1

The end of ancestor worship: affect and class Ramsay MacMullen (draft of the publication in Historia 63 (2014) 487-513)

It is only by exception that societies in the past have left it to wild animals

to dispose of the dead and the dying. Mankind's usual practice has been the

burial of the body entire or as ashes. Then, after a day or a week or more,

mourning concludes; the spirit of the deceased is thought of as inhabiting

another world. Both worlds were familiar in ancient thought;1 they exist still

today. It is safe to say that most people (literally: more than fifty per cent)

believe in their existence -- believe, further, that everyone is possessed of a

spirit, a soul, in psychological terms a personality; that this is the source and

center of our every word and act, every preference and proclivity, defining

who we are; further, that it will continue to exist after we die, though as to

where it will survive, opinion differs; and we are in consequence both mortal

and immortal. As one moves back in time, the proportion of sharers in these

beliefs seems to rise, as for instance among the ancient Romans. Proof lies in

1 The distinction between the grave and the netherworld is made, e.g., by Augustine, Serm. 361.6, and familiar in early Roman beliefs; in modern commentary, see e.g., N. and J. Metzler-Zens et al., Lamadeleine, une nécropole de l'oppidum du Titelberg (Luxembourg 1999) 434.

2

the various articles for living use that are discovered in their very earliest

excavated graves.2

Post-burial practice, which is my subject, directed the family's reverent

thoughts and actions toward the deceased in that second world, well after

death and often over the course of generations. For the Romans and the

subjects of their empire, ancestor worship constituted the most important

manifestation of religion into the fifth century and beyond (the italicized

terms must be discussed on a later page). In other times and places as well,

the practice is so commonly discovered, it has even been proposed as a

biological imperative.3 If this idea no longer enjoys much support, it is

nevertheless striking how widely the attendant beliefs and rites still persist or

are remembered from generations not long gone, in so many societies.4

It is equally striking that modern ancestor worship may be described in

terms exactly fitting the ancient. The practice in both was not, or is not, a

burial or "mortuary ritual"; it was and is post-interment, with "sacrifice,

prayer, and communal meals"; it is "of the family" more or less widely

defined; it may reach back beyond the most recent generation; and it takes

for granted that the deceased can have an "influence" on the living and 2 R. MacMullen, The Earliest Romans, a Character Sketch (Ann Arbor 2011) 35f., 47f., 85. 3 The biological explanation is rejected by H. Balz, "Ancestors, cult of," Religion Past and Present. Encyclopedia of Theology and Religion, ed. M. Eliade (Leiden/Boston 2007) 1.210. 4 For the ubiquity of ancestor worship, see Balz 2007 (cit. at n. 3) 212f. (China and India only) and an earlier general sketch of the subject, The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. M. Eliade (New York 1987) 1.266f., s.v. "Ancestors"; filling the gap in coverage with the Japanese, and as a close parallel to the Roman, see D. W. Plath, "Where the family of god is the family: the role of the dead in Japanese households," American Anthropologist 66 (1964) 302ff., 307ff. For an awareness of ancestor worship in modern times, see mentions in the classic L.-V. Thomas, Anthropologie de la mort (Paris 1976) 514, and more fully in Rites de mort pour la paix des vivants (Paris 1985) 124., 160ff., 174f., 201, 237ff. "Ancestor worship" in any web search or library catalogue will show the global distribution as indicated.

3

should thus be treated well; but the dead are also "dependent" on the living

for their happy "rest". Heinrich Balz, both a missionary to sub-Saharan

Africa and a scholar in the field of comparative religion, is the authority

whose summary description is here quoted.5

The findings are everywhere the same save in regions dominated by a

monotheistic religion -- that is, a universalist one.6 Where Christianity's

teachings first prevailed within the boundaries of the Roman world and

where they have thus enjoyed nearly two millennia to establish themselves,

they have crowded out almost all othe religious loyalties, as in more recent

centuries they have established themselves also in North America. But not

elsewhere. The origins of this global pattern invite inquiry.

Further back than Cicero, with whose lifetime my discussion may begin,

ancestor worship was at home among two cultures that still prevailed in his

day: the Jewish and the Greek. They require mention here only for the role

5 Balz 2010 (cit. at n. 3) 210.; and further in such books as Herausforderungen der Pluralistischen Religionstheologie (2013) or "Challenging Missions". Religiöse Ausbreitungsstrategien (2012). For an earlier general sketch of the subject, see The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. M. Eliade (New York 1987) 1.263-68, s.v. "Ancestors", where (263) the phenomenon is "properly regarded as a religious practice, not as a religion in itself," with "kinship groups" but "seldom ... a priesthood" or "formal doctrine" or any attempt to proselytize. For an awareness of ancestor worship in modern times, see mentions in the classic L.-V. Thomas, Anthropologie de la mort (Paris 1976) 514, and more fully in Rites de mort pour la paix des vivants (Paris 1985) 124., 160ff., 174f., 201, 237ff. 6 For the argument pressed by Henry Chadwick, that monotheism by definition must suppress other religious beliefs, see the passages gathered in R. MacMullen, "Religious toleration around the year 313," Journal of Early Christian Studies 22 (2013) at n. 48. For the interface between indigenous religion and Christianity, see, e.g., D. Reid, The Cultural Shaping of Japanese Christianity (Berkeley 1991) 100-150; M. N. MacDonald, "Defeating death and promoting life. Ancestors among the Enga, Huli, and Kewa of Papua New Guinea," Ancestors in Post-Contact Religion. Roots, Ruptures,and Modernity's Memory, ed. S. J. Friesen (Cambridge 2001) 76; or K. Sillander, "Ancestors as sources of authority and potency among the Bentian of East Kalimantan," Ancestors in Borneo Societies. Death, Transformation, and Social Immortality, eds. P. Couderc and K. Sillander (Copenhagen 2012) 83f.

4

they may have played in eastern provincial practices of the Roman empire,

at least to prepare the way for the Roman model. Regarding Jewish ancestor

worship, Heinrich Balz provides information on its earlier centuries until its

prohibition, and Marvin Pope gives a very full treatment to the practice

among Jews and throughout the ancient Near East, where the frequent role

of wine, attendant excesses, and the use of tubes of one material or another

by which to share the partying with the deceased in their graves, all sound

quite Roman.7 As to the Greeks, their readiness to acknowledge real humans

as beings of a higher order, using the term hero, is attested throughout early

times and into those of the Roman empire as well. It used to be proposed as

the model and inspiration for the cult of the saints.8 In the epigraphy of

Roman Asia Minor, however, hero-cult fades away and the denomination of

the tomb of an ordinary mortal as a heroon becomes quite common. A

heroon might be the site of "customary rituals" for the dead.9

7 Balz 2007 (cit. at n. 3) 211f., the practice down to the seventh century B.C.; M. H. Pope, Song of Songs. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York 1977) 214-17, banquet scenes; 218f., banquet houses or rooms; and 222, libation tubes "mentioned by the rabbis", i.e. of Roman imperial times. I must thank Shaye Cohen for referring me to Pope's book which is so rich in literary evidence; I have no knowledge of relevant archeological evidence. 8 In Lycia and Pisidia, in Hellenistic times, for structures designed and designated for hero-cult, some with portraits of the deceased, see S. Cormack, The Space of Death in Roman Asia Minor (2004) 22f., 29f., and (in Roman times) 36; funerary gardens (31ff.), and wells, libations, and banquets. For many more examples of divine men and the argument about saint-worship, see the references gathered in R. MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries (New Haven/London 1997) 50, 119, 187 (with instances of the hero called a god, theos), and 224f. 9 Of the second century, AE 2004, 518 No. 1427, a heroon for parents, self and descendants, and 521 No. 1438, Mylasa, for deceased and descendants; 2007, 555 No. 1425, Aphrodisias of the second/third century; 602 No. 1520, Patara; 2008, 506 No. 1288, Athens, Christian of the fifth-sixth century; and Cormack (2004) 23, 118. In the best of taste à la Grecque, Cicero was determined to build a shrine, a fanum, to his daughter intended to attract visitors and arouse respect for her down the ages as a divine being, by apotheosis; but he knew this was un-Roman, mere ineptia, and without payment of a fine,

5

Thus ancient Greek beliefs and practices blended into those more familiar

in Italy and other areas of Rome's empire. A similar process has been

proposed for Gaul.10 Given the pre- and post-Roman near-ubiquity of

ancestor worship noted above, it would be surprising if the Romans in their

conquests had not everywhere encountered the phenomenon in a local form

of some sort. Subsequent amalgamation no doubt deserves study, but by

proper archeologists and epigraphers. It is not essential to my discussion.

Post-burial memorial rites of the Romans, with their obligations coming

into play after a nine-day period of mourning, receive mention in many

sources, antiquarian and literary alike. They have been often collected for

study. They commonly involved four points in the calendar; occasionally, a

fifth or more. The four most common are the anniversary of the deceased's

birth and death; the period Parentalia or dies parentales on Feb. 13-21; the

Rosalia or dies rosae or rosationis on May 21; sometimes the dies violae or

Violationis on March 22; rarely, other days.11 Sometimes floral needs are

illegal. Cf. Cicero, To Atticus 12.36 No. 275, and S. Treggiari, Terentia, Tullia and Publilia: the Women of Cicero's Family (London/New York 2007) 136. 10 J.-J. Hatt, La tombe gallo-romaine. Recherches sur les inscriptions et les monuments funéraires gallo-romains des trois premiers siècles de notre ère, suivi de Les croyances funéraires des gallo-romains d'après la décoration des tombes (Paris 1986) 417f. and passim. For the interaction of the Roman model with a Celtic one in the Po valley, a "homogenization" that tends toward the Roman over time, see J. Ortelli, "Riti, usi e corredi funerari nella sepoltura roman della prima età imperiale in Emilia Romagna," Bestattungssitte und kulturelle Identität. Grabanlagen und Grabbeigaben der frühen römischen Kaiserzeit in Italien und den Nordwest-Provinzen. Kolloquium in Xanten . . . 1995, eds. P. Fasoli et al. (Köln/Bonn 1998) 75f. Hatt explores Greek derivation, as does F. Bömer, Ahnenkult und Ahnenglaube im alten Rom (Leipzig/Berlin 1943) 103. 11 Among many accounts, see Ovid, Fasti 2.22.624-31; P.-A. Février, "À propos du repas funéraire: culte et sociabilité," Cahiers archéologique 26 (1977) 38, recalling Valerius Maximus 2.8, on the obligation among kinfolk "to forget any quarrels at the holy meal, in the midst of high spirits and advocates of concord"; G. Luglio, "Hortus," Dizionario epigrafico di Antichità romana 3 (Rome 1962) 1043; C. Pietri, Roma Christiana. Recherches sur l'Église de Rome, son organisation, sa politique, son idéologie de Miltiade à Sixte III (311-440) (Rome 1976) 382, citing Polemius Silvius on the healing

