DEPOSITIO-DEPOSITUS. — Depono, in literary texts already from the 3rd century, took on the sense of laying in the tomb, burying, but always in conjunction with the place where one is buried; used absolutely it begins to appear only in the 4th century.
It was then too that the term depositio arose, in vulgar circles. This usage occurs a few rare times even among pagans, then in literary texts as in epigraphic texts, especially poetic ones, e.g., depositus p(edibus) XII in vascello (CIL, VI, 3428).
In Christian epigraphy the two terms (it is difficult to distinguish which of the two, because they are mostly used abbreviated DP. DEP. and the like) appear often used absolutely already in the second half of the 3rd century, e.g., in the epitaph of St. Hyacinth. Thereafter in the 4th and 5th centuries they become very frequent in Rome, while remaining always rather rare in the rest of Italy and of the West.
In the context of the few pagan examples the sense seems to be that of depono = I put down, I lay. In Christian usage one may suppose that what was felt was rather the particular sense of depono = I set aside, I lay up in store, in deposit, as of a thing that is to be taken back again. The fact is that these two terms used absolutely are characteristic of Christian epigraphy. In general it is difficult to decide whether by them is indicated the specific fact of burial, or what one would rather expect, that of death. It seems, since in ordinary cases the day of death and of burial was the same, that from this arose the practice of indicating the date of death with the term depositio.
Noteworthy is the use of depositio, especially in Africa, when it concerns the placing of relics in an altar, as in the celebrated example of Mactar: depositio cruoris sanctorum martyrum qui sunt passi sub preside Floro in civitate Milevitana (CIL, VIII, 6700 and 19353).
The corresponding Greek terms are κατάσιδῃμι and κατάδεσις, of which the same must be said as of the Latin ones.