaic Italy, see e.g. B. D’Agostino, “Image and Society in Archaic Etruria,” JRS 79 (1989) pp. 1-10, A. M. Bietti-Sestieri, The Iron Age Community of Osteria dell’Osa: a Study of Socio-Political Development in Central Tyrrhenian Italy (Cambridge 1992), C. J. Smith, “A Review of Archaeological Studies on Iron-Age and Archaic Latium,” JRA 7 (1994) pp. 285-302, and J. Robb, “Burial and Social Reproduction in the Peninsular Italian Neolithic,” JMA 7 (1994) 27-71.
9. L. Bonfante, “Historical Art: Etruscan and Early Roman,” AJAH 3 (1978 [1980]) 136-62.
10. See now T.J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 B.C.) (London 1995).
11. Cic. Leg. 2.56, 2.58, Plin. Nat. 7.187, Lucr. 3.890-3, and Tac. Ann. 16.6, to which should be added Petr. 111 and Luc. Luct. 21. On the preponderance of inhumation in the Late Empire, see e.g. Macrob. Sat. 7.7.5 and Cod. Theod. 9.17.6.
12.”Cremation and Burial in the Roman Empire,”HThR 25 (1932) 32-59 = Essays on Religion and the Ancient World I-II, ed. Z. Stewart (Oxford 1972), pp. 277-307.
13. E.g., F. Cumont, Lux Perpetua (Paris 1949) pp. 387-90; R. Turcan, “Origenes et sens de l’inhumation à la époque impériale,” REA 60 (1958) pp. 323-47; A. Audin, “Inhumation et incinération,”Latomus 19 (1960) pp. 312-22, 518-32; A. van Doorselaer, Les nécropoles d’époque romaine en Gaule septentrionale (Bruge 1967) pp. 77-85. On the debate, see G. Koch and H. Sichtermann, Römische Sarkophage (Munich 1982) pp. 23-30 and Morris ( op. cit. n. 6) pp. 31-3.
14. See the comments in A. D. Nock, “Sarcophagi and Symbolism,” AJA 50 (1946) pp. 140-70 = Nock 1972 ( op. cit. n. 12) pp. 606-41 and Morris ( op. cit. n. 6) pp. 17-21.
15. Cf. the discussion in Morris ( op cit. n. 6) chap. 2, with similar observations on p. 33.
16. W. Kierdorf, Laudatio Funebris: Interpretationen und Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der römischen Leichenrede (Meisenheim am Glan 1980); on the function of funeral processions and orations in (re)affirming aristocratic rank and values, see now H. I. Flower, Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (Oxford 1996) chaps. 4-5.
17. Final Judgements: Duty and Emotion in Roman Wills, 200 B.C.-A.D. 250 (Berkeley/Los Angeles 1991) esp. ch. 1 (p. 1). See R. Van Dam, “Self-Representation in the Will of Gregory of Nazianzus,” JThS n.s. 46 (1995) pp. 118-148 for a study of an Early Byzantine will in this tradition.
18. E.g., P. Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (London 1981); E. Jastrzebowska, Untersuchungen zum christlichen Totenmahl aufgrund der Monumente des 3. und 4. Jahrhunderts unter der Basilika des Hl. Sebastian in Rom (Frankfurt 1981); Y. Duval, Loca sanctorum Africae: Le culte des martyrs en Afrique du IVe au VIIe siècle I-II (Rome 1982). Augustine ( Conf. 6.2) recognized correspondences between pagan and Christian funerary rituals.
19. To the initial publications add now D. Boschung, “Die republikanischen und frühkaiserzeitlichen Nekropolen vor den Toren Ostias” and I. Baldassarre, “La necropoli dell’Isola Sacra (Porto)” in von Hesburg and Zanker ( op. cit. n. 2) pp. 111-24 and 125-38, respectively, and H. Mielsch and H. von Hesburg, Die heidnische Nekropole unter St. Peter im Rom: Die Mausoleen A-D (Rome 1986).
20. On the family, see R. P. Saller and B. D. Shaw, “Tombstones and Roman Family Relations in the Principate: Civilians, Soldiers, and Slaves,” JRS 74 (1984) pp. 124-56, B. D. Shaw, “Latin Funerary Epigraphy and Family Life in the Later Roman Empire,”Historia 33 (1984) pp. 457-97, Morris ( op. cit. n. 6) pp. 158-64, and R. P Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family (Cambridge 1994); on demography, see T. G. Parkin, Demography and Roman Society (Baltimore 1992) with full discussion and references and B. D. Shaw, “Seasons of Death: Aspects of Mortality in Ancient Rome,” JRS 86 (1996) pp. 100-38; on commemoration, see H. Haeusle, Das Denkmal als Garant des Nachruhms: Beiträge zur Geschichte und Thematik eines Motivs in lateinischen Inschriften (Munich 1980).
