Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/283

Rh were apparently interred with less pomp than household slaves in Rome or Asia Minor, whose bones were deposited in vases, and honoured with a place in the columbaria amongst the remains of their masters.

When the custom of interment by means of burning the body on the funeral pyre became introduced by fashion or in consequence of intermarriage among the Celto-Roman population, a compromise seems to have been the result with respect to the usages of the two races. The Celt, accustomed to deposit the remains of his ancestors in the earth itself, still retained much of his national custom, by substituting for the elaborate vault of the metropolitan Roman a rude grave hewn in the solid rock or chalk, where this expedient was practicable, or else a massive sarcophagus of coarse and very simple workmanship, deposited in the natural soil. Among the Romans the usage still continued to prevail of constructing magnificent mausolea above ground, or superb sarcophagi placed on either side of the principal roads. The custom of burning was far from universal, bodies being found with remains of the same age either burnt or interred, but the progress of Christianity, perhaps, partly caused the distinction. In Gaul and Britain the practice of incremation prevailed from the times of the Cæsars to the reign of Constantine, and the intermediate exceptions must be attributed to the greater or less prevalence of the Celtic or Roman element. Simple humation has always been the expedient of the savage throughout the globe.