The institution which is most characterised by the persistence of the ancient ideas of life in the tomb is however that of the funeral banquets. These family repasts, which had previously been celebrated among the Etruscans, took place in Rome on the grave immediately after the funeral (_silicernium_) and were repeated on the ninth day following (_cena novemdialis_). In Greece and in the East the ceremony took place thrice, on the third, ninth and thirtieth or on the third, seventh and fortieth day. Everywhere it was subsequently renewed every year on the anniversary of the death and on several other fixed dates, as on that of the _Rosalia_ in May, on which it was customary to decorate the tombs with roses. Memorial monuments of some importance are often found to include, beside the burial chamber, a dining-room (_triclinium_) and even a kitchen (_culina_). The importance attached to these meals is proved by several wills which have been preserved, and which make considerable endowments to ensure their perpetuity. For instance, at Ravenna a son bequeaths a sum of money to a college on condition that its members annually scatter roses on his father’s grave and feast there on the Ides of July.[122] When Aurelius Vitalio had built at Praeneste a family tomb, surmounted by a room with a terrace, he wrote a letter in incorrect Latin to the brothers of the society to which he belonged: “I ask you, my companions, to refresh yourselves here without quarrelling.”[123] An African settled in Rome similarly writes to his relatives and friends, “Come here in good health for the feast, and rejoice together.”[124] And in Gaul a will commands that the burial vault be furnished and receive a bed with coverings and cushions for the guests who have to meet on the memorial days.[125] These funeral repasts go back to a prehistoric antiquity. They are found in India and in Persia as well as among the European peoples. They are doubtless as ancient as wedding and festal banquets. Among the Egyptians and the Etruscans it was even customary to place the representation of a perpetual feast on the walls of a tomb in order to secure to the dead person the relief it gave. The shade of a guest might well be pleased with the likeness of dishes. It was believed that at funeral feasts the Manes of ancestors came to sit among the guests and enjoyed with them the abundance of the food and wines. Lucian tells of repasts of this kind, which he witnessed in Egypt, at which the dried mummy was invited to eat and drink at the table of his kin.[126] In Greece, even in the Roman period, those present at the feast used to summon the dead to it by name. An epitaph of Narbonne jokingly expresses the vulgar idea as to the participation of the deceased in the banquet: “I drink and drink again, in this monument,” says the dead man, “the more eagerly because I am obliged to sleep and to dwell here.”[127]