Chap. 55.] 
BURIAL. 
on the other hand, there are innumerable cases also of unfortu- 
nate ends. L. Domitius,^* a member of a most illustrious family, 
having been conquered at Massilia by Caesar, and taken prisoner 
by him at Corfinium, being weary of life, took poison ; but, im- 
mediately after, he used every possible exertion to prolong his 
life. We find it stated in our Annals, that Felix, a charioteer 
of the red party,^^ being placed on the funeral pile, some one 
of the number of his admirers threw himself upon the pile ; a 
most silly piece of conduct. Lest, however, this circumstance 
might be attributed to the great excellence of the dead man 
in his art, and so redound to his glory, the other parties all 
declared that he had been overpowered by the strength of the 
perfumes. 'Not long ago, M. Lepidus, a man of very noble 
birth, who died, as I have stated above,^^ of chagrin caused by 
his divorce, was hurled from the funeral pile by the violence 
of the flames, and in consequence of the heat, could not be re- 
placed upon it ; in consequence of which, his naked body was 
burnt with some other pieces of brushwood, in the vicinity of 
the pile. 
CHAP. 55. (54.) BTJEIAL. 
The burning of the body after death, among the Eomans, is 
not a very ancient usage ; for formerly, they interred it.^' After 
it had been ascertained, however, in the foreign wars, that 
bodies which had been buried were sometimes disinterred, the 
custom of burning them was adopted. Many families, how- 
3* The great-grandfather of the Emperor Nero. We have a reference 
to his death by Seneca, De Benef. B. iii. c, 24, and a more full account of 
it by Suetonius, Life of Nero, c. 2.— B. 
35 The charioteers at Eome were divided into four companies, or " fac- 
tiones," each distinguished by a colour, representing the season of the 
year. These colours were green for the spring, red for the summer, azure 
for autumn, and white for the winter. Domitian afterwards increased 
them to six, adding the golden and the purple. The most ardent party 
spirit prevailed among them, and the interest in their success extended to 
all classes and both sexes. 
36 In the thirty-sixth Chapter of this Book. — B. 
37 It would appear, from Dalecharaps and Hardouin, that this statement, 
respecting the period when the custom of burning the body after death 
was first adopted by the Romans, is incorrect, Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 219. 
There is much uncertainty as to its origin, and the source from which they 
borrowed it. We learn from Macrobius, that the practice was discontinued 
in his time, i. e. in the fourth century after Christ — B» 
