Roman Society from Nero to Marcus AureliusDill, Samuel
Philosophy
Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius
Dill, Samuel
Rome -- Religion; Rome -- Social life and customs
cautious forms of Roman law, did this poor little society order its
performance of duty to the dead.
Our knowledge of the funerary colleges is still further amplified by an
inscription of a date twenty years later than that of Lanuvium.(1463) In
the reign of Antoninus Pius a lady named Salvia Marcellina resolved to
commemorate her husband by a gift to the college of Aesculapius and Hygia.
She presented to it the site for a shrine close to the Appian Way, a
marble statue of Aesculapius, and a hall opening on a terrace, where the
banquets of the brotherhood should be held. To this benefaction
Marcellina, along with one P. Aelius Zeno, who apparently was her brother,
added two donations of HS.15,000 and HS.10,000 respectively, the interest
of which was to be distributed in money, or food and wine, at six
different festivals. The proportions assignable to each rank in the
college were determined at a full meeting, held in the shrine of the
“Divine Titus.” Marcellina attaches certain conditions to her gift. The
society is to be limited to sixty members, and the place of each member,
on his decease, is to be filled by the co-optation of his son. If any
member chooses to bequeath his place and interest, his choice is confined
to his son, his brother, or his freedman, and he is required to pay for
this limited freedom of selection by refunding one-half of his burial
grant to the chest of the college.(1464) The college of Aesculapius is
nominally a religious and funerary corporation, yet there is only a single
reference, in a long document, to the subject of burial. No information is
given as to the amount of the _funeraticium_ or burial grant, the sources
from which it is derived, or the conditions on which it is to be paid. The
chief object of Marcellina seems to have been to connect the memory of her
husband with a number of festivals, for the perpetuity of which she makes
provision, to promote social intercourse, and to prevent the intrusion of
strangers by making membership practically hereditary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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