Some days before the wedding, the intended bride and bridegroom, with their friends, met together at the lady’s residence, and the parent or guardian of each (as I imagine) asked each other, Spondes? Do you betroth her or him? Then the other party answered, Spondeo, I do betroth, &c. Then the deeds were signed, the dowry agreed on, and the day appointed for the marriage.
[NOTE 77.]
Among the women who were there I saw one young girl.
Women were frequently hired on these occasions, to appear in the funeral procession as mourners, of whom Horace says,
“Ut quæ conductæ plorant in funere, dicunt
Et faciunt propè plura dolentibus ex animoque.”
Like those, who, hired to weep at funerals,
Exceed, in noisy grief, a faithful friend.
She appeared more afflicted than the others who were there, and so pre-eminently beautiful, and of so noble a carriage, I approach.
To understand the full force of Simo’s remark, when he says how much he was struck with the contrast between Glycera and the rest of the mourners, it is necessary that the reader should be informed, that, in Athens, no woman under sixty years of age was allowed to appear at a funeral; except the relations of the deceased. Solon imposed this law upon the Athenians.