Various modes of burial in Rome.--Inhumation and cremation.--Gradual predominance of the latter.--Columbaria.--Inscription describing the organization of one of these, on the Via Latina.--The extent of the pagan cemeteries outside of Rome, and the number of graves they contained.--Curiosities of the epitaphs.--The excavations in the garden of La Farnesina.--The Roman house discovered there.--The tomb of Sulpicius Platorinus.--Its interesting contents.--The "divine crows."--The cemetery in the Villa Pamfili.--Tombs on the Via Triumphalis.--That of Helius, the shoemaker.--The tombs of the Via Salaria.--That of the Licinii Calpurnii.--The unhappy history of this family.--The tomb of the precocious boy.--Improvvisatori of later times.--The tomb of Lucilia Polla and her brother.--Its history.--The Valle della Caffarella.--Its associations with Herodes Atticus.--His fortune and its origin.--His monuments to his wife.--The remarkable discovery of the corpse of a young woman, in 1485.--Various contemporary accounts of it.--Its ultimate fate.--Discovery of a similar nature in 1889. Inhumation seems to have been more common than cremation in prehistoric Rome; hence, certain families, to give material evidence of their ancient lineage, would never submit to cremation. Such were the Cornelii Scipiones, whose sarcophagi were discovered during the last century in the Vigna Sassi. Sulla is the first Cornelius whose body was burned; but this he ordered done to avoid retaliation, that is to say, for fear of its being treated as he had treated the corpse of Marius. Both systems are mentioned in the law of the twelve tables: _hominem mortuum in urbe ne sepelito neve urito_, a statement which shows that each had an equal number of partisans, at the time of the promulgation of the law.