Arpagus

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Arpagus, in ancient inscriptions, signifies a child who died in the cradle. The Romans made no funerals for their Arpagi. they neither burnt their bodies, nor made tombs, monuments, or epitaphs for them. This occasioned Juvenal in his Satires to say,

Terra clauditur infans

Vel minor igne rogi.

In later times, it became the custom to burn such as had lived to the age of forty days, and was teething. These they called rapti.

The word arpagus signifies the same thing in Greek. Eustathius assures us, it was the custom among the Greeks never to bury their children either by night or full day, but at the first appearance of the morning, which they called, Ἡμέρας ἀρπαγίω.

[edit] References

• This article incorporates content from the 1728 Cyclopaedia, a publication in the public domain. [1]