As the corpse is placed in a casket or container (preferably prepared from a combustible material), the container burns down. Next, the heat dries the body, burns the skin and hair, contracts and chars the muscles, vaporizes the soft tissues, and calcifies the bones so that they eventually crumble.
One such story is that of Nero merrily playing the fiddle while Rome burned in the Great Fire of the first century. It was during the night of the 18 th July 64 AD, when a fire broke out in the merchant area of the city.
But Nero had learned his motherâs lessons well: Brittanicus soon died under dubious circumstances, and in 59, after a failed plot to drown her in a collapsible boat, Nero had Agrippina stabbed to death in her villa. The empress Octavia was exiled and executed, and in 62 Nero and Poppaea were married.