THE BENEFIT OF DISSOLUTION.
Thus far the investigation of customs and beliefs in ancient and modern
times relating to the treatment of the dead has established the fact
that the dissolution of the body was a thing eagerly to be desired in
the interests of the dead. With complete disintegration the _summum
bonum_ of the dead, so far as it was in the power of their surviving
friends to win it for them, was secured. It remains to consider in what
way the dead profited thereby.
Now I have hitherto spoken designedly of dissolution as a benefit,
not to the souls of the dead nor to their bodies, but simply ‘to the
dead’ without further specification. It will now limit the range of
discussion as to the nature of the _summum bonum_ to which dissolution
gave access, if we can first answer the old question, _cui bono?_
Is it the body alone or the soul alone or both conjointly on which
the benefit is conferred? This question once answered, we shall have
eliminated a certain number of possible conceptions of future happiness.
That the body alone might have been the recipient of the whole benefit
is an idea which no one will entertain. Was it then the soul alone
to which the dissolution of the body brought gain? Death, as we have
learnt, was not a complete and final severance of soul from body; the
soul might re-enter and re-animate the corpse. Was dissolution then
believed to complete the severance?
The deliverance of the soul from the bondage of the body, the divorce
of spirit from matter, is an idea which has appealed and does appeal to
many, and would therefore furnish a motive of considerable intrinsic
probability for the treatment which the Greek people have consistently
accorded to their dead; the dissolution of the body, it might be
supposed, was desired and hastened in order that the soul might be
freed from its last link with this material world and pass away winged
and unburdened towards things ethereal.
But such an explanation savours too much of philosophy and too little
of popular religion. ‘The rehearsal of death,’ that is of the severance
of soul from body, was according to Socrates the proper occupation of
the philosopher; and death itself was welcome to him as a final release
of the soul, the true self, from the fetters of physical existence.
But the very emphasis which the whole of the _Phaedo_ gives to this
idea, the insistence of Socrates that his real self is that which
converses with his friends and seeks to convince them of his views, and
not the corpse which they will soon be burying or burning as seemeth
them good[1292], suggest, if anything, that in the popular religion
the severance of soul from body was not desired, and the true self was
not conceived as a thing apart from body. At any rate the reason for
desiring dissolution must be sought from more popular sources.
I return therefore to a passage[1293] on which I have already touched
more than once, the earliest passage of extant literature, in which a
dead man is represented as craving the dissolution of his body. Why was
it that the soul of Patroclus desired so urgently the last rites for
his body? Was it for the benefit of his soul only? Popular religion,
as we have seen, did not reckon death a final severance of soul and
body; for the soul might return and re-animate the body. Was then
dissolution believed to complete the severance, annihilating the body
and emancipating the soul? Did the future happiness of the soul depend
upon such emancipation? Did Patroclus, in the case before us, crave
dissolution in order that his soul, finally severed from his body,
might find happiness?
Homer certainly peoples the lower world with souls only, severed from
their former bodies. It is clearly the soul only of Patroclus which
will pass the gates of Hades, when once his request for the burial
of his body has been fulfilled; for it is ‘the souls, the semblances
of the dead[1294],’ who bar his entrance thereto meanwhile. But
those souls are not happy souls. The house of Hades is not a place of
happiness; it is dank, murky, mouldering; and the souls themselves are
not of a nature to enjoy anything; they are feeble, impotent wraiths,
mere semblances of men, all doomed to the same miserable travesty
of life; the bodies from which they are now severed were their real
selves[1295], and there remain now only impalpable joyless phantoms.
‘Sooner,’ cries the spirit of Achilles to Odysseus, ‘would I be a serf
bound to the soil, in the house of a portionless man whose living were
but scant, than lord over all the dead that are perished[1296]’; for
the old valour even of Achilles avails him no more; his soul fares in
the house of Hades even as all others fare; all alike are doomed to
everlasting futility in a land of everlasting gloom. Fitly is the soul
of Patroclus said to have sped, at the moment of death, towards Hades’
realm ‘bewailing its fate in that it had left vigour and manhood[1297].’
How then comes it that anon the same soul is eager to pass the gates of
Hades? Surely the wanderings of the dead Patroclus, whether in the form
of a _revenant_ as the popular belief would have had it, or, according
to Homer’s version, as a disembodied spirit, would hardly be more
pitiable than the lot which he in common with all the dead must suffer
below. Why then this eagerness?
