Endnote 11 – Dining in Heaven

Whether the pagan images can be interpreted with reference to a particular expectation of the afterlife is a somewhat open question, although it appears more plausible that the Roman images (as distinct from the earlier Greek ones) did project a paradisiacal image rather than an earthly one. A Roman epitaph in Avignon presents one explanation of the meaning of such images: “But what good is it to the dead to be shown feasting: They would have done better to have lived that way” (cited in A History of Private Life, vol. 1, From Pagan Rome to Byzantium, ed. Paul Veyne [Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Belknap Press, 1987], p. 180). See further discussion in J.M.C. Toynbee, Death and Burial in the Roman World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1971), pp. 37, 50–51, 137.