Cremation and Burial in the Roman Empire

Abstract

Under the Roman empire cremation went out of fashion and burial gained in popularity as the usual means of disposing of the dead. The cause of this change has been much discussed, and the explanation has often been given that it was due to religious influences and to a shift in ideas of the hereafter. The rising influence of Christianity has sometimes been suggested as a cause, but chronology and the distribution of the phenomena are fatal to that supposition. More recently an alternative has been sought in the growth of the mystery religions. If this could be established, it would form a new and important criterion for the division of the religious history of the empire into periods. Clearly the question deserves full consideration. For that and for many other reasons a full collection and sifting of the evidence for funerary customs throughout the Roman world in the first three centuries of our era is greatly to be desired. This paper does not pretend to fill such a need, and the archaeological data on which it is based are in the main drawn from Rome; the conclusions which can be drawn from these data are limited, but they seem to possess some degree of certainty and they have their bearing on the general nature of the mystery religions.