Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/90

 84 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. scriptible. The Roman law required that, if a fininly sold the field where the tomb was situated, it should still retain the ownership of this tomb, and should always preserve the right to cross the field, in order to per- lorra the ceremonies of its Avorship.' The ancient usage was to inter the dead, not in cemeteries or by the road-sido, but in the field belong- ing to the family. This custom of ancient times is attested by a law of Solon, and by several passages in Plutarch. We learn from an oration of Demosthenes, that even in his time, each family buried its dead in its own field, and that when a domain was bought in Attica, the burial-])lace of the old proprietors was found there.*^ As for Italy, this same custom is proved to have existed by the laws of the Twelve Tables, by passages from two jurisconsults, and by this sentence of Siculus Flaccus: "Anciently there were two ways of placing the tomb; some placed it on one side of the field, others towards the middle."^ From this custom we can see that the idea of prop- erty was easily extended from the small mound to the field that surrounded this mound. In the works of the elder Cato there is a formula according to which the Italian laborer prayed the manes to watch over his field, to. take good care against the thief, and to bless him with a good harvest. Thus these souls of the dead extended tutelary action, and with it their right of prop- erty, even to the boundaries of the domain. Through ' Cicero, De Legib., II. 24. Digest XVIII. lit. 1. 6. ' Laws of Solon, cited by Gaius in Digest, X. tit. 1. 13. De- mosthenes, against Callicles. Plutarch, Aristides, 1. ' Siculus Flaccus, edit. Goez, p. 4. Sec Fragm. terminalia, edit. Goez, p. 147. Pomponius, in Digest, XLVII. tit. 12. 6 Paul, in Digest, VIII. 1, 14.