§424. It is not to be understood, however, that the bodies of Roman citizens were ordinarily disposed of in this revolting way. Faithful freedmen were cared for by their patrons, the industrious poor made provision for themselves in coöperative societies mentioned above, and the proletariate class (§411) was in general saved from such a fate by gentile relations, by patrons (§181), or by the benevolence of individuals. Only in times of plague and pestilence, it is safe to say, were the bodies of known citizens cast into these pits, as under like circumstances bodies have been burned in heaps in our own cities. The uncounted thousands that peopled the Potter's Field of Rome were the riffraff from foreign lands, abandoned slaves (§156), the victims that perished in the arena (§362), outcasts of the criminal class, and the "unidentified" that are buried nowadays at public expense. Criminals put to death by authority were not buried at all; their carcasses were left to birds and beasts of prey at the place of execution near the Esquiline gate. [Illustration: FIGURE 198. INTERIOR OF TOMB AT POMPEII] §425. Plan of Tombs and Grounds.--The utmost diversity prevails in the outward form and construction of the tombs, but those of the classical period seem to have been planned with the thought that the tomb was to be a home for the dead and that they were not altogether cut off from the living. The tomb, therefore, whether built for one person or for many, was ordinarily a building inclosing a room (_sepulcrum_), and this room was really the important thing. Attention has already been called (§189) to the fact that even the urns had in ancient times the shape of the house of one room. The floor of the _sepulcrum_ was quite commonly below the level of the surrounding grounds and was reached by a short flight of steps. Around the base of the walls ran a slightly elevated platform (_podium_, cf. §§337, 357) on which were placed the coffins of those who were buried, while the urns were placed either on the platform or in niches in the wall. An altar or shrine is often found, at which offerings were made to the _mānēs_ of the departed. Lamps are very common and so are other simple articles of furniture, and the walls, floors, and ceilings are decorated in the same style as those of houses (§220 f.). Things that the dead liked to have around them when living, especially things that they had used in their ordinary occupations, were placed in the tomb at the time of burial, or burned with them on the funeral pyre, and in general an effort was made to give an air of life to the chamber of rest. The interior of a tomb at Pompeii is shown in Fig. 198, and sections of another in Fig. 197, §423. [Illustration: FIGURE 199. PLAN OF GROUNDS ABOUT TOMB]