I can find nothing in Homer to justify it; it appears to me wholly
inconsistent with the Homeric conception of the under-world.
And this inconsistency is of wide bearing. The cases of Patroclus and
Elpenor are not isolated. The same eagerness for dissolution on the
part of the dead has, as we have seen, been steadily recognised in all
the relations between the living and the dead from the days of Homer
until now. That which is at variance with the Homeric conception of
the hereafter is not merely the petition of Patroclus, but the idea on
which the funeral-customs of a whole people have been based for nearly
three thousand years.
Such a discrepancy cannot but force upon us the question how far the
Homeric conception of the hereafter was the popular conception.
That the whole picture of the house of Hades and of the condition
of the departed therein was not an Homeric invention is, I suppose,
indisputable. Its two main features are the gloom of the place and the
lack of distinction between the lots of those who dwell there[1298].
Of these the first at any rate is frequent enough in later literature,
and indeed held so firm a place in the Greek mind that ‘to see the
light’ became synonymous with ‘to live in this upper world’; and even
down to the present day both ideas live on. The constant epithets
which Homer applies to the house of Hades, ‘cold’ (κρυερός) and
‘mouldering’ (εὐρώεις), are exactly reproduced in the epithets with
which Hades, now a place instead of a person, is described in modern
dirges--κρυοπαγωμένος, ‘frozen,’ and ἀραχνιασμένος, ‘thick with
spiders’ webs’[1299]; and the same uniform misery of all the departed
is likewise a common theme in the many songs that deal with Charon and
the lower world. All this could not have been effected by the influence
of Homer alone, great though it was, if he had himself invented the
whole conception. It is clear that he utilised a conception which was
before his time, and still is, a popular conception.
But there is equally good evidence of a totally different presentation
of the future state. A fragment of one of Pindar’s dirges contradicts
the Homeric description of the lower world in every point. ‘Upon the
righteous the glorious sun sheddeth light below while night is here,
and amid meadows red with roses lieth the space before their city’s
gate, all hazy with frankincense and laden with golden fruits; and
some take their joy in horses and feats of prowess, and others at
the draught-board, and others in the music of lutes, and among them
every fair flower of happiness doth blossom; and o’er that lovely land
spreadeth the savour of all manner of spices that be mingled with
far-gleaming fire on the gods’ altars[1300].’ So then this under-world
is not cold and murky, but is warmed and lighted by the sun; its
inhabitants are not frail spirits incapable of joy, but take their
pleasure as aforetime in the world above; nor is the lot of all the
same, for it is only the righteous who enjoy this bliss.
The popular character of this conception is equally clear. The
distinction between the varying fortunes of the dead--the hope of
happiness for some in contrast with the universal misery of the Homeric
under-world--is an idea which finds expression throughout ancient
literature; and if the house of Hades often remains none the less a
place of gloom, that is because the abode of the righteous is often
transferred to the islands of the blest, and the dark under-world
left as a place of punishment for the wicked. At the present day too
the same ideas are widely current among the common-folk. It is true
that the dirges more generally pourtray the lower world as wrapped
in Homeric gloom, and the condition of the departed as monotonously
miserable; but the express purpose of these dirges, recited beside the
dead body before it is carried out to burial, is to excite the mourners
to a frenzy of grief, and the professional dirge-singer (for there are
still women in some parts of Greece who follow that calling) would soon
lose her work if, instead of harrowing the feelings of the mourners,
she took upon herself to comfort them; her whole business is to move
to tears those whom the bereavement itself has left unmoved, or to
stimulate to fresh outbursts of lamentation those who are already spent
with sorrow. But in a few folk-songs is found the more cheerful belief
that the departed still continue the pursuits which they followed in
this life[1301]; while as for their abode, any peasant who should have
the Pindaric description of the future home of the blessed explained to
him, would unhesitatingly identify it with that which he himself calls
Paradise. Some points perhaps in that description would surprise him
no less than they would please him, as for example the permission to
play draughts, but they would not obscure his recognition; the place of
fair flowers and fruits and scents could be none other than Paradise.
