Death was a celebration and the Afterlife a continuation of the often lavish lifestyles of the wealthy. This was the belief of the Etruscans, thriving in western Italy before the Roman Republic. Their cities of the dead – necropoleis, were roughly carved out of the rocky hills. Each tomb duplicated Etruscan homes and it is from these tombs as well as the sarcophagi found therein that archaeologists have been able to come up a portrait of Etruscan everyday life. Etruscan funerals featured gladiatorial “duels” to the death as part of the celebrations, a practice later inherited by the Romans that evolved into the popular public spectacles.
Romans also buried their dead outside of city limits. All of their significant road or provincial city has these necropoleis (modern term is necropolis). Yet Romans, in contrast, had no similar view of an Afterlife. Romans, however, abundantly carved elaborate sarcophagi illustrating scenes from everyday life. Some say that the most fruitful sources of information we have about the Roman world is found in Roman mausoleums and grave plaques. Romans intended to preserve the life stories of their dead that is one of the reasons why they have hewn sarcophagi. They believe in the proverb: “Life is short and the grave is long.”
An annual celebration, “Feast of the Dead”, is practiced by the Romans between February 13-21st. Offerings were left at graves and the dead were remembered. In Mycenaean Greece as well as Minoan Crete, early dug graves and later “chamber tombs” (tholoi) revealed elaborate burial gifts including swords.
The celebratory nature in Roman and Greek funerals may be evidenced by images of Bacchus on sarcophagi. The carefree god of wine and pleasure may have reinforced the notion that, for Romans, death was eternal sleep, and that “everything continues after everything has ceased.”
