Funeral Rites
Funeral rites took place at home and at the place of burial, which was located outside the city to avoid the pollution of the living. The funeral procession (pompa funebris) transited the distance between the two.
A professional guild (collegium) of musicians specialized in funeral music. Horace mentions the tuba and the cornu, two bronze trumpet-like instruments, at funerals.
Read more about this topic: Roman Funerals And Burial
Famous quotes containing the words funeral and/or rites:
“I make it a kind of pious rule to go to every funeral to which I am invited, both as I wish to pay a proper respect to the dead, unless their characters have been bad, and as I would wish to have the funeral of my own near relations or of myself well attended.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)
“Today is made of yesterday, each time I steal
toward rites I do not know, waiting for the lost
ingredient, as if salt or money or even lust
would keep us calm and prove us whole at last.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)