“The people of modern Greece,” says a Greek writer[1302], ... “unable
to comprehend the idea of spiritual joys, consider Paradise a place
of largely material and sensuous pleasures. The Paradise of the Greek
folk is watered by great rivers, ... and in it there grow trees which
diffuse odours sweet past telling.... Agreeably with this reception of
the idea of Paradise by the people, the fathers of the church also
were compelled to describe Paradise in terms of the senses as well as
of the spirit, thus making certain concessions to popular feeling and
ideas. ‘Some,’ says John of Damascus[1303], ‘have imagined a sensuous
Paradise, others a spiritual Paradise. For my part I think that, just
as man himself has been created with senses as well as with spirit,
so the most holy close (ἱερώτατον τέμενος) to which he has access
appeals alike to the senses and to the spirit.’” The compromise in this
passage is cleverly justified, but it has not lasted; the pagan part
of it alone has survived, and the Paradise of the modern folk is none
other than that abode which Pindar described. Even the rivers thereof,
which are naturally desired above all things by the inhabitants of a
dry and dusty land, were probably not absent from Pindar’s picture;
for Plutarch, to whom we owe the preservation of the fragment, passes
in one passage from actual quotation of the opening lines to a mention
of smooth and tranquil rivers flowing through the land[1304]; and
in the kindred picture of the Islands of the Blest, which Pindar
paints elsewhere, he does not omit to mention the water wherewith the
golden flowers are refreshed[1305]; for in his eyes too water was
the best of earth’s gifts, even as gold was the brightest of wrought
treasures[1306].
It was this high appreciation of water which first informed a custom
prevalent all over Greece on the occasion of funerals. As the bier
passes along the road, the friends and neighbours of the dead man empty
at their doorway or from their windows a vessel of water, and usually
throw down the vessel itself to be broken on the stones of the road.
This custom is evidently very old, for in some places the use of the
water, the very essence of the rite, has become obsolete, and all that
remains of the custom is the breaking of a piece of crockery. And even
though in most places the custom is observed in full, its meaning
has generally been forgotten, and curious conjectures have been made
to explain it. Some interpret the custom as a symbol of that which
has befallen the dead man; the vessel is his body, the water is his
soul; the pouring out of the water symbolises the vanishing of the
soul, and the dead body will fall to pieces like the broken crock.
Others say that they pour out the water ‘in order to allay the burning
thirst of the dead man[1307],’ a notion ominously suggestive of the
boon which Dives sought of Lazarus. But the real purpose of the rite
is still known in some of the Cyclades, where exactly the same custom
is followed also on the occasion of a man’s departure from his native
village[1308], to live, as they say, in exile. And the purpose is to
promote the well-being of the dead or of the exile in the new land
to which he is going. The pouring out of the water is in fact a rite
of sympathetic magic designed to secure that the unknown land shall
also be well-watered and pleasant and plentiful; and the breaking of
the vessel which held the water is due, I suppose, to a feeling that
an instrument which has served a magical purpose must not thereafter
be put to profane and mundane uses. This custom then in itself bears
witness how wide-spread is, or has been, the conception of the other
world as a land of delight wherein the pleasant things of this world
shall still abound.
Thus then it must be acknowledged that two contradictory popular
conceptions of the hereafter have survived side by side as a twofold
inheritance from the ancient world. The one pervades the whole of
Homer; the other is best expounded in a fragment of Pindar[1309]; and
the fundamental difference between them is this, that the one consigns
all the dead alike to gloom and misery, while the other distinguishes
between the future fortunes of the righteous and the unrighteous, and
holds out the hope of happiness in a yet brighter world than this.
Whence came these two conceptions?
The world which Homer describes is the Achaean world, and I suspect
that his under-world is likewise the Achaean under-world. The Achaean
religion, as exhibited in Homer, is in no way profound. The gods are
only Achaean princes on a yet grander scale, endowed with immortality.
Men’s relations with them are eminently simple and practical;
sacrifice is expected if prayers are to be answered. But both gods
and men are concerned with this upper world only; death closes all
relations between them. The gods are unconcerned, unless it be for some
special favourite; they live on Olympus as aforetime amid feasting,
quarrelling, laughter, and love; but men leave these pursuits and
pastimes, and go down to the misery of Hades’ house; their souls which
fled lamenting from their limbs at the hour of death still exist,
else could they not appear to living men in the visions of night; but
their existence is all misery, for they lack all that made this life
pleasant. Their joys had been the joys of a strenuous, full-blooded
life, the joys of battle, of feasting, of song, of comradeship; and
these joys were no more. The future existence of the soul was, to the
Achaeans, simply the negation of the present bodily life.
