of the latter was dressed out and
furnished with a mask after the likeness of the deceased, and by
gesture doubtless and action recalled once more to the multitude the
appearance of the well-known man. Then followed the grandest and most
peculiar part of the solemnity--the procession of ancestors--before
which all the rest of the pageant so faded in comparison, that men of
rank of the true Roman type enjoined their heirs to restrict the
funeral ceremony to that procession alone. We have already mentioned
that the face-masks of those ancestors who had filled the curule
aedileship or any higher ordinary magistracy, wrought in wax and
painted--modelled as far as possible after life, but not wanting even
for the earlier ages up to and beyond the time of the kings--were wont
to be placed in wooden niches along the walls of the family hall, and
were regarded as the chief ornament of the house. When a death
occurred in the family, suitable persons, chiefly actors, were dressed
up with these face-masks and the corresponding official costume to
take part in the funeral ceremony, so that the ancestors--each in the
principal dress worn by him in his lifetime, the triumphator in his
gold-embroidered, the censor in his purple, and the consul in his
purple-bordered, robe, with their lictors and the other insignia of
office--all in chariots gave the final escort to the dead. On the
bier overspread with massive purple and gold-embroidered coverlets and
fine linen cloths lay the deceased himself, likewise in the full
costume of the highest office which he had filled, and surrounded by
the armour of the enemies whom he had slain and by the chaplets which
in jest or earnest he had won. Behind the bier came the mourners, all
dressed in black and without ornament, the sons of the deceased with
their heads veiled, the daughters without veil, the relatives and
clansmen, the friends, the clients and freedmen. Thus the procession
passed on to the Forum. There the corpse was placed in an erect
position; the ancestors descended from their chariots and seated
themselves in the curule chairs; and the son or nearest gentile
kinsman of the deceased ascended the rostra, in order to announce to
the assembled multitude in simple recital the names and deeds of each
of the men sitting in a circle around him and, last of all, those of
him who had recently died.

This may be called a barbarous custom, and a nation of artistic
feelings would certain