DOMUS AETERNA. – The lack of burial, the violation or destruction of a tomb were considered by the ancients the worst injuries that could befall the deceased. Therefore, almost all the living took care to build tombs capable of defying time and openly proclaimed this, as if to ward off adverse events and the offenses of men. In this sense, the frequent formulas in funerary epigraphy should be understood: *domus aeternalis*, *sedes aeterna*, *tumultus aeternae domus*.
The expression *d. ae.* is not foreign to Christian epigraphy and, in its concept, goes back to two passages in the Old Testament (Eccles. 12:5: “Man shall go to the house of his eternity”; Ps. 48:12: “Their sepulchres are their houses for ever”). Greek epigraphy very frequently offers the formula *αἰώνιος οἶνος* in epitaphs, both pagan and Christian. In Africa, inscriptions of this kind are very numerous among Christians, and St. Augustine reproves the formula for its overly materialistic sense. Yet the pagan expression takes on, in the Christian *credo*, a loftier meaning: the tomb preserves the body until the day of resurrection.