Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T04:22:04.007Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Half-burnt on an Emergency Pyre‘: Roman Cremations which Went Wrong

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

David Noy
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In an ideal Roman cremation, the body was carried in procession from the house of the deceased to a place outside the city, where it was burnt on a pyre until it was reduced to bones and ashes (cineres or favilla). The pyre should be built specifically for the deceased; having to use someone else's pyre was a sign of poverty, or an emergency procedure. The cremated remains might be buried where they had been burnt, usually in a ditch which was filled in and covered or marked; in this case the tomb was called a bustum. More usually, the cremation was carried out somewhere other than the final resting place, at a spot designated ustrina in Latin literature. This might be within the same tomb-precinct or columbarium, as in many tombs at Ostia, or at a separate public site. The bones and ashes therefore had to be collected up and placed in a container, preferably a specially made and ornamented one (cinerarium, oss(u)arium, olla, urna), to be placed in the tomb. The force of the fire, the raking and collapse of the pyre during burning, and eventual quenching with cold liquid would together normally be sufficient to reduce the bones to small fragments which would fit easily into the container. This sort of burial of the remains is assumed in such wishes for the dead as:

I pray that you rest quiet and safe in the urn, bones,

And that the earth is not burdensome to your ashes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , October 2000 , pp. 186 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. The phrase ossa et cineres (‘bones and ashes’) is used fairly frequently for what is left after a cremation, but when cineres is used alone in this context it should be understood to include bones as well as ashes (OLD: ‘Ashes as the condition of the body after death’); the usual translation of ‘ashes’ can sometimes be misleading. In epitaphs, ossa hic sita sunt (‘the bones are buried here’) is used frequently, but there is no equivalent for cineres apart from the occasional use of cineribus (dative) at the beginning of the inscription.

2. Lucretius 6.1282–6; Martial 8.75; Lucan 5.281–2, 7.803–4.

3. Servius, , In Aen. 11.201Google Scholar (at 11.185 he applies it to the extinguished pyre); Festus 29L (quoting Aelius Gallus). In practice, the word often seems to signify simply ‘pyre’ or ‘tomb’. This type of tomb is found, for example, at Ostia: Squarciapino, M. Floriani, Scavi di Ostia III. Le necropoli. Pane I. he tombe de età repubblicana e augustea (Rome, 1956), 12, 14, 18, 110, 112, 234Google Scholar. There are also examples at Belo (Bolonia) in Spain, where it represented a continuation of pre-Roman customs: Paris, P. and Bonsor, G., Fouilles de Belo (Bolonia, Province de Cadix) 1917–1921. Tome II. Le nécropole (Paris, 1926), 28, 34, 43, 69Google Scholar.

4. e.g. Apuleius, , Met. 7.19Google Scholar; Porphyry, , In Hor. Serm. 1.8.11–12, 14Google Scholar; Servius, , In Aen. 3.22,6.216Google Scholar. The form ustrinum is also found (Servius, , In Aen. 11.201)Google Scholar, but is rarer, despite being the term usually employed in modern literature.

5. Floriani Squarciapino (n. 3): via Ostiense tombs 5, 20, 22(?); via Laurentina, tombs 9, 32, 34, 43, 49. Many tombs at Belo also had their own ustrinum: Paris and Bonsor (n. 3), 44—66.

6. McKinley, J. I., ‘Bone fragment size in British cremation burials and its implication for pyre technology and ritual’, Journal of Archaeological Science 21 (1994), 339–42, at 339–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Lactantius, , De Mort. Pers. 21.11Google Scholar, refers to the grinding-up of bones of Christians who had been cremated during executions under Galerius; this indicates that pulverization after cremation was not normal practice.

7. Ovid, , Arn. 3.9.67–8Google Scholar.

8. Musgrave, J., ‘Dust and damn'd oblivion: a study of cremation in Ancient Greece’, ABSA 85 (1990), 271–99, at 272Google Scholar; McKinley, J. I., ‘Cremations: expectations, methodologies and realities’, in Roberts, C. A., Lee, F. & Birtliff, J. (eds.), Burial Archaeology. Current Research, Methods and Development (BAR British Series 211, 1989), 65–76, at 65Google Scholar. Roman pyres could reach 900°, as demonstrated by Wells, C., ‘A study of cremation’, Antiquity 36 (1960), 29–37, at 36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. McKinley (n. 8), 65.

10. Poison, C. J. & Brittain, R. P., Disposal of the Dead (3rd ed., London, 1975), 176Google Scholar.

11. McKinley (n. 8), 67.

12. Piontek, J., ‘The process of cremation and its influence on the morphology of bones in the light of results of experimental research’ (English summary), Archeologia Polski 21 (1976), 277–80, at 278Google Scholar.

13. Hiatt, B., ‘Cremation in Aboriginal Australia’, Mankind 7 (1969), 104–19, at 104Google Scholar.

14. Arce, J., Funus imperatorum: los funerales de los emperadores romanos (Madrid, 1988), 22Google Scholar, cf. 31. Clodius' funeral, which was not an officially ‘public’ one, began at dawn according to Asconius, , Mil. p. 28Google Scholar.

15. Piontek (n. 12), 279.

16. Seneca, , Here. Oet. 1637Google Scholar.

17. Ovid, , Tr. 1.3.98, 3.13.21, 4.10.86Google Scholar; Ex.P. 3.2.32.

18. Catullus 59.5; Cicero, , Pro Milone 33.90Google Scholar; Lucan 8.738; Martial 3.93.26. No doubt the ustor could sometimes be the same person as the pollinctor who was responsible for other aspects of the ritual.

