The Ancient Romans Paid People to Cry for Them
The ancient Romans saw themselves as serious and stolid types, and frowned upon excessive displays of emotion. They made an exception for funerals, however. On the one hand, the more people attended a funeral, and the showier the funerary procession was, the more respected the deceased was. On the other hand, an excessive display of grief by the deceased’s relatives – especially when it came to upper class Roman families – was seen as undignified. To solve that conundrum the ever-practical Romans hired professional mourners.
Special women were paid to weep, wail, grieve loudly, and engage in other emotional displays that well-born Romans were not supposed to demonstrate in public. To seriously sell their sadness and impress the crowds, professional mourners threw dust and dirt on themselves, tore out their hair, ripped their clothes, and scratched their faces until they drew blood. Eventually, such ostentatious displays became too much. So laws were passed to prohibit the hiring of professional mourners because their antics “invoked strong emotions and were incompatible with the idea of the quiet life of the citizen“.
