Cemeteries, tombs and their dead were protected by religious and civil laws. Disturbance of a burial, through whatever means or reason, was thought to cause pain and discomfort to the dead. A place used for burial was a "locus religiosus"; it belonged to the gods because a body had been buried there. Any place not belonging to the gods was profane, and could be used for any non-religious purpose; but the discovery of any previously unknown interment on profane (public or private) land created an immediate encumbrance to its further use; it now belonged to the gods as a "logus religiosus", and could not be sold or otherwise disposed unless the pontifs agreed to revoke its status and remove the body or bones. Most disputes over burials and graves were settled by the citizens involved, in civil courts, under advice from the pontiffs; But Cicero records a major pontifical decision that graves in publicly owned land were not lawful, which paved the way for a mass exhumation just outside Rome's Colline Gate, and the land's eventual use as a public garden.