6

supplied by gardens tended next to burials, with a cottage for the gardener.12

Floral motifs appears silently in the decoration of many epitaphs and

tombstones: carven wreaths and painted roses and wreaths on the walls of

burial chambers indicate the role commonly assigned to the May festival.13 It

was a gesture of respect for the divine, too, to light lamps or candles, as was

often done at the grave-side or in a mausoleum. Of these, naturally no

remains are found, but remains of lamps by the ton are found in most

cemetery sites.14

Of the calendar dates to be celebrated, the first two, birth and death, were

of course individual; of the others, at least one was civic, when on Feb. 13

the Parentalia began and all temples were closed, business suspended, and

weddings forbidden, until the 21st, which counted as a public holy day.15

Inscriptions refer to the Parentalia and Rosatio in both Asia Minor and

Italian towns and most often in the cemeteries of the capital; also, in a north character of the cara cognatio; and R. Raccanelli, "Cara cognatio: la tradizione di una festa tra propinqui," Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 53, 2 (1996) 27-29, 32. For the rare observing of the kalends, nones, and ides, see Appendix, Rome. 12 For tomb-gardens, see Appendix, Rome, Pompeii, Misenum; G. Luglio, "Hortus", Dizionario epigraphico di Antichità romana 3 (Rome 1962) 1043. 13 On floral tributes, see Ovid, Fasti 2.18.537ff.; T. Klauser, Die Cathedra im Totenkult (Münster in Westfall 1927) 131; and in the Appendix, Syracuse, Lilybaeum, Marsala, Seville, Sabratha, Como, Misenum, Isola Sacra, and Rome. 14 Notice Digest 40.4.44, "so that they light a lamp at my monument every other month and celebrate the rites of death", recalled in G. Parmeggiani, "Voghenza, necropoli: analisi di alcuni aspetti del rituale funerario," Una necropoli di età romana nel territorio ferrarese, eds. M. Bandini et al. (Ferrara 1985) 215; Ovid, Fasti 2.18, 562, quoted in R. Gee, "From corpse to ancestor: the role of tombside dining in the transformation of the body in ancient Rome," The Materiality of Death. Bodies, Burials, Beliefs, eds. F. Fahlander and T. Oastgaard (Oxford 2008) 64; Tralles, in the Appendix; and a great variety of evidence and references in MacMullen 1997 (cit. at n. 8) 191f. The Church took over the custom of signalizing holy days with lights, cf. e.g., M. Harl, "La dénonciation des festivités profanes dans le discours épiscopal et monastique, en Orient chrétien, à la fin du IVe siècle," Le déchiffrement du sens. Études d'herméneutique chrétienne d'Origène à Grégoire de Nysse (Paris 1993) 435. 15 G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer2 (Munich 1912) 232ff.; K. Latte, Römische Religionsgeschichte (Munich 1960) 98.

7

African and a Balkan city; so it was not only in the homeland or as

antiquarian lore that these dates were observed. Besides, there was no reason

why anyone would refer to them in an announcement directed at the public

except in a context of testamentary dispositions, and such texts are in

themselves very rare outside of Italy. Ordinarily, no one had to be told how

to commemorate the dead.

In the 1930s a serious investigation of Roman ancestor cult was

undertaken by Franz Bömer, with publication in 1943. At that date it was

natural to depend almost entirely on literary evidence though he also used

inscriptions, a few from Rome, a few from elsewhere. What was simply not

available was any considerable mass of archeological material. Over time,

the evidence of tombs, inscribed tablets, memorial monuments not of huge

size, all had been subjected to more or less casual destruction everywhere,

from antiquity to the present day and ever on-going. Careful salvage

operations, however, since Bömer's day, have been able to restore life to the

ordinary dead and their survivors. A sampling of the evidence in the

Appendix is enough both to confirm and make tangible what Varro or Ovid

have to tell us, and to amplify such written materials. It can reveal practices

in detail, making them imaginable, and carrying us into social strata in

which ancient authors were simply not interested -- that is, the non-elite, the

ordinary nine-tenths or more of the population.

What now can be seen is the surprising prominence of cemetery doings,

where most of what we might call common partying was centered -- indeed,

much of social interaction of any sort at all (to be measured against what we

know of what went on at alternative sites, at points of urban water-supply, at

major temples, or in market-places). Certainly, recall of the deceased could

take place in the home; grave-sites by themselves were not especially

8

inviting places; but the four or five customary times for memorial gatherings

after the work-day were centered in "picnics" (the term that scholars now

often use in various languages and spellings); and in these family meals the

bereaved could find healing, in company with persons they were closest to

and trusted, even as a sort of celebration, with food and drink. Good times.

The persons to comfort were two: the dead, and the living. The dead must

be honored and kept happy because they were, in the first place, divine.16

Wherever it was that they continued to exist, they wanted attentions, without

which, the living might be made to suffer.17 Hence, presents to them on set

days. The term Parentalia, happily ambiguous, derived from or suggested

both a person's antecedents, and the making of a gift; so Feb. 13 may be

16 Ancestors were gods, Plutarch, Moralia 267Af., or Ovid, Fasti 2.22, 618; they were the di parentum or parentes, Latte 1960 (cit. at n. 15) 98 with note 2 or Bömer 1943 (cit. at n. 10) 5, di parentes or dei familiae; seen as gods in Varro, Suetonius, etc. (7-14), and addressed with or upon altars (30 note 1). See a great number of instances in the Appendix, below (Rome, Ostia, Aquileia, Este, Lilybaeum, Carthage, Sabratha, Paradisos, Arycanda, and numberless others not in my record). Further, the term of devotion in ancestor cult is that used by the Romans for worship, colere, cf. at Como or Sassina in the Appendix; hence it is "worship" in, e.g., M. Kahlos, Vettius Agorius Praetextatus. A Senatorial Life in Between (Rome 2002) 57, 59, etc., or Balz 2007 (cit. at n. 3) 210 (but Latin religio with its many meanings, e.g., in CIL 6.22518, is not useful). 17 On the need to keep the dead happy, see in global practice Balz 2007 (cit. at n. 3) 210, or H. Harke, "Beigabensitte und Erinnerung: Überlegungen zu einem Aspekt des frühmittelalterlichen Bestattungsritual," Erinnerungskultur im Bestattungsritual. Archäologisch-Historisches Forum, eds. J. Jarnut and M. Wemhoff (Munich 2003) 116f., on the beliefs of medieval peoples or those of modern Africa; the need to "placate" in Roman beliefs, in Wissowa 1912 (cit at n. 15) 233, 235; for their "propitiation", see Gee 2008 (cit. at n. 14) 64; Ovid, Fasti 2.18, 533, animas placate paternas; and the remark of Faustus in Augustine, Contra Faustum 20.4 (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 25, 6, 1, ed. J. Zycha, Prague/Leipzig/Vienna 1891, 538), that the pagan practice is to "appease the shades of the departed with wine and food," which Christians follow also; and F. J. Dölger, Ichthys 2: Der heilige Fisch in den antiken Religionen und im Christentum (reprint Münster 1979) 572, pointing to Ambrose, In Lucam 7.43, who says, "We [Christians] place offering on the tombs of our ancestors . . . not because food or drink is required but revealing rather a reverent participation in a holy sacrifice" -- this in the 380s showing the substitution of the eucharistic host for the non-Christian offerings.

9

called "The Giving" (and with Thanks).18 Included as honorands were the

dead beyond one's mother and father, into the distant past, as well as one's

spouse, siblings and children; and these latter whom I count in ancestor

worship were treated in exactly the same way as forbears.19 They were all

addressed as to gods on altars with sacrifices. Illustration of the fact is given

in the Appendix drawing both from hero-worship in the East and from Rome,

with many texts. The texts are themselves further supported by the term

"temple", aedes, used in the capital for a memorial structure, and by the

architectural echoes of Greek and Roman temples in the design of smaller

memorial structures and mausolea in the East and Italy.

On an altar, "The Giving" offered perfume and incense, but especially

food and drink, since the occasion was (weather permitting, as we may

assume) always a meal.20 The deceased were thought to be present and

content, as banquet frescoes indicate, famous in the catacombs of the capital

but discovered as well in Lilybaeum or Seville. A place to be seated might

be built into burial chambers, too small for real people. Seated there, the

18 Discussion of parentare, parentatio, parens in Raccanelli 1996 (cit. at n. 11) 28; A. Ernout and A. Meillet, Dictionnaire de la langue latine. Histoire des mots, ed. 4 (Paris 2001) 483f., with my thanks to Jerzy Linderski for the reference, and M. de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the Other Italic Languages (Leiden.Boston 2008) 445; E. Rebillard, "Les chrétiens et les repas pour les fêtes des morts (IVe - Ve siècles)," Bestattungsrituale und Totenkult in der römischen Kaiserzeit, eds. J. Rüpke and J. Scheid (Stuttgart 2010) 282, on Tertullian-passages; as a technical term for gifts to the gods, used for ancestors, e.g., in CIL 11.126, also Bömer 1943 (cit. at n. 10) 126-33, where it is shown to mean "despatch" and to give rise to missa in Church usage, and J. Scheid, "Die Parentalien für die verstorbenen Caesaren als Modell für den römischen Totenkult," Klio 75 (1993) 193, 196, 199. 19 Examples at Rome (Appendix); also literary examples, from 57 B.C., Catullus, Carmina 104, cf. D. Ferry, On This Side of the River. Selected Poems (Oxford 2012) 141, down to Ausonius, Parentalia 7.14; 9.1-8; and 13. 20 Food offerings, Bömer 1943 (cit. at n. 10) 33, for early Rome; CIL 6.10234 of A.D. 153; and a meal to the end, as Ambrose indicates, Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam 7.43, supra sepulchra maiorum . . . cibus aut potus.

10

deceased were thought of as hosts.21 They must have their share of wine,

splashed on altars or graves and insured by pipes that ran down to their

bones or ashes. "Libation tubes" as these are commonly called were made

out of lead which was expensive or out of an amphora or two or three in line,

connected by holes in their base.

