SICKNESS AND PHYSICIANS, DEATH AND BURIAL.
The Great Plague--Homer’s References to
Physicians--_Asklepiadae_--The Oath of Hippocrates--General
Practitioners and Specialists--_Plutus_ of Aristophanes--Customs
connected with Death, Burial, and Burning--Tombs and their
Ornaments.
Greek mythology tells us that in the golden age mankind lived without
trouble or sorrows, equally unacquainted with vice and with cruel
disease; but when fatal curiosity opened the disastrous box of Pandora,
along with a thousand other troubles which pursue mankind, there came
forth also the countless diseases which attack men by day and night. The
myth thus expresses in simple language that, with the advance of
civilisation and the disappearance of the ancient simple mode of life in
accordance with nature, the number of diseases also increased. But the
greater the number of these attacks on the health and life of mankind,
the more eagerly do men seek to avoid them, though, at first, in a
purely empirical manner, and, therefore, the beginnings of the healing
art are as ancient as human civilisation itself. The oldest literary
monument of Greek life, the Homeric Epic, makes little mention of
disease, with the exception of the great plague, which devastated the
camp of the Greeks before Troy. The reason of this, however, lies in the
nature of the poet’s subject, and we must not on that account infer that
illness was little known. Even in Homer mention is made of physicians,
and though the Homeric doctors were chiefly concerned with healing the
wounds inflicted in war, still they possessed some surgical skill in
cutting arrows out of wounds, putting on bandages, etc., and were also
acquainted with the healing qualities of certain herbs, which they used
not only for external treatment of injuries, but also apparently for
internal use, in reducing fever, etc. Knowledge of this kind always
appears very early, even among nations of slight civilisation, and is
handed down from generation to generation. But the healing art was not
confined to heroes or demigods, such as Aesculapius and Podalirius, who
were afterwards regarded as ancestors of the physicians’ profession, and
who traced their origin and their knowledge alike to the gods. There
were also, even at that time, professional physicians, and certainly it
cannot have been left to chance to determine that some persons
possessing surgical and medical knowledge should be with every army.
It is no longer possible to trace in detail the development of the
medical profession after the times of Homer. In the historical period we
find the healing art developed in two special directions; first, as
practised by an actual medical profession; secondly, as a kind of
religious mystery in the hands of priests; besides these, quackery was
known in antiquity, as in all times.
The professional physicians, who, even in later times, regarded their
art as divine, and handed down by their ancestor Aesculapius (on which
account they also called themselves _Asklepiadae_), were probably a
development from the priestly physicians. It is very likely that in the
first centuries after Homer, the practice of the medical art was still
directly connected with the worship of Aesculapius, and that the
separation which we find in the historic period, where some remained as
medical assistants to the priests in the sanctuaries, and others
practised independently on their own account, only gradually made way.
It cannot be a mere chance that the places where the most celebrated
medical schools of antiquity existed, Cos and Cnidus, were also regarded
as the chief seats of the worship of Aesculapius. The professional
physicians, who practised their art independently, and were not
connected with the sanctuaries, naturally received a fee, and though
this brought them into somewhat bad repute, with which every art that
conduced to making money was regarded, yet their occupation stood in
much higher general estimation than any of the trades, and it was a
serious reproach if they, as sometimes happened, insisted on receiving
their payment beforehand, and in case of inability to pay, refused to
give any treatment at all. Their knowledge was not acquired at colleges
or hospitals, like that of our modern physicians, but, as a rule, they
became assistants or apprentices to old experienced physicians, whom
they accompanied on their visits, and by whom they were instructed in
diagnosis and therapeutics, as well as in the preparation of medicines.
There were sellers of drugs, who kept the most important remedies, but
there were no apothecaries in our modern sense, and physicians always
prepared their own medicines. There does not appear to have been any
examination necessary in early times before practising the medical
profession, or any direct control or supervision of the doctors, but in
later times physicians seem to have held together in a sort of guild,
and, perhaps, even solemnly dismissed their apprentices at the end of
their period of instruction before their assembled colleagues. This is
suggested by the oath of Hippocrates, which has been preserved to us,
in which the young disciple of Aesculapius promises to keep only the
welfare of his patient before him, to keep silence, to give no one
poison, even at his own request, etc. Probably this oath was only used
in the school of Hippocrates and his followers.
