CHAP. 55. (54.)—BURIAL.
The burning of the body after death, among the Romans, is
not a very ancient usage; for formerly, they interred it.[1] After
it had been ascertained, however, in the foreign wars, that
bodies which had been buried were sometimes disinterred, the
custom of burning them was adopted. Many families, how-
ever, still observed the ancient rites, as, for example, the Cor-
nelian family, no member of which had his body burnt before
Sylla, the Dictator; who directed this to be done, because,
having previously disinterred the dead body of Caius Marius,
he was afraid that others might retaliate on his own.[2] The
term "sepultus"[3] applies to any mode whatever of disposing
of the dead body; while, on the other hand, the word "humatus" is applicable solely when it is deposited in the
earth.
1. It would appear, from Dalechamps and Hardouin, that this statement,
respecting the period when the custom of burning the body after death
was first adopted by the Romans, is incorrect, Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 219.
There is much uncertainty as to its origin, and the source from which they
borrowed it. We learn from Macrobius, that the practice was discontinued
in his time, i. e. in the fourth century after Christ.—B.
2. We have the same remarks, respecting the antiquity of the custom
of interring the body, the continued adoption of it by the Cornelian family,
and the supposed notion of Sylla, in ordering his own body to be burnt, in
Cicero, De Leg. B. ii. c. 22, from whom it is probable Pliny may have
borrowed them.—B.
3. We have no English term that will preserve the distinction which
Pliny makes between the two modes of disposing of the body after death.
—B.