Roman Funerals: Mourners, Masks, and a Brutal Roast

Marcus Valerius

You think your morning commute is bad? Imagine trying to get down the Via Sacra to buy some garum, and suddenly, everything-everything just grinds to a halt because some senator died. No, really. The entire street is completely blocked by a wall of sound that-that frankly makes a chariot race sound quiet. If you look ahead, through the dust, you can see them. The first thing that hits you isn't the sight, it's the noise. You've got the tubicines and the cornicines—the guys blowing those massive, curved bronze horns—just blasting this awful, droning wail. And then... ugh, the praeficae. These are the professional mourners. Yes, paid. They are literally hired to wail as loudly as humanly possible, and they go all out. I mean, they are screaming, they are literally ripping out their hair, and they scratch their faces with their fingernails until they bleed. All of this, just to show everyone how rich and important the family is. It's-it's a massive, bloody circus of grief.

Marcus Valerius

But then you look closer, past the screaming women, and you see something truly bizarre. You see the ancestors. I mean... literally. It is a parade of actors wearing lifelike wax masks—what we call the imagines. These masks are usually kept locked up in the family's atrium cupboards, but today, they are out on the street. Each actor is dressed in the exact, purple-bordered toga praetexta that the ancestor wore in life. You've got guys who died a hundred years ago, consul after consul, walking down the street in this uncanny, silent march of the dead. It is terrifying, but honestly, you can't look away. And-and they have to do this. They have to march them all the way through the city because of the law. The ancient Laws of the Twelve Tables are very, very clear on this: you cannot bury or cremate anyone inside the pomerium, the sacred boundary of Rome. So, if you want to get them to the suburban necropolis, you have to parade them right through the middle of the living first.

Marcus Valerius

But my absolute favorite part of the whole thing has to be the archimimus—the chief mime. This guy walks directly in front of the dead man's funeral couch, the lectus funebris. And he is not there to be solemn. Oh, no. He is wearing the wax mask of the newly deceased patrician, and he is doing a brutal, hilarious caricature of him. He copies his limp, his weird vocal tics, his worst habits... the crowd is just roaring with laughter. It is a total roast. Like, everyone in Rome still talks about Emperor Vespasian's funeral. The famous archimime Favor was playing the emperor. Now, Vespasian was notoriously cheap, right? So Favor, donning Vespasian's mask, publicly jested about the procession's extravagant cost—estimated at ten million sesterces. He mimics Vespasian's voice and yells out to the crowd: "Just give me a hundred thousand sesterces and throw my body in the Tiber!" It is brilliant.

Marcus Valerius

And then, right behind him, you see the dead man himself, laid out on this magnificent ivory dining couch like he is just waiting for the next course at a dinner party. And surrounding the couch are his newly freed slaves, wearing their felt liberty caps—the pillei. These guys are crying, sure, but... let's be honest, they are secretly thrilled because the master's will just made them free citizens. It is this bizarre mix of genuine freedom, paid grief, and absolute mockery. But there is a reason we do it. Romans believe that if you don't expose a man's flaws, if you don't let a comedian roast him to his face before he is buried, his ghost—his shade—will become proud and malicious. We mock them so they go to the underworld humbled, and they leave us the hell alone. Anyway, the crowd is moving again. I need to get that wine before the shops close. Talk soon.