Quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis, atque Latina.
_Juv. Sat I._

The Romans commonly built tombs for themselves during their lifetime.
Hence these words frequently occur in ancient inscriptions, V.F. Vivus
Facit, V.S.P. Vivus Sibi Posuit. The tombs of the rich were usually
constructed of marble, the ground enclosed with walls, and planted round
with trees. But common sepulchres were usually built below ground, and
called hypogea. There were niches cut out of the walls, in which the
urns were placed: these, from their resemblance to the niche of a
pigeon-house, were called columbaria.

[4] Our blessed Saviour chose the garden sometime for his
oratory, and, dying, for the place of his sepulture; and we also
do avouch, for many weighty causes, that there are none more fit
to bury our dead in than in our gardens and groves where our
beds may he decked with verdant and fragrant flowers. Trees and
perennial plants, the most natural and instructive hieroglyphics
of our expected resurrection and immortality, besides what they
might conduce to the meditation of the living, and the taking
off our cogitations from dwelling too intently upon more vain
and sensual objects: that custom of burying in churches, and
near about them, especially in great and populous cities, being
both a novel presumption, indecent, and very prejudicial to
health.--_Evelyn's Discourse on Forest Trees_.

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