tains no ashes now." Near the Tomb of the Scipios can
be seen a door with high steps which leads to the _columbaria_. These
are little rooms provided with pigeon-holes for the reception of the
ashes of the freedmen of notabilities. Inscriptions show that some of
these freedmen were physicians, and others musicians and silversmiths.
The shops of the perfumers stood in a part of the Forum on the Via
Sacra. Perfumes were much used at incinerations to disguise the smell of
decomposition before the fires were kindled. The Christians opposed
cremation and favoured earth burial, and in time the business of the
perfume-sellers failed, and Constantine bought their shops.

The _Catacombs_ were used almost entirely by the Christians. If all the
passages of the Catacombs could be placed in line, it is said that they
would extend the whole length of Italy. They were hewn out of volcanic
soil very well suited for the purpose, and were probably extensions, in
the first place, of quarries made for the purpose of obtaining building
cement. They were used by the Christians, not only for the religious
rite of burial, but also as secluded meeting places. The bodies were
laid in _loculi_, sometimes in two or three tiers, the loculi being
filled in with earth and stone.

Many of our public health regulations had their counterpart in ancient
times, for instance, any factory or workshop in Rome which created a
public nuisance had to be removed outside the city. The _spoliarium_ of
the Coliseum was an ancient morgue.

A detached building or room, _valetudinarium_, was provided in large
houses for sick slaves. This was for the purpose of preventing infection
as well as for convenient attendance on the sick.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] "Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Antiq.," Smith, vol. i, p. 150, _to which
the author is indebted for much of the information herein supplied_.

APPENDIX.

FEES IN ANCIENT TIMES.

The professional incomes of doctors in ancient Greece and Rome varied
greatly as at the present day. A few were paid very large fees, but the
rank and file did not make more money than was equal to keeping them in
decency.

Seleucus paid Erasistratus about L20,000 for curing his son Antiochus.
Herodotus mentions that the AEginetans (532 B.C.) paid Democedes, from
the public treasury, L304 a year; the Athenians afterwards paid him L406
a year, and at Samos he received L422 yearly. Pliny says that Albutius,
Arruntius, Calpetanus, Cassius a