Puticuli

"[5] Varro also cites another Roman writer named Afranius, who calls the puticuli "pit-lights."

Afranius referred to the puticuli with these terms since the bodies that were thrown into the grave looked up at the light from the pit.

It has been argued that the ordered arrangement of graves found in this site implies the Roman government was involved in their creation and regulation.

[9] Archaeological excavations conducted by Rodolfo Lanciani in 1874 unearthed mass graves in the Esquiline area.

[18] Lanciani found an epigraph that described a praetor named Gaius Sextius marking the limits of the area with stone.