which gave the name, titles, and the relationship of the deceased. The funereal inscriptions generally commence with the letters D M-Diis Manibus, followed by the name in the genitive Sometimes the letters D M are wanting, then the name and title of the deceased are in the dative case. We find frequently on them the age of the deceased in years, months, and days-the name of the parent, freedman, or of the friend who raised the monument over the tomb of the deceased.

case.

Frequently the body was placed in a sarcophagus or marble coffin, with similar inscriptions; a very remarkable specimen of this kind is the celebrated sarcophagus of Scipio, found in the tomb of the Scipios, at Rome. Under the Antonines sarcophagi were frequently used. They were embellished with ornaments and elaborate bas-reliefs.

The ashes of the bodies were enclosed in cinerary urns, which were composed of various materials, and were varied in form, with or without inscriptions. The urns of the same family were sometimes deposited in a place prepared for that purpose, generally below the level of the ground. Its interior walls were pierced with several stories of arched niches (loculi), in each of which one or several urns (ollæ) were placed; over the niches the names of the deceased were inscribed on marble tablets. This is what the Romans called a columbarium, a name derived from the likeness of the niches in the walls to pigeon-holes.* To the columbarium was usually attached an ustrinum, where the corpse was burned. When the deceased, having been killed in battle, or having died at sea, did not receive the honours of sepulture, a cenotaph, or empty tomb, was raised to him with the ceremonies regulated by law; these cenotaphs bore the same ornaments as the sarcophagi and tombs. The place appointed for tombs was generally by the side of roads; and though they were not allowed to be constructed within the city, there was no restriction as to their approaching close to the walls. Accordingly we find that most of the roads leading out of ancient towns are lined with tombs, an instance of which we have at Pompeii, where the Street of the Tombs, forming an approach to the city gate, is one of the most interesting objects in that place; and lately it has been discovered that the Via Appia, and the Via Latina have been lined with tombs close to Rome. A

*There are several of these columbaria at Rome. The most remarkable are, the columbarium in the Vigna Codini, on the Appian way; and the columbarium in the Villa Doria.

L

number of these tombs, extending on the Via Appia for over eight miles beyond the tomb of Cæcilia Metella, have been discovered and brought to light by the energy and talent of the late Commendatore Canina, who has published a most interesting work on them, giving restorations of the principal monuments. Tombs of a Roman period, exhibiting the utmost magnificence

of architectural decoration, have been found at Petra. The Khasnè and the Corinthian tomb, in that city of sepulchres, display most splendid architectural façades. Though all the forms of the architecture are Roman, Mr. Fergusson remarks, the details are so elegant, and generally so well designed, as almost to lead to the suspicion that there must have been

COLUMBARIUM.

some Grecian influence brought to bear upon it. At Mylassa, in Caria, is a tomb of unusual form; it consists of a square base, which supports twelve columns, of which the eight inner ones support a dome. The details are Roman. Tombs of a Roman epoch are also found at Jerusalem, and at Cyrene, on the African coast. One of the remarkable points of the tombs at Jerusalem, Mr. Fergusson writes, is the curious jumble of the Roman orders which they present. The pillars and pilasters are Ionic, the architraves and frieze Doric, and the cornice Egyptian. The capitals and frieze are so distinctly late Roman, that we feel no hesitation as to their date being either of the age of Herod, or subsequent to that time.

At Cyrene the number of tombs is immense, and they almost all have architectural façades, generally consisting of two or more columns between pilasters; the greater part are undoubtedly of Roman date, and the paintings with which many of them are still adorned are certainly Roman in design.

SCULPTURE.

We do not intend to enter here on the history of sculpture in all its phases, but to give the distinctive features which characterize the different styles of Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman sculpture, as they are visible in statues of the natural or colossal size, in statues of lesser proportion, and lastly in busts and bas-reliefs.

