After Life in Roman Paganism

According to a rite borrowed by the Romans from the Etruscans, a pit was dug in the centre of the city, when the latter's foundations were laid, in order to make the Inferi communicate with the upper world. First fruits and other gifts were thrown into the pit, as well as a clod of the earth of the settlers' native country. Thus they restored their broken contact with the Manes of their ancestors. -from "The Nether World" Franz Cumont was one of the preeminent classical scholars of his day,...