fail to perceive and accept the nature of things. Epictetus encouraged contemplation of one's loved ones as a "jar" or "crystal cup" which might break and be remembered without troubling the spirit, since "you love a mortal, something not your own. It has been given to you for the present, not inseparably nor forever, but like a fig... at a fixed season of the year. If you yearn for it in the winter, you are a fool." There was no real consensus, at least among surviving Roman texts and epitaphs, of what happened to a person after death, nor on the existence of an afterlife. Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia claims that most people are of the opinion that after death one returns to the non-sensing state that occurred before birth but admits, however scornfully, that there are people who believe in the immortality of the soul. Seneca the Younger seems to be less consistent, arguing both sides, indicating that death brings about utter annihilation while also talking about some survival of the spirit after it escapes from the prison of the body. Tacitus at the end of Agricola takes the opposite opinion to Pliny, and claims that the wise believe the spirit does not die with the body, although he may be specifically referring to the pious – which harkens to the mythological idea of Elysium. See also Ancient Egyptian funerary practices Ancient Greek funeral and burial practices References Sources Bendlin, Andreas, "Associations, funerals, sociality, and Roman law: The collegium of Diana and Antinous in Lanuvium (CIL 14.2112) reconsidered", 2011, academia.org (PDF) Berman, Lawrence; Freed, Rita E.; and Doxey, Denise. Arts of Ancient Egypt. p. 193, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 2003. ISBN 0-87846-661-4 Bodel, John, "Monumental Villas & Villa Monuments", Journal of Roman Archaeology, 10, 1997 Bodel, John, "Dealing with the Dead: Undertakers, Executions And Potters' Fields", in: Death and Disease in the Ancient City, eds: Hope, Valerie M., and Marshall, Eirean, Routledge Classical Monographs, 2000 Bodel, John, "The Organization of the Funerary Trade at Puteoli and Cumae," in S. Panciera, ed. Libitina e dintorni (Libitina 3) Rome, 2004 Bodel, John, "From Columbaria to Catacombs: Collective Burial in Pagan and Christian Rome" in Brink, L., and Green, D., (Editors), Commemorating the Dead, Texts and Artefact in Context, de Gruyter, 2008 Bodel, John, "The life and death of ancient Roman cemeteries. Living with the dead in imperial