Funeral rites
IN·MEMORIAM·A·TVLLIAE·SCHOLASTICAE·AVGVSTAE·PRINCIPIS·SENATVS·CENSORIS·IIII·CONSVLIS·II·PRAETRICIS
Home| Latíné | Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano | Magyar | Português | Română | Русский | English
Romans celebrated the transition from life as a birth into a new life. The body of the deceased was washed and dressed in a rite that in some ways paralleled the care given an infant at birth. On the other hand, the person was also prepared as though going on a journey, for the dead were believed to sail across the Western Seas to the Blessed Isles where they would take up their new life as one of the divine Manes. The Religio Romana centered on the domestic cultus of the Di Manes as Lares, those deceased members of the family who continued to watch over and benefit their living relatives. For his idealized state religion, Cicero simply said, "let them treat their dead family members as divine."[1]
Roman iconography depicted the journey of the dead sailing to the Blessed Isles on ships or else as Nerieds and Cupids led over the waves by friendly sea creatures. At times they are seen in chariots pulled by a team of doves, the bird of Venus, driven by Cupid, as though heading to port. At times the soul is depicted as a psyche with butterfly wings, conducted by Cupid, or else the person is seen being received by the winged figure of a Lasa, as in a wall painting at Pompeii. Other depictions are of the Blessed Isles where the Manes appear as cupids or putti engaged in viticulture and farming, and among them is an infant Minerva as the conqueress of death. At times Roman views on death and the journey to the Blessed Isles was reflected in funeral rites.
"Marcus Varro, as one example (of those buried in a terracotta coffin), was placed in leaves of myrtle, olive and black poplar after the Pythagorean fashion." ~ Plinius Secundus Historia Naturalis 25.160
Represented in Varro's burial rite were Venus (myrtle), Minerva (olive), and Hercules (poplar) (Pliny NH 12.3). While the body dies and is recycled into Nature, the individual's spirit, or mind, continued to live on. Thus Minerva was seen as a Goddess who overcomes death. The spirit lives on in an idyllic paradise filled with fragrant flowers that are associated with Venus in springtime. Depictions of the Manes as Cupids, or of Cupid leading the souls of the dead, represents souls as children of Venus living in a beautiful land entirely imbued with Her spirit. Hercules appears as a mortal who achieved divinity and immortality, and thus as a figure who showed the way for all mortals to attain immortality. The symbolism here, and the mythology upon which it was based, for Varro, came more from the philosophical schools than from traditional funerary practice.
Roman skepticism towards immortality is often mentioned in histories of the Religio Romana, but were in fact exceptionally rare. Certain schools of philosophy taught that the material soul perished along with the body and was recycled through Nature. Thus there are found expressions of our mortality. "We are mortals, not immortals."[2]
"When life ends, all things perish and turn to nothing (Bucheler, Carmina Latina Epigraphica I, 1895; no. 420)." "We are and were nothing; look, reader, how swiftly we mortals pass from nothing to nothing (CLE II, 1897; no. 1495)." Philosophical indifference to death is then found with the expression, non fui, fui, non sum, non curo. Other schools of philosophy held that the souls of the dead had to face a trial as to their disposition. For his wife Cornelia, daughter of Scribonia, Propertius wrote a poem of her virtues as though she stood in judgment before censor L. Aemilius Paulus, concluding, "The case for my defense in completed. Rise up, my witnesses, who weep for me, while kindly Earth requites my life's desserts. Even Heaven has unbarred its gates to the virtuous. May I be found worthy that my bones may be carried to join my honored ancestors (IV 11)." This idea of a judgment of the deceased is also sometimes expressed on inscriptions. "Now if virtue is rewarded among the Manes, within the changeable shadows, then I pray that the Mother may give honor and gratitude to you (Anthologia Latina II 1147.2)."
Roman philosophers recorded their thoughts towards death. Keep in mind though that those Roman opinions that have come down to us came from only the higher class of Roman society, though not the highest, and these do not really express popular beliefs. In fact some were specifically offered to contrast with the views of the "vulgar masses." Then, too, what has filtered down to us were ancient texts that were seen, for one reason or another, as agreeing with the views of the Christian copyists who preserved select writings over others. But none the less it may be worth looking at some philosophical comments in a separate post(s).
Such philosophical expressions do not play a role in traditional funeral rites. Eulogies offered a record of a person's deeds as a way of reminding mourners about the life lost to them, but with the sentiment that they would still benefit, now that the deceased would pass on to become one of their Lares. Traditional rites, the funus translaticum, from the moment of death until the family banquet eight days after the funeral, dealt more with the family's transition of accepting the deceased as a Lar.
References