For all these various arrangements, nearly a hundred sites are recalled in

the Appendix. Among them are many where wells, cisterns, or channels to a

water source have been identified for the mixing of water with wine; also

cooking facilities, ovens for general cemetery use or for private families,

regular private kitchens, handy wood lots for fuel, and built dining couches

under various names needing only cushions to be comfortable for a long

evening. Lounges or arbors are mentioned, private tabernae and porticoes,

hostels and stables for those who came from afar. Inscriptions tell us what

the well-to-do, the nobility, the imperial family itself could afford; for

example, we read of meals off whole oxen or, known from their physical

remains, horses, dogs (eaten? pets?), and every other species of fish, flesh, or

fowl. Even remnants of baked goods and vegetables can be identified. These

various forms of evidence are clearly not mortuary -- that is, not part of

cremation, inhumation, or days of mourning. Thus they constitute a tangible

data base for my subject.

What needs to be emphasized is the careful thought and large investment

given to ancestor worship by the living, the second party after the deceased

in the celebration. Especially informative are testamentary dispositions.22

With these, of course, we are only among the well-to-do; yet the sharing of a

21 MacMullen 1997 (cit. at n. 8) 219; Gee 2008 (cit. at n. 14) 64. 22 For the practice by will, see Dig. 34.1.18.5 or 40.4.44; and in the Appendix, at Langres, Narbo, Philippi, Praeneste, Portus, Misenum, Rome, Sassina, or Arycanda.

11

glass with the dead is often served by some make-shift device even in very

mean burials, as, for example, at Isola Sacra, Pompeii, or Carthage. Ancestor

worship was for everyone, everywhere.

Properly, it was the possession or care of one's family, but they might be

in-laws as well as cognates. Family always implied children of children in

the future; in the usual Roman fashion it also embraced freed slaves and all

their descendants, too.23 On the cara cognatio, the closing day after the

Parentalia, custom decreed a coming together of any kinsfolk who had been

at odds in the past, and the opening up of a general good feeling to persons

quite outside of the kin-group.24 Casual passers-by were not unwelcome;

their attention was invited to elegant epitaphs and tombs. "Stay a moment,

look, and reflect," read the inscriptions. Members of one family's party often

drifted over into another, suggesting the desirability of a wall around the

space in front of a sepulcher.25 Flow and sociability presented problems

especially as cemeteries filled up. Then, came the walls; or people had to

share picnicking areas and facilities. But how could one resist the sound of

23 Beyond the formulae regarding posteri, with some indication in the Appendix, see Raccanelli 1996 (cit. at n. 11) 28f. and J. Edmondson, "Family relations in Roman Lusitania: social change in a Roman province?" The Roman Family in the Empire: Rome, Italy, and Beyond, ed. M. George (Oxford 2005) 217 and passim on degree of inclusion of cognates in sepulchers. 24 Raccanelli 1996 (cit. at n. 11) 32, 34, 38f., inclusion of "fraternal friends"; and 46f., an opening up to a mix of persons close to the deceased but not related; cf. Cic., Philippics 1.13 or Martial, Epigr. 9.54.lines 5, 12; and so to Augustine, Serm. 361.6.6, inclusion with parentes, of cari aut propinqui. 25 On the wish for visitors, see Cic., To Atticus 12.36 No. 275, "a shrine intended to attract visitors"; M. R. Picuti, "Il contributo dell'epigrafia latina allo scavo delle necropoli antiche," Pour une archéologie du rite. Nouvelle perspectives de l'archéologie funéraire, ed. J. Scheid (Rome 2008) 52.

12

music twenty feet away on a warm evening, and the singing of the most

popular tunes of the day, with a promise of dance?26

Common empathy but also surviving evidence tell us that such times were

occasions for crying and laughter alike, as the departed were recalled in

anecdotes, and memory drew their surviving kinfolk and friends to the brink

of believing they were in touch with the dead, and could give them pleasure

and show them love.27 The picnic of post-burial mourning and recollection

was thus commonly called a "Joyous", a laetitia, refrigerium, or

convivium.28 It was approached in the knowledge of its purpose, with an

open heart; it united the company in good spirits, affection, and tender

reminiscences. And since wine was an integral element, it would be

surprising if there had not sometimes been too much relaxation of manners,

dance and songs that are a shown us in fresco paintings and deplored by St.

Augustine (below).

The rewards found in memorial picnics are plain not only in the

arrangements made for them but in their frequency as well, that is, as was

said above, once a year but more normally four times and, by a donor's

26 On music, notice the instrumentalists in tomb frescoes, e.g., C. Guiral Pelegrin, "Tumbas pintadas en la Hispania Romana," Espacios y Usos Funerarios en el Occidente Romana. Actas de Congreso Internacional . . . Cordoba . . . 2001, ed. D. Vaquerizo (Cordoba 2002) 84, at Carmona near Seville, or at Lilybaeum, cf. R. Giglio, Lilibeo: L'ipogeo dipinto di Crispa Salvia (Palermo 1996) 14, and at Syracuse (19) with dancing figures; still in the sixth century, C. W. Barlow, Martini episcopis Bracarensis opera omnia (New Haven 1950) 140, and then into the ninth century, W. Hartmann, Das Sendhandbuch des Regino von Prüm unter Benutzung der Edition von F. W. H. Wasserschleben (Darmstadt 2004) 34, 200, deploring the devilish songs of the vulgar. 27 Expressions of grief, above, n. 19. 28 The laetitia, in MacMullen 1997 (cit. at n. 8) 216, 223; R. MacMullen, The Second Church. Popular Christianity A.D. 200-400 (Atlanta 2009) 153. The word seems to surface only in the context of commemoration of the saints, e.g., Paulinus of Nola, Carmina 27.556 (PL 61.660) or Augustine, Confessions 6.6.9 or Ep. 29.2; but refrigerium occurs in inscriptions of Rome and convivium at Tipasa and Votalarca, cf. the Appendix.

13

special wish, more often still. Someone in a large family might hold within

meaningful memory quite a number of ancestors to honor, each of them on

different days in addition to the customary Parentalia, Rosalia, and so forth,

requiring that individual to visit the burial place a dozen times each year,

sometimes amid big crowds.

All of these efforts and activities may be compared with anything attested

for the worship of Zeus or Mithra or Fortuna. Whatever metric we may

apply to the evidence, whether of investment in time or money or of thought

or human feeling or of numbers of persons involved, plainly ancestor

worship outranks all in importance. That it should rightly be called worship

follows from its focus on divine beings, called gods and honored with the

usual rites. To withhold from it the name of religion could only be the

determination of a rival faith. Here, then, is the promised recall of those

terms italicized on an early page of my discussion. Here, too, was a problem

troubling the Christian leadership from the days of Tertullian, at the outset of

the third century, a problem appearing more and more pressing as time went

on.29

According to a consensus emerging among the Christian hierarchy, it was

simply not true that the living could communicate with the dead. To think

otherwise might be "ancestral custom" but it was also "sentimental folly," in

the words of Gregory of Nazianzus. It was repeatedly dismissed as a

delusion by Augustine. So much for memorial meals, libations and offerings

29 See above, notes 5 and 16, ancestor worship as "worship" and "religion"; further on the applicability of the term "religion", E. Rebillard, "Nec deserere memorias suorum: Augustine and the family-based commemoration of the dead," Augustinian Studies 35 (2005) 109, pronouncing the question unanswerable.

14

of food!30 Besides, any offerings should go to God alone; for, as Tertullian

declared, quite in line with doctrine of his time and afterwards, the God of

Jews and Christians differed not in degree of superhuman powers, but

absolutely in His nature. All other superhuman beings in whatever degree of

divinity, only excepting angels, were hateful and wicked, all demons.31

"Demons" as term of abuse was not, however, to be lightly pinned by the

church on everyone's mother, daughter, uncle, or infant barely born. The

rituals of ancestor worship were therefore condemned, but also grudgingly

allowed. If evidence for this in eastern settings is only archeological, in the

west we have not only physical remains but Tertullian in the third century; in

the fourth century we have Faustus, a native of Milev in Africa but as likely

to speak from his long residence also in Rome, accusing the generality of

Christians of clinging to grave-side rites no different from non-Christians'.

We have Ambrose speaking of memorial rites for an emperor properly

involving repeated celebration into the second month;32 and we have

30 Cf. Gregory of Nazianzus in 368, Or. 7.16f. (PG 35.776A) on alogia pathou; in the west, Tertullian's texts, above, n. 29; in the 360s, Zeno, Serm. 1. 15(25).6f. and 11 (PL 17.364, 366); in the 390s, Gaudentius, Serm. 4.14f. (PL 20.870Af.); Augustine, De cura gerenda pro mortuis 18.22; In ps. 48,1.15; and Ep. 22, in Rebillard (2005) 104; B. Young, "Paganisme, christianisation et rites funéraires mérovingiens," Archéologie médiévale 7 (1977) 8f. 31 Tertullian, De spect. 13.4, standard usage; but Zeno, Serm. 15(25).4(7) (PL 11.364B does not hesitate to call the dead daemonia. 32 Tertullian, De testimonio animae 4; De corona 3, "we make offerings for the dead on their birthdays every year", in Klauser (1927) 130, 132; in the next century, for Christian ancestor worship in Rome, there are the well known remains under S. Sebastiano and elsewhere, see MacMullen, "Christian ancestor worship in Rome," Journal of Biblical Literature 129 (2010) 598ff., and in north Africa, see Rebillard 2005 (cit. at n. 29) 101, 103; also evident in the often-cited late third century Numidian Christian "Secundula" inscription, MacMullen 2009 (cit. at n. 28) 58, 160, and in the Apostolic Constitutions, a compilation of the third or more probably of the later fourth century from earlier prescriptions, cf. M. Metzger, Les Constitutions Apostoliques (Paris 1985) 1.117ff., 24; and 2 (1987) 258-261, Const. apost. §8.42 and 44, regulating the conduct at meals with/for ancestors, mneiai, in post-burial days up through the thirtieth. On the date, see

15

Augustine in a number of pastoral moments acknowledging ancestor

worship as a fact of life, however deplorable.33 The best he could manage

was a line of demarcation between the priesthood and memorial ritual,

decreed in a council at Hippo in 393: "No bishop or clergy shall have a meal

in a church except as hospitality may require by chance for those passing

through; and the laity also shall be forbidden such meals to the extent it is

possible".34 The dubitative closing words of the canon speak volumes.

In Rome, not far into the fourth century, it had become clear that ancestor

worship was not only tolerated by the church authorities but given a very

high priority. Imperial funds for covered cemeteries, coemeteria subteglata

as they were termed, were supplied obviously upon petition from the city's

Christian leadership. "Burial churches" as they are termed today included St.

Peter's and a number of other large or very large basilicas intended for

inhumation along with the family picnics, now protected from the elements.

