It has been maintained that these military clubs were really and primarily funerary societies.(1567) And provision for burial was certainly one of their objects. Yet, on a reading of the law of the society of the _Cornicines_, it may be doubted whether the subject of burial is more prominent than the other contingencies of the officer’s life, and in some of the inscriptions, burial is not even alluded to. The grant on retirement or promotion, and the grant to his heir on the death of a member, are the same. But probably the majority of officers had the good fortune to carry the money with them into peaceful retirement, if not into higher rank in another corps. In this case they would probably join another college, whether of soldiers or veterans, and secure once more the all-important object of a decent and pious interment. The military clubs seem rather intended to furnish an insurance against the principal risks and occasions of expenditure in a soldier’s career. A calculation shows that, after providing for all these liabilities, the military college must have had a considerable surplus.(1568) How it was spent, it is not hazardous to conjecture. If the poor freedmen and slaves at Ostia or Lanuvium could afford their modest meals, with a fair allowance of good wine, drunk to the memory of a generous benefactor, we may be sure that the college of the _Cornicines_ at Lambesi would relieve the tedium of the camp by many a pleasant mess dinner, and that they would have been astonished and amused on such occasions to hear themselves described merely as a burial society.