thirty-six shareholders.
It was discovered in 1599, not far from the gate, and its records were
scattered all over the city. As a proof of the negligence with which
excavations were conducted in former times, we may state that, the
same place having been searched again in 1854 by a man named Luigi
Arduini, other inscriptions of great value were discovered, from which
we learn how these burial companies were organized and operated. The
first document, a marble inscription above the door of the crypt,
states that in the year 6 B. C. thirty-six citizens formed a company
for the building of a columbarium, each subscribing for an equal
number of shares, and that they selected two of the stockholders to
act as administrators. Their names are Marcus AEmilius, and Marcus
Fabius Felix, and their official title is _curatores aedificii xxxvi.
sociorum_. They collected the contributions, bought the land, built
the columbarium, approved and paid the contractors' bills, and having
thus fulfilled their duty convened a general meeting for September 30.
Their report was approved, and a deed was drawn up and duly signed by
all present, declaring that the administrators had discharged their
duty according to the statute. They then proceeded to the distribution
of the loculi in equal lots, the loculi representing, as it were, the
dividend of the company. The tomb contained one hundred and eighty
loculi for cinerary urns, and each of the shareholders was
consequently entitled to five. The distribution, however, was not so
easy a matter as the number would make it appear. We know that it was
made by drawing lots, _per sortitionem ollarum_, and we know also that
in some cases the shareholders, as a remuneration to their chairmen,
administrators, and auditors of accounts, voted them exemption from
the rule, by giving them the right of selecting their loculi without
drawing (_sine sorte_). Evidently some places were more desirable
than others, and if we remember how columbaria are built, it is not
difficult to see which loculi must have been most in demand.

The pious devotion of the Romans towards the dead caused them to pay
frequent visits to their tombs, especially on anniversaries, when the
urns were decorated with flowers, libations were offered, and other
ceremonies performed. These _inferiae_, or rites, could be celebrated
easily if the loculus and the cinerary urn were near the ground, while
ladders were required to reach the upper tie