by the actors or relatives seated on the rostra, each on the curule chair appropriate to the highest office held, appropriately dressed and masked. Cicero and Livy say that these claims were sometimes false, perhaps (they are not explicit) by falsely claiming descent. A well-delivered funeral oration could be a way for a young politician to publicize himself. Aunt Julia's Eulogy (), a speech made by the young Julius Caesar in honor of his aunt, the widow of Gaius Marius, underlined his own claims to divine and kingly ancestry, and helped launch his political career as a populist. Marius, popular reformist and seven-times consul, had been Caesar's political sponsor. The epitaph of the deceased in effect was a digest of the eulogy made visible and permanent, and might include the career (cursus honorum) of a man who had held public offices. In commemorating past deeds, the eulogy was a precursor to Roman historiography. Disposal Cemeteries were usually sited outside the city boundary to avoid the physical and ritual pollution of the living by the dead. Cicero (in De Legibus, 2, 23, 58) categorises this as one of Rome's ancient Laws of Twelve Tables. Some prominent statesmen might have a right of burial in long-established family tombs within the ritual boundary (pomerium) of the city; but this was a rare privilege, and was seldom exercised. Sacrifices A portable altar was set up at the place of burial or cremation pyre, and the heir offered sacrifice of a pig in the presence of the deceased, usually to Ceres, Rome's principal grain, harvest and field goddess. Though not an underworld deity, Ceres was doorwarden between the realms of the living and the dead. The shade of the deceased could not pass into the underworld or afterlife without her consent. The sacrificial victim was consecrated by sprinkling with mola salsa, a sacred mixture of salt and grain or flour, then stunned or killed with an axe or hammer, turned on its back and gutted. The guts (exta), the "divine portion" of the sacrifice, were placed in an earthenware pot (olla) and examined. Abnormality in the exta indicated divine rejection of the offering, in which case the sacrifice must be repeated with a fresh victim. If all seemed satisfactory, the victim was cut up, and distributed between the presiding goddess, the mourners and the shade of the deceased. The di Manes were given their portion