Among the professional physicians there was a further distinction
between those who practised privately and those who had official
positions. The former either gave their advice at home or else visited
their patients. Slight invalids, who were able to go out, generally
visited the physician in his consulting hours, and there they received
not only advice but sometimes also direct treatment, since other
apartments for bathing, operating, etc., were connected with the
consulting room, and the physician also prepared and dispensed his
medicines here. Even those who were very ill, as, for instance, the
wounded Lamachus in the “Acharnians” of Aristophanes, were carried
straight to the doctor when the case was pressing. Of course a very
celebrated physician could not himself treat all his patients, and he
therefore employed assistants in his consulting room, who also
accompanied him when he paid visits abroad, in order to profit by the
master’s experience at the sick bed; and it may not have been very
pleasant for the patients when the doctor thus arrived in company of a
not inconsiderable troop of students. It was still more unpleasant,
however, if want of means compelled them to resort to inferior
assistants, who sometimes were even slaves. These slave doctors were not
only summoned to the slave population, but they also treated free
people, chiefly those who were too poor to pay a high fee. Of these it
was said that they differed from the better physicians, who were careful
and who studied and watched their patients, in paying very hasty
visits, scarcely taking time to inquire after the nature of the illness,
and hurrying on after giving any directions that might occur to them.
Sometimes a citizen had one of his slaves taught the healing art by some
physician, supposing he showed any ability for this profession, and by
this means he had someone in the house who, in case of need, could
supply help at once. The position of the Greek slaves, especially in
Attica, was a comparatively free one, and therefore we must not be
surprised that they were willing to entrust the welfare of their body to
a slave, seeing that they even left much of the moral training of their
children to him. Complaints were often made, too, about free physicians,
not on account of their hastiness and carelessness, but rather because
of their boastful and haughty bearing; thus, for instance, Menecrates, a
physician of Syracuse, was accused of always dressing in the most
elaborate fashion, and wishing to be called Zeus. Others were rude or
inconsiderate to their patients, like that doctor who answered a
patient, when he expressed fear of death, with the words of
Homer:--“Patroclus, too, is dead, and he was a better man than thou.”
Others gave annoyance by carelessness in their dress and noisy manner,
loud talk, etc. Hippocrates insisted that a physician should aim at a
certain amount of elegance in dress and care in regard to his person,
though he adds characteristically that any doctor is at liberty to do
otherwise supposing his patients prefer it.
The position of the public physicians, who were chosen and paid by a
community, and therefore bound to receive no fees for their treatment,
was a different one, though it is not clear whether they treated all the
citizens or only the poor ones. These public physicians sometimes
received very high salaries. Thus the physician Democedes, as public
doctor at Aegina, received a salary of one talent (about £326);
thereupon he was summoned to Athens with a salary of a hundred minae
(£393), and in the following year the tyrant Polycrates, of Samos,
invited him, probably to fill the post of public physician, not as his
own private doctor, and gave him a salary of two talents (probably Attic
talents, therefore £471). On the other hand we sometimes hear of rich
physicians treating the poor free of charge.
Specialists do not seem to have been common in ancient Greece, the same
doctors treated external and internal complaints, and also men and
women. It seems, however, from the oath of Hippocrates that there were
specialists who undertook the operation of cutting for stone. Oculists
were unknown till a later period, when the medical practice generally
developed in various ways, and in particular the influence of
gymnastics, and the dietetics connected therewith had a very important
influence on medical methods.
These physicians, although they at times made use of strange or
“sympathetic” means of treatment, yet in general aimed at scientific
methods, building on the knowledge handed down to them by their
predecessors, and enriching it by their own experience and studies. On
the other hand, the healing processes, to which the priests of the
Aesculapian sanctuaries resorted, seem to have occupied a very doubtful
position between empirical therapeutics and superstitious hocus-pocus.
