TOMATO or LOVE-APPLE, Lyeopersicum esculentum, a plant of the natural order solanacex, formerly ranked in the genus solanum, and known as S. lycoperiscum. The genus lycoperiscum is distinguished by a 5-6-parted calyx, a wheel-shaped 5-6-cleft corolla, 5 stamens, and a 2-3 celled berry, with hairy seeds. The tomato is an annual, from 2 to 6 ft. in height, requiring support when tall. The leaves are unequally pinnate, the leaflets cut; the flowers numerous, followed by berries, which are very various in shape and color—generally red and yellow—in different varieties. The plant is a native of the tropical parts of America, but is now much cultivated in all parts of the woild suitable for it, as the s. of Europe and the United States. In Britain, it requires a hot-bed in spring. The fruit is much used for sauces, catsup, preserves, con fectionary, and pickles. The unripe fruit makes one of the best of pickles. Tomatoes appear with almost every dish in Italy. The use of them is rapidly increasing in Britain and other countries.
TOMB (Gr. tymbos), a monument erected over a grave, in order to mark the resting place, and preserve the memory of the deceased. In early ages, and among eastern nations, it sometimes became the practice to place the remains of the dead in excavated sepulchers, whose interior was often decorated with painting or otherwise. Where the usage was to burn the dead, their bones and ashes were placed in urns in these recepta cles. Some of the most remarkable rock-tombs were those of Egypt, belonging to the 18th and following dynasty,of the Theban kings. The monarch's burial-place began to be excavated as soon as he ascended the throne, and the excavation went on year by year, the painting and decoration progressing till the king's death, when it was suddenly broken off, the tomb thus becoming an index both of the king's magnificence and of the length of his reign. The most costly articles are often found in these sepulchers. The decoration was almost entirely reserved for their interiors, the facades being compara tively unobtrusive. On the other hand, the rock-tombs of Persia and Lveia, less rich and elaborate internally, have imposing architectural facades, those of the 'Persian kings being copied from their palaces; and during the Roman period, this species of magnifi cence prevailed at Petra (q.v.) to an extent that gives that now deserted valley the aspect of a city of the dead. See also ETRURIA.
Tombs, in more modern times, have generally been mounds or masses of building raised over the remains of the dead. In the Homeric poems, heaps of cairns of stones are placed as honorary memorials above the graves of departed heroes. The sepulchral mound (q.v.) or tumulus of rude ages is found over the greater part of northern Europe, and is probably older than the subterranean tomb. The pyramids (q.v.) were the sepul chers of the Egyptian monarchs from the 4th to the 12th dynasty. The tombs of Greece,
-and still more those of the Greek colonies in Asia Minor, were sometimes pillars, or upright stone tablets, sometimes small buildings in the form of temples. The most celebrated was the mausoleum (q.v.). The Roman tombs were not unfrequently importent architectural structures, varying in form, but oftenest consisting of a circular tower resting on a square basement; familiar examples being the tomb of Cecilia Metella, and the yet larger and more solid tomb of Hadrian, on the banks of the Tiber, best known as the Castel St. Angelo, which is about 220 ft. in height, and of immense solidity. In Rome, Latium, and Magna Graecia, tombs were generally erected outside the towns, and along the principal roads leading into the country, as in the Via Appia at Rome, and the street of tombs at Pompeii. A form of excavated tomb, without external architecture, called columbarium (q.v.) was also in use in Rome, whose walls were pierced with cells to receive cinerary urns. The prevalent circular tomb became in the later period of the Roman empire polygonal ; and the central chamber, at first small, was gradually increased, till, in the age of Constantine, it became something like a miniature representation of the Pantheon, generally with a crypt below the principal apartment. .
In the earlier centuries of Christianity, the burial of the dead in churches was pro hibited. The first step which led to its adoption was the custom of erecting churches over the graves of martyrs; then followed the permission to kings and emperors to be buried in the church porch. The most important tombs of the middle ages are generally within churches or cloisters. There is much variety in the form and enrichment of mediaeval tombs. The earlier examples consists of a single stone coffin, or sarcophagus, often with a low gabled lid and sculptured cross. An altar-tomb, or tomb in the form of a table, followed; and in the 13th c., a species of tomb was introduced, consisting of a sarcophagus, on which rests a recumbent figure of the deceased, the whole being sur mounted by a canopy, often of exquisite symmetry and richness. In the renaissance period of art, the tombs became more and more complex. The sarcophagus was dis or made the least important part of the monument; the representation of the deceased was confined to a medallion likeness, and the most prominent part of the tomb was composed of sculptured upholstery, and groups of symbolical and eventually mytho logical figures. In some of the 16th c. examples, as Michael Angelo's tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo di Medici, at Florence, the inappropriateness of the design is partly redeemed by the beauty of the figures; but in the succeeding centuries, the vicious taste of these monuments rapidly increased, till it culminated in some of the hideous tombs that dis figure Westminster abbey and St. Paul's.