No. XXX.
Funerals, in the earlier days of Rome, must have been very showy affairs. They were torch-light processions, by night. You will gather some information, on this subject, by consulting a note of Servius, on Virg. Æn. xi. 143. Cicero, de legibus, ii. 26, says, that Demetrius ordered nocturnal funerals, to check the taste for extravagance, in these matters: “Iste igitur sumptum minuit, non solum pœna, sed etiam tempore; ante lucem enim jussit efferri.” A more ancient law, of similar import, will be found recited, in the oration of Demosthenes, against Macartatus, viii., 82, Dove’s London ed. Orat. Attici. Funes or funiculi were small ropes or cords, covered with wax or tallow; such were the torches, used on such occasions; hence the word funus or funeral. A confirmation of this may be found in the note of Servius, Æn. i. 727. In a later age, funerals were celebrated in the forenoon.
There were some things done, at ancient funerals, which would be accounted very extraordinary at the present day. What should we say to a stuffed effigy of the defunct, composed entirely of cinnamon, and paraded in the procession! Plutarch says; “Such was the quantity of spices brought in by the women, at Sylla’s funeral, that, exclusive of those carried in two hundred and ten great baskets, a figure of Sylla at full length, and of a lictor besides, was made entirely of cinnamon, and the choicest frankincense.”
At the head of Roman funerals, came the tibicines, pipers, and trumpeters, immediately following the designator, or undertaker, and the lictors, dressed in black. Next came the “præficæ, quæ dabant cæteris modum plangendi.” These were women hired to mourn, and sing the funeral song, who are popularly termed howlers. To this practice Horace alludes, in his Art of Poetry:
Ut, qui conducti plorant in funere, dicunt,
Et faciunt prope plura dolentibus ex animo—
which Francis well translates:
As hirelings, paid for the funereal tear,
Outweep the sorrows of a friend sincere.
I once witnessed an exhibition of this kind, in one of the West India Islands. A planter’s funeral occurred, at Christianstadt, the west end of Santa Cruz. After the corpse had been lowered into the grave, a wild ululation arose, from the mouths of some hundred slaves, who had followed from the plantation—“Oh, what good massa he was—good, dear, old massa gone—no poor slave eber hab such kind massa—no more any such good, kind massa come agin.” I noticed one hard-favored fellow, who made a terrible noise, and upon whose features, as he turned the whites of his big eyes up toward heaven, there was a sinister, and, now and then, rather a comical expression, and who, when called to assist in filling up, appeared to throw on the earth, as if he did it from the heart.