It had been a custom from ancient times for the priests of Aesculapius
to practise the healing art. Their knowledge was supposed to be in part
very ancient, handed down by the god himself, and in part divine
revelation, which was continually renewed. Some of the sanctuaries of
Aesculapius were renowned and visited beyond all others on account of
their wonderful and successful cures, in particular Cos, Cnidus, Tricca,
but especially Epidaurus, and afterwards also Pergamum. To these
sanctuaries the invalids who sought healing went as pilgrims, just as
people still go in Catholic countries to wonder-working shrines, and as
in these we see countless memorials of successful cures, pictures and
descriptions of diseases, wax or silver imitations of the part or limb
that was healed, etc., so in ancient times thank-offerings were made to
Aesculapius, sometimes in the shape of coin, sometimes also imitations
of hands, legs, eyes, ears, and breasts, etc., in marble, silver, or
gold, or else in simple wax or clay, together with the name of the
person who found healing there. Some also dedicated tablets, on which
was inscribed a detailed account of their illness and cure, and the
priests set up large tablets in the domain of the temple, on which all
manner of wonderful cures were described. The geographer Strabo tells us
of such inscriptions, describing diseases, in the sanctuaries of
Epidaurus, Cos, and Tricca. Pausanias saw in the temple domain at
Epidaurus six large tablets of this kind. Very considerable fragments of
two of these were found a few years ago, which give us a very
interesting insight into the proceedings at the Aesculapian sanctuaries.
The healing methods of the priests of Aesculapius were especially
distinguished from those of the professional physicians by the veil of
secrecy and miracle which surrounded them, since they rightly understood
that the love of wonders among the common people would always bring them
success. The healing was effected by what was called “incubation”; the
patient had to lie down at night in the sanctuary and sleep; in a dream
the god appeared to him, and either suggested to him the remedy which
would cure him, or else undertook, on the spot, to heal the sleeper, so
that the patient, when he awoke, found himself restored to health, and
went joyfully away! Aristophanes, in his “Plutus,” drastically depicts
one of these cures in the temple. The blind god of riches comes to the
temple of Aesculapius to seek for healing; after taking a bath in the
sea, he is conducted to the sanctuary; he offers a sacrifice and then
lies down to sleep, together with other patients, and one of the temple
servants warns them to keep unbroken silence. The servant who
accompanies Plutus, and who relates the proceedings, seems to be a
somewhat free-thinking rogue. He cannot sleep, and as he observes that
after the invalids have gone to sleep, the priests take away and pocket
the offerings laid upon the altars, he also takes the opportunity to
filch a pot of porridge from an old woman near him. After a time the god
himself appears, accompanied by two goddesses of healing. He goes round,
examines the individual patients, and, at last, comes also to Plutus; he
feels his head, dries his eyelids with a linen cloth, and one of the
goddesses puts a purple veil over his face. Suddenly two great snakes
come from the interior of the temple, creep under the veil, and lick the
eyelids of Plutus, who thus recovers the power of sight. Here the cure
takes place during sleep, as also in the stories which are related on
the inscriptions of Epidaurus, mentioned above. There, too, an account
is given of the cure of a blind woman to whom Aesculapius appears in a
dream, and restores her sight by dropping some healing lotion into her
eyes, in return for the promise that she will dedicate a silver pig to
Aesculapius (to whom pigs were often sacrificed), as a penalty for
having come to the temple in a state of unbelief. Such cures of
blindness are often mentioned in the inscriptions; sometimes the dog,
which was also sacred to Aesculapius, takes the place of the god, as the
snakes did in Aristophanes, and cures the eyes by licking them; in
another case the snake of Aesculapius cures the wounded toes of a
patient by licking. Many cases are even more wonderful. A man, who has
completely lost one of his eyes, receives the lost eye again by means of
healing lotion poured into his sockets by the god during sleep. A woman,
who has a worm in her body, dreams that Aesculapius cuts it open for
her, takes the worm out, and sews it up again. A man has moles on his
forehead, which the god removes by laying a bandage over his brow,
whereupon next moment it appears perfectly white and pure, while the
moles are left on the bandage; another man has lost the use of the
fingers of one hand, the god jumps on his hand and pulls his fingers
straight again, whereupon he is once more able to use them, etc., etc.
Indeed, Aesculapius not only cures sick people, but also lifeless
objects. A slave has broken his master’s cup, and as he sits sadly
looking at it, a passer-by laughingly says that even Aesculapius could
not mend that. That suggests to him taking the fragments into the
temple, and next morning, when he opens the case in which he has put
them, behold, the cup is whole again!
