Death in Ancient Rome

Over the past couple days I have done a lot of reading on Ancient Rome for historiography, most of which ended up being irrelevant to this blog unfortunately. One book that I read though entitled "Death in Ancient Rome" by Catherine Edwards had a few (very few) parts that could be considered of interest.

One of which is a description of a dinner party held by a member of the elite:

"Towards the close of the dinner, Trimalchio reads his will out to those who are to inherit from him. Then, after the arrival of Habinnas, who is by trade a monumental mason, Trimalchio orders in great detail an extremely elaborate funeral monument. Having described the funeral monument, Trimalchio starts to weep....The dinner party's culmination is a fully -fledged rehearsal of Trimalchio's funeral." (168)

I had hoped that a book dealing with death would have more information dealing with funerals and burials woven in but Edwards sticks to her theme and does not ever really stray into what happens after death. However, the reading was still interesting and can be used to help understand why funerals and burials were so elaborate in many cases.

Death was an obsession for many Romans, as demonstrated by the funeral dinner party, and to die bravely was highly important. Historians of the time often wrote about the proper ways to die and instructed people on how to prepare for death and why it should not be feared. The arena also served to teach people how to die bravely in the form of the gladiators whom many admired. In fact, and I think I may have mentioned this before, the funeral practice of sacrificing a poor slave is though to be the origins of the Roman Arena.