quality, greatness, and rank of the personage."

Now there were at Rome several ministers, public servitors, and
officials, who had charge of all that appertained to funerals, such as
the _libitinarii_, the _designatores_, and the like. All of which was
wisely instituted by Numa Pompilius, as much to teach the Romans not to
hold things relating to the dead in horror, or fly from them as
contaminating to the person, as in order to fix in their memory that all
that has had a beginning in birth must in like manner terminate in
death, birth and death both being under the control and power of one and
the same deity; for they deemed that Libitina was the same as Venus, the
goddess of procreation. Then, again, the said officers had under their
orders different classes of serfs whom they called, in their language,
the _pollinctores_, the _sandapilarii_, the _ustores_, the _cadaverum
custodes_, intrusted with the care of anointing the dead, carrying them
to the place of sepulture, burning them, and watching them. "After
_pollinctores_ had carefully washed, anointed, and embalmed the body,
according to the custom regarding it and the expense allowed, they
wrapped it in a white linen cloth, after the manner of the Egyptians,
and in this array placed it upon a bed handsomely prepared as though for
the most distinguished member of the household, and then raised in front
of the latter a small dresser shaped like an altar, upon which they
placed the usual odors and incense, to burn along with tapers and
lighted candles.... Then, if the deceased was a person of note, they
kept the body thus arranged for the space of seven consecutive days,
inside the house, and, during that time, the near relatives, dressed in
certain long robes or very loose and roomy mantles called _ricinia_,
along with the chambermaids and other women taken thither to weep, never
ceased to lament and bewail, renewing their distress every time any
notable personage entered the room; and they thought that all this while
the deceased remained on earth, that is to say, kept for a few days
longer at the house, while they were hastening their preparations for
the pomp and magnificence of his funeral. On the eighth day, so as to
assemble the relatives, associates, and friends of the defunct the more
easily, inform the public and call together all who wished to be
present, the procession, which they called _exequiae_, was cried aloud
and proclaimed with the sound of the tru