page_title: Roman funerary practices
section_title: Disposal of the body
hierarchical_section_title: Roman funerary practices / Care of the dead / Disposal of the body
caption_attribution_description: Sepolcro degli Scipioni, Roma, entrata
context_page_description: Roman funerary practices include the Ancient Romans' religious rituals concerning funerals, cremations, and burials. They were part of the Tradition, the unwritten code from which Romans derived their social norms.
  Roman cemeteries were located outside the sacred boundary of its cities. They were visited regularly with offerings of food and wine, and special observances during Roman festivals in honor of the dead. Funeral monuments appear throughout the Roman Empire, and their inscriptions are an important source of information for otherwise unknown individuals and history. A Roman sarcophagus could be an elaborately crafted art work, decorated with relief sculpture depicting a scene that was allegorical, mythological, or historical, or a scene from everyday life.
  Although funerals were primarily a concern of the family, which was of paramount importance in Roman society, those who lacked the support of an extended family usually belonged to guilds or collegia which provided funeral services for members.
context_section_description: Although inhumation was practiced regularly in archaic Rome, cremation was the most common burial practice in the Mid- to Late Republic and the Empire into the 1st and 2nd centuries. Crematory images appear in Latin poetry on the theme of the dead and mourning. In one of the best-known classical Latin poems of mourning, Catullus writes of his long journey to attend to the funeral rites of his brother, who died abroad, and expresses his grief at addressing only silent ash. When Propertius describes his dead lover Cynthia visiting him in a dream, the revenant's dress is scorched down the side and the fire of the pyre has corroded the familiar ring she wears.
  Ultimately, inhumation would replace cremation; a variety of factors, including decreasing levels of urbanization and changes in attitudes to the afterlife, would contribute to this marked shift in popular burial practices.
  The care and cultivation of the dead did not end with the funeral and formal period of mourning, but was a perpetual obligation. Libations were brought to the grave, and some tombs were even equipped with "feeding tubes" to facilitate delivery .
caption: Tomb of the Scipios, in use from the 3rd century BC to the 1st century AD
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