Funerary rituals
All relatives who can possibly do so appear at the bedside of the person who is reaching the end of his life. The dying Rom must never be left alone. This is not only out of compassion for his condition, but also for fear of possible anger. He must not die in his or her habitual place. During the agony, tears and lamentations are publicly displayed. No food is prepared or served and only the drinking of coffee, brandy, or other liquors is permitted. Mirrors might be covered and vessels containing water emptied.
When death finally comes, the lamentation increases. From that time until the burial, certain traditional customs are observed. Above all, there is total absorption in the mourning, with no distractions or activities. After he deceit, the body is placed in the atrium with the feet pointing toward the exit. His family placed a cypress branch over the door to notify the priests of Jupiter, who were not allowed to enter the house of a dead man.
Touching the body of the deceased is discouraged, for fear of marimé, or contamination. Because of this he or she is washed and dressed, in the finest clothes, immediately before death. If death has been unexpected and this has not been possible, a non-Roma, such as an undertaker, is usually called in to perform these tasks immediately following the death. Some families may plug the nostrils of the deceased with beeswax or pearls to prevent evil spirits from entering the body. An important step is the gathering together of the grave gifts that will ease the transition of the deceased into the afterlife and be placed in the coffin. These can include almost anything, such as clothing, tools, eating utensils, jewelry, and money.
There is inevitably a large crowd at a Roma funeral. It is an occasion for friends and family to unite, to wish the departed a good journey as he or she enters a new life. A small band plays marches, going ahead of the coffin. This band is followed by the widow or widower, other mourning relatives and, if local religious customs must be followed, by a priest. As this procession enters the cemetery, the sobbing of the mourners increases. This display of sorrow reaches its peak as the coffin is lowered into the grave.
The mourners generally throw coins and handfuls of earth into the grave. If the man was a patrician, the designator, who had also embalmed the body, would direct an elaborate funeral procession. Musicians led the way in the great escort and were followed by hired female mourners (praeficae) singing the funeral dirges (naeniae), the bands of buffoons and jesters, actors wearing the imagines (wax masks of the family's ancestors), the memorials of great deeds of the deceased, the dead man himself with his face uncovered, then his family and friends in mourning garb and torchbearers. If the man was a prominent figure, the procession would stop in the Forum for the laudatio funebris (funeral oration), which was given by the oldest son of the deceased or another close relative while the body was displayed upright.
The color worn by mourners at Roma funerals is traditionally white or red. White has been thought of as a symbol of purity, of protection, and of good luck. Red, too, has symbolized protection against the evil spirits of the dead and has often been worn at Roma funerals.
Following the burial, all material ties with the dead must be carefully destroyed. Whatever can be burned, such as clothing and linens, will be turned into ashes. Articles such as plates, cups, glasses, or jewelry that belonged to the dead will be broken or mutilated. Sometimes animals that belonged to the dead must be killed. There should be no trace of the deceased in the Roma camp or household. This removes any possibility of marimé from the deceased. Even the use of his or her name is avoided, except when absolutely necessary.
Another tradition following the funeral is a dinner called a pomana. It is an enormous meal, usually the first one eaten by the mourners since the death of their friend or relative. These pomana are held at various intervals, traditionally nine days, six weeks, six months, and, finally, one year after the death. At each of these pomana, certain relatives, beginning with the most distant ones, announce their intention to end their period of mourning. Last to do so, after one year, are the deceased's immediate family.
As declared by law, parents and children over six-years-old could be mourned for a year, children under six for a month, a husband for ten months, and close blood relatives for eight months. Whoever did not suppress their grief after these periods were punished by public disgrace. Those people in mourning would display their grief by wearing vestes pullae (dull wool clothing) and by neglecting to wash, comb their hair, cut their nails, or change their clothes. Nine days after the body was laid to rest, the family members ended the funeral with the novendiale sacrificium, the sacrifice of the ninth day. Then, they participated in another great feast at the gravesite called the cena novendialis.
Marimé and Mulo
According to traditional Roma beliefs, life for the dead continues on another level. However, there is a great fear among the survivors that the dead might return in some supernatural form to haunt the living. Every man in Rome worried about arranging a funeral before he died, for those left without a proper burial were cursed to walk the earth forever as ghostly lemures. They are also worried about the possible revenge the dead, or muló, might seek against those who remain in the world of the living.
It is for this reason that the name of the dead should not be mentioned, that the body should not be touched, and that all objects (save one) that belonged to the dead must be destroyed. The survivors must be protected in every way from the evil marimé spirits that the dead can emit. To avoid this, stones or thorn bushes are sometimes placed around the grave.
The Roma believe that the soul of the dead might be reincarnated in another man or animal. Most feared of all is the possible reappearance of the dead as a muló or "living dead." Unless strict precautions are taken, this muló might escape from the body and seek revenge on those who had harmed him when living or had caused his death.
Forms of burial
Cremation
Cremation became popular in the late republic and was the main practice in Roman society until the mid 3rd century A.D.
Many of the great heroes of the Odyssey and Iliad were consumed in blazing funeral pyres. This is also true for many of the great men of the Roman empire. Although many of the earliest Roman and Etruscan burials are thought to have been inhumations, cremations was the standard of burial throughout the Roman Empire from about 400 BCE to 100 CE. Cremation offered many of the benefits of burial, since grave items such as weapons and food could be consumed along with the deceased and the ashes intermingled. Furthermore, one did not usually have to worry about grave robbers as much when cremation was employed.
When the procession reached the section in the graveyard set aside for cremations (ustrinum), the body was set upon the large funeral pyre piled with offerings and smelling strongly of perfumes. The dead man's heir lit the pyre with a torch, and the mourners feasted at the site. After the fires were doused with wine, the ashes were placed into containers ranging from leather pouches to gold canisters, depending on the affluence of the deceased. The container was then used walled in tegulae or other masonry and then was often buried. Similar to inhumation burials, a pipe leading from the container to the surface was often installed to allow libations to be offered to the deceased and the gods.
Inhumation
Around the 2nd century CE, inhumations began to rise in popularity. Urns and mausolea fragments from the Roman period provide evidence of the increasing prevalence of inhumation (burial in a pot, coffin, or vault) rather than cremation. While the upper class was laid to rest in sarcophagi housed in mausoleums, the Roman middle class was usually buried in graves marked with a large upright pot, or amphorae, partially thrust into the ground. This allowed offerings, in the form of libations, to be poured into the grave of the deceased.
With the increasing weight of the oriental part of the Empire, the elaborately carved sarcophagi which exhibit one's life accomplishments or religious scenes were reintroduced. Sarcophagus is a Greek word that means "flesh eater. In fact, Asia Minor (Anatolia) became especially famous for the manufacture of detailed sarcophagi. These Asiatic sarcophagi are a class unto themselves, carved on all four sides and usually possessing some type of marble effigy on the lid. They are sometimes known as funerary couches because of this likeness of the deceased draped over the lid. There is evidence that these sarcophagi were in great demand, and many leading families of Rome had them imported all the way from Asia minor. Furthermore, these sarcophagi provided the basis for Christian sarcophagi later in the 3rd and 4th centuries CE. Sculptures would often adopt the pattern and technique of the Asiatic artists, simply substituting images of Christ and the apostles for pagan themes.
|
