Roman death customs?

[Romanstudent19]

I hope this is the right place for this, but I have a question about the Romans and death. On the first episode of the second seasond of HBOs Rome, when Julius Ceaser's dead body is layed out on a table/altar, and peopl are coming to pay their last respects to him and his wife, one woman takes out her breast and puts it in Ceaser's mouth, and his widow looks on and says thank you to the woman. I was just wondering, was this a normal Roman custom, and if so, what was the purpose of it?.

 

Thanks for any help.

[Lost_Warrior]

bWA??

 

I have never heard of that! Has anyone else heard of it??

[Flavia Gemina]

'Bwa!' Indeed!

 

The second season of HBO's Rome has just started over here in Britain and I was trying to find out, too. But Jonathan Stamp, usually quite chatty on blogs and fora, is not telling. You can see a lengthy thread on this topic HERE where the moderator has offered a 1000 sesterces reward to anyone who can historically document this bizarre 'custom'!

 

Flavia

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

I found this piece in "The Private Life of the Romans" by H.W. Johnston

 

It's a pretty detailed description of the pre funeral process but alas no mention of big boobies

 

At the House. When the Roman died at home surrounded by his family, it was the duty of his oldest son to bend over the body and call him by name, as if with the hope of recalling him to life. The formal performance of this act (conclāmātiō) he announced immediately with the words conclāmātum est. The eyes of the dead were then closed, the body was washed with warm water and anointed, the limbs were straightened, and, if the deceased had held a curule office, a wax impression of his features was taken. The body was then dressed in the toga with all the insignia of rank that the dead had been entitled to wear in life, and was placed upon the funeral couch (lectus fūnebris) in the ātrium, with the feet to the door, to lie in state until the time of the funeral. The couch was surrounded with flowers, and incense was burned about it. Before the door of the house were set branches of pine or cypress as a warning that the house was polluted by death. The simple offices that have been described were performed in humble life by the relatives and slaves, in other cases by professional undertakers (libitīnāriī), who also embalmed the body and superintended all the rest of the ceremonies. Reference is made occasionally to the kissing of the dying person as he breathed his last, as if this last breath was to be caught in the mouth of the living; and in very early and very late times it was undoubtedly the custom to put a small coin between the teeth of the dead with which to pay his passage across the Styx in Charon's boat. Neither of these formalities seems to have obtained generally in classical times.

Edited June 24, 2007 by Gaius Paulinus Maximus

[caldrail]

I hope this is the right place for this, but I have a question about the Romans and death. On the first episode of the second seasond of HBOs Rome, when Julius Ceaser's dead body is layed out on a table/altar, and peopl are coming to pay their last respects to him and his wife, one woman takes out her breast and puts it in Ceaser's mouth, and his widow looks on and says thank you to the woman. I was just wondering, was this a normal Roman custom, and if so, what was the purpose of it?.

 

Thanks for any help.

 

Yes I saw that. I haven't come across any such ritual, and given the normal roman taboo for women appearing naked in company, it seems unlikely. Personally, I think that was done for visual effect unless anyone genuinely knows more about this sort of thing.

[Romanstudent19]

I hope this is the right place for this, but I have a question about the Romans and death. On the first episode of the second seasond of HBOs Rome, when Julius Ceaser's dead body is layed out on a table/altar, and peopl are coming to pay their last respects to him and his wife, one woman takes out her breast and puts it in Ceaser's mouth, and his widow looks on and says thank you to the woman. I was just wondering, was this a normal Roman custom, and if so, what was the purpose of it?.

 

Thanks for any help.

 

Yes I saw that. I haven't come across any such ritual, and given the normal roman taboo for women appearing naked in company, it seems unlikely. Personally, I think that was done for visual effect unless anyone genuinely knows more about this sort of thing.

 

Thanks to you and everyone for the replies, so do you think it was more HBO/Hollywood, than anything Roman?.

 

Thanks again.

