garments, and precious objects that they want to burn.  The trumpets sound, and the freedman, taking a torch and turning away his eyes, sets fire to the framework.  Then commence the sacrifices to the manes, the formalities, the pantomimic action, the howlings of the mourners, the combats of the gladiators “in order to satisfy the ceremony closely observed by them which required that human blood should be shed before the lighted pile;” this was done so effectually that when there were no gladiators the women “tore each other’s hair, scratched their eyes and their cheeks with their nails, heartily, until the blood came, thinking in this manner to appease and propitiate the infernal deities, whom they suppose to be angered against the soul of the defunct, so as to treat it roughly, were this doleful ceremony omitted and disdained."...  The body burned, the mother, wife, or other near relative of the dead, wrapped and clad in a black garment, got ready to gather up the relics—­that is to say, the bones which remained and had not been totally consumed by the fire; and, before doing anything, invoked the deity manes, and the soul of the dead man, beseeching him to take this devotion in good part, and not to think ill of this service.  Then, after having washed her hands well, and having extinguished the fire in the brazier with wine or with milk, she began to pick out the bones among the ashes and to gather them into her bosom or the folds of her robe.  The children also gathered them, and so did the heirs; and we find that the priests who were present at the obsequies could help in this.  But if it was some very great lord, the most eminent magistrates of the city, all in silk, ungirdled and barefooted, and their hands washed, as we have said, performed this office themselves.  Then they put these relics in urns of earthenware, or glass, or stone, or metal; they besprinkled them with oil or other liquid extracts; they threw into the urn, sometimes, a piece of coin, which sundry antiquaries have thought was the obolus of Charon, forgetting that the body, being burned, no longer had a hand to hold it out; and, finally, the urn was placed in a niche or on a bench arranged in the interior of the tomb.  On the ninth day, the family came back to banquet near the defunct, and thrice bade him adieu:  Vale!  Vale!  Vale! then adding, “May the earth rest lightly on thee!”

Hereupon, the next care was the monument.  That of the duumvir Labeo, which is very ugly, in opus incertum, covered with stucco and adorned with bas-reliefs and portraits of doubtful taste, was built at the expense of his freedman, Menomachus.  The ceremony completed and vanity satisfied, the dead was forgotten; there was no more thought, excepting for the ferales and lemurales, celebrations now retained by the Catholics, who still make a trip to the cemetery on the Day of the Dead.  The Street of the Tombs, saddened for a moment, resumed its look of unconcern and gaiety, and children once more played about among the sepulchres.