THERE was a very good reason why the covers of the graves of the
saints should be called mensae. They had the shape of a dining-table,
being straight on one side and rounded on the other in the form of a C.
Whether a sigma-shaped couch was made to fit to the mensa or whether
people squatted down or sat on loose cushions, they most certainly had meals
at this table, for since men could remember a periodical feast in honour of
the dead had always taken place at every grave. Nobody any longer knew
what the custom really signified, but, as with many other customs of a similar
kind, it seemed perfectly natural that it should continue. A certain irreducible
minimum of pietas that was in everybody, a sentiment that had very little
to do with religion, would not allow it to be otherwise. Thus the feast in
honour of the dead was not something by any means peculiar to the cult of
the martyrs, but was proper to every burial-place. It went back to the general
cult of the dead and was after its fashion a family feast.

The men of old could forget many things but not their dead. Their piety
consisted very largely in the honourable burial of their family and friends, in
the celebration of their commemorative feasts and in the conscientious care of
their graves. To have no grave was the greatest of evils ¹ and no failure of duty
was more heinous than the neglect of a tomb containing the remains of one's
near relations. Not only the old tales but all the fancy of late Antiquity was
filled with plaintive shadows that wandered about and appeared to people,
and often took their revenge on friends and relations who proved themselves
deficient in pietas; and whatever might have changed in the old ideas, most
of the old usages were still alive at the end of the fourth century. The dead
were still washed and arrayed in their festive garments; sometimes those who
could afford this subjected their dead to a rapid embalming which converted
them into sweet-smelling bandaged bundles not unlike the little figure of
Lazarus which we see in contemporary representations, awakened to life by
Christ and his miracle-working staff. The dead were carried to the grave
accompanied by torches and usually in the evening, in memory of the ancient

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