21. S. Dyson, Community and Society in Roman Italy (Baltimore 1992) pp. 144-6.
22. See, e.g., the squalid corpse-pits outside the Servian circuit on the Esquiline: R. Lanciani, Ancient Rome in Light of Recent Discoveries (London 1888) p. 65 and J. Bodel, “Groves and Graveyards: A Study of the Lex Lucerina,” AJAH 11 (1986 [1994]) pp. 38-54, which also discusses the demarcation of cemeteries and prohibitions against pollution.
23. The collaborative report W. F. Jashemski et al., “Roman Gardens in Tunisia: Preliminary Excavations in the House of Bacchus and Ariadne and in the East Temple at Thuburbo Maius,” AJA 99 (1995) pp. 559-76 is exemplary.
24. The Architecture of the Roman Empire: An Urban Appraisal II (New Haven 1986) pp. 144-67; cf. M. Eisner, Zur Typologie der Grabbauten im Suburbium Roms (Mainz 1986).
25. E. g., G. Clarke, The Roman Cemetery at Lankhills II (Oxford 1979); C. Partridge, Skeleton Green: A Late Iron Age and Romano-British Site (London 1981); A. McWhirr, L. Viner and C. Wells eds., Romano-British Cemeteries at Cirencester II (Cirencester 1982); R. Jones, “The Cemeteries of Roman York,” in P. V. Addyman and V. E. Black eds., Archaeological Papers from York Presented to M. W. Barley (York 1984) pp. 34-42; I. M. Stead and V. Rigby, Verulamium: The King Harry Lane Site (London 1989); D. E. Farwell and T. I. Molleson, Poundbury II: The Cemeteries (Dorchester 1993).
26. K. Hopkins, Death and Renewal (Cambridge 1983) pp. 212-7; on Italian sepulchral costs, see R. Duncan-Jones, The Economy of the Roman Empire: Quantitative Studies (2nd ed., Cambridge 1982) pp. 127-31, 166-71; on the socioeconomic composition of the burial clubs, see J.-M. Flambard, “Éléments pour une approche financière de la mort des les classes populaires du Haut-Empire: Analyse du budget de quelques collèges funéraires de Rome et d’Italie,” in Hinard (op. cit. n. 2) pp. 209-44.
27. See now G. Kockel, Die Grabbauten von dem Herkulaner Tor im Pompeji (Mainz 1982).
28.”The Tomb of Augustus and the Princes of Troy,” AJA 70 (1966) 171-3. T. rejects this thesis (pp. 143-4, 154-5).
29. M.-L. Bernhard, “Topographie d’Alexandrie: Tombeau d’Alexandre et Mausolée d’Auguste,” RA ser. 6 47 (1956) pp. 129-56; J.-C. Richard, “‘Mausoleum:’ d’Halicarnasse à Rome, puis à Alexandrie,”Latomus 29 (1970) pp. 370-88; F. Castagnoli, “Influenze alessandrine nell’urbanistica della Roma augustea,” RFIC ser. 3 109 (1981) pp. 414-23; F. Coarelli and Y. Thebert, “Architecture funéraire et pouvoir: Réflexions sur l’Hellénisme numide,” MEFRA 100 (1988) pp. 786-800; P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor 1988) pp. 72-7; J. C. Reeder, “Typology and Ideology in the Mausoleum of Augustus: Tumulus and Tholos,”ClAnt 11 (1992) pp. 265-304.
30. It is written that Theoderic said, Romanus miser imitatur Gothum et utilis Gothus imitatur Romanum ( Anon. Vales. 61) and Regnum nostrum imitatio vestra est (Cass. Var. 1.1.10). On Romanization, see V. Bierbrauer, “Frühgeschichtliche Akkulturationprozesse in den germanischen Staaten am Mittelmeer (Westgoten, Ostgoten, Langobarden) aus der Sicht des Archäologen,” in Atti dei 6 o congresso internazionale di studi sull’alto medievo 1978 (Spoleto 1980) pp. 497-513 and J. Moorhead, Theoderic in Italy (Oxford 1992) pp. 100-4; on the Mausoleum, see M. J. Johnson, “Towards a History of Theoderic’s Building Program,” DOP 42 (1988) pp. 92-6 and Moorhead (op. cit.) pp. 249-51.
31. A. Schmidt-Colinet et al., Das Tempel-Grab Nr. 36 in Palmyra: Studien zur palmyrenischen Grab-architektur und ihrer Ausstattung (Mainz 1992) (rev. S. Cormack, JRA 7 [1994] pp. 437-46). For the rich archaeological record of Roman Syria, see now A. Sartre, “L’architecture funéraire de la Syrie” and A. Schmidt-Colinet, “L’architecture funéraire de Palmyre” in J.-M. Dentzer and W. Orthmann eds., Archéologie et histoire de la Syrie II (Saarbrücken 1989) pp. 423-46 and 447-56, respectively.
