Appian Way: Ghost Road, Queen of Roads, The
Robert A. Kaster
Number of quotes: 2
Book ID: 335 Page: 33
Section: 2A3
Ordinarily, no person could be buried inside the pomerium, above all because the dead were so problematic, in so many ways. They were, first of all, a source of pollution, not in a physical or environmental sense, but in a religious sense. A dead body was “matter out of place,” as one famous definition of pollution puts it, and unfit to occupy the same space as the living and the gods above: corpses belonged to the gods below. Even handling the dead made a person ritually unclean and a source of pollution in his own right. In Roman towns the men who prepared dead bodies for their final disposition were themselves barred from living in town, and their civic status suffered from various official disabilities, like being disqualified from serving on the town council or holding public office.
Quote ID: 7832
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 335 Page: 51
Section: 2A3
…the ninth century. That is when most of the remains of the saints and martyrs were moved inside the city, and the Appia took another step, a big one, on the way to neglect and decline.
Quote ID: 7833
Time Periods: ?
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