class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 5]"/> 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].

The traveller is called upon from the interior of the tomb to halt and refresh himself, and give a portion to the deceased in the form of a funeral libation; MISCE, BIBE, DA MIHI. Being placed beside public roads, monuments were liable to pollutions of various kinds, which the Manes deprecate, sometimes threatening vengeance on the offenders. One of the most frequent of these violators was the writer on the wall, to whom the side of a sepulcral monument offered a tempting field for the exercise of his vocation. SCRIPTOR PARCE HOC OPUS is not the address of an author to his critic, but of a husband to the wall-scribbler, entreating him not to disfigure the monument of his wife.[14] As a frequent purpose of these placards was to recommend candidates for office, success is promised, on condition that the monument should not be written upon. ITA