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Nocturnal Funerals in Rome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Extract

The purpose of this paper is to indicate the slightness of the foundation on which a commonly received doctrine about Roman funerals rests, and to discuss a point in connexion with the ritual of funera acerba.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1923

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References

page 191 note 1 P. 195 sqq., Bidez-Cumont = ep. 77.

page 192 note 1 See Halliday, W. R. in Class. Rev. XXXV (1921), p. 154CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 192 note 2 Livy II. 8, 8.

page 192 note 3 Plut, . Aim. Paul. 35, 36Google Scholar; Liv. XLV. 40.

page 193 note 1 See the Thesaurus, s.u. cadauer.

page 193 note 2 If it was not regularly so Nero's excuse is pointless.

page 193 note 3 Some very interesting examples will be found in Frazer, G.B.3 III. 187 sqq. The idea of the life-stream, which, rather than the particular lives of individuals, I take to be the original conception, I owe to some illuminating suggestions of Mr. T. C. Hodson. See C.Q. XVIII., p. 57 sqq.

page 193 note 4 And therefore acerbus, ‘unripe.’ We have a valuable, if late, parallel to this use of acerbus. Justinian, (Nou. XXXIX. 2, p. 257Google Scholar, Schoell-Kroll) calls the remarriage of a widow within the year of mourning, i.e. while she is still ghost-ridder, acerbas nuptias, άώρονςγάμονς. It does not mean ‘painful.’ A married son with sons of his own was perhaps treated as a quiisi-paterfamilias.

page 194 note 1 It seems to come from and sepelio, ‘ϋbel bestattend,’ see Walde, Etym. Wöt. s.u.

page 194 note 2 It is to be hoped that we have seen the last of the unfortunate suggestion that a pauper burial was called funus taciturn. The authorities for this phrase are Ovid, , Trist. I. 3Google Scholar, 22, formmque non taciti funeris intus erat—i.e. one might have thought Ovid was dead and an unusually noisy conclamatio in progress; Seneca, , de trtnj. anim. I. 1, 13Google Scholar, morti natus es, minus molestitnm habet funus taciturn—in other words, since o>e must die, the less fuss about it the better. There is no hint of a technical meaning in either passage.