The Roman sense of family life applied also to a person's death.
Ideally members of the family were to be present when a Roman died.
On the point of death he was picked up and laid down on the bare earth
and one of his closest relations would catch his last breath with a kiss, before closing his eyes.
When he had died, those present would preform the so-called conclamatio,
calling the dead man loudly by name.
This tradition survives until this day at the death of a pope,
when the dead pontiff is called three times by his Christian name.