But the religion of a later age was by no means so simple. The
Homeric gods were still worshipped in the old way, and received
their sacrifices in exchange for favours desired or granted. But
there was another element in religion of which Homer shows little
trace--an element of awe and mystery. Homer indeed names the Erinyes
as beings concerned with the punishment of certain sins; but he shows
no knowledge of that awful doctrine of blood-guilt which Aeschylus
associates with them; the murdered man’s power of vengeance is wholly
ignored; for among the Achaeans the next of kin might accept a price at
the hands of the murderer, and allow him to remain in the land[1310],
without himself incurring any pollution or any manifestation of his
dead kinsman’s wrath. Again Homer knows indeed of Demeter as a goddess
connected with the crops; but there is nothing in his casual mention
of her to suggest that the mysteries of her worship transcended the
rites of all the Olympian gods. Yet no one, I suppose, would imagine
that these profounder elements in ancient religion were of post-Homeric
growth or could possibly have been evolved from the transparently
simple religion of the Achaeans.
On the contrary it is known that the more mysterious rites and
doctrines of the Greek religion were a legacy from the Pelasgians. That
the mysteries of Demeter were Pelasgian in origin is proved by the
localities in which her worship most flourished, and is corroborated
by the explicit statement of Herodotus[1311], who was disposed to
refer other mystic cults also to the same source[1312]. In fact the
co-existence, or even the conflict, of the old Pelasgian and the newer
Achaean religions is constantly recognised in ancient literature, and
to the Pelasgian is ascribed all that most touched men’s hearts, be it
with awe or with pity--with awe as in the conflict between the Erinyes
and the new dynasty of gods whom Apollo and Athene represent, with pity
in the dolorous struggle of Prometheus against the tyrant Zeus. The
Pelasgian religion, with all its horrors, drew the real sympathies of
the mystic Aeschylus; he could worship in deepest reverence Demeter
and her mysteries[1313]; he could worship perhaps even the ‘reverend
goddesses,’ horrible though they were in their displeasure; but his
heart must have been cold towards the usurping Olympian gods. There
is true insight in that passage of Aristophanes[1314] where Aeschylus
summarises the benefits conferred by great poets on the Greek race,
and praises Homer, the Achaean poet, for his lessons in discipline
and valour and warfare, but Orpheus, sometimes reputed the founder of
the Pelasgian mysteries, for instituting religious rites and teaching
men to abstain from bloodshed. And the feelings of Aeschylus were
the feelings of his countrymen. The Athenians boasted of a great
Achaean goddess as the foundress and patroness of their city, but
their personal hopes of future happiness centred in the Pelasgian
Demeter. The same generation of Athenians listened with delight to
Aristophanes’ ridicule of those gods whom Homer accounted greatest, and
were aghast at the thought that the mysteries had been profaned. The
Achaean gods, it would seem, made good figure-heads for the official
religion of the state; they served as majestic patrons of a city, or
of a great national festival where religion was of less real account
than horse-racing, athletics, and commerce; but the hearts of the
people clave to the older, more awful, more mysterious deities of the
Pelasgians, and the holiest sanctuaries[1315] were those which had been
holy long before the intrusion of the Achaean gods.
It was to this Pelasgian element in Hellenic religion that the doctrine
of future rewards and punishments belonged; for, as we shall see more
fully in the next chapter, participation in the Pelasgian mysteries
of Demeter at Eleusis was held to be an earnest of future bliss, from
which the impure or uninitiated were excluded.
Thus then there were two popular conceptions of the future life--the
Achaean conception of universal misery in a cold and gloomy
under-world, and the Pelasgian conception which distinguished between
the lots of the righteous and the unrighteous, and held out to some
men the promise of bliss. Now with the former conception, as we have
already seen, the belief that the dead eagerly desired dissolution
is utterly inconsistent; none could be in haste to pass the gates of
Hades with the prospect of nothing but misery within. But where there
were hopes of happiness, the eagerness for dissolution as a means of
attaining thereto is at once intelligible. This desire then, which has
constantly pervaded the mind of the Greek people and has furnished the
single motive of their funeral-rites down to the present day, is of
Pelasgian origin; and if Homer borrowed it and incongruously combined
it with a purely Achaean presentation of the under-world, we must no
more judