The Wonders of Pompeii

by Marc Monnier

Now there were at Rome several ministers, public servitors, and officials, who had charge of all that appertained to funerals, such as the libitinarii, the designatores, and the like. All of which was wisely instituted by Numa Pompilius, as much to teach the Romans not to hold things relating to the dead in horror, or fly from them as contaminating to the person, as in order to fix in their memory that all that has had a beginning in birth must in like manner terminate in death, birth and death both being under the control and power of one and the same deity; for they deemed that Libitina was the same as Venus, the goddess of procreation. Then, again, the said officers had under their orders different classes of serfs whom they called, in their language, the pollinctores, the sandapilarii, the ustores, the cadaverum custodes, intrusted with the care of anointing the dead, carrying them to the place of sepulture, burning them, and watching them. "After pollinctores had carefully washed, anointed, and embalmed the body, according to the custom regarding it and the expense allowed, they wrapped it in a white linen cloth, after the manner of the Egyptians, and in this array placed it upon a bed handsomely prepared as though for the most distinguished member of the household, and then raised in front of the latter a small dresser shaped like an altar, upon which they placed the usual odors and incense, to burn along with tapers and lighted candles.... Then, if the deceased was a person of note, they kept the body thus arranged for the space of seven consecutive days, inside the house, and, during that time, the near relatives, dressed in certain long robes or very loose and roomy mantles called ricinia, along with the chambermaids and other women taken thither to weep, never ceased to lament and bewail, renewing their distress every time any notable personage entered the room; and they thought that all this while the deceased remained on earth, that is to say, kept for a few days longer at the house, while they were hastening their preparations for the pomp and magnificence of his funeral. On the eighth day, so as to assemble the relatives, associates, and friends of the defunct the more easily, inform the public and call together all who wished to be present, the procession, which they called exequiæ, was cried aloud and proclaimed with the sound of the trumpet on all the squares and chief places of the city by the crier of the dead, in the following form: 'Such a citizen has departed from this life, and let all who wish to be present at his obsequies know that it is time; he is now to be carried from his dwelling.'"

Let us step aside now, for here comes a funeral procession. Who is the deceased? Probably a consular personage, a duumvir, since lictors lead the line. Behind them come the flute-players, the mimes and mountebanks, the trumpeters, the tambourine-players, and the weepers (præfiicæ), paid for uttering cries, tearing their hair, singing notes of lamentation, extolling the dead man, mimicking despair, "and teaching the chambermaids how to best express their grief, since the funeral must not pass without weeping and wailing." All this makes up a melancholy but burlesque din, which attracts the crowd and swells the procession, to the great honor of the defunct. Afterward come the magistrates, the decurions in mourning robes, the bier ornamented with ivory. The duumvir Lucius Labeo (he is the person whom they are burying) is "laid out at full length, and dressed in white shrouds and rich coverings of purple, his head raised slightly and surrounded with a handsome coronet, if he merit it." Among the slaves who carry the bier walks a man whose head is covered with white wool, "or with a cap, in sign of liberty." That is the freedman Menomachus, who has grown rich, and who is conducting the mourning for his master. Then come unoccupied beds, "couches fitted up with the same draperies as that on which reposes the body of the defunct" (it is written that Sylla had six thousand of these at his funeral), then the long line of wax images of ancestors (thus the dead of old interred the newly dead), then the relatives, clad in mourning, the friends, citizens, and townsfolk generally in crowds. The throng is all the greater when the deceased is the more honored. Lastly, other trumpeters, and other pantomimists and tumblers, dancing, grimacing, gambolling, and mimicking the duumvir whom they are helping to bury, close the procession. This interminable multitude passes out into the Street of Tombs by the Herculaneum gate.

The ustrinum, or room in which they are going to burn the body, is open. You are acquainted with this Roman custom. According to some, it was a means of hastening the extrication of the soul from the body and its liberation from the bonds of matter, or its fusion in the great totality of things; according to others, it was but a measure in behalf of public health. However that may be, dead bodies might be either buried or burned, provided the deposit of the corpse or the ashes were made outside of the city. A part of the procession enters the ustrinum. Then they are going to burn the duumvir Lucius Labeo.