It is difficult to say which part of these stories is mere charlatanism
and what refers to real medical treatment by means of operation. It is
but natural that the priests at first got information by questioning
each patient about his illness. The sleep in the sanctuary, which was
indispensable for healing, was probably not a natural one, but either a
mesmeric sleep--since undoubtedly the ancients were acquainted with
this--or else a half-sleep induced by some narcotic, during which the
priests in the service of Aesculapius or their assistants appeared and
performed slight surgical operations on the sick people. This hypothesis
is the more probable, since all the cures mentioned in these
inscriptions from Epidaurus (which, though dating from the time of
Alexander the Great, are copies of older inscriptions, probably of the
fifth century) deal only with external means and never with internal
treatment; no medicine or healing drink is mentioned.
The cures which took place later on in the sanctuaries of Aesculapius by
means of incubation, or temple sleep, which were customary even in the
Roman period, were of a different nature. The invalids were not actually
cured during their sleep, but they received in a dream an indication
from the god of the manner in which they could be freed from their
sufferings, directions sometimes in reference to dietetic measures, such
as baths, fasting, etc., and sometimes to medicines. In these cases,
too, we must suppose that the invalid fell into a state of half-sleep,
during which a priest in the form of the god appeared, and gave the
directions in question, for which a quantity of medical knowledge,
gradually acquired by experience, stood the priests in good stead.
Sometimes healing _thermae_, or springs, which were found near some of
the sanctuaries, did good service, especially if the invalids remained
there for some time. The Greek sanctuaries of Aesculapius were almost
always situated on high ground, where the air was healthy and pure.
There must always have been houses for the reception of sick people,
especially those who came from a great distance. Thus the sanctuary of
Aesculapius at Epidaurus was about four miles from the town, but, to
prevent any pollution of the holy place, no children must be born there
and no one must die there, and on this account pregnant women and dying
people were mercilessly sent away. Of course the priests did not give
their aid for nothing, but were repaid in money or offerings to the
shrine, and we find many allusions to these offerings; indeed, the
sanctuary at Epidaurus could vie in wealth with that at Delphi.
It was not only in the temples of Aesculapius that dream oracles
existed. Many other gods or heroes took similar care for suffering
humanity, just as at the present day the shrines which possess
miraculous pictures of Madonnas or relics vie with one another. Thus
sick people were received in the temple of Hades, situated between
Tralles and Nysa, in Lydia, but here it was the priests and not the
patients to whom the method of cure was revealed in sleep, and this was
also the case in the temple of Amphiaraus at Oropus, on the borders of
Attica and Boeotia.
Mention must also be made of quackery and sympathetic cures. The belief
in the latter was very general in antiquity, and was shared even by
unprejudiced men of considerable education. This was effected by
amulets, supposed to ward off or heal diseases, and also by magic words
which we should now describe as conjuring; laying on of hands,
symbolical washing, etc. The sellers of drugs were specially occupied
with quackery; besides rouge, paint, and other means of promoting
beauty, they also sold medicines and offered their wares in mountebank
fashion. Very often, when sick people had failed to obtain alleviation
or cure from a regular physician, they gave him up and resorted to
quackery instead.
There were a number of half symbolical, half superstitious, customs
connected with death and burial, which were partly due to the belief
that the soul would be more easily received and allowed to remain in the
dark realm of shadows in consequence of this care of the body; but the
ancients also regarded fitting burial and care for the grave as the
fulfilment of a duty imposed by the gods, and likely also to bring
blessing to the surviving members of the race. This duty was, therefore,
only neglected in the very rarest cases. Criminals were buried without
any ceremony, or were left to rot unburied; suicides, too, were refused
the common honours of public burial, and were put away by night, a time
which was not customary for funerals.
In order to gain some insight into these customs, let us turn once more
to that house which we visited in order to be present at the birth and
early life of an Athenian of the well-to-do class. Let us suppose that
after spending a long and honourable life in the service of his country,
he has lain down to take his last rest. Surrounded by the nearest
members of his family, he has breathed his last breath, after having
himself, with his dying hand, drawn one of the points of his garment
over his face, in order to spare his friends the painful sight of the
death struggle. One of the survivors now steps up to the bed, uncovers
the face of the dead man, and softly closes his eyes and mouth.