Under their floors lay the dead in closely serried ranks; even in the walls,

bodies were stacked in cubicles. The style of these structures inspired also P. Bradshaw, Reconstructing Early Christian Worship (London 2009) 48. On the fourth-century evidence, see Augustine, Confessions 6.2, the vigiliae for a saint are "like the parentalia of pagan superstition, virtually the same", simillima; they continue among pagans, cf. Augustine, In Ps. 48, 1.15, in Rebillard 2005 (cit. at n. 29) 104; and notice the observation of Augustine above at n. 17; further, Contra Faustum 5.7, where Augustine makes clear that Faustus was as familiar with practices in the capital as in Carthage. For Ambrose, see above, n. 18, and his De obit. Theod. 3 quoted in U. Volp, Tod und Ritual in den christlichen Gemeinden der Antike (Leiden/Boston 2002) 226f. 33 Augustine, In ps. 48, s. 1.15; Serm. 361.6; perhaps Ep. 22.6, cf. Rebillard 2005 (cit. at n. 29) 104ff.; and Augustine's remark (City of God 8.27), that "even such as bring food there [to a church] -- which, indeed, is not done by the better Christians, and in most places of the world is not done at all -- do so in order that it may be sanctified to them through the merits of the martyrs, in the name of the Lord of the martyrs, first presenting the food and offering prayer, and thereafter taking it away to be eaten, or to be in part bestowed upon the needy." 34 C. Munier, Concilia Africae a. 345 - a. 525 (Turnhout 1974) 41, 185; comment in C. J. Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church from the Original Documents, trans. H. N. Oxenham (Edinburgh 1896) 2. 399.

16

imitation elsewhere in Italy and the western provinces from the mid-fourth

on to at least the seventh century. Together they are numerous enough and

sufficiently imposing to invite more attention than they generally receive.35

35 No "petition from the popes" is attested, but it is not credible to me that Maxentius (if so early, as has been suggested) or most probably Constantine would have invented the idea and forced it on the leadership of the Roman church. "Coemeteria coperta" was Richard Krautheimer's term, "subteglata" in Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae septimo seaculo antiquiores No. 12458, cf. R. Giuliani, "Il contributo di Richard Krautheimer allo studio delle basiliche funerarie del suburbio romano dalla luce degli indirizzi di ricerca successivi," Ecclesiae urbis. Atti del Congresso internazionale di studi sulle chiese di Roma (IV - X secolo) (Rome 2000) 1.30, 39; V. Fiocchi Nicolai, "Basilica Marci, coemeterium Marci, basilica coemeterii Balbinae. A proposito dell nuova basilica circiforme della via Ardeatina e della funzione funeraria delle chiese 'a deambulatorio' del suburbio romano," ibid. 2.1188f., specifying SS. Pietro e Marcellino as originally without any saints' burial; similarly, J. Guyon, "À l'origine de la rédécouverte et de l'interprétation du monument de la via Labicana: l'iconographie de la basilique cémétériale des saints Marcellin-et-Pierre," ibid. 1172f.; remarks in "Discussion" by P. Pergola, ibid.1251, 1257 (on SS. Pietro e Marcellino); R. Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture (Baltimore 1965) 41, San Pietro "primarily a graveyard and a funerary banqueting hall"; in agreement, R. R. Holloway, Constantine and Rome (New Haven 2004) 82, 104f., adding to the category also the unnamed basilica on via Prenestina and San Sebastiano; E. La Rocca, "Le basiliche cristiane 'a deambulatorio' e la sopravvivenza del culto eroica," Ecclesiae Urbis (2000) 2.1116, noting that San Lorenzo and perhaps San Marco lack any saint-burial focus; also Fiocchi Nicolai (2000) 2.1182, 1189, that Sant'Agnese is primarily a burial church; cf. also P. M. Barbini and F. Severini, "Risultati archeologici del nuove saggio di scavo 1999 nella basilica cimiteriale di S. Agnese," ibid. 1.758f.; in Milan, S. Nazaro, cf. MacMullen 2009 (cit. at n. 32) 134; in Canosa, a small burial basilica, C. Carletti et al., "Il complesso cimiteriale di Ponte della Lama (Canosa): nuove acquisizioni dagli scavi delle catacombe e dell'area subdiale," Rendiconti. Atti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia III 79 (2006-2007) 279; and more, later Roman burial churches, J.-C. Picard, Évèques, saints et cités en Italie et en Gaule. Étude d'archéologie et d'histoire (Rome 1998) 211f. For examples of burial churches in Africa, see in Carthage, the "dining chamber of Cyprian"; MacMullen 2009 (cit. at n. 32) 53-57, 59; by the fifth century, in Pupput, Tunisia (Appendix); in the Balkans, 125; in Antioch, 118. In Spain, some basilicas "served burial purposes exclusively" in the 7th-8th centuries, cf. H. Riera Rullan, "Enterramientos de la antigüedad tardia en las islas de Cabrera y Mallorca," Morir en el Mediterráneo Medieval. Actas del III Congreso Internacional de Arqueologia, Arte e Historia de la Antigüedad Tardia y Alta Edad Media peninsular . . . Madrid . . 2007, eds. J. Lopez Quiroga and A. M. Martinez Tejera (Oxford 2009) 106; in France as well in Merovingian/Carolingian times, a church serving mainly for burials, R. Colardelle, "Saint-Laurent et les cimetières de Grenoble du IVe au XVIIIe siècle,"Archéologie du cimetière chrétien. Actes du 2e colloque . . . 1994, eds. H. Galinié and E. Zadora-Rio (Tours 1996) 114; near Geneva, a

17

Over time, however, a second, even a third burial atop a first, filled all their

available space; the memory of the departed faded and with it, their

commemoration in happy feasts came to an end; whereupon, or even prior,

the remains of an imported saint assumed prominence and gave a name to

the building by which alone it was to be defined. In this final transformation,

burial churches joined martyr-churches in which, from their foundation, the

remains of a martyr or a pair of martyrs provided the inspiration.

Two years after the Hippo council (above), in a letter of 395, Augustine

reverted to those days of foundation.36 He had had to explain to his own

congregation in Hippo how it was that he so insistently urged on them to

abandon their custom of martyr-anniversary celebration in the manner of

ancestor worship.

I then exhorted them to imitate the example of churches beyond the

sea, in some of which these practices had never been tolerated,

while in others they had already been put down by the people

complying with the counsel of good ecclesiastical rulers; and as the

examples of their daily excess in the use of wine in the church of

the blessed Apostle Peter were brought forward in defense of the

practice, I said in the first place, that I had heard that these excesses burial church on top of an abandoned temple, J. Terrier, "L'église Saints-Pierre-et-Paul de Meinier, une fondation de l'antiquité tardive dans la campagne Genevoise," Mélanges de l"antiquité Tardive. Studiola in honorem Noël Duval, eds. C. Balmelle et al. (Turnhout 2004) 141-44, with other similar churches in the adjoining region; and in Trier, a small burial basilica later made into a full-service church, see W. Weber, "Vom Coemeterialbau zur Klosterkirche -- Die Entwicklung des frühchristlichen Gräberfeldes im Bereich von St. Maximin in Trier," Römische Quartalschrift 101 (2006) 242f., 246, 255, 258. 36 Ep. 29.10 (PL 33.119), trans. P. Schaff in the 1886 Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers edition, Buffalo NY 1886, 256 (on the Web, in augustinus.it); and other relevant texts with commentary in J. J. O'Donnell, Confessions of Augustine (1999) at Conf. 6.6.9 (www.stoa.org/hippo/).

18

had been often forbidden, but because the place was at a distance

from the bishop's control, and because in such a city the multitude

of carnally-minded persons was great, the foreigners especially, of

whom there is a constant influx, clinging to that practice with an

obstinacy proportioned to their ignorance, the suppression of so

great an evil had not yet been possible.

The paragraph encapsulates a history of conversion and an eventual

campaign of "puritanical efforts by the young bishops," as J. J. O'Donnell

puts it. This had begun some five years earlier, when Augustine was as yet

only a priest, and in 413 "he still attacks the custom as something alive, at

least in some degree."37

For, as Augustine in Hippo found custom deeply rooted in the most basic

feelings, so too did the pope in Rome. So we may judge from the facts

described; for it was not likely in the 390s that Siricius could not command a

carriage on festival days to visit St. Peter's and enforce order, or that he

could not simply instruct the doorkeeper at the church (as Ambrose did in

Milan) to keep people from bringing in containers of food and drink. It was

unlikely, too, that outside agitators were the problem, at least chiefly. Rather,

ancestor worship was too formidable to confront head on -- a possibility that

Augustine had the tact not to suggest.

Three further points in Augustine's sermon invite comment. In the first

place, there is Augustine's word "daily" to describe heavy drinking, pointing

to the service rendered by St. Peter's not as a martyr church but as a burial

37 O'Donnell 1999 (cit. at n. 36), commenting on Ep. 29.2; but it is not quite accurate to call the canon of 393 a "ban".

19

church, to which families by the score paid their visits several times a year.38

Let the hierarchy say what forms of honor were appropriate to martyrs; but

in martyr churches the ordinary dead also were laid to rest; and when this

privilege was granted to their families, just as would be true in an unroofed

cemetery, those fortunate ones could hardly be told when and with what rites

to recall their loved ones. They had their rights. Space whether inside a

church or outside, whether in a catacomb or in a cemetery above-ground,

counted as private property.

In the second place, Christians requiring correction were seen as resisting

out of sheer ignorance. The carnally-minded who gave no thought to

anything but physical pleasures, the "uneducated", "simple-minded",

"clumsy-headed" folk must be made to see how similar the Parentalia were

to idolatry and how closely their offerings resembled those that pagans laid

at the feet of idols.39 True, scripture had nothing to say about ancestor

worship; but to correct the erring, Augustine could look for doctrine in texts

not generally known as canonical (Sirach, Tobias and 2nd Maccabees);40 and

there were also special devices of interpretive argument long in use for the

understanding of Homer, the Old Testament, and the New, wherever explicit

teachings couldn't be found. Such approaches best suited an audience of

38 Quotidiana vinolentia, and again in Ep. 22.3, "rioting and drunkenness are so tolerated and allowed by public opinion . . . [not only in in martyr-services] but every day, they are openly practised," quotidie celebrentur. 39 Tertullian, Adversus Praxeam 3.1f., imprudentes et idiotae; Paulinus of Nola, Carm. 32.137, credula turba, and 27.553, 564, multi rudibus deceptis mentibus . . . simplicitas; Carm 9, simplicitas; Augustine, De moribus ecclesiae 1.34.75 (PL 32.1342); Ep. 22.6, imperita plebs; similarity to Parentalia, Gaudentius, Serm. 4.14; and Ambrose's views in Augustine, Conf. 6.2. The bishops use the verb parentare in a general sense to mean ancestor worship, not specifically for the Parentalia. 40 Rebillard 2005 (cit. at n. 29) 104, 109.

