42 The Roman Cemetery of Uriconium. 



a considerable number of urns, many of them perfect, and others 

 so broken only as to be easily put together, to the Wroxeter 

 Museum, in Shrewsbury. A few examples, with some of the 

 jug-shaped vessels also found in the graves, are given in the 

 accompanying cut. The urns, which are of baked earthenware, 

 of different shades of colour, but mostly brown or red, are of 

 coarse substance, but always more or less well-shaped, and vary 

 very much in size. The largest we have yet found is about 

 eighteen inches high. The jug-shaped earthen vessels were 

 perhaps used to contain some liquids which were interred with 

 the remains of the dead ; but when found they were filled with 

 earth. Our next cut represents a groiip of glass vessels and 

 other objects found in the cemetery of Uriconium. We know, 

 from allusions in some of the ancient writers, as well as from 

 inscriptions, that tears, unguents, and aromatics, were some- 

 times thrown on the funeral pile, and sometimes interred with 

 the dead — contained, as it may be supposed, in small vessels of 

 glass. An inscription in Gruter describes the deceased as being 

 " moistened with tears and balsam" — evm . lachrimis . et . 

 opobalsamo . VDVM. The reader will call to mind, also, the 

 lines of Tibullus (Eleg. lib. hi. ; El. ii. 1. 19), in which he speaks 

 of depositing with the dead the precious products of Arabia and 

 Assyria, as well as the tears of relations and friends • — 



" Et primum annoso spargant colleota Lyase, 



Mox etiam niveo fundere lacte parent. 

 Post haac carbaseis humorem tollere ventis, 



Atque in marmorea ponere sicca domo. 

 Illic qiias mittit dives Panckaia merces, 



Eoique Arabes, dives et Assyria. 

 Et nostri memores lacrima? fandantur eodem. 



Sic ego componi versus in ossa velim." 



These precious objects were probably contained in the small 

 narrow glass phials which are so commonly found in the Roman 

 graves, and which, in the belief that they contained only the 

 tears of the mourners, antiquaries have designated by the name 

 of lachrymatories. Some experiments, made by my friend Dr. 

 Henry Johnson, of Shrewsbury, upon the earth contained in 

 these glass vessels, seem to confirm the belief that they were 

 not merely receptacles of tears. He writes to me on the 11th 

 of November : " Respecting the lachrymatories, I have lately 

 seen rather a confirmation of what you said about these having 

 been filled with unguents, incense, or something of that kind, 

 which would by heat yield much carbon or charcoal. I took 

 two of these little glass vessels which had dark matter in them, 

 and which had never been emptied. I put some of the dark 

 matter under the microscope, and I could see pure red grains 



