The Romans burned their dead, with some exceptions. A few of the ancient families, notably the Cornelii, kept to the older fashion of burial, and it was customary even when a body was cremated to take one small portion of bone, called the “os resectum” from the ashes and bury it. The very poor, slaves, and outcasts were buried in graves made to hold a number of bodies, often with little care or respect. Roman funeral customs, so far as we know them, were very similar to those of Greece. Glass urns were in common use in the western part of the Roman world from the first to the third century A.D. One still contains fragments of bone and ashes. Under the Empire the custom of burial became frequent among the well-to-do, as is evidenced by the large and costly stone sarcophagi of the period. There are two Roman sarcophagi, Nos. 36 and 46 in the Sculpture Gallery, and a large one from Tarsus in the Vestibule. The relief on the south wall of the Sculpture Gallery representing the death of Meleager (No. 38A) once decorated a sarcophagus. These sculptured scenes are rarely connected with death, but are usually mythical or fanciful. A grave monument on the west wall of the Eighth Room, representing a young man and his wife, is interesting in that this form of portrait relief within a box-like frame is thought to have been derived from the wax death-masks, “imagines,” enclosed in boxes, which adorned the hall of the Roman noble (fig. 156). In the Sculpture Gallery is a stone cippus or monument (No. 43), erected to a mother and her two sons, and decorated with portraits in relief. [Illustration] INDEX A ACTORS, costume of tragic, 14; in Old Comedy, 14, 16-17; in New Comedy, 17; of mimes, 17; social status of, 17, 18 ALABASTRON, 64 ALTAR, 4 AMAZON, 87 AMULET, 8, 40 ANIMALS, domestic, 109, 110; _see_ Pets APOPTYGMA, 48, 49-50 APOTROPAION, _see_ Amulet ARROW-HEAD, 87 ARYBALLOS, 63-64 ASTRAGALS, 43, 68 ATTIS, 11 AWL, 113 AXE, die for votive, 5; battle-, 87, 113 B BALL, game of, 42-43 BEARD, 56, 58, 62 BELT, armored, 81-82 BIT, horse’s, 102, 104 BOAT, 111-112 BOXING, 89, 92, 96 BOW, 86 BRANDING, 104 BREAD-MAKING, 36-37 BREASTPLATE, 81 BULLA, 40 BUTT-SPIKE, 85-86 C CAKE, votive, 6 CAMILLUS, 9, 61 CANDELABRUM, 31 CANDLES, 30-31 CAP, 54-55 CARDING, 32, 33 CART, 109, 110; toy, 41 CAULDRON, 26 CHAIR, 23, 24 CHARIOT, 98, 100-101, 128 CHARIOTEER, 100-101 CHEST, 24, 26 CHISEL, 113 CHITON, 47, 48, 49, 50 CIRCUS, 101 CISTA, 64, 66 COINS, 116-118 COLANDER, _see_ Wine-strainer COMMERCE, 119-120 COOKING, 26, 37 COUCH, 24 CUIRASS, 80-81 CUP, 28, 30; unfinished, 115 CURES, offerings for, 6-7 CYBELE, 10-11 CYMBALS, 73 D DAGGER-BLADES, 85 DANCING, 5-6, 73-74 DIE, for axes, 5; _see_ Mould DIKAST, _see_ Juryman DIPPING-ROD, 66 DISKOS, 92, 93-94