A History of Mourning

by Richard Davey

Fig. 6.—A Greek Tomb: the Monument of Themistocles, Athens.

The Greeks, it will thus be seen, buried their dead, and did not cremate them as did the Romans; but in the latter years of the Republic both forms of disposing of the body were common. After the burial, libations of wine were poured over the grave, and all objects of clothing which had belonged to the deceased were solemnly burnt. The ninth and fourteenth days after the funeral, the parents, dressed in white, visited the grave, and a ceremony was gone through for the repose of the soul. The anniversary of the death was also observed, and the Greeks, moreover, had a general commemoration of the dead in the month of March. And here let us make a digression to see how very closely the Greeks must have influenced the early Christians, and consequently their more immediate descendants, the Roman Catholics, in the matter of religious ceremonies; for it is usual among Catholics to hear a Mass for the Dead a week after the death, and also another on the anniversary. The universal feast of the dead is observed by them, however, not in the month of March, but in that of November. People who have lived in Paris will know how very largely these funereal ceremonies enter into the manners and customs of that gay city, so that it is not unfrequent for foreign residents to observe that their time is passed in perpetually going to funerals; for, if you have a large acquaintance, you are sure to receive at least twenty or thirty invitations to funerals and funereal commemorations in the course of the year. Of course, everybody will remember how on the Continent the first day of November is devoted to visiting the cemeteries and decorating the tombs of relatives and friends.

Fig. 7.—Gallo-Roman bas-relief—found in Paris about fifty years ago—representing a family surrounding the body of a woman who has recently died.—Museum of the Louvre.

To return to the Greeks, it should be observed that their respect for the dead was remarkable, even amongst the ancients. If a man accidentally found a body on the high-road, he was obliged to turn aside and bury it. When the people saw a funeral procession pass, they uncovered their heads and murmured a prayer. The laws against the violation of the sepulchres of the dead were most severe, and any one who was caught damaging a tomb was usually flogged for his trouble, but if he overthrew it and disturbed the body, he was burnt alive.

If a person died at sea, all the people on board the ship assembled at sunset, and cried out three times the name of the departed, who was usually thrown overboard. In the morning they repeated these calls, and so forth until the ship entered port. This was done in order to recall the names of the deceased, or at any rate to keep them propitious.

When an illustrious person died in Greece, the ceremonies were on a most elaborate scale, and even accompanied by games, which lasted for many days. Readers of Homer's "Iliad" will remember his magnificent description of the death and funeral of Patroclus.

Among the Romans the men were not obliged to wear mourning, but it was the fashion for women to do so. Very wisely, children under three years of age were not forced to put on black, even for their parents, and after that age, only for as many months as they had lived years.

The Roman ladies only wore mourning for their parents for one year. Men were expected to wear it for the same period in the case of the death of a father, mother, wife, sister, or brother. Numa fixed the period of wearing deep mourning for the nearest of kin as ten months. People, however, were not obliged to wear mourning for any of their relatives who had been in prison, were bankrupt, or in any way outlawed. Numa published a minute series of laws regulating the mourning of his people. A very odd item in these included an order that women should not scratch their faces, or make an exceptional fuss at a public funeral. This was possibly decreed to put some stop to abuses which the hired mourners had occasioned: scratching their faces, for instance, so as to injure themselves, and making an over-dismal wail which was offensive to the genuine mourners.

For freedmen and slaves among the Romans, the greatest mark of respect was the erection of a monument or inscription in the tomb reserved for the family they had served. Thousands of these inscriptions to slaves and faithful servants still exist, and lead us to hope that the hardships of slavery in ancient Rome were often softened by mutual kindness and respect. One of the most touching of these is in a tomb on the Appian Road, which is supposed to have belonged to the attendants of Livia, the illustrious consort of Augustus. It runs:—