Appendix F (to p. 249). Evidence for Intramural Burials in Rome
Reading edition
Appendix F (to p. 249). Evidence for Intramural Burials in Rome
Servius declares that the people of Rome and other cities originally buried all their dead within the city and actually within the house[1647]. The latter statement appears to be an inference from the worship of the lares, “people used all to be buried in their own houses, whence has arisen the practice of worshipping the lares within the house,” but may be none the less true for that reason[1648]. Intramural burials are prohibited in the Twelve Tables, “hominem mortuum in urbe ne sepelito neve urito[1649],” a prohibition which implies a practice still to some extent prevalent at the time[1650]. In the consulship of Duilius the prohibition was re-enacted[1651], showing that even then the practice was not altogether obsolete. Quite a number of 337exceptions were allowed by law. Vestal virgins (both good and bad) and imperatores were as such exempted[1652]. To come to concrete instances, the grandfather of King Tullus Hostilius is said to have been buried “at the best spot in the Forum[1653].” Tullus is a dubious figure in Roman history, and still more so is his grandfather. There is some uncertainty too about the case of the novem combusti, contemporaries of Spurius Cassius in the early years of the republic[1654]. They may have been not cremated but burnt alive[1655]. But there are plenty of later instances. Cicero implies that the exceptions were well known when after quoting the prohibition in his de Legibus he makes another character in it at once exclaim: “But what of the famous men who have been buried in the city since?,” and immediately proceeds to quote the families of Valerius Publicola and Postumius Tubertus, and the individual case of C. Fabricius, buried in the Forum itself in 275 B.C. The exceptions in favour of the Valerii and the Postumii apparently go back to the beginning of the republic, when the consuls P. Valerius Publicola and P. Postumius Q. f. Tubertus were buried within the walls[1656]. To the same period went back the concession to the Claudii of a burial-place under the Capitol[1657]. The intramural (?) tomb of the Cincii, and that of “quidam Argiuorum illustres uiri” said to have been 338buried within the city, rest on more doubtful evidence[1658]. That of the seven military tribunes buried near the Circus in 267 B.C. may have been still without the city.
The archaeological evidence for intramural burials at Rome has been discussed by Graffunder. At least two cases are well attested for the early republican period[1659].
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