be vast. For the most prominent citizens of all, including most emperors, sumptuary laws were ignored or officially suspended. Towards the end of the Republic, the dictator Sulla, given a funeral at public expense, was accompanied by huge numbers of horse and foot-soldiers, magistrates and ordinary citizens, and was carried on a golden litter, along with two thousand gold crowns to represent his offices in life. In such elite funeral processions, hired actors or relatives wore or carried the family's ancestral portrait-masks, described in contemporary sources as "faces", "images" or "masks" - whether life-masks or death masks is not known. Each represented an ancestor who had held public office, and as in life, was preceded by a lictor. Practice may have varied by period or by family, since sources give no consistent account. Displays of these ancestral images in aristocratic houses, and their uses in public funerals are described by Pliny the Elder. Where possible, the bier was carried by men of the family, or male close friends, or freed slaves performing this last duty to their owner; at least four bearers, up to eight, are shown on funeral depictions. A professional guild () of musicians specialized in funeral music, in which flutes played a major and emotionally effectual part; the number of flutes employed at funerals was limited by sumptuary laws. Horace mentions use of the tuba and the cornu, two bronze trumpet-like instruments, at funerals. For socially prominent individuals, and those whose public service was honoured with a publicly funded funeral, a eulogy was given in the forum, delivered from the Rostra. In a private funeral, the eulogy was delivered at the grave-side. Eulogy The eulogy () was a formal oration or panegyric in praise of the dead. It was one of two forms of discourse at a Roman funeral, the other being the chant (), most of which was performed by women. Male mourners might express their grief by a dignified groaning (gemitus); anything more was thought improper. These practices are associated with noble families, and the conventions for words spoken at an ordinary person's funeral go unrecorded. While public oratory was practiced in Rome only by men, an elite woman might also be honored with a public eulogy, though this was a rare event. In the most illustrious families, eulogies would tell of the successes and deeds of both the deceased and of their ancestors, impersonated