=155. Family Tombs. The _Columbarium_ and the Garden.=--Burials are not unknown in Rome, but most bodies are disposed of by cremation. Even persons of very modest means will try to provide money for a good pyre. This is partly because the very poor, the worthless slaves, and the lowest of the plebeians, are not burned, but their bodies simply are dumped in hideous open pits not far from the Esquiline itself. Nothing is done to the bodies thus exposed except to leave them to the dogs and ravens, and only the favor of Jupiter averts from the city an incessant pestilence in consequence. Long since, however, Gordianus’s family has erected along the Appian Way (though another frequented highroad could have been selected) a stately tomb, calculated to attract attention from all passers. Handsome tombs can take many forms; there is even a good-sized stone pyramid, 116 feet high, erected to guard the ashes of Gaius Cestius, a great man under Augustus. That of the Gordiani is of a more modest character; a circular masonry tower, about fifty feet in diameter and rather higher, surmounted by a castellated battlement adorned with life-sized marble statues of famous members of the family. Inside there is no huge chamber for a sarcophagus, but simply a series of arched vaults the walls of which are honey-combed with little niches, each intended to receive a funeral urn. This kind of interior, therefore, is not unhappily called a _columbarium_--a “pigeon-cote”; and here will be placed not merely the urns of all the regular scions of the family, but (in inferior niches of course) those of all the freedmen and even of all the better loved slaves. The ashes of the Gordiani, mighty or humble therefore rest all together. [Illustration: SCENE ALONG THE APPIAN WAY: showing the tombs and the gay crowds passing.] Outside this massive tower there is a considerable open compound, laid out as a pleasant garden, with shrubbery, flower-beds, and a little lodge for the slave in residence who acts as caretaker. There is even a small but handsome building, where members of the family can meet for the periodic feasts in honor of the dear departed. Handsome statues and fine bas-reliefs on the inclosing walls abound, and the place in short seems much more like a small pleasure park than a cemetery. This mortuary compound, however, is one of the better types of inclosures. The taste displayed in some adjacent is execrable. Already across the Appian Way opposite, a rich freedman has purchased a large lot and is erecting in his own lifetime a tall central statue of himself, flinging money from a bag to the populace, with the base surrounded by bas-reliefs showing his favorite small dog, some gladiator fights, and deep-laden craft under full sail--to explain how he made his money.[94] [Illustration: PYRAMID--TOMB OF GAIUS CESTIUS: Ostia Gate of the Wall of Aurelian (built _circ._ 275 A.D.) in background.]