The Ancient Roman Afterlife: Di Manes, Belief, and the Cult of the Dead by Charles W. King

Author:Charles W. King [King, Charles W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2020-07-23T16:00:00+00:00

SIX

THE MANES IN THE CONTEXT OF THE FUNERAL

In recent decades, no subject that this volume touches upon has received more scholarship than the Roman funeral. Scholars have approached the funeral through examinations of the practical aspects of the rituals themselves, through the physical remains of the tombs, or through a focus upon the literary depictions of Roman reactions to death, grief, or the ceremonial spectacle of the funeral itself.1 Discussion of religious aspects of the funeral, however, have tended to focus on rituals intended to dispel death pollution from the living participants in the funeral. With only rare exceptions, the cult of the dead has not attracted much interest in relation to funerals, and, as a result, discussions of funerary rituals often do not mention the manes at all, or only in passing.2 I will suggest here that the manes play a much greater role in the funeral procedure than scholars generally acknowledge.

There are multiple elements to a Roman funeral. Some sections of the proceedings, particularly in the initial stages such as the wake, focus primarily on the grief of the survivors and the memory of the human life that they have lost. Other actions are focused on removing the pollution deriving from contact with a physical corpse from the funerary participants and the house of the deceased. The third element, though, is the initiation of the worship of the newly dead person as manes, including the dedication of the grave as sacred space. This third element dominates the ceremony after the period of the actual cremation, so that the funeral as a whole builds toward a climax of worshipping the new deity.

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