At one time the betrothal almost had to be cancelled, such extreme shrewdness was shown on both sides. But finally the matter was adjusted. Three noble friends for either side pressed their seal rings in witness to the contracts. The day came for the wedding. =64. Dressing the Bride.=--Family exigencies required a springtime wedding, when there were a great many unlucky days to be avoided; but an expert Etruscan haruspex at length found a day that satisfied Statilia and her parents’ scruples. On the night before the great event she laid all her playthings, her childish amulet (_bulla_), and her childish garments on the altar of the paternal Lares whose protection she was quitting forever. Then she went to bed in a _tunica recta_, a fine, yellow garment woven in one piece, supposedly an article of extremely good omen. The next day the bride was dressed personally by her mother with unusual care. However expensive her ornaments she had to wear this same one-piece tunic next to her skin, the gown being held around the waist by a band of wool tied with a complicated “knot of Hercules.” She wore, of course, all the jewels loaded upon neck, ears, arms, and fingers which by the contract she was to bring Pollio in her trousseau. Her long hair had been parted according to ancient custom by a spear into six locks, braided now with ribbons weighted down with pearls. Her shoes were of finest white leather covered with more pearls. Over her head streamed a long, gauzy flame-colored veil of silk--worth very literally more than its weight in gold.[29] Pressing down this bridal veil was a garland of flowers picked, as custom required, by the bride’s own hand, and interspersed with sprigs of the sacred “verbena” herbs. Pollio, when he presented himself, was in the best gala costume of a senator, but there were no special “wedding garments” for the bridegroom, corresponding to the bridal veil. =55. The Marriage Ceremonies.=--The afternoon was at hand, and the insulæ in neighboring quarters emptied their plebeian throngs to gaze at the gilded litters which went swinging up to the house of Pomponius, the armies of scarlet-clad running footmen, the pompous freedmen marching beside their patron’s sedans, the bravery of purple robes, the flash of gold and of jewels. Of course, the atrium had been hung with garlands. The air inside was heavy with the perfumes of flowers, of costly unguents, and of the finest Arabian incense, while the noble guests elbowed and pushed one another to get near the altar near the tablinum and win the best sight of the happy pair. Roman marriages are pretty strictly civil ceremonies. There is no legal requirement for any religious rites. Hardly anybody now is married according to the stale old formula of the _confarreatio_, when the betrothed couple became wedded by eating a cake which had just been consecrated by the Pontifex Maximus. A much simpler form is now used, but before the ceremony there always has to be the sacrifice.