According to the curious ancient belief, not peculiar to the Greeks,
that a human being is unclean immediately after entrance into life, and
also on his departure from the world, and as this uncleanness is
extended to the whole house and all who associate with it, immediately
after the death a vessel of consecrated water, which must be brought
from another house, is placed before the door, and everyone who leaves
the dwelling sprinkles himself from it, in order to be once more pure
and able to associate with others. The corpse is then washed by the
women of the family, anointed with fine oil and sweet-scented essences,
and clothed in pure white garments. These are the dress of common
life--the chiton and the himation, but so put on that both arms are
covered and only the head and feet seen. Youths were probably clad in
the chlamys, and the Spartans preferred to clothe their dead in the
scarlet military cloak, while at Athens coloured garments were sometimes
used instead of white. On the dead man’s head they put a wreath of real
flowers--whatever the season might supply--or else laurel, olive, or
ivy. At burial, this was often replaced by an artificial wreath of
beaten gold leaf, and numerous remains of these death-wreaths, which
were often of very artistic workmanship, have been found in Greek
graves. Relations and friends also sent fresh wreaths and garlands as a
token of sympathy, and these were used for decking the bier and grave.
In the dead man’s mouth they put a coin, as passage money for the
ferryman who had to ferry the souls over the Styx; for after the belief
in Charon, which was unknown in the Homeric period, had taken firm root
among the Greeks, it was regarded as a pious duty to supply the dead
man, as soon as possible, with this passage money, in order that the
shade might not wander too long restlessly by the shore of Styx. The
coin was put in his mouth, because in common life it was not unusual to
put single coins in the hollow of the cheek, since pockets were unknown
in ancient costume; large sums were seldom carried about, or else they
were put in a bag. It was a similar superstition which made people in
some places put a honey-cake by the side of the corpse to pacify the dog
Cerberus, the fierce guardian of the lower regions. Previous to the
funeral there was a solemn laying-out of the body, when friends and
acquaintances came to see the departed for the last time, and the near
relations took part in the funeral lament for the dead. This laying-out,
or πρόθεσις, usually took place in the central hall of the house, but
care was taken that the sun should not shine on the corpse, since even
the Sun god must not pollute himself by the sight of a dead body. On a
couch covered with cushions and hangings, adorned with flowers and
branches, the dead man was laid, his feet turned towards the house door,
through which he must take his last journey; round about him, at any
rate at Athens, they placed large or small oil flasks (λήκυθοι), adorned
with paintings, all depicting scenes dealing with death or graves, which
were made in one of the Attic vase factories specially for this purpose,
and were probably sent by sympathetic friends as funeral offerings.
Besides the nearest relations, intimate friends also took part in the
solemn funeral lament, and were sometimes specially invited for the
purpose. The servants of the house also stood by the couch with the
other mourners, and joined with them in the lament, in which men and
women, standing apart, joined alternately. This lament was no wild,
irregular wail, but a regular hymn of sorrow, and very often singers
were specially hired in order to add to the beauty of the performance,
and the hymn was sometimes broken from time to time by choruses sung
either by the whole assembly or by semi-choruses. Many external marks of
sorrow were also shown, such as are customary in the south, where the
character of the people is more violent and excitable, viz., beating the
breast, lacerating the cheeks, tearing out the hair, rending the
garments; and sometimes cries of grief
[Illustration: FIG. 108.]
interrupted the song of mourning. Solon had ordered moderation in these
marks of sorrow, but it must have been difficult, if not impossible, to
keep within bounds by any legal decrees the expression of wild despair,
especially on the part of the women.
[Illustration: FIG. 109.]
The custom of these funeral laments is a very ancient one. We find it
universally adopted in the Homeric period, and here, too, in the form of
responsions; the wail is heard at Troy by the corpse of Hector, as well
as in the Greek camp by the bier of Achilles. We find the laying-out of
the corpse and the funeral lament represented on a great many vase
paintings, as, for instance, in the one depicted in Fig. 108. Here we
see the dead man lying on a richly-decked couch, in front of which
stands a footstool; he is enveloped in his mantle up to his neck, he
wears a wreath, and his head rests on several cushions. In front of the
couch and at the sides stand six women, all raising their arms with
gestures of grief; some of them are touching their heads, as though to
tear out their hair. A little girl in a similar attitude stands at the
foot of the bed; on the right, turning away from the scene, stands a
boy. Fig. 109 is similar. Here we see under the dead man’s couch his
shield, helmet, and cuirass; of the wailing women, who are almost all
tearing out their hair, one holds a lyre in her hand, and another a
fillet; the former is accompanying the lament, the other is about to
deck the corpse or the bier. The hot climate of the south generally
necessitated limiting the duration of this ceremony to a single day,
and, indeed, Solon expressly commanded that this should be done; only
where special measures were taken for preserving the body was it
possible to leave it for several days. Embalming was not customary in
Greece; it was only when the corpses of those who had died in foreign
lands were brought home to be buried, that they were placed in some
substance to check the dissolution--for instance, in honey, as the
Spartans did with those of their kings who died away from home.
