river, or swamp – that separated the world of the living from the underworld. The coin was rationalized as his payment; the satirist Lucian remarks that in order to avoid death, one should simply not pay the fee. In Apuleius's tale of "Cupid and Psyche" in his Metamorphoses, framed by Lucius's quest for salvation ending with initiation into the mysteries of Isis, Psyche ("Soul") carries two coins in her journey to the underworld, the second to enable her return or symbolic rebirth. Evidence of "Charon's obol" appears throughout the Western Roman Empire well into the Christian era, but at no time and place was it practiced consistently and by all. Funeral procession Funerals were traditionally held at night for the poor, and for those who died young, "before their time", but there seems to have been no hard and fast rule on the timing or duration of funerals for the elite or middling classes. The last "pagan" Emperor, Julian, who attempted a last-ditch regeneration of traditional religious practise, instructed that all funerals be held before daybreak; this, he claimed, was not only traditional but would reduce the chances of death-pollution through accidental contact on crowded streets. He wrote that the gods, being deathless themselves, would naturally find corpses deeply offensive, and because temple doors were usually closed at night and open by day, the gods could take exception to seeing funeral corteges passing their temple precincts in full daylight. He also felt that nighttime funerals harmonised with the idea of death as the "last sleep". His edict may also have been aimed at Christians, who preferred daytime burials and did not consider corpses a pollution. Prior to this edict, some funerals would have been held in daylight, some at night. Some night-time funerals would have involved only the corpse, litter-bearers, pyre-builders and grave diggers. Most would have lasted just a few hours; a very few high status funerals could only be accomplished over several days. After Augustus' death, at his family villa at Nola, his body was carried to his cremation-site at Rome by relays of local senators, equites and praetorians over several nights. The cortege rested at local basilicas during daylight, seemingly to avoid the heat of the day. Augustus' funeral was a model of propriety and restraint; but in general, public funerals were excellent opportunities for theatrical self-promotion by the bereaved. Crowds for funerals of the famous could