or Harpagius, among the ancients, a person who died in the cradle; or at least in early youth. The word is formed from the Greek ἀρπάγειν, I snatch. The Romans made no funerals for their arpagii. They neither burnt their bodies, nor made tombs, monuments, or epitaphs for them; which occasioned Juvenal to say,

Terra clauditur infans Et minor igne rogat.

In after-times it became the custom to bury such as had lived to the age of 40 days, and had cut any teeth; and these they called Ἀρπακτοί or Ἀρπαγίους, q. d. repti, ravished. The usage seems to have been borrowed from the Greeks; among whom, Eustathius assures us, it was the custom never to bury their children either by night or full day, but at the first appearance of the morning; and that they did not call their departure by the name of death, but by a softer appellation, Ἁυγαστής ἀρπάγης, importing that they were ravished by Aurora, or taken away to her embraces.