20

some education, whether lay or clerical; but those were the very sort that

bishops ordinarily found before them.41

In the third place, a tone of elaborate distaste, an esthetic of class, might

naturally find a favorable hearing among such an audience. Ancestor

worship could thus be attacked as "so great an evil" in rhetorical explosions

of disgust at people eating and drinking too much. To the uneducated and

simple-minded, such indulgences might rather sound like a good time, quite

as welcome to the dead as to the living; but their betters knew well that, in

refined circles, picnic-behavior was simply revolting. It must therefore be

"suppressed", as had in fact been done by some bishops already, so we are

told in the passage quoted above.42

And if there was nothing in the bible about ancestor worship, at least there

was something said there about the effects of alcohol. Out of some fifteen

different bad things against which Paul warned the Galatians (5.20), the

thirteenth raised the subject of drink. Augustine could recall this passage and

several others in which inebriation was the target. He and other bishops

could add color and emphasis: the person engaged in ancestor worship was

dilutior, wobbly, drunken, pouring out with a trembling hand, babbling,

41 C. Lepelley, "L'aristocratie lettré paienne: une menace aux yeux d'Augustin," Augustin prédicateur (395-411). Actes du Colloque international de . . . 1996, ed. G. Madec (Paris 1998) 330, 338, the bishop on the attack vs. "paganisme vulgaire", appealing to "les aristocrates" on a philosophical level; J. Scheid, "Les réjouissance des calendes de janvier d'après les sermons Dolbeau 26. Nouvelles lumières sur une fête malconnue," ibid. 359; and more generally, R. MacMullen, "The preacher's audience (AD 350-400)," Journal of Theological Studies 40 (1989) 509f. and passim. 42 Augustine's idea of what needs to be done is clear in his words of prohibition: correcta . . . saepe prohibitum ... immanem pestem nondum compesci potuisse. I cannot accept the contention of Rebillard (2005) 103f., 110f., regarding Ep. 22.3, that the bishop actually meant to tolerate ancestor worship and condemned only drunkenness in churches at martyrs' graves; for, in the letter's cited passage, Augustine can forgive only drunkenness at private parties in peoples' homes, not in coemeteria subteglata (above, n. 35), which Rebillard quite ignores.

21

making no sense; bringing tasty dishes to a stinking corpse but really feeding

only his own belly; gorging, a selfish glutton. The whole ritual tradition was

filthy and sordid.43 It was awful in itself and even worse when it intruded on

a setting dedicated to a martyr on the martyr's holy day, as a "Joyful.44 As to

joy, if it was unbridled and only for its own sake, it was mere "merriment".45

But to pursue all the arguments aimed at reconfiguring ancestor worship in a

Christian form would take me beyond the bounds of my subject.46

With these outbursts of reproach and revulsion, we reach into the fifth

century, a point at which the end of ancestor worship can be predicted from

the positions and strength of the adversaries. Going beyond African councils,

in 407 the emperors authorized local bishops to use whatever force they

commanded in the suppression of meals or any other rites of ancestor

worship in cemeteries; and secular offices should do the same under pain of

severe punishment.47 It was to this law that bishop Theodoret of Cyrrhus

43 Elaborate disgust in passages already cited: Augustine, Ep. 22 and 29; In ps. 48 s.1.15; De moribus ecclesiae 1.34.75; Gaudentius, Serm. 4.14f. (PL 20.870A); and Zeno, Serm. 125.6(11); expressed also for festival days, cf. F. Dolbeau, "Nouveaux sermons de saint Augustin pour la conversion des païens et des donatistes," Revue des études augustiniennes 39 (1993) 394, 412; Ambrosius, De elia et ieiunio 17.64f. (PL 14. 734). 44 In the Council of Carthage can. 60 of a. 419, the emperors are petitioned to act against convivia and their sinful goings-on which are to be seen even on martyr's days, cf. MacMullen 1997 (cit. at n. 8) 163; and similar condemnatory language used by eastern bishops of the period (Basil, both Gregory's, and Chrysostom) in Harl 1993 (cit. at n. 14) 436ff. 45 Paulinus, Carm. 27.290 (PL 61.660 lines 553f.), gaudia must be forgiven; utinam sanes agerent haec gaudia votis nec . . . pocula (558f.); agnoscenda tamen . . . gaudia (563f.); in the East, condemnation of coarse laughter, cf. Harl 1993 (cit. at n. 14) 436f. 46 On the campaign of reconfiguration of ancestor worship, the fullest treatment is offered by H. Kotila, Memoria mortuorum. Commemoration of the Departed in Augustine (Rome 1992) 62-98. 47 Cod. Theod. 16.10.19.3, to a praetorian prefect (Italy and the west); and for the date, see E. Magnou-Nortier, Le code théodosien Livre XVI et sa réception au Moyen Âge (Paris 2002) 389.

22

apparently referred, some years later.48 The laity held out against persuasion

in some places but, as yet, not all. So we are told by Augustine. Cornus in

Sardinia or Votalarca in Italy serve as examples. But much of ancestor

worship had been taken over by the church under a new name, like the cara

cognatio.49 More still had been grafted onto the worship of saints, and by

Ambrose' day, with this dynamic growth, the immemorial taboo proscribing

burial inside a city's wall had given way. Memorial rituals thus came more

directly under the eye of the clergy. Their powers to dictate, within a

generation of Augustine's death, surpassed anything he had been able to

claim; and what they could prescribe in honor of the saints they could better

teach also to families, in the private honoring of the deceased.50

It is not my purpose, however, to follow out the story further, where in

fact there is little clear evidence to present.51 It is enough to point out how

that story, in its detectible lines and across centuries, shows us a social

construct of importance through the emotional rewards it offered to 48 Theodoret, Graecarum affectionum curatio 8.33 (PG 83.1020B), whose readers, the bishop reminds them, are familiar with the practice of bringing libations to the deceased in nocturnal parties, in defiance of the law; but it is not clear whether he refers to the cult of ancient heroes more than the ordinary dead. 49 See Raccanelli 1996 (cit. at n. 11) 51f. on the cara cognatio become a Christian holy day, but the persistence of non-Christian customs of ancestor worship into the sixth century; or Thomas 1985 (cit. at n. 4) 25f. on the laetitia-style festive meal of All-Saints/Tous-Saints; on Cornus and Votalarca, see the Appendix. 50 See the classic, P. Ariès, Essai sur l'histoire de la mort en Occident du Moyen Âge à nos jours (Paris 1975) 9f., 27ff.; more recently, among many discussions, W. Hartmann, "Bestattungsrituale nach dem kirchlichen und weltlichen Recht des frühen Mittelalters," Erinnerungskultur im Bestattungsritual. Archäologisch-Historisches Forum, eds. J. Jarnut and M. Wemhoff (Munich 2003) 128-40. It is noteworthy (129f.) that Martin of Braga forbade grave-side picnics among his flock and "sacrifices there to the god of the dead", revealing his misunderstanding of their traditions. 51 But, besides the material in Hartmann 2003 at n. 50 and 2004 at n. 26, see material in Young 1977 at n. 30, above. The subject of ancestor worship is ignored in, e.g., J. C. Russell, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity. A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation (New York/Oxford 1994) and R. Fletcher, The Conversion of Europe from Paganism to Christianity 371-1386 AD (London 1997).

23

hundreds of millions of persons -- a religious practice which nevertheless

could be successfully suppressed because a few hundreds of the leadership

class judged it to be all very bad manners and unacceptably uncontrolled.52

The role played by class and affect thus appears quite remarkably.

52 In reckoning "hundreds of millions" I consider the empire's total population (<45 million) and its life expectancy (>35 years); thus, the number of lives lived out over four or five hundred years; and then the percentage practising ancestor worship (>50%) as suggested by the Appendix. As to "manners", Kotila 1992 (cit. at n. 44) 66 declares "the very basis of Augustine's critique was not the pagan or superstitious nature of the cult [of the dead], but the improper behaviour connected with it" -- this, in 388 at the start of his campaign.

24

Appendix: Attestation (CIL = Corpus inscriptionum latinarum; AE = Année épigraphique; ILS = Inscriptiones

latinae selectae, H. Dessau)

Spain

Cordoba: D. Vaquerizo, "Espacio y usos funerarios en Corduba," Espacios y

Usos Funerarios en el Occidente Romana. Actas del Congreso

Internacional . . . Cordoba . . . 2001, ed. D. Vaquerizo (Cordoba 2002)

2.160ff., food remains (pigs, kids, lambs, vegetables) and libation tubes or

ceramic passages; and (168-93) this one city alone in sheer abundance of

evidence for ancestor worship seems to rival all of Italy.

Saragossa: L. Cancela Ramirez de Arellano, "Aspectos monumentales del

mundo funerario hispana," Espacios y Usos Funerarios en el Occidente

Romana. Actas del Congreso Internacional . . . Cordoba . . . 2001, ed. D.

Vaquerizo (Cordoba 2002) 1.172f., Trajanic cemetery building with devices

for offerings of food to the dead, such as are also found at other

(unspecified) Spanish burial sites.

Tarraco: CIL 22, No. 14,709, funerary altar dedicated by husband to wife,

and dis manibus; No. 14,1698, another funerary altar; No. 14,1612, elegant

marble plaque for burial chamber, built by a freedman for mistress and her

descendants; for libations tubes in cemeteries, see W. Wolski and I. Berciu,

"Contribution au problème des tombes romaines à dispositif pour les

libations funéraires," Latomus 32 (1973) 374f.

Valencia: E. Garcia Prosper and P. Guérin, "Nuevas aportaciones en torno a

la necropolis romana de la Calle Quart de Valencia (S. II a. C - IV d. C),"

25

Espacios y Usos Funerarios en el Occidente Romana. Actas del Congreso

Internacional . . . Cordoba . . . 2001, ed. D. Vaquerizo (Cordoba 2002) 208,

as at Cordoba.

Seville: Guiral Pelegrin 2002 (cit. at n. 26) 2.83ff., a burial monument for a

family's banquets, the frescoes declaring a memorial purpose as in "some

hundreds" of similar burial remains in the city's environs. See further A.

Azkarate Garai-Olaun, "De la tardo antigüedad al medievo cristiano. Una

mirada a los estudios arqueologicos sobre el mundo funerario," Espacios

116, tens of thousands of late Roman burials in Spain surviving for study.

