USTRINUM DOMUS AUGUSTAE
the name in current use for the Kaorrpa,
or crematory, belonging to the mausoleum of AUGUSTUS (q.v.) in the
campus Martius, and described by Strabo (v. 3. 9, p. 236) as an enclosure
of travertine with a metal grating, presumably on top of the wall, and
planted inside with black poplars. Excavations in 1777 at the corner
of the Corso and Via degli Otto Cantoni brought to light six large
rectangular cippi of travertine, with inscriptions of various members of
the domus Augusta, the three sons of Germanicus, his daughter, Tiberius
the son of Drusus, and a certain Vespasianus (
CIL vi. 888-893) and a
fine alabaster urn (HF 213). It is very probable that these cippi,
or at any rate the first three, which all end with the formula '
hic crematus
est,' belonged to the ustrinum, and that this lay on the east side of the
mausoleum (HJ 620) ; while the fourth and fifth, which bear the formula
hic situs (or sita) est, may have belonged to the mausoleum. Hirschfeld,
however, excludes this possibility, mainly because of the material and
form of the cippi (Berl. Sitz.
Ber. 1886, 1155-1156=Kleine Schriften,
458-459).
