Immediately after the death, the body was washed, anointed with aromatic unguents, and sometimes embalmed. It was shrouded in fine linen; white with the Greeks and black with the Romans. If the departed was a person of rank, he was clothed in his garments of ceremony, kept for seven days during the preparations for the funeral, and lay in state in the vestibule of his house, at the door of which were placed branches of pine or cypress, together with the hair of the deceased, which had been consecrated to the infernal deities. In Rome, between death and burial seven days elapsed. The funeral was attended by the friends and relatives of the deceased, who were bidden by a herald, pronouncing the invitation:—‘It is time for whoever wishes, to go to the funeral of N. son of N.; who is now to be borne from home.’[E] The remains of persons who had done service to the state were honoured by the attendance of public officers, and sometimes the procession was followed by large bodies of the people. According to one of the laws of Solon, the Athenians carried out the bodies of the dead before sunrise, especially the young, in order that the orb of day might not throw his light on so sad a spectacle, or by his heat induce decomposition prematurely. The body was laid on a bier, crowned with flowers, and having the face exposed. The bier was followed by the funeral procession, among whom, at Roman funerals, there was often a _mime_, or buffoon, wearing the dress of the deceased, and giving satirical imitations of his bearing and manners. At the funeral of the Emperor Vespasian, the lustre of whose many virtues was tarnished by love of money, a celebrated buffoon (as Suetonius tells us) acted the part of the emperor,—mimicking, as was customary, the deportment and language of the deceased. Having asked the managers of the funeral what would be the amount of its expense, and being answered that it would cost a sum equivalent to eighty-thousand pounds, he replied, that if they would give him eight hundred, he would throw himself into the Tiber—for drowning was thought so revolting a death, that bodies rejected by the waves were denied sepulture. The bust of the deceased, his warlike trophies, or decorations of honour, were conspicuously exhibited in the procession. His family followed the bier, walking bareheaded and barefooted, with dishevelled hair, and mourning dresses of black; and after them came bands of hired mourners, male and female, who rent the air with cries and lamentations. Thus the body was conveyed to the place of sepulture. [E] ‘_Exequîas N., N. filii, quibus est commodus ire, tempus est: ollus (ille) ex ædibus effertur._’