Seville: M. Bendala Galan, La Necropolis romana de Carmona (Sevilla) 1

(Sevilla 1976) 50ff., at one burial chamber, a triclinium with mensa and

libation tubes, a sizable well, a kitchen with chimney; at others, similar

provisions and facilities (75f., 80ff.).

Ossigi, Baetica: CIL 2.2102, a late second century mother and father (a

veteran) ask a burial society to remember their daughter with the daily

lighting of lamps.

Merida: P. Mateos Cruz and I Sastre de Diego, "Merida and its funerary

spaces during the Late Antiquity," Morir en el Mediterráneo Medieval.

Actas del III Congreso Internacional de Arqueologia, Arte y Historia de la

Antigüedad Tardia y Alta Edad Media peninsular . . . Madrid . . . 2007, eds.

J. Lopez Quiroga and A. M. Martinez Tejera (Oxford 2009) 1.182f., 186,

fourth-century mausoleum perhaps "used for family gatherings".

Britain, Germany, Gaul

Castra legionis/ Caerleon: R. E. M. Wheeler, "A Roman pipe-burial from

Caerleon," Antiquaries Journal 9 (1929) a canister of lead to contain ashes,

26

with a three-feet-plus lead pipe leading from the top, date A.D. 110-140; a

similar burial contraption at Colchester, meant for libations.

Deva/Chester: R. S. O. Tomlin and M. W. C. Hassall, "Inscriptions,"

Britannia 36 (2005) 479, tombstone with "a funerary banqueting scene", a

couch plus tripod table, and dis manibus [but no proof of ancestor worship?]

Goeblange-Nospelt, Luxembourg: the custom of memorial libations and

meals from later first century B.C. through the second century A.D., at this

site near Trier and at Feulen nearby, cf. N. and J. Metzler-Zens et al.,

Lamadeleine, une nécropole de l'oppidum du Titelberg (Luxemburg 1999)

434, and J. Metzler and C. Gaeng, Goeblange-Nospelt. Une nécropole

aristocratique trévire (Luxembourg 2009) 501-04.

Bonna/Bonn: G. F. Snyder, Ante Pacem. Archaeological Evidence of Church

Life Before Constantine (Macon GA 1985) 88f., two adjoining built dining

benches, mensae, of the third century possibly for the memorializing of a

martyr, with a church later built above them.

Trier/Trèves: W. Weber, "Vom Coemeterialbau zur Klosterkirche -- Die

Entwicklung des frühchristlichen Gräberfeldes im Bereich von St. Maximin

in Trier," Römische Quartalschrift 101 (2006) 246, 248f., 258, a fourth-

century banquet hall for memorial meals.

Titelberg near Trier/Trèves: Metzler-Zens (1999) 434f., 447, animal remains

from meals, libation-devices, pre-Roman and Roman.

Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium/Köln: W. Wolski and I. Berciu,

"Contribution au problème des tombes romaines à dispositif pour les

libations funéraires," Latomus 32 (1973) 371, reference to a report of an

"early Christian" libation device.

Andematunnum/Langres: J.-J. Hatt, La tombe gallo-romaine. Recherches

sur les inscriptions et les monuments funéraires . . . (Paris 1986) 66-71; P.

27

Sage, "Le testament du Lingon: remarques sur le texte et sur son

interprétation," Le Testament du Lingon. Actes de la journée d'étude . . .

1990, ed. Y. Le Bohec (Lyon 1991) passim, on CIL 13.5708, testamentary

dispositions for the memorializing of the deceased (with other scholars'

chapters in the volume); also S. Cormack, The Space of Death in Roman

Asia Minor (Wien 2004) 119.

Pictavum/Poitier: Wolski and Berciu (1973) 371, 377, citing a report of

libation-tubes in burials with openings at the top protected by removable

cones.

Lugdunum/Lyon: Hatt (1986) 72 (CIL 13.1952), provision of a

monumentum for gathering and dining, conveniendi vescendi, "with all

appurtenances" including a triclinium in memory of the donor's daughter.

Grenoble: R. Colardelle, "Saint-Laurent et les cimetières de Grenoble du IVe

au XVIIIe siècle," Archéologie du cimetière chrétien. Actes du 2e

colloque . . . 1994, eds. H. Galinié and E. Zadora-Rio (Tours 1996) 114f.,

many mausolea with animal remains and pottery from "burial meals".

Aventicum/Avenches: S. Martin-Kilcher, "Römische Gräber -- Spiegel der

Bestattungs- und Grabsitten," Pour une archéologie du rite. Nouvelle

perspectives de l'archéologie funéraire, ed. J. Scheid (Rome 2008) 23ff.,

second-century animal remains, cups, lamps, etc. "for a banquet" in the

cemetery.

Forum Iulii/Fréjus: M. R. Picuti, "Il contributo dell'epigrafia latina allo

scavo delle necropoli antiche," Pour une archéologie (2008) 52, fountains

for wine-mixing in cemeteries.

Die, east of Vienne: Hatt (1986) 71 (CIL 12.1657), provision of a vineyard

for tomb.

28

Narbo Martius/Narbonne: P.-A. Février, "À propos du repas funéraire: culte

et sociabilité," Cahiers archéologiques 26 (1977) 38f., directions in a will

for celebration of the deceased's birthday, CIL 12.4393.

Arausio/Orange: AE 2009, 304 No. 828, property rental assigned to the

memorializing of the deceased.

Alba near Orange: B. Reemy, ed., with J. Dupraz et al., Inscriptions latines

de Narbonnaise VI: Alba (Paris 2011) 89 No. 24, improving on CIL 12.2685,

an altar to dedicator's wife and children.

Cemenelum/Cimiez: a burial rite, not ancestor worship, in S. Morabito,

Inscriptions latines des Alpes maritimes (Nice 2010), 392 No. 317, the

monument set up to the donor's mother with directions at dedication that

money gifts go to town officials "at dinner", recumbentes, over their wine,

oil, and bread.

Balkans

Apulum, Dacia: Wolski and Berciu (1973) 370, burial chamber with two

sarcophagi equipped for libations.

Scupi, Moesia: AE 2008, 456 No. 1178, dated AD 50125, veteran sets up

tombstone to wife with relief showing funerary banquet.

Paradisos, Thrace: AE 2005, 455 No. 1346, a third-century altar set up by a

wife to her husband (Greek-named).

Philippi: CIL 3.662, fragmentary will directing that property-rent shall go to

the celebration of Rosalia-meals, rosalibus vescantur; otherwise, penalties.

29

Nicopolis: CIL 3.754, poem to wife Aelia in her sepulcher, with request that

whoever visits it each year will decorate and cherish it with flowers; cf. 703,

members of a thiasos of Liber shall apply the interest of a gift to annual the

Rosalia-meal.

Macedonia: AE 2008, 486 No. 1242, date 150-250, a funerary banquet relief

on a tombstone.

Athens: AE 2008, 506 No. 1288, a heroon built for donor's daughter.

Corinth: MacMullen 2009 (cit. at n. 28) 46, tombs within a walled area for

family privacy, benches, a built dining table, and "facilities for heating food

and eating".

Asia Minor and Syria

["The dead are nourished by our libations and whatever we offer at their

tombs, and if they have no friends or kinsfolk left on earth above, they must

go unfed and famished," says Lucian of Samosata, On funerals 9; around the

year 200, the custom of commemorative dinners for religious club members

is also attested in Artemidorus, Oneirocritica 5.82, Ephesus area, the date in

D. E. Harris-McCoy, Artemidorus' Oneirocritica: Text, Translation, and

Commentary (Oxford 2012) 2 and 403; and from the mid-fifth century, a

man raised in Xanthus but later moving to Athens is described as "cognizant

of the rites due to the departed; for he neglected none of the dates when they

are habitually honored, but each year, at certain sites, he made the rounds" of

the tombs of Athens' heroes and of his own deceased friends and

acquaintances . . . "and in a particular places propitiated the souls of his

30

ancestors and other kinfolks", concluding with general offerings to all the

departed -- this, in Marinus, Life of Proclus 36. But further literary mentions

are to seek.

The archeological evidence is little better and only from certain areas.

Modern Turkey is terra incognita to I. Morris, Death-Ritual and Social

Structure in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge UK 1992) xvii Fig. 1, a map of

the sites discussed, but several are shown in Jordan and Syria; compare S.

Cormack, The Space of Death in Roman Asia Minor (Wien 2004) 16, a map

showing the sites discussed, all in the southern and southwestern quarter of

Turkey, and (11) dating mostly to A.D. 1-300, where "cultic activity in

commemoration of the deceased" involves "worship" of "deceased mortals

of less exalted status" than public officials, though seen as "heroes", and

rites might involve "sacrificial offerings" at the graveside, as in Lycia, twice

a year, a cock or hen, down through time, thanks to family descendants. For

scattered indications that libations as part of the commemoration of the dead

continued in Syria and the region including Egypt into and past the fifth

century, see MacMullen 1997 (cit. at n. 8) 112.

Any further account must depend principally on epigraphy.]

Miletupolis, Mysia: E. Schwertheim, "Neue Inschriften aus Miletupolis,"

Epigraphica anatolica 5 (1985) 83, a vineyard "so as to celebrate the

Rosalia annually for memory's sake" plus funds for distribution to all

citizens.

Magnesia, Mysia: P. Herrmann and K. Z. Polatkan, Das Testament des

Epikrates und andere neue Inschriften aus dem Museum von Marisa (Vienna

1969) 8ff., a donor established a vineyard on land bought for a burial, plus

an olive orchard, interest on which shall pay his heir and descendants (lines

31

26f., 49ff.) "on condition that they adorn with roses the grave" of the donor's

son, the "hero" Epikrates.

Acmonia, Phrygia: P. R. Trebilco, Jewish Communities in Asia Minor

(Cambridge UK 1991) 78ff., a certain Aurelius Aristeas [the name pointing

to a date [post-212] with his children sets up a tomb "for memory's sake . . .

with a gift" to a city association "on condition of their celebrating the

Rosalia annually" for the donor's wife; and (81) reference to a similar

Acmonia arrangement earlier, in A.D. 95.

Ancyra: S. Mitchell and D. French, eds., The Greek and Latin Inscriptions of

Ankara (Ancyra) 1: From Augustus to the End of the Third Century (Munich

2012) 411 No. 224, an altar with an inscription for the dedicator's wife; and

compare another Ankara monument to wife with a triclinium and ashes-urn

and "a small dining chamber attached to the tomb, where family members

could recline and share commemorative funerary meals".

