Cato, approaching the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in the very same manner. It seems that his car broke down with him on the first day of his triumph; an omen which induced him to climb the steps of the Capitol on his knees, as a measure of precaution. (Dion Cassius, lib. xliii. 21.) Claudius, after his successful expedition against Britain, did the same thing, though no such accident had befallen him, to render it expedient in his case. But the practice of creeping upon the knees seems to have been a superstition generally prevailing amongst all classes; and it is one, amongst several expiatory rites which the credulous Roman matron is said by the satirist to have been willing to perform at the instigation of the priests of Cybele or of Isis: Superbi Totum regis agrum, nuda ac tremebunda cruentis Juv. Sat. vi. 525. Then see her shivering from the flood, Crawl round the field on knees distain'd with blood. Gifford. 179 CHAPTER XI. ON THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD. In the burial of the dead I have observed several points of agreement between the ancient Romans and modern Italians. Thus the corpse is not carried to the grave in a coffin, but on a bier, clothed in white, and with the face and hands exposed. In Sicily I have seen the body of a priest borne along in his sacerdotal robes, and with the chalice trembling in his clenched hands. It is not till after the procession has arrived at the church, and the customary prayers have been pronounced over the remains of the departed, that they are inclosed in a coffin. Heretofore then in Italy the corpse was not deposited in a coffin; and indeed, as the dead were then generally burned, it was na tural that no obstacle should be opposed to the immediate action of the fire. And perhaps to this origin, after all, the present practice may be attributed. Private persons were carried to the pyre in a simple white toga; magistrates and priests in the more splendid prætexta. For it was held proper that the deceased should be arrayed in that dress which reflected the greatest honour upon him while alive. (Vide Dempster. Antiq. Rom.) The poor, however, are thrown into a common grave, without the smallest testimony of respect on the part of the survivors. At Naples there is a burial-ground or campo santo for the hospitals and for paupers, consisting of three hundred and sixty-six separate vaults. Each morning the large quarry of lava which closes the mouth of some one receptacle is heaved aside, and is not replaced before the approach of night. To this pit all the corpses destined for burial that day are promiscuously committed. Thus the re volution of a year sees them all receive their victims of death in succession; whilst an interval so considerable allows one crop to moulder and dissolve before another is laid low. I looked down into one of these chambers of mortality, and, not without some horror, saw several bodies stretched upon the ground with no other covering than a napkin round the waist, and lying in the position in which they had happened to fall. The same unfeeling treatment manifested itself towards the poor of ancient Italy; naked came they out of their mother's womb, and naked they returned thither. Without shroud and without coffin, they were consigned, as they are now, to a common pit, ('Puticulæ, quod putescebant ibi cadavera projecta,' Varro de Ver. Lat. iv. 12, 12mo.) situated, as it is now, on the outside of the city walls. In Florence, and I believe elsewhere the usage is the same; the bodies of the poor are daily collected and brought to a common room built for the purpose. At midnight they are placed in a litter, (lettiga,) a carriage on four wheels, and are thus taken to the public cemetery without the town. The persons called mortuarii, whose business it is to collect the corpses, usually perform their gloomy service by torch-light, and may be constantly seen gliding along the streets at midnight in their white frocks, at a very unceremonious pace, with the bier on their shoulders. These mortuarii are no doubt the vespillones of the Romans. They too were occupied with the corpses of the poor only, and derived their name 'a vespere,' the time when they carried them out. Persons of the middle and upper classes, however, are attended to their graves by a long procession of monks and members of religious companies, who carry tapers in their hands, and as they move along sing a requiem to the departed soul. These lights |