Before the ceremonial funeral, a crier would stand in the Forum, shouting the news of a citizen’s death to passersby. “____*, a citizen, has died,” he would shout in Latin. “It is now time for those for whom it is convenient to go to his funeral. ____* is being brought from his house for burial” (* = name of deceased).

The Wealthy

In ancient Rome, whenever an important citizen died, a funeral procession would take his body, often propped upright, to the Forum to be laid on the Rostra. There, surrounded by friends and neighbors, a citizen, usually the son of the deceased, would climb onto the Rostrum with the body to deliver a speech about the achievements and virtues of the dead. The orator, after speaking of the deceased himself, would go on to tell of the successful exploits of other ancestors whose likenesses were present, beginning from the earliest.

After the body was buried, the family would place a likeness of the deceased somewhere in the home where it could be easily viewed, enclosed in a little wooden shrine. Upon the death of any important family member, the likeness (a mask) would have been taken to the forum, to be worn by a family member of similar stature and build. This person would wear a toga with a purple border if the deceased was a consul or praetor, completely purple if he was a censor, and bordered with gold if he had celebrated a triumph or had any similar distinction. The mask-wearer would join others posing as great departed men, together riding chariots to the Rostra, where they would sit together in aligned ivory chairs upon the death of any other important citizen.

Burial

Roman law called for the burial of bodies so that “no one bone showed through the ground.” Whether bodies were burnt or buried, this practice was, according to Romans, to cut the dead off from the heavenly gods and to consign the deceased to the underworld. In the countryside burials were scattered and isolated, but in the cities the grave areas were more concentrated. Often the grave zones ran for miles along the major highways, beginning at the city walls. Some tombs even contained benches on which travellers could rest while reading the epitaph, the grave inscription. Sometimes cities had one or more necropolis, or city of the dead, just outside its walls, with proper streets and avenues, and tombs for the dead (instead of houses for the living) lining its boulevards. The tombs of the wealthy were elaborate.

Burial Societies

Because burial was so important many poorer Romans joined burial societies which gave them, in return for small regular contributions, social companionship throughout life (among other members of the club) and a cheap but decent burial  upon death.

Graves of the Etruscans

Of all Roman graves the most impressive were the great tumuli, grave mounds of Roman rulers starting with Augustus. These were modeled on the circular, subterranean, Etruscan tombs which resembled conventionalized living quarters complete with sleeping shelves for the eternally resting. Only the rounded, earthen top of the Etruscan tomb was prominent on the ring-walls of masonry.

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