Konya, Isauria: MacMullen 2009 (cit. at n. 28) 151, funerary reliefs show

graveside banquets.

Miletus: S. Cormack, The Space of Death in Roman Asia Minor (Wien

2004) 30, 117, a heroon and banquets for private individuals.

Ephesus: Cormack 2004 (cit. at "Miletus) 42, the cult of prominent citizen

with a heroon and banquets (animal bones) from early second to fifth or

sixth century; in Ephesus' territory (120), also tomb arrangements with

basins, libation tubes, and benches.

Termessos, Pisidia: Cormack 2004 (cit. at "Miletus) 117f., a heroon and

commemoration.

Arycanda and Myra, Lycia: S. Sahin, Die Inschriften von Arykanda (Bonn

1982) 103 No. 110, a private individual builds a heroon to self and wife

(Greek name, Roman period); Cormack 2004 (cit. at "Miletus) 117f.,

32

funerary altars, and a woman in her will directs her slaves to remember her

through regular libations; in Myra, cult gardens.

Pergamum, Asia: Cormack 2004 (cit. at "Miletus) 121, a walled burial

enclosure with an orchard, cisterns, and banquet rooms.

Iasos and Mylasa, Caria: Cormack 2004 (cit. at "Miletus) 119, tombs with

entrances for renewed cult celebrations, one, with game boards carved on the

marble floor.

Mylasa, Caria: AE 2004, 521 No. 1438, second- or third-century heroon for

owner plus descendants.

Hierapolis, Phrygia: AE 2004, 518 No. 1427, second-century notice of sale

of part of a heroon for burial of someone's parents, where descendants also

will be buried.

Phrygia, Isikh: T. Drew-Bear, Nouvelles inscriptions de Phrygie (Zutphen

1978) 97 No. 34, Severus Argentis built a heroon, a marble altar ornamented

with a garland, for self, wife, children, "and Theodotus the greengrocer".

Tralles, Lydia: Cormack 2004 (cit. at "Miletus) 120, a tomb equipped with

candelabra.

Juliopolis, Galatia: Cormack 2004 (cit. at "Miletus) 149, cult gardens.

Smyrna: G. Petzl, Die Inschriften von Smyrna (Bonn 1982) 1.57 No. 92, a

complex of buildings with a triclinium, etc., for use of the family in

perpetuity on the birthday of the deceased; compare 61 No. 195, a complex

including a visitors' rest-chamber, diaita.

Smyrna area, Kaystros valley: AE 2006, 574 No. 1447, a third-century

heroon built by a private individual to self and wife.

Cos: AE 2008, 527 Nos. 1328-35, evidence of funeral banquets.

Aphrodisias, Caria: AE 2007, 555 No. 1425, a heroon of a private individual

(Lucia Antoniana, second/third century).

33

Patara, Lycia-Pamphylia: AE 2007, 602 No. 1520, a private individual erects

a heroon for self, wife, and children.

Palmyra: J. T. Milik, Recherches d'épigraphie proche-orientale 1:

Dédicaces faites par des dieux (Paris 1972) 194, on funerary triclinia

adjoining many tombs of the city's cemeteries for use by the family and

servants, where the dead participated (apparently 3rd-4th century).

North Africa [Tertullian, De resurrectione carnis 1, toward the early third century offers a

general statement for the area, that "the common herd makes offerings to the

dead", the vulgus defunctis parentat, "and indeed does so by their custom

with no expense spared, on whatever there is to eat that is in season . . . ."]

Alexandria: Strabo 17.1.10, on the outskirts of the city "one comes to the

suburb Necropolis in which are many gardens, kepoi, and graves and

stopping places set up for embalming the dead".

Ghirza, ca. 200 km south of Lepcis: D. Mattingly, Tripolitania London

1995) 206f., of a date late Roman into the fifth century, tombs and

inscriptions, one mentioning celebration of the Parentalia, along with other

epigraphic signs of "the importance attached to the continuation of respect

for dead ancestors", and sacrifice on occasion of scores of bulls and goats for

the deceased of the extended family or tribe.

Carthage: A. L. Delattre, "Fouilles d'un cimetière romain à Carthage en

1888," Revue archéologique 12 (1888) 151-60, several hundred square brick

columnar altars (e.g., 155, se vivo aram fecit) and some of hundreds of

34

epitaphs in two cemeteries, the altars almost all equipped with libation tubes

to the cinerary urns beneath, and hundreds of lamps also in the cemetery.

Sabratha: B. Bessi, "Le necropoli di Sabratha fra eredita punica e

romanizazzione," Espacios y Usos Funerarios en el Occidente Romana.

Actas del Congreso Internacional . . . Cordoba . . . 2001, ed. D. Vaquerizo

(Cordoba 2002) 346, "a large area of a cemetery given to the celebration of

meals in common and the cult of the dead", involving altars and wells and

(348) built dining tables, stibadia and mensae, and many bones; roses

decorate the frescoes (349).

Pupput near Hammamet, Tunisia: M. Griesheimer and A. Ben Abed,

"Fouilles de la nécropole romaine de Pupput (Tunisie)," Comptes rendus de

l'académie des inscriptions et belles lettres 2001, 555, 581-85: a cemetery

where local tradition favored honoring the dead by a splash from a wine-

saucer on or next to the burial, in evening meals (hence both patera- and

lamp-remains); so libation tubes (one in an altar resting on a burial) are only

a small handful among 1500 tombs distributed among 70 walled enclosures

containing 29 mausolea, with >200 mensae. The mensae were used as

cooking surfaces. Further, A. Ben Abed and M. Griesheimer, La nécropole

romaine de Pupput (Rome 2004) 11, 15, 183; and suggestion (9) that, after

use since at least the 1st century B.C., in the fifth A.D. burials shifted to a

nearby burial church.

Satafis, Setif, eastern Numidia: M. Bouchenaki, Fouilles de la nécropole

occidentale de Tipasa (Matares) (1968-1972) (Algiers 1975) 177, on the

memorial inscription to Secundula (CIL 8.20277), and "the building of a

stone mensa for remembrance of the many fine things she did, where the

family can set their cups and bread, revisiting to a late hour the tales and

praises of our chaste mother while the old lady sleeps"; further discussion in

35

Février 1977 (cit. at n. 11) 36; MacMullen 1997 (cit. at n. 8) 219; and

MacMullen 2009 (cit. at n. 28) 58, 160.

Tipasa, Numidia: Bouchenaki 1975 (cit. at "Satafis") 132f., many mensae

for memorial meals and perhaps for the refrigerium, e.g., 41f., mensa with

mosaic inscription, in deo pax et concordia sit convivio nostro (with chrisma,

thus, Christian); 44, arrangements for libations; 109f., a tomb with built

dining table, mensa, "to the memory of my son"; 113f., another huge mensa

with attached well, fourth century; also Février 1977 (cit. at n. 11) 29.

Ammaedara, Numidia: AE 2009, 642 No. 1754, burial with inscription

above the mensa.

Sicily and Sardinia

Marsala, Sicily: Bessi 2002 (cit. at "Sabratha") 349, burial chamber with

frescoes and built table (stibadion) for family meals; fresco motifs, pagan

and Christian interchangeable, see G. Agnello, La Pittura paleocristiana

della Sicilia (Rome 1952).

Lilybaeum/Lilibeo, Sicily: Giglio 1996 (cit. at n. 26) 8f., 21, second-century

hypogeum with altar and (11) rose-decorated frescoes showing roisterers

dancing to a double pipe.

Syracuse, Sicily: Giglio 1996 (cit. at n. 26) 19ff., parallels to Lilybaeum

(above) in third to first century B.C. burial chambers.

Sardinia: Picuti 2008 (cit. at n. 25) 54, mensae of wood or stone at burial

chambers.

Cornus, Sardinia: L. Ermini Pani et al., "Recenti scoperta in Sardegna," Atti

del VI Congresso nazionale di archeologia cristiana. Pesaro-Ancona . . .

1983 (Firenze 1985) 2.704f., a complex of buildings at a burial area and (late

36

fourth/fifth century into sixth) "a large mensa for the refrigerium and its

funeral rites that are attested" at many sites, attested to by glass and ceramic

goods and remains of food.

Italy

Aemilia/Cispadana: J. Ortelli, "Riti, usi e corredi funerari nelle sepulture

romane della prima età imperiale in Emilia Romagna (valle del Po),"

Bestattungssitte und kulturelle Identität. Grabanlagen und Grabbeigaben

der frühen römischen Kaiserzeit in Italien und den Nordwest-Provinzen.

Kolloquium in Xanten . . . 1995, eds. P. Fasoli et al. (Köln/Bonn 1998) 70,

libation tubes or ceramic arrangements for mortuary ritual and also for all

subsequent visits of remembrance, dies natales, etc.

Brixia/Brescia, Aemilia: AE 2001, 335 No. 1067, a donation for a memorial

celebration of the donor on Rosalia, Vindemiae, and Parentalia.

Como: G. Walser, Römische Inschriften in der Schweiz (Bern 1980) 3.120

No. 302, a town official's wife and children set up a fund "so that his

memory might be cherished every year by their gathering, ut coitione sua

memoriam eius per annos colant, strewing amaranth and roses", i.e. at the

Rosalia; and a second inscription, CIL 5.5272, of a similar nature, a donor

gives funds to a builders' society to celebrate his wife's memory annually on

her birthday and to dine and drink to her on the Rosalia before her statue.

Ravenna: CIL 11.126, a builders' association sets up funding "in the usual

manner . . . to decorate with roses" the tomb of the wife of a rich donor, and

annually to offer sacrifices and dine there, receiving the cost of the sacrifice.

37

Voghenza near Ferrara: Voghenza. Una necropoli di età romana nel

territorio ferrarese, eds. M. Bandini Mazzanti et al. (Ferrara 1985) 178,

enclosures with a dozen burials and, around them, animal bones "indicating

funeral banquets", possibly sacrifices.

Voghenza: G. Parmeggiani, "Voghenza, necropoli: analisi di alcuni del

rituale funerario," Voghenza. Una necropoli (1985) 210, libation tubes, and

the supposition (218) that they were used not only in mortuary ritual but

repeatedly in years thereafter, several times a year.

Aquileia: M. Verzar-Bass, "Grab und Grabsitte in Aquileia," Bestattungssitte

und kulturelle Identität. Grabanlagen und Grabbeigaben der frühen

römischen Kaiserzeit in Italien und den Nordwest-Provinzen. Kolloquium in

Xanten . . . 1995, eds. P. Fasoli et al. (Köln/Bonn 1998) 169ff., a burial with

eating and drinking vessels near the cremation urn "probably in a banquet

service" [not demonstrably beyond the mortuary rituals but cf. in the same

cemetery, many altars inscribed to the deceased and comparison drawn with

Este].

