INTRODUCTION

When a Roman noble died, his funeral cortège comprised relatives and friends, hired actors wearing waxen masks of the dead man's famous ancestors, professional mourners wailing loudly and shouting out his exploits, and by contrast troupes of boisterous satyr dancers, all accompanied by flutes and horns (Dionysius Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 7.72). The corpse was carried to the forum, and was placed, usually upright but sometimes reclining, on the raised platform (rostra) from which public orations were delivered. The dead man's eldest son then gave a funeral speech, in which he praised his father's exploits and those of his ancestors. The historian Polybius, who lived in the second century bc, has given us a detailed description.

These actors wore the robes and insignia of the highest office which each ancestor had gained, purple stripes for consul or praetor, full purple for a censor, gold embroidery for a general who had been awarded a triumph (cf. Diodorus 31.25).