Noble Funeral Of The Late Roman Republic And Early Empire And Its Functions

No matter in ancient or in modern society, funerals as rituals have one of most important functions as commemoration and lamentation. There is no exception for the ancient Roman world in which funerals could be seen as a means of saying farewell, offering respect and grief for the dead. Furthermore, the funerals of Roman nobles had also exercised special functions as display and memorization, and the splendid family history and the honors that the deceased had won during his lifetime could also be shown fully in every stage of the funeral. At such pageantry, the unique Roman family and political culture could be manifested sufficiently. In the last century of the Roman Republic, the arena of Roman politics was full of conflicts, chaos and destructions. The funerals of some politicians could also reveal competition and control for power from different interest groups. Hence, through an analysis of funeral rite in late Roman Republic and early Empire, this paper explored people's attitudes towards death and their afterlife, and examined what sorts of roles families and individuals had ever played in their political life and in the public space. Meanwhile, by inspecting certain funerals of the politicians such as Cornelius Sulla, Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus, who had flourished throughout the late Republic and early Empire, I researched the subtle relations between ritual and power, as well as the transition of political ecology during that time.