on the deceased. The fee of 250 HS could have supported a single person's subsistence for a year. Constantine (reigned 306-337 AD) instituted and subsidised 950 "work stations" for the use of undertakers, grave-diggers and pall-bearers (lecticarii) throughout Constantinople, part of a project to provide the poor with free funeral services. Subsequent emperors expanded the system under Church management, offering free funerals and burial for all Christians, though not heretics. In some cases, however, these nominally free burial spaces were bought and sold by the grave-diggers as marketable commodities. Funerals Announcing a death In elite funerals, the body of the deceased could remain in their family home for several days after death, while their funeral was arranged. If the deceased was socially prominent, the death was announced by a herald, in the forum or other central public space. The doors of the family home were closed as a sign of mourning, and cypress branches were displayed outside the entrance, a warning to all, especially the pontifices, that those who entered risked ritual pollution. The family ceased their daily routines for a nine-day mourning period, during which they were considered untouchable, isolated from their broader community because of their contact with death. They should not wash or otherwise care for their own person and could not offer sacrifice to any deity. Preparation of the body When a person died at home, family members and intimate friends gathered around the death bed. If circumstance permitted it, the closest relative sealed the passing of spirit from the body with a last kiss, in accordance with a belief that equated the soul with the breath, then closed the eyes. The relatives began lamentations, the women scratching their faces until they bled, and calling on the deceased by name throughout the funeral ceremony. The family was assisted by an undertaker and his staff, who were allowed to touch and handle the corpse, being permanently ritually unclean by virtue of their profession (see Infamia). The male relatives did not touch the body; it was placed on the ground, washed and anointed by female relatives, then placed on a funerary bier. The placing of the body on the ground is a doublet of birth ritual, when the infant was placed on the bare earth. Mourners were expected to wear the dress appropriate to the occasion, and to their station; an elite male citizen might wear a toga