The funeral usually took place in the early morning before sunrise, and
throughout the whole of antiquity both burying and burning were common,
sometimes subsisting side by side, while at other times one fashion or
the other was more general. It seems as though burying had at first been
more common among the Greeks than burning. It is true we find only
burning mentioned in the Homeric poems, but we must not forget that we
are concerned with exceptional circumstances in the Iliad, since the
warriors who fell before Troy did not die at home; and in such cases,
even in later times, burning was preferred, since it enabled the
survivors to bring the ashes of the dead man home with them. Still, even
in those early times, burying was very common, as is proved, in spite of
the lack of literary evidence, by the ancient burial grounds discovered
at many places in Greece; and similarly, in the historic period, the
burning of dead bodies, though certainly practised, was not so common as
burying, if only for the very practical reason that the latter was far
cheaper and much less troublesome. Whichever form was chosen by the
friends, or had been appointed by the dead man himself, the solemn
funeral procession was never omitted; the crematoria, like the
cemeteries, were outside the city gates, since at Athens, and probably
in most Greek states, they were not allowed to bury their dead within
the walls; the Doric states alone seem to have made an exception to this
rule. A very ancient painted vase seems to afford a proof that it was
customary in early times to convey the dead to the cemetery on a car
drawn by horses, but in the historical age, at any rate, the corpse was
taken to the grave on the same couch on which it had been exposed to
view. This duty was generally performed by the slaves of the household,
and where there were not sufficient of these, gravediggers were
specially hired; while in the case of men who had deserved well of their
country, the citizens regarded it as an honour to perform this duty
themselves. If the dead man had died a violent death, a spear was
carried in front of him, which pointed to the revenge to be taken; the
spear was then fixed in the earth near the grave, and the nearest
relation pronounced a curse against the murderer, after which the place
was watched for three days. This did not, however, point to revenge on
the part of the relations alone, but to the punishment to be inflicted
by the legal authorities. As a rule, the male relations and friends
walked at the head of the processions, and the women behind the corpse;
but one of Solon’s ordinances limited the female followers to the
nearest relations not extending beyond the nieces. Among the more
distant relations, only women over sixty years of age were allowed to
follow. This law does not, however, seem to have been quite strictly
observed. All the mourners wore grey or black mourning; the nearest
relations cut their hair off, for the custom of shaving the hair in case
of death is a very old one, and even in Homer we read that the hair cut
off was sometimes placed in the dead man’s hand. During the procession
laments were again sung, and accompanied by the wailing tones of a
flute; but here customs differed somewhat, and at Ceos, for instance,
where the ordinances concerning burial, differing in many respects from
the Attic customs, have been preserved to us, there were especial
directions that the body should be carried out in silence. The dead man
wore the clothes in which he had been laid out, but extravagance and
excessive luxury necessitated some limitations by the law, so that Solon
expressly ordained that the number of garments should not exceed three,
and the above-mentioned ordinance allowed only one under garment, one
cloak, and one pall or covering, the whole value not to exceed 300
drachmae, and also ordained that the couch on which the dead man was
carried to the grave, and the other hangings or cushions, should not be
burnt or buried, but brought back again.
[Illustration: FIG. 110.]
There were various ways of burying the dead. If they were placed in a
grave it was customary to make use of a coffin, which was let down into
the grave by the bearers. We see this represented on the vase picture,
Fig. 110. Two men, who look like barbarian slaves or men of the lower
classes, are standing in the grave and holding up their hands in order
to receive the coffin, which is carefully let down by two men of similar
appearance; on the right and left stand weeping women. The coffins were
sometimes made of wood, especially Cyprus wood, which was occasionally
decorated with costly carving and painting; sometimes of clay, less
often of stone, although stone sarcophagi have been found in Greece, but
the custom of decorating their sides with sculptured pictures did not
become common until the Roman period. The shapes of the
[Illustration: FIG. 111.]
coffins differed; there were square box-like coffins, and also others of
an oval shape, or pointed coffins, made of flat terra-cotta tiles. Poor
people were generally buried in some common cemetery, in simple coffins,
and in graves made to hold a large number. Richer people had special
vaults, which were either constructed by hollowing out the rocky ground
below or above the earth, or by the artificial building up of a tumulus.