19. Pliny, , H.N. 7.186Google Scholar.

20. Plutarch, , Ti.G. 13Google Scholar (tr. I. Scott-Kilvert).

21. Pliny, , H.N. 11.187Google Scholar; Suetonius, , Col. 1Google Scholar.

22. Pliny, , H.N. 7.20Google Scholar.

23. McKinley (n. 8), 72.

24. Plutarch, , Sulla 38 (tr. Warner, R., adapted)Google Scholar. Some of the same details are also given by Granius Licinianus 36.29. Whatever the time of year (the exact date of Sulla's death does not seem to be recorded), it is unlikely that a cremation started at the ninth hour, i.e. mid-afternoon, could have been completed before nightfall, although the extra heat from the ‘huge flame’ may have speeded up the process, as suggested by Arce (n. 14), 22. He also argues (p. 31) that this may be intended to suggest divine intervention.

25. Suetonius, , Dom. 15Google Scholar.

26. Suetonius, , Cal. 59Google Scholar.

27. Josephus, , Ant. 19.195, 237Google Scholar.

28. Barrett, A. A., Caligula. The Corruption of Power (London, 1989), 167CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wiseman, T. P., Death of an Emperor (Exeter, 1991), 94Google Scholar. Hurley, D., An Historical and Historiographical Commentary on Suetonius' Life of C. Caligula (Atlanta, 1993), 213Google Scholar, suggests that ‘It should be imagined that Claudius approved minimal decency’, but it seems more likely that the rites were carried out before Claudius was in a position to influence them.

29. I owe this point to Christine Aylott.

30. McKinley (n. 8), 65.

31. Plutarch, , Pom. 80Google Scholar; Appian, , B.C. 2.86Google Scholar; Lucan 8.668–87; Valerius Maximus 5.1.10.

32. Plutarch, , Pom. 80Google Scholar; Manilius 4.54–5; Valerius Maximus 1.8.9; Postgate, J. B. (ed.), M. Annaei Lucani De Bella Civili Liber VIII (Cambridge, 1917), lxiGoogle Scholar.

33. Kyle, D. G., Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (London, 1998), 168–9Google Scholar.

34. See, e.g., Seneca, , Ep. 92.5Google Scholar; Valerius Maximus 1.6.11 (on Crassus and the dead of Carrhae). The issue is discussed by V. Hope, ‘Contempt and respect: the treatment of the corpse in Ancient Rome’ (forthcoming).

35. Cicero, , Leg. 2.56–7Google Scholar; Granius Licinianus 36.25; Pliny, , H.N. 7.187Google Scholar.

36. Dio, Ep. 74.2; cf. SHA, , Comm. 20.1Google Scholar.

37. e.g., according to Dio, , Ep. 76.7.3Google Scholar, Severus ordered Albinus's head to be sent to Rome from Lyon, and the rest of the body to be thrown away (ῥιφ⋯ναι) (cf. SHA, , Sev. 11.6–7)Google Scholar. In contrast, Marcus Aurelius had Avidius Cassius's severed head buried (Dio, , Ep. 72.28.1)Google Scholar, an act clearly intended to symbolize his clemency.

38. Tacitus, , Hist. 1.49Google Scholar.

39. Suetonius, , Nero 49Google Scholar.

40. Anth. Pal. 7.401.

41. Postgate (n. 32), 123.

42. Cicero, , Pro Milone 33Google Scholar, Phil. 2.91.

43. Lacey, W. K. (ed.), Cicero: 2nd Philippic Oration (Warminster, 1986), 224Google Scholar.

44. Seneca, (Thy. 79–80)Google Scholar makes the ghost of Thyestes address various groups of sinners who are being punished in the Underworld. The last such group is ‘whoever, half-burnt, drive away the brandished torches [of the Furies]’. Does half-burnt refer to the punishment they are receiving or to their state on entering the Underworld? Tarrant, R. J., Seneca's Thyestes (Atlanta, 1985), 100Google Scholar, suggests that Seneca was influenced by the Ibis passage, although he attributes the half-burning to the Furies' torches.

45. Philo, , Flacc. 69Google Scholar, Leg. 130.

46. Suetonius, , Tib. 75Google Scholar.

47. Lindsay, H. (ed.), Suetonius: Tiberius (London, 1995), 187Google Scholar.

48. Allara, A., ‘Corpus et cadaver, la “gestion” d'un nouveau corps’, in Hinard, F. (ed.), La mort au quotidien dans le monde romain (Paris, 1995), 69–79Google Scholar, at 70.

49. Prieur, J., La morte nell'antica Roma (Genoa, 1991) [Italian tr. of La mort dans I'antiquité romaine], 13Google Scholar.

50. e.g. Pliny, , Ep. 7.27Google Scholar.

51. Estiez, O., ‘La translatio cadaveris. Le transport des corps dans l'antiquité romaine’, in Hinard, (n. 48), 101–8, at 104Google Scholar.

52. Lucan 9.3. Elsewhere (7.804–24), Lucan, in his authorial voice, says that it does not make any difference whether or not the dead of Pharsalus are cremated.

53. Tacitus, , Ann. 2.69Google Scholar.

54. Goodyear, F. R. D., The Annals of Tacitus, Books 1–6, Vol. 2: Annals 1.55–81 and Annals 2 (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar, ad loc, says that it is unclear how these remains differed from the other things used: either resulting from cremation if the others did not, or not being recognizably human. However, the point about half-burnt remains is that they were recognizably human, unlike what would be left from a complete cremation.

55. Lucan 6.532–6.

56. Apuleius, , Met. 2.20Google Scholar.