The Roman Questions (14-17)

Why do sons cover their heads when they escort their parents to the grave, while daughters go with uncovered heads and hair unbound?

Is it because fathers should be honoured as gods

Or is it that the unusual is proper in mourning, and it is more usual for women to go forth in public with their heads covered and men with their heads uncovered? So in Greece, whenever any misfortune comes, the women cut off their hair and the men let it grow, for it is usual for men to have their hair cut and for women to let it grow.

Or is it that it has become customary for sons to cover their heads for the reason already given?[*] For they turn about at the graves, as Varro relates, thus honouring the tombs of their fathers even as they do the shrines of the gods: and when they have cremated their parents, they declare that the dead person has become a god at the moment when first they find a bone.[*]

But formerly women were not allowed to cover the head at all. At least it is recorded that Spurius Carvilius[*] was the first man to divorce his wife and the reason was her barrenness: the second was Sulpicius Gallus, because he saw his wife pull her cloak over her head: and the third was Publius Sempronius, because his wife had been present as a spectator at funeral games.[*]

Why is it that they were wont to sacrifice no living creature to Terminus,[*] in whose honour they held the Terminalia, although they regard him as a god?

Is it that Romulus placed no boundary-stones for his country, so that Romans might go forth, seize land, and regard all as theirs, as the Spartan said,[*] which their spears could reach; whereas Numa Pompilius,[*] a just man and a statesman, who had become versed in philosophy, marked out the boundaries between Rome and her neighbours, and, when on the boundary-stones he had formally installed Terminus as overseer and guardian of friendship and peace, he thought that Terminus should be kept pure and undefiled from blood and gore?

Why is it that it is forbidden to slave-women to set foot in the shrine of Matuta, and why do the women bring in one slave-woman only and slap her on the head and beat her?[*]

Is the beating of this slave but a symbol of the prohibition, and do they prevent the others from entering because of the legend? For Ino[*] is said to have become madly jealous of a slave-woman on her husband’s account, and to have vented her madness on her son. The Greeks relate that the slave was an Aetolian by birth and that her name was Antiphera. Wherefore also in my native town, Chaeroneia, the temple-guardian stands before the precinct of Leucothea and, taking a whip in his hand, makes proclamation: Let no slave enter, nor any Aetolian, man or woman!

Why is it that in the shrine of this goddess they do not pray for blessings on their own children, but only on their sisters’ children?[*]

Is it because Ino was fond of her sister and suckled her sister’s son also, but was herself unfortunate in her own children? Or is it that, quite apart from this reason, the custom is morally excellent and produces much goodwill among kindred?