THE ROSE IN CEREMONIES, FESTIVALS, ETC. 25 



seen, at Torcello, a city about five miles from Venice, an inscrip- 

 tion of this kind, mentioning a donation made by an emanci- 

 pated slave to the assembly of the Centimi, consisting- of gardens 

 and a building to be employed in celebrating his obsequies and 

 those of his master. It requested that roses should not be spared, 

 and that food should be then distributed in abundance. Gene- 

 rally, the donation made on condition of covering the funeral 

 monument with roses, was transferred to another, if that con- 

 dition was not fulfilled. Sometimes the most terrible maledic- 

 tions threatened those who dared to violate these sacred gardens. 

 That which proves how frequent among the Romans was this 

 custom of ornamenting tombs with roses, is, that those who were 

 not rich enough to make such bequests, often directed to be 

 engraved upon the stone which covered their remains a request 

 to the passers by to scatter roses upon their tomb. Some of these 

 stones still exist, with the following inscription: " Sparge, p7'e- 

 cor, Rosas supra mea busta, viator.''^ It was, perhaps, because 

 they compared the short duration of human life to the quick 

 fading existence of the Rose, that this flower was devoted to the 

 burial place of the dead ; and there can certainly be chosen no 

 more beautiful emblem of this transitory state of existence. This 

 supposition is somewhat strengthened by the following passage 

 from Jerome, one of the early Christian fathers : 



" The ancients scattered roses over the urns of the deceased, and in their wills 

 ordered that these flowers should adorn their graves, and should be renewed every 

 year. It was also the custom for husbands to cast roses, violets and lilies on the 

 urns which enclosed the ashes of their wives. These modest flowers were emble- 

 matic signs of their grief Our Christians were content to place a Rose among 

 the ornaments of their graves, as the image of life." 



In Turkey, females that died unmarried had a rose sculptured 

 at the top of their monument. 



At the well-known cemetery of Pere la Chaise, which has 

 often excited the ecstasy, admiration or praise of many travelers, 

 but which in reality exhibits neither elegance, sentiment nor taste, 

 wreaths of roses and other flowers are frequently seen upon the 

 thickly crowded tombs, either as mementos of afllection, or in 



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