r.

The customs and practices of the classical age were so deeply rooted
among the citizens that even now, after a lapse of sixteen centuries,
they are noticeable to a great extent. When we read, for instance, of
Popes elected by the people assembled at the Rostra,[32] such as
Stephen III., in 768, we must regard the circumstance as caused by a
remembrance of past ages. Under the pontificate of Innocent II.
(1130), of Eugenius III. (1145-1150), and of Lucius III. (1181-1185)
the senators, or municipal magistrates, used to sit and administer
justice in S. Martina and S. Adriano, that is, in the classic Roman
Curia. Many other details will be incidentally described in the
following chapters. I close the present one by referring to a graceful
custom, borrowed likewise from the classic world,--the use of roses in
church or funeral ceremonies and in social life.

The ancients celebrated, in the month of May, a feast called
_rosaria_, in which sepulchres were profusely decorated with the
favorite flower of the season. Roses were also used on occasions of
public rejoicing. A Greek inscription, discovered by Fraenkel at
Pergamon, mentions, among the honors shown to the emperor Hadrian, the
_Rhodismos_, which is interpreted as a scattering of roses. Traces of
the custom are found in more recent times. In the Illyrian peninsula,
and on the banks of the Danube, the country people, still feeling the
influence of Roman civilization, celebrated feasts of flowers in
spring and summer, under the name of _rousalia_. In the sixth century,
when the Slavs were vacillating between the influence of the past and
the present, the celebration of the Pentecost was mixed up with that
of the half-pagan, half-barbarous _rousalia_. Southern Russians
believe in supernatural female beings, called _Rusalky_, who bring
prosperity to the fields and forests, which they have inhabited as
flowers.

The early Christians decorated the sepulchres of martyrs and
confessors, on the anniversary of their interment, with roses,
violets, amaranths, and evergreens; and they celebrated the
_rosationes_ on the name-days of churches and sanctuaries. Wreaths and
crowns of roses are often engraved on tombstones, hanging from the
bills of mystic doves. The symbol refers more to the joys of the just
in the future life than to the fleeting pleasures of the earth. The
Acts of Perpetua relate a legend on this subject; that Saturus had a
vision in the dungeon in which he wa