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John Bodel calculates an annual death rate of 30,000 among a population of about 750,000 in the city of Rome, not counting victims of plague and pandemic. [10] At birth, Romans of all classes had an approximate life expectancy of 20–30 years: men and women of citizen class who reached maturity could expect to live until their late 50's or much longer, barring illness, disease and accident. [11]
A typical epitaph on a Roman funerary altar opens with a dedication to the manes, or the spirit of the dead, and closes with a word of praise for the honoree. [15] These epitaphs, along with the pictorial attributes of the altars, allow historians to discern much important information about ancient Roman funerary practices and monuments ...
At first, the practice was to sacrifice captives on the tomb, or at the bustum of warriors: instances of which are in Homer – at the funeral of Patroclus – and in Greek tragedy. Their blood was supposed to appease the di inferi or the manes, gods and spirits of the underworld, and render them propitious to the remains of the deceased. In ...
In the burial practices of ancient Rome and Roman funerary art, marble and limestone sarcophagi elaborately carved in relief were characteristic of elite inhumation burials from the 2nd to the 4th centuries AD. [2] At least 10,000 Roman sarcophagi have survived, with fragments possibly representing as many as 20,000. [3]
Clearly the use of tombstones is held in the same regards as it is today – the living fulfilling an obligation of respect to the deceased. Hope [4] argues that these funerary monuments do not necessarily reflect the realities of military society but the rhetoric of language and image through which society was constructed. The lack of ...
Sit tibi terra levis (commonly abbreviated as S·T·T·L or S.T.T.L. or STTL) is a Latin inscription used on funerary items from ancient Roman times [1] onwards.
A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. [1] Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect the dead, from interment, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honour.
Roman funerary art includes many portraits such as married couple funerary reliefs, which were most often made for wealthy freedmen rather than the patrician elite. Portrait sculpture from the Republican era tends to be somewhat more modest, realistic, and natural compared to early Imperial works.