We shall give also the styles of each separate nation which prevailed at each distinct age or epoch, styles which mark the stages of the development of the art of sculpture in all countries. Sculpture, like architecture and painting, indeed all art, had an indigenous and independent evolution in all countries, all these arts springing up naturally, and taking their origin alike everywhere in the imitative faculty of man. They had their stages of development in the ascending and descending scale, their rise, progress, culminating point, decline and decay, their cycle of development; the sequence of these stages being necessarily developed wherever the spirit of art has arisen, and has had growth and progress. The first and most important step in examining a work of ancient sculpture is to distinguish with certainty whether it is of Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, or Roman workmanship; and this distinction rests entirely on a profound knowledge of the style peculiar to each of those nations. The next

step is, from its characteristic features to distinguish what period, epoch, or stage of the development of the art of that particular nation it belongs to. We shall further give the various attributes and characteristics of the gods, goddesses, and other mythological personages which distinguish the various statues visible in Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, Roman sculpture.

This enumeration will be found of use in the many sculpture galleries of the various museums both at home and abroad.

Egyptian.-Three great periods of art may be distinctly traced in Egypt:-1. The archaic style, reaching from the date of the earliest known monuments of the country till the close of the twelfth dynasty, in which the hair is in rude vertical curls and heavy masses, the face is broad and coarse, the nose long, and forehead receding, hands and feet large and disproportionate; the execution rude, even when details are introduced, the basreliefs depressed. This style continued improving till the twelfth dynasty, at which period many of the monuments are finished with a purity and delicacy rivalling cameos. 2. The art from the restoration of the eighteenth dynasty till the twentieth-the hair is disposed in more elegant and vertical curls, a greater harmony is observable in the proportion of the limbs, the details are finished with greater breadth and care, bas-reliefs become rare, and disappear after Rameses II.; under the nineteenth dynasty, however, the arts rapidly declined. 3. The epoch of the revival of art, commencing with the twentieth dynasty, distinguished for an imitation of the archaic art. The portraiture is more distinct, the limbs freer and rounded, the muscles more developed, the details executed with great accuracy and care, and the general effect rather dependent on the minute finish than general scope and breadth. Under the Ptolemies and Romans a feeble attempt is made to engraft Greek art on Egyptian. But a rapid decay took place both in the knowledge, finish, and all the details. To these may be added a fourth period, in which a pseudo-Egyptian style, not genuine Egyptian, was introduced at Rome in the time of the emperors, and principally under Hadrian, an imitation of Egyptian figures. Antinous, the favourite of Hadrian, is frequently represented in this style. This recurrence to the early and antiquated style being always an evidence of the exhausted and deteriorated state of art.

The general characteristics of Egyptian sculpture are extreme simplicity of lines, absence of motion, want of details; in every

form we find grandeur and simplicity, and in every face serenity and repose, an imposing grandeur which makes the smallest Egyptian statue convey the idea of something colossal. The most prominent feature of Egyptian art is its unchangeableness, its fixity of type. The forms and proportions, the types and subjects of representation remain the same for thousands of years. All the statues we possess of the Egyptians, in whatever material, and of whatever dimensions they may be, are erect, seated, or on their knees, and all, in whatever position they are found, with their back to a pillar, or at least so rarely detached from some support, that this exception confirms rather than weakens the general rule. This pillar' was destined to contain inscriptions.

With regard to the erect figures, whether they represent a man or a woman, they have their arms hanging down close to their sides, or crossed symmetrically on their breasts. Sometimes one of the arms is detached from its vertical position and brought forwards, while the other remains stretched down the length of the body; but whatever position they assume, their attitude is rigid and immovable. The hair was disposed in very regular masses of vertical curls, the hole of the ear was on a level with the pupil of the eye, the beard was plaited in a narrow mass of a square or recurved form. The

feet are almost always parallel, but not on
the same plane; one is always placed before
the other, and as the one behind, being
thrown further back would appear some-
what shorter, for this reason it is generally
a little longer. The extremities of the
hands and feet are badly finished, the
fingers of unusual length, the muscular
development not expressed at all. As to
the seated figures, they have uniformly
their feet on the same line, and their
hands placed parallel on their knees.
Figures on their knees have generally a
kind of chest before them, figured like a
sanctuary, and enclosing some idols. These
three positions are characterized by the SEATED
same rigidity, the same want of action and

FIGURE OF SEKHET.

life. With regard to their costume, the statues of the women are always draped, but generally with a very slight vesture, which