The curious _tholos_ buildings of Mycenae, Orchomenus, Attica, etc., are
generally supposed now to be nothing but large vaults of this
description; and, indeed, throughout the whole of Greece, Sicily, and
Lower Italy, numerous tombs, either vaulted out of the rock or
constructed of large blocks of stone, have been discovered, not to speak
of the temples and towers which are chiefly found in Asia Minor, and
usually appear to be due to non-Greek origin or influence. In these
vaults, which often served for whole families, they laid their dead,
either in coffins or without them, merely in their grave clothes,
generally resting on a flat stone. Thus the Attic vase picture in Fig.
111 represents the dead man in his tomb, the vaulting of which the
painter has imitated, wrapped in a white cloth, a cushion under his
head; fillets hang down from above. In Attica it was the custom to place
the bodies so that their heads turned to the west and their feet to the
east, while the opposite position was usual at Megara, where the customs
differed in other ways, and three or four corpses were sometimes put in
the same coffin. The custom of placing various objects required in daily
life in the grave by the side of the dead man was universal, chiefly the
things with which he had been occupied in his lifetime, or which
belonged to his profession; clothes, money, oil-flasks, and other vases
were put in, and besides them, in the case of a child, his toys; in the
case of a warrior his arms; a woman’s spindle or ornaments and mirror; a
young man’s strigil and oil-flask; a musician’s flute or lyre. We owe
nearly all the small art treasures which have come down to us from
antiquity, such as vases, terra-cottas, cameos, gold ornaments, caskets,
etc., to this custom of adorning the graves of the dead with the objects
used in daily life. Many of these, especially vases, lamps,
candlesticks, arms, etc., seem to have been specially made with a view
to being placed in the grave, since they were often of no use for
practical purposes. There were no doubt special places outside the walls
devoted to burning the bodies, though it is quite possible that some
people were burnt on their own land if that happened to be large enough.
Wood, twigs, and other easily-combustible substances were used for
erecting a pile; the body was laid on it, along with the cushions
destined to be burnt, among which, besides the objects already
mentioned, the favourite animals of the dead were often included; and
the pile was lighted with a torch. Round about stood the mourners, who
called aloud many times on the dead, bidding him farewell. There do not
appear to have been any other ceremonies connected with the funeral, nor
did it bear a specially religious character, such as would be given it
by the presence of priests or the offering of sacrifices; still, we must
not forget that the mere act of burying or burning was regarded as a
religious one. Funeral orations were only pronounced in the case of
soldiers who had fallen in war, or men who had deserved specially well
of their country. When the corpse was consumed by the fire and the pile
had burned down, the glowing remains were quenched with water or wine.
This act is represented on a vase painting (Fig. 112), which gives a
scene from the Apotheosis of Hercules. The ashes and pieces of bone
which had not been completely consumed were then collected and put in a
special vessel. For this purpose they used urns, coffin-like boxes, and
small vessels, which were afterwards placed in larger cases. These were
constructed of different materials, clay or stone, brass, lead,
sometimes even silver or gold. The urns were then placed, like the
coffins, in a vault or under the earth.
When the burying or burning was ended, it was the custom for the
relations and intimate friends of the deceased to return to the house of
the latter, and after both the house and its inhabitants had been
purified from the pollution connected with the death, by means of
incense and sprinkling, or washing with consecrated water, they took
part together in a funeral banquet. At this the near relations, who had
hitherto
[Illustration: FIG. 112.]
refrained from food, or at any rate from meat, for the first time again
partook of it, a custom which could probably only be carried out when
the funeral took place on the second day after the death. On the third
and ninth days after, the nearest relations went to the grave with
libations, which consisted in part of bloodless offerings, such as milk,
honey, wine, etc., and partly in the sacrifice of real victims. On the
spot where the body or the ashes were buried, unless the remains were
placed in some vault above the earth, they erected a funeral monument,
which bore the name of the family and home of the deceased, sometimes in
metrical form; and even gave details about
[Illustration: FIG. 113.]