[Lost_Warrior]

Thanks to you and everyone for the replies, so do you think it was more HBO/Hollywood, than anything Roman?.

 

I haven't seen it (don't have HBO ) but I'm certainly guessing this is the case.

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

Thanks to you and everyone for the replies, so do you think it was more HBO/Hollywood, than anything Roman?.

 

Thanks again.

 

I've had a good look around for any mention of that particular death custom and haven't found anything that resembles it at all, so as far as I can tell it must be all HBO's doing, but why they needed to include that scene is beyond me, it served no purpose at all apart from getting a big pair of titties on the screen, don't get me wrong I'm all for Big titties but there's a time and a place for them and Caesar's death bed isn't one of them!

[DecimusCaesar]

I did some studying on Roman funeral practices and burial, and there was no mentioning of any act of this sort being performed. It is likely that it was just made for effect (similar with the chanting women at Caesar's deathbed... there is no mention of anything similar in the ancient sources, unless they were meant to be professional funeral mourners) unless it is an incredibly obscure source.

[okamido]

It is part of the Praeficae and the Cult of Nenia. The custom is actually much more violent than it was shown. The women performing the praeficae (wailing song), are supposed to beat their breast to produce blood with the milk, better to nourish the dead.

 

This was most likely not shown because it would just go a little too far for modern sensibilities.

Edited October 25, 2011 by okamido

[caldrail]

But weren't the senatorial classes opposed to foreign cults? Female mystery cults had been banned by the senate in 186BC and 64BC, and would be banned again by Augustus. Weeping and mourning was indeed part of the Praeficae, but this activity was done according to strict tradition. As far as I'm aware, the interaction with a dead relative was to call his name as a last chance for the person to return, and the famous insertion of a coin in the deceased's mouth to 'pay the ferryman'. Doing strange things with breasts is a very un-roman activity.

[Melvadius]

From a quick search it looks like you may need to check out Ann Suter (ed.) (2008), Lament: Studies in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond according to the Bryn Mawr Classical Review:

 

Chapters 11 and 12: Lament in Rome

 

Alison Keith in Chapter 11 investigates the significance of lament in Lucan's Bellum Civile, where the death of Pompey heralds the death of the Republic. Homeric models influence Cornelia's laments for her husband, beginning with her anticipatory lament and swoon when she is dismissed from the battlefield. Lament is shown to be an obligation owed the dead man not only by his wife, but also by his social inferiors, as exemplified by Pompey's quaestor, Cordus, who performs funeral rites and lamentation for his murdered commanding officer. Cato quells the mutiny that follows his public laudatio for Pompey by appropriating the personal pleas for vengeance in Cornelia's final dirge. The closing books of the epic follow the narrative course Cornelia proposes, and thus affirm the power of women's lament in Rome.

 

Chapter 12 assembles the secondary evidence for the nenia, which in earliest times was an incantation of mourning following a eulogy of the deceased. The nenia was performed by praeficae, professional female mourners who marched in front of the coffin with the impersonators of the ancestors, urging the deceased to join the other dead members of the family. Dutsch attempts to reconstruct the form of the nenia from the parodies in Seneca's Apocolocyntosis and Catullus' mock dirge for Lesbia's sparrow. The nenia appears to be used in other contexts of transition and the crossing of boundaries.

...

[Klingan]

From Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology

 

NAENIA, i.e. a dirge or lamentation, equi

[Fulvia]

The only thing I could think of would be some connection to the old Greek tradition I remember reading in some of the various tragedies of women baring their breast in supplication to their sons. Perhaps the HBO creators were trying to make a link with Ceasar being a "son" of Rome- the woman was showing how much she loved her "son".

 

It's a stretch but a theory.

[Melvadius]

Perhaps the HBO creators were trying to make a link with Ceasar being a "son" of Rome- the woman was showing how much she loved her "son".

 

It's a stretch but a theory.

More likely with Rome HBO they just saw another opportunity for gratuitous sexual imagery - any relationship to actual practices to a great extent entirely accidental