DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.785#0161
chap, ii.] ANALOGY BETWEEN TOMBS AND HOUSES. 59
but, as no fragments of such were found at the foot of
the wall, it is probable that something of a more perishable
nature, or so valuable as to have been removed by previous
spoilers, was here suspended.
At the entrance of this double-chambered tomb, and
opening on the same passage, is another small tomb, evi-
dently an appendage to the family-vault, and it may be of
more recent formation. It is the porter's lodge to this
mansion of the dead—and not metaphorically so, for
Etruscan tombs being generally imitations of houses, the
analogy may be concluded to hold throughout; and these
small chambers, of which there are often two, one on each
side of the ostium, or doorway, answer to the cellulce jani-
toris, or ostiarii—not here within the entrance, as usual in
Roman houses, but just outside—janitor ante fores—and it
is highly probable that the lions here found were in place
of the dog in domestic houses—custos liminis—Cave canem!
This little chamber has a bench of rock on one side, on
which are rudely carved the legs of a couch, with a hypo-
podium or long low stool beneath it; the former to intimate
that here was the last resting-place of the deceased; the
latter, an imitation of the stool used by the attendant on
the corpse, as shown more clearly in a painting in one of
the tombs of Corneto; and doubtless also representing
respectively the banqueting-couch and accompanying stool,
so often pictured on the walls of Etruscan tombs. The
body was probably extended on its rocky bier without coffin
or sarcophagus. No vestiges of it, or of its habiliments,
now remain—nothing beyond sundry small articles of
pottery, perfume-vases, drinking-cups, plates, paterce, and
bronze mirrors—the usual furniture of Etruscan sepulchres.
The rock out of which these tombs are hewn is not tufo,
but an arenaceous clay, of greyish-brown hue, and of a ten-
dency to indurate by exposure to the air. In the outer
but, as no fragments of such were found at the foot of
the wall, it is probable that something of a more perishable
nature, or so valuable as to have been removed by previous
spoilers, was here suspended.
At the entrance of this double-chambered tomb, and
opening on the same passage, is another small tomb, evi-
dently an appendage to the family-vault, and it may be of
more recent formation. It is the porter's lodge to this
mansion of the dead—and not metaphorically so, for
Etruscan tombs being generally imitations of houses, the
analogy may be concluded to hold throughout; and these
small chambers, of which there are often two, one on each
side of the ostium, or doorway, answer to the cellulce jani-
toris, or ostiarii—not here within the entrance, as usual in
Roman houses, but just outside—janitor ante fores—and it
is highly probable that the lions here found were in place
of the dog in domestic houses—custos liminis—Cave canem!
This little chamber has a bench of rock on one side, on
which are rudely carved the legs of a couch, with a hypo-
podium or long low stool beneath it; the former to intimate
that here was the last resting-place of the deceased; the
latter, an imitation of the stool used by the attendant on
the corpse, as shown more clearly in a painting in one of
the tombs of Corneto; and doubtless also representing
respectively the banqueting-couch and accompanying stool,
so often pictured on the walls of Etruscan tombs. The
body was probably extended on its rocky bier without coffin
or sarcophagus. No vestiges of it, or of its habiliments,
now remain—nothing beyond sundry small articles of
pottery, perfume-vases, drinking-cups, plates, paterce, and
bronze mirrors—the usual furniture of Etruscan sepulchres.
The rock out of which these tombs are hewn is not tufo,
but an arenaceous clay, of greyish-brown hue, and of a ten-
dency to indurate by exposure to the air. In the outer