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THE CULT OF THE DEAD IN ANCIENT ROME AND MODERN CHINA:
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
JOHN KARL EVANS*
Introduction
Among the thousands of Latin sepulchral inscriptions so far discovered in Rome and its environs, there are many which strike a profoundly pessimistic note. A certain Scaterius Celer, for example, directed that the following four lines be inscribed on his gravestone:
We are nothing, we who were mortals. Consider, reader, how quickly
We return
To nothing from nothing.'
Such nihilism was sufficiently widespread that Roman stone-cutters eventually reduced it to a series of simple abbreviations. In the Museo Civico at Padua, one may still read a Latin epitaph whose last line is N.F.F.N.S.N.C, which is short for non fui, fui, non sum, non curo “I did not exist, I did, I do not exist, I don't care" (CIL 5.2893 = ILS 8164). This particular thought occurs, however, not only in Italy and among the Romanized inhabitants of the west,' but in Greek inscriptions as well. Thus the physician Nicomedes, who was also buried at Rome, has left us a lengthy tomb inscription, which closes with this expression:
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Having saved many with drugs that gave release from pain,
Now in death his own body is free of suffering.
I, Nicomedes, am in good spirits.
I was not, and I became; I am not, and nothing hurts me.4
* John Karl Evans is Professor for Roman History at the University of Minnesota. His particular interests are Roman social and family history, which he approaches within a comparative anthropological framework.