Este: Verzar-Bass (1998) 171, cemetery facilities with altars for sacrifices to

the dead, "Opferplätze".

Ariminum: Picuti 1998 (cit. at n. 25) 52, fountains in cemeteries.

Sassina/Sarsina, Aemilia: Martin-Kilcher 1998 (cit. at "Aventicum") 22f.,

burials with drinking vessels, lamps, and libation tubes; CIL 11.6520, on an

altar, a will, a bequest to a builders' association if they will annually worship

the donor's manes on her birthday, ut coitione sua memoriam eius per annos

colant, cf. J. Ortalli, "Riti, usi e corredi funerari nelle sepolture romane dell

prima età imperiale in Emilia Romagna (valle del Po)," Bestattungssitte und

kulturelle Identität. Grabanlagen und Grabbeigaben der frühen römischen

38

Kaiserzeit in Italien und den Nordwest-Provinzen. Kolloquium in Xanten . . .

1995, eds. P. Fasoli et al. (Köln/Bonn 1998) 75.

Etruria and Campania: Picuti 1998 (cit. at n. 25) 51f., at various burial sites,

pergolas, arbors, orchards, wells (e.g., Spoletium), and benches (Ocriculum).

Votalarca, Etruria/Macerata Province: G. Paci, "Due frammenti di iscrizioni

cristiane a Villa Luzi di Votalarca," Atti del VI Congresso nazionale di

archeologia cristiana. Pesaro-Ancona . . . 1983 (Firenze 1985) 548,

fragmentary text, in convivio tui sodales tibi laudes dixerunt et coniunca [=

coniuga] dolens cum filiis tuis fecerunt, Christian (550) dated in the 360s.

Spinazzola, Etruria: Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 33 (1983) 221f.,

gift of a hortus/kepos, Latin/Greek, to a burial.

Praeneste/Palestrina: Février 1977 (cit. at n. 11) 38f., testamentary directions

for commemoration twice per year (birth- and death-day), ILS No. 8376.

Gabii: AE 2004, 141 No. 377, "walled enclosure with buildings and taberna".

Nocciano near Pescara: AE 2009, 131 No. 289, tomb-plaque and instructions

to dig a well, puteum faciendum curavit.

Ostia: Picuti 2008 (cit. at n. 25) 51, a well adjoining and handy to the

cemetery.

Isola Sacra: G. Calza, La necropoli del Porto di Roma nell'Isola Sacra

(Rome 1940) 53f., 56, 73, and 80, ovens for meals, wells for wine-tempering

and washing, holes and pipes for libations, and built dining tables, triclinia;

Picuti 1998 (cit. at n. 25) 53, cooking facilities for common use, then taken

over for private use; and (55) buildings for lounges or lodging for

custodians; I. Baldassare, "La necropoli dell'Isola Sacra," Espacios 2002 (cit.

at n. 26) 18-21, tomb chambers with painted roses and libation tubes or

passages; also ca. 600 anonymous burials for the poor, some with minimal

provision for ancestor worship; MacMullen 2009 (cit. at n. 28) 78f., mensae;

39

H. Thylander, Inscriptions du Port d'Ostie. Texte (Lund 1952) 150 No. A201

or 163 No. A223, funerary altars; Gee 2008 (cit. at n. 14) 59, elaborate

provision for commemoration after death.

Portus: Thylander (1952) 308f. No. B152, persons granted access to a

triclinium by will of the owner.

Pompeii: V. Kockel, Die Grabbauten vor dem Herkulaner Tor in Pompeji

(Mainz 1983) 40, gardens and orchards with benches in service to burials

[incorrectly treated in the context only of mortuary ritual] and (41) libation

tubes, as also reported by Wolski and Bercius 1973 (cit. at "Tarraco") 373;

the same observations in S. Lopetz and W. Van Andringa, "'Publius

Vesonius Phileros vivos monumentum fecit'. Investigations in a sector of the

Porta Nocera cemetery in Roman Pompeii," Living Through the Dead.

Burial and Commemoration in the Classic World, eds. M. Carroll and J.

Rempel (Oxford 2011) 121ff., noting (129) that "most graves were fitted

with libation tubes", that is, the poorer ones as well as the richer, and adding

evidence of bread, pastries, vegetables, fish and animals eaten; also,

evidence of a triclinium (130), and (129) continuous post-interment

commemoration with food, wine, and flowers at Parentalia and anniversary

days of the deceased; the same authors, "Archéologie du rituel. Méthode

appliquée à l'étude de la nécropole de Porta Nocera à Pompei," Pour une

archéologie 2008 (cit. at n. 25) 116f., on food, including figs and olives;

noting the importance of libations and (124f.) of regular later visits to the

tomb. Also, Picuti 1998 (cit. at n. 25) 51f., on several monuments with

gardens; also benches, scholae, for mourners. For gardens, cepotaphia,

assigned to the production of flowers for Parentalia and other occasions,

along with a gardener's cottage (a common arrangement), see further S.

Rebenich, "Garten, Gräber und Gedächtnis. Villenkultur und

40

Bestattungspraxis in der römischen Kaiserzeit," Monumentum et

instrumentum inscriptum. Beschriftete Objekte aus Kaiserzeit und Spätantike

als historische Zeugnis (Stuttgart 2008) 192, 195

Misenum: J. H. D'Arms, "Memory, money, and statues at Misenum: three

new inscriptions from the collegium of the Augustales," Journal of Roman

Studies 90 (2000) 128f., 135ff., 138, a freedman funds an annual dinner on

his birthday and also on Parentalia, and construction of a tomb-garden,

cepotaphium, for the commemorations, along with flower decorations for the

tomb, hired mourners and athletic exhibitions before officials at "the

triclinium above the sepulcher."

Naples: T. Klauser, Die Cathedra im Totenkult (Münster in Westfall, 1927)

118-23, burial chambers equipped with chairs and benches for diners.

Petelia of the Bruttian country in Calabria: ILS 6468, a rich man funds

"annually on my birthday" the participation of the town's officials and

citizens at a cena parentalicia.

Rome

San Sebastiano excavations: triclinium and well, V. Fiocchi Nicolai,

"Basilica Marci, coemeterium Marci, basilica coemeterii Balbinae. A

proposito della nuova basilica circiforme della via Ardeatina e della

funzione funeraria della chiese 'a deambulatorio' del suburbio romano,"

Ecclesiae Urbis. Atti del Congresso internazionale di studi sulle chiese di

Roma (IV - X secolo). Roma . . . 2000 (Rome 2000) 2.1198, and MacMullen

2009 (cit. at n. 28) 79.

41

San Pietro excavations: MacMullen 2009 (cit. at n. 28) 79, libation tubes and

food remains (bones).

L. Cianfriglia, "Roma. Via Portuense, angolo via G. Belluzo. Indagine su

alcuni resti di monumenti sepolcrali," Notizie degli scavi di antichità 40-41

(1990) 46f., roses in tomb frescoes throughout Rome's cemeteries.

CIL 6.4710, permission to use a portion of the dining chamber, triclinium.

CIL 6.4711, a curator of a columbarium has rights to a third of the triclinium.

AE 2006, 98 No. 174 (CIL 6.36262), where, regarding rites after burial, a

testator arranges for construction of tabernae (food booths, at least

sometimes commercial, see Augustine, Ep. 22.6, where offerings are on sale

to worshippers) and other buildings, a garden and a stable, all within a

walled-off area for memorial rites.

CIL 6.8117, memorial building, monumentum, of a family, where donors

assign use of benches and dining table, scamna and mensae, to freed persons.

CIL 6.9404, donor and wife and freed persons and descendants shall have

free use of a food-booth, taberna, and attached building and a well, and the

right to take wood (from a copse).

CIL 6.9681, construction of a shrine, aedes memoriae.

AE 2005, 97f. No. 232, testamentary permission to freed persons to enter a

burial monument, to offer sacrifices there and to draw water (from a well)

and wood (from a copse attached).

CIL 6.20011, fragmentary directions for a burial plot and well.

CIL 6.15593 = ILS 8063c = Rebenich 2008 (cit. above in "Rome") 195, a

freedman creates for his mistress a garden, vineyard, viniola, a well, a dining

room, triclia, etc., and portraits of her, simulacra.

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CIL 6.15593, burial complex with garden for triclinium, vineyard, a well,

and chapels containing portraits of the deceased, aediculae in quibus

simulacra.

CIL 6.10229-10250, "Tituli sepulcrales: acta ad sepulcra spectantes",

including several long texts, e.g. 10353, the building of a dining table, mensa,

for officials, or the often-cited arrangements of the Association of

Aesculapius and Hygia, by which burial associations insure memorializing

of members through full use of various facilities for banquets and sacrifices,

sacrificia facere, vesci, epulari.

CIL 6.10239, provision for a burial monument, a garden and sepulcher "so

that on Parentalia and Violets and Roses day, violationis dies et rosationis,

and my birthday" the donor's heirs and freed persons all shall have use of

everything.

CIL 6.10248, funds assigned that assignees "shall celebrate four times a year

with sacrificia the memory of the donor on Roses and Violets days and the

Parentalia, and on his personal birthday"; cf. AE 2004 No.231, donor's

children may "enter the tomb chamber for the purpose of offering a

sacrificium" (the formula is common); cf. AE 2005, 99 No. 237, a donor sets

up an altar to her sisters.

CIL 6.13061, for the use of self, descendants, freed person and their

descendants, a monumentum with taberna and building, all walled around.

CIL 6.25385, a donor has made (the sepulcher) for the delight of his son,

refrigerio filio.

CIL 6.29958f., provision of access "for all, to the kitchen, culina, and

triclinium".

CIL 6. 36262 (AE 2006, 98 No. 174), provision for sollemnia mea at the

tomb equipped with a hortus, tabernae et aedificia, and stabulum inside a

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walled enclosure. Similar provisions in AE 2004, 85 No. 209; 90f. No. 223;

and 110 No. 281 (a cepotaphium).

AE 2005, 97f. No. 363, at Grottarossa, use of fire, wood and water inside the

burial building granted to freed persons and descendants.

CIL 6.5601, 22028, and 25385: refrigerium invited for the dead.

CIL 10248 (ILS 8366), a fragmentary will, directing and funding annual

sacrificia to celebrate the donor's memorial on his birthday, the Rosatio,

Violae, and Parentalia, and a lamp to be lit monthly on kalends, nones, and

ides.