The funeral pyre is made of firs, vine branches, and other wood that burns easily. The near relatives and the freedman take the bier and place it conveniently on the pile, and then the man who closes the eyes of the dead opens them again, making the defunct look up toward the sky, and gives him the last kiss. Then they cover the pile with perfumes and essences, and collect about it all the articles of furniture, garments, and precious objects that they want to burn. The trumpets sound, and the freedman, taking a torch and turning away his eyes, sets fire to the framework. Then commence the sacrifices to the manes, the formalities, the pantomimic action, the howlings of the mourners, the combats of the gladiators "in order to satisfy the ceremony closely observed by them which required that human blood should be shed before the lighted pile;" this was done so effectually that when there were no gladiators the women "tore each other's hair, scratched their eyes and their cheeks with their nails, heartily, until the blood came, thinking in this manner to appease and propitiate the infernal deities, whom they suppose to be angered against the soul of the defunct, so as to treat it roughly, were this doleful ceremony omitted and disdained."... The body burned, the mother, wife, or other near relative of the dead, wrapped and clad in a black garment, got ready to gather up the relics—that is to say, the bones which remained and had not been totally consumed by the fire; and, before doing anything, invoked the deity manes, and the soul of the dead man, beseeching him to take this devotion in good part, and not to think ill of this service. Then, after having washed her hands well, and having extinguished the fire in the brazier with wine or with milk, she began to pick out the bones among the ashes and to gather them into her bosom or the folds of her robe. The children also gathered them, and so did the heirs; and we find that the priests who were present at the obsequies could help in this. But if it was some very great lord, the most eminent magistrates of the city, all in silk, ungirdled and barefooted, and their hands washed, as we have said, performed this office themselves. Then they put these relics in urns of earthenware, or glass, or stone, or metal; they besprinkled them with oil or other liquid extracts; they threw into the urn, sometimes, a piece of coin, which sundry antiquaries have thought was the obolus of Charon, forgetting that the body, being burned, no longer had a hand to hold it out; and, finally, the urn was placed in a niche or on a bench arranged in the interior of the tomb. On the ninth day, the family came back to banquet near the defunct, and thrice bade him adieu: Vale! Vale! Vale! then adding, "May the earth rest lightly on thee!"

Hereupon, the next care was the monument. That of the duumvir Labeo, which is very ugly, in opus incertum, covered with stucco and adorned with bas-reliefs and portraits of doubtful taste, was built at the expense of his freedman, Menomachus. The ceremony completed and vanity satisfied, the dead was forgotten; there was no more thought, excepting for the ferales and lemurales, celebrations now retained by the Catholics, who still make a trip to the cemetery on the Day of the Dead. The Street of the Tombs, saddened for a moment, resumed its look of unconcern and gaiety, and children once more played about among the sepulchres.

There are monuments of all kinds in this suburban avenue of Pompeii. Many of them are simple pillars in the form of Hermes-heads. There is one in quite good preservation that was closed with a marble door; the interior, pierced with one window, still had in a niche an alabaster vase containing some bones. Another, upon a plat of ground donated by the city, was erected by a priestess of Ceres to her husband, H. Alleius Luceius Sibella, aedile, duumvir, and five years' prefect, and to her son, a decurion of Pompeii, deceased at the age of seventeen. A decurion at seventeen!—there was a youth who made his way rapidly. Cicero said that it was easier to be a Senator at Rome than a decurion at Pompeii. The tomb is handsome—very elegant, indeed—but it contained neither urns, nor sarcophagi; it probably was not a place of burial, but a simple cenotaph, an honorary monument.

The same may be said of the handsomest mausoleum on the street, that of the augustal Calventius: a marble altar gracefully decorated with arabesques and reliefs (Œdipus meditating, Theseus reposing, and a young girl lighting a funeral pile). Upon the tomb are still carved the insignia of honor belonging to Calventius, the oaken crowns, the bisellium (a bench with seats for two), the stool, and the three letters O.C.S. (ob civum servatum), indicating that to the illustrious dead was due the safety of a citizen of Rome. The Street of the Tombs, it will be seen, was a sort of Pantheon. An inscription discovered there and often repeated (that which, under Charles III., was the first that revealed the existence of Pompeii), informs us that, upon the order of Vespasian, the tribune Suedius Clemens had yielded to the commune of Pompeii the places occupied by the private individuals, which meant that the notables only, authorized by the decurions, had the right to sleep their last slumber in this triumphal avenue, while the others had to be dispossessed. Still the hand of Rome!

Another monument—the one attributed to Scaurus—was very curious, owing to the gladiatorial scenes carved on it, and which, according to custom, represented real combats. Each figure was surmounted with an inscription indicating the name of the gladiator and the number of his victories. We know, already, that these sanguinary games formed part of the funeral ceremonies. The heirs of the deceased made the show for the gratification of the populace, either around the tombs or in the amphitheatre, whither we shall go at the close of our stroll, and where we shall describe the carvings on the pretended monument of Scaurus.

The tomb of Nevoleia Tyché, much too highly decorated, encrusted with arabesques and reliefs representing the portrait of that lady, a sacrifice, a ship (a symbol of life, say the sentimental antiquaries), is covered with a curious inscription, which I translate literally.