32. E.g., Sister C. Murray, Rebirth and Afterlife: A Study of the Transmutation of Some Pagan Imagery In Early Christian Funerary Art (BAR-IS no. 100) (Oxford 1981); J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity (Cambridge 1995).
33. See, e.g., E. Dyggve, “L’origine del cimitero entro la cinta della città,”Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici 8 (1953) pp. 137-41; J. Osborne, “Death and Burial in Sixth Century Rome,” EMC 28 (1984) pp. 291-9; Morris (op. cit. n. 2) pp. 171-3; S. T. Stevens, “Sépultures tardives intra muros à Carthage,” in P. Trousset ed., L’Afrique du nord antique et medievale: Monuments funéraires, institutions autochtones (Paris 1995) pp. 207-18; C. Snively, “Intramural Burials in the Cities of the Late Antique Diocese of Macedonia,” in Acts of the Thirteenth International Conference on Christian Archaeology, Split and Porec 1994 (forthcoming).
34. On the date, see K. Kraft, “Der Sinn des Mausoleums des Augustus,”Historia 16 (1967) pp. 189-206; on the topography, see E. Buchner, Die Sonnenuhr des Augustus (Mainz 1982); on the res gestae, see F. Millar, “State and Subject: The Impact of Monarchy,” in F. Millar and E. Segal eds., Caesar Augustus: Seven Aspects (Oxford 1984) pp. 57-8.
35. A. Claridge, “Hadrian’s Column of Trajan,” JRA 6 (1993) pp. 5-22; J. E. Packer, “Trajan’s Forum Again: The Column and the Temple of Trajan in the Master Plan Attributed to Apollodorus (?),” JRA 7 (1994) pp. 163-82.
36. D. E. E. Kleiner, The Monument of Philopappos in Athens (Rome 1983).
37. On the possible interment of another oriental consular, see J. Tobin, “Some New Thoughts on Herodes Atticus’s Tomb, His Stadium of 143/4, and Philostratus VS 2.550,” AJA 97 [1993] pp. 81-9).
38. Cf. the more advanced models of “Romanization as re-orientalization” and “eclectic contamination” used by Schmidt-Colinet (op. cit. n. 32) pp. 35-42.
39. See now, among others, M. Waelkens, “Hausähnliche Gräber in Anatolia vom 3. Jht. v. Chr. bis in die Römerzeit,” in D. Pappenfuss and V. M. Strocka eds., Palast und Hütte: Beiträge zum Bauen und Wohnen im Altertum von Archäologen, Vor- und Frühgeschichtlichern (Mainz 1982) pp. 421-45, J. Ganzert, Das Kenotaph für Gaius Caesar in Limyra (Tübingen 1984), and J. Fedak, Monumental Tombs of the Hellenistic Age: A Study of Selected Tombs from the Pre-Classical to the Early Imperial Era (Toronto 1990).
40. J. B. Ward-Perkins, “The Italian Element in Late Roman and Early Medieval Architecture,” PBA 33 (1947) pp. 1-31; F. K. Yegül, “‘Roman’ Architecture in the Greek World,” JRA 4 (1991) pp. 345-6.
41. See the discussion and references in Kleiner (op. cit. n. 4).
42. E.g., R. Turcan, “Les sarcophages romaines et le problème du symbolisme funéraire,” in ANRW II.16.2 (1978) pp. 1700-35; H. Wrede, Consecratio in formam deorum: Vergöttlichte Privatpersonen in der römischen Kaiserzeit (Mainz 1981) esp. pp. 139-57, which discusses other funerary types as well (rev. J.A. North, “These He Cannot Take,” JRS 73 [1983] pp. 172-3); M. Koortbojiani, Myth, Meaning, and Memory on Roman Sarcophagi (Berkeley/Los Angeles 1995); E. S. Malbon, The Iconography of the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus: Neofitus iit ad Deum (Princeton 1990), which interprets the composition of the mid-fourth century monument within the theological and social context of Christian Rome. Koch and Sichtermann (op. cit. n. 13) is a very useful handbook.
43. As introductions see T. Molleson, “What the Bones Tell Us,” in Humphreys and King (op. cit. n. 1) pp. 15-32, R. Reece, “Bones, Bodies, and Dis-Ease,” OJA 1 (1982) pp. 347-58, and Morris (op. cit. n. 6) chap. 3.
44. Farwell and Molleson (op. cit. n. 26).
45. See P. N. Kardulias ed., Beyond the Site: Regional Studies in the Aegean Area (Lanham 1994); for applications of survey data to the study of Roman Greece and Italy, see, respectively, S. E. Alcock, Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece (Cambridge 1992) and Dyson (op. cit. n. 21). The advances in mortuary and bioarchaeological studies on a regional scale represented by Beck (op. cit. n. 1) have yet to be realized in classical archaeology.