[221] Purple robes were used for wrapping the dead at great Roman funerals. See among a number of testimonies in Cerda's note Livy 34. 7, “Purpura viri utemur . . . magistratibus in coloniis municipiisque . . . togae praetextae habendae ius permittemus, nec id ut vivi solum habeant tantum insigne, sed etiam ut cum eo crementur mortui.” There is also some Homeric analogy for the custom. In Od. 24. 59 the ocean nymphs put immortal garments round the dead Achilles, who is apparently burned in them: in Il. 24. 795 foll., when Hector has been burned, his relations collect his bones and put them in a basket, πορφυρέοις πέπλοισι καλύψαντες μαλακοῖσιν. Virg. makes Aeneas wrap Pallas in the same manner 11. 72 foll. ‘Velamina nota,’ as Heyne remarks, can hardly be understood except of the garments Misenus had worn when alive. The other alternative would be to refer ‘nota’ to the customariness of thus covering the dead. There is the same sort of doubt about “munera nota” 11. 195.
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John Conington. P. Vergili Maronis opera. P. Vergili Maronis Opera. The works of Virgil, with a Commentary by John Conington, M.A. Late Corpus Professor of Latin in the University of Oxford. London. Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane. 1876.
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