Puticuli

Puticuli were ancient Roman mass graves located outside of cities where the dead bodies of the poor and rubbish were buried.[1][2][3] Usually they were left uncovered. It was considered shameful to be buried inside of these graves.[4] One puticuli located in the Esquiline cemetery was divided into two sections, one for artisans, and the other for the poor, prisoners, and other groups. This section was one thousand feet long and three hundred feet deep. It contained one hundred vaults which were thirty feet deep and twelve feet square.[5] They were filled with large quantities of various kinds of bodies. Some were of men or women and children. Others were of animals.[6][7]

Map of the Esquiline Necropolis

References
  1. Morris, Ian; Ian, Morris (1992). Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge University Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0521376112.
  2. Hope, Valerie M. (1997-01-01). "Constructing Roman identity: Funerary monuments and social structure in the Roman world". Mortality. 2 (2): 107–108. doi:10.1080/713685858. ISSN 1357-6275.
  3. Lindsay, Hugh. “The Tomb of the Arruntii Sponsoring Burial Arrangements for Slaves and Freedmen the 18th-Century Drawings and the Inscriptions .” Mediterranean Archaeology, vol. 24, 2011, pp. 104. JSTOR, Accessed 9 Aug. 2022.
  4. Hope, Valerie M.; Marshall, Eireann (2002). Death and Disease in the Ancient City. Routledge. pp. 111, 117, 131. ISBN 978-1134611560.
  5. Rallo, G. E. (2021). "What Does the Term Togata 'Really' Mean?". The Classical Quarterly. 71 (1): 216–229. doi:10.1017/S0009838821000355. hdl:10023/23470. ISSN 0009-8388. S2CID 235679564.
  6. Emmerson, Allison L. C. (2020). Life and Death in the Roman Suburb. Oxford University Press. pp. 92–98. ISBN 978-0192594099.
  7. Kyle, Donald G. (2012). Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome. Routledge. ISBN 978-1134862719.
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