Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Exsequiae

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

EXSEQ'UIAE. A funeral, or funeral procession and solemnities (Tac. Hist. iv. 62. Cic. Mil. 13. Id. Quint. 15. Suet. Tib. 32.) The poorer classes of the Romans were buried at night, and without any kind of show; but wealthy persons were carried to their final home with much pomp and ceremony, accompanied by a long procession of relatives, friends, and dependants, arranged by an undertaker (designator), and in the following order. First came a band of musicians playing upon the long funeral pipe (tibia longa); and immediately behind them, a number of women hired to act as mourners (praeficae), chanting dirges, tearing their hair, and singing the praises of the deceased. Then followed the slaughter-man (victimarius); whose business it was to kill the favourite animals of their deceased master, horses, dogs, &c., round the funeral pile. Next came the corpse upon a rich bier (capulum, feretrum, lectica funebris), immediately preceded by persons who carried the busts or images of his ancestors (imagines), as well as any public presents, such as coronae, phalerae, torques, which he might have possessed, and by a buffoon (archimimus), dressed up to imitate the person and deportment of the deceased. After the bier, followed a long line of slaves and attendants, leading the animals intended to be sacrificed at the burning of the body, and finally the whole procession was closed by the empty carriage of the dead man, which brought up the rear in the same way as is still customary amongst ourselves. All, or nearly all, of these particulars are exhibited in the order above stated upon a bas-relief, on a Roman sarcophagus, representing the funeral of Meleager; a device which would be appropriately selected for a person who during his life-time had been addicted to the chase and sports of the field. It is engraved by Bartoli (Admirand. Rom. plates 70. and 71.), and several figures have been selected from it to illustrate the different words bracketed in this article; but the entire subject contains too many figures to bear a reproduction proportionable to the size of these pages.