§434. The Funeral Procession.--The funeral procession of the ordinary citizen was simple enough. Notice was given to neighbors and friends, and surrounded by them and by the family, carried on the shoulders of the sons or other near relatives, with perhaps a band of musicians in the lead, the body was borne to the tomb. The procession of one of the mighty, on the other hand, was marshaled with all possible display and ostentation. It occurred as soon after death as the necessary preparations could be made, there being no fixed intervening time. Notice was given by a public crier in the ancient words of style: _Ollus Quiris lētō datus. Exsequiās, quibus est commodum, īre iam tempus est. Ollus ex aedibus effertur._[3] Questions of order and precedence were settled by one of the undertakers (_dēsīgnātor_). At the head went a band of musicians, followed at least occasionally by persons singing dirges in praise of the dead, and by bands of buffoons and jesters, who made merry with the bystanders and imitated even the dead himself. Then came the imposing part of the display. The wax masks of the dead man's ancestors had been taken from their place in the _ālae_ (§200) and assumed by actors in the dress appropriate to the time and station of the worthies they represented. It must have seemed as if the ancient dead had returned to earth to guide their descendant to his place among them. Servius tells us that six hundred _imāginēs_ were displayed at the funeral of the young Marcellus, the nephew of Augustus. Then followed the memorials of the great deeds of the deceased, if he had been a general, as in a triumphal procession, and then the dead himself, carried with face uncovered on a lofty couch. Then came the family, including freedmen (especially those made free by the testament of their master) and slaves, and then the friends, all in mourning garb (§§246, 254), and all freely giving expression to the emotion that we try to suppress on such occasions. Torch-bearers attended the train, even by day, as a remembrance of the older custom of burial by night. [Footnote 3: "This citizen has been surrendered to death. For those who find it convenient it is now time to attend the funeral. He is being brought from his house."]