as late as the 567 ceCanons of the Council of Tours (Council of Tours, Canon 23
[22], ed. C. de Clercq, CCL148A).
Of course, Christian clerics and laypeople interpreted these rituals for the dead in
markedly different ways. Most obviously, Christian inscriptions tended to note the
date of death and celebrated the anniversaries of the deceased as “a new life” (Fontaine
1989: 1. 152). Pagans, however, tended to note the day of birth and the lifespan
of their deceased on their tombstones, and the public rites of the Caristia and Feralia
were intended to keep good relations with the dead, from a distance. Indeed, pagans
saw the bodies of the dead as polluting; hence burial outside of the city was neces-
sary to maintain the purity of the living. The Christian veneration of the bodies of
the martyrs, especially as it developed in the fourth century, was repugnant to many
pagans (Brown 1981: 4 – 6).
These differing attitudes toward the dead changed the religious koine; “by the end
of the fourth century, above-ground Christian burial sites associated with churches
or with mortuary chapels began to appear within the city walls” (Jon Davies 1999:
193). Such differences in burial practices were accompanied at the end of the fourth
century by a lively debate among clerics concerning the funerary customs of their
congregations. A number of late Roman clerics, like Ambrose in the 380s, delivered
homilies criticizing their congregations’ funerary customs, especially the drunken-
ness and riotous behavior that accompanied the funerary banquets at the graves of
the dead, either at the family tombs or in the memoriaeof the martyrs (Marrou 1978:
225 –37; Brown 1981: 26 –30; Gaudentius Sermones et tractatus 4.14). Augustine
proposed a Christian understanding of funerary meals; not only should there be no
drunkenness or scandalous behavior, but Christians should invite some of the poor
to the tombs of their dead or reserve some food for them, thus making the funerary
meals into a form of almsgiving (Aug. Epist.22.6). Nonetheless, the shared burial
practices and rituals – funerary banquets on the ninth day after death, food offer-
ings, and shared tombs – provide ample evidence that a religious koinepersisted in
private rituals for the dead among pagans and Christians in the first half of the fourth
century, with some elements clearly continuing into the latter half of the century
and beyond.
Constantine’s Legacy, 337– 61 CE: Imperial Policy
on Religious Koineand Religious Dissent under
Constans and Constantius II
When Constantine died in 337, the pagan state cults and the institutions supporting
them remained essentially unchanged, even if this emperor had indicated through
his laws, actions, and orations that he would place certain restrictions on the rituals
attendant on the public and imperial cults. As noted above, Constantine had him-
self refused to sacrifice publicly, and if Eusebius is to be believed, he had also restricted
blood sacrifice, although this is much disputed. According to Eusebius, Constantine
had also closed certain pagan cult sites where practices objectionable to Christians
116 Michele Renee Salzman