Death in Late Antique Rome

Burial arrangements in late antique Rome reflect a complexity of trends, some dominant, others more marginal, but all linked to the structural and functional transformation of the city, to changes in culture and mentality, and to the fluctuation of population numbers. On the one hand the evidence suggests continuity of well-established traditional procedures, while on the other it presents extraordinary change to ancient norms and organization of the funerary world, especially towards the end of the period studied here. Up to the mid-fifth century funerary procedures largely followed and reconfirmed trends that had emerged during the third century and had been innovated upon during the Constantinian period. After the mid-fifth century, the picture becomes more varied. Throughout the period, Christianity acted as an ever-increasing innovative factor in the reformulation of funeral arrangements, with the creation of collective spaces for burial and the process of the livings’ “familiarization” with death, eventually leading to tombs within the walls. It would be precisely the phenomenon of burial in the city that would become dominant in the centuries of the Middle Ages.