'Half-burnt on an emergency pyre': Roman cremations which went wrong

Greece and Rome

Volumn 47, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 186-196

  Noy, David ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WALES   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 62949106368     PISSN: 00173835     EISSN: 14774550     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/gr/47.2.186     Document Type: Review

References (19)

1. J. I. McKinley, 'Bone fragment size in British cremation burials and its implication for pyre technology and ritual', Journal of Archaeological Science 21 (1994), 339-42, at 339-40
2. J. Musgrave, 'Dust and damn'd oblivion: a study of cremation in Ancient Greece', ABSA 85 (1990), 271-99, at 272
3. Roman pyres could reach 900°, as demonstrated by C. Wells, 'A study of cremation', Antiquity 36 (1960), 29-37, at 36
4. C. J. Polson & R. P. Brittain, Disposal of the Dead (3rd ed., London, 1975), 176
5. J. Piontek, 'The process of cremation and its influence on the morphology of bones in the light of results of experimental research' (English summary), Archeologia Polski 21 (1976), 277-80, at 278
6. B. Hiatt, 'Cremation in Aboriginal Australia', Mankind 7 (1969), 104-19, at 104
7. Seneca, Herc. Oet. 1637
8. A. A. Barrett, Caligula. The Corruption of Power (London, 1989), 167
9. T. P. Wiseman, Death of an Emperor (Exeter, 1991), 94
10. D. Hurley, An Historical and Historiographical Commentary on Suetonius' Life of C. Caligula (Atlanta, 1993), 213, suggests that 'It should be imagined that Claudius approved minimal decency', but it seems more likely that the rites were carried out before Claudius was in a position to influence them
11. J. B. Postgate (ed.), M. Annaei Lucani De Bello Civili Liber VIII (Cambridge, 1917), lxi
12. D. G. Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (London, 1998), 168-9
13. See, e.g., Seneca, Ep. 92.5; Valerius Maximus 1.6.11 (on Crassus and the dead of Carrhae). The issue is discussed by V. Hope, 'Contempt and respect: the treatment of the corpse in Ancient Rome' (forthcoming)
14. Suetonius, Nero 49
15. nd Philippic Oration (Warminster, 1986), 224
16. H. Lindsay (ed.), Suetonius: Tiberius (London, 1995), 187
17. A. Allara, 'Corpus et cadaver, la "gestion" d'un nouveau corps', in F. Hinard (ed.), La mort au quotidien dans le monde romain (Paris, 1995), 69-79, at 70
18. J. Prieur, La morte nell'antica Roma (Genoa, 1991) [Italian tr. of La mort dans l'antiquité romaine], 13
19. O. Estiez, 'La translatio cadaveris. Le transport des corps dans l'antiquité romaine', in Hinard (n. 48), 101-8, at 104