his life and his virtues. This was usually decorated in an artistic
manner. The commonest form was the “Stele,” which was sometimes a tall
column, at others merely a horizontal gravestone, and represented the
dead man in some occupation of daily life. A boy might be seen playing
with his ball, and a girl with her doll; a young man holds his quoit; a
strong warrior stands fully armed as though ready to depart; a
countryman accompanied by his faithful dog, leans on his knotted stick;
a young wife sits near her work-basket or gazes with pleasure at her
ornaments, like the one represented on the relief in Fig. 113, where the
lady seems to be taking a ring from a jewel case held for her by her
attendants; others represent the dead person alone or with others, not
engaged in any occupation, but in some simple natural attitude, like the
two women on the stone represented in Fig. 114; others suggest death,
since the relations are taking leave of a member of a family. On one it
is the mother who is dying, and the smallest of the children is creeping
up to her (compare Fig. 62), or they are holding out to her a child
still wrapped in swaddling clothes for her last kiss (compare Fig. 58);
the husband steps to his wife, who is resting in an easy chair, and
gives her his hand for a last farewell, with an expression of sorrow
mingled with self-control. On some tombstones of a longer shape the
family meal is represented; the husband lies on the couch, the wife sits
near him, the children are pressing around them, and even the faithful
animals, the dog and favourite horse, are not forgotten. This subject is
a very common one; sometimes it is a simple scene from daily life,
sometimes the master is represented in a more heroic attitude as already
dead, and his relations are paying the
[Illustration: FIG. 114.]
[Illustration: FIG. 115.]
departed the fitting honour and adoration. There seems to be little
attempt at representing real portraits on most Greek tombstones; they
are ideal types, often of extraordinary beauty, now and then, perhaps,
with some slight resemblance to the dead, but by no means realistic
portrait statues. But whether it is a scene from real life that is
represented by art, or the bitter last farewell, or whether it is any
hint of the life in a future state, which last is by no means uncommon,
these reliefs are always distinguished by their moderation in the
expression of pain, and a peaceful feeling of calm and worthy expression
of sorrow, which can but have an elevating effect even on those who have
grown up in the views of Christianity. This is the case even where some
simple stonemason has roughly expressed in stone the thought of parting
and reunion; how much more, then, in those magnificent
[Illustration: FIG. 116.]
creations of the finest period of Attic art to which the examples
represented above belong.
There were many other shapes adopted for these tombstones. Very often
the stelai were decorated with painting instead of reliefs; in some the
surface was extended and the background hollowed out, which gave them an
altar-like character, and they were often framed in correspondingly by
pillars and gables. Occasionally the stones bore the shape of a vase,
especially of the oil-flask, so important in its association with death,
and this, too, might be decorated with sculpture. Sometimes they set low
columns of round or square shape on the grave, on which they often
represented a siren, who had a special significance as singer of
mourning songs; sometimes whole statues--ideal pictures or portraits of
the deceased--were placed there, though the custom was more common in
the Hellenic period than in the best ages of art.
Childish affection and belief led them to decorate these graves still
further with wreaths, fillets, growing plants, etc. These were often
renewed, and especially on the anniversaries of birth and death the
relations came with libations and sacrifices, pouring out sweet odours
or wine, or by other means showed that the memory of the departed was
not gone from them. There are many pictures extant, especially on vases,
depicting the care of the graves. Fig. 115, from a vase painting, shows
two women approaching a stele, carrying plates with flasks and fillets.
Similarly, in Fig. 116, the weeping woman at the end of the stele is
drawn with especial grace.
Thus the Greeks held the memory of their dead worthily in honour,
although their time of mourning did not last nearly as long as is
customary with us, but
[Illustration: FIG. 117.]
was generally limited to one or a few months. Even in the case of those
who had died away from home, and whose remains could not be brought
back, as, for instance, those who were drowned at sea, or altogether
lost to sight, they erected cenotaphs, in order to have some spot with
which to connect the ceremonies devoted to the memory of the dead. The
tombstone represented in Fig. 117 was probably that of a man who had
lost his life in some such way, perhaps in a shipwreck. The relief shows
the dead man sitting sadly on land near his ship, and gazing towards his
distant home which he was not permitted to see again. In the empty space
below, his name and probably also the details of his death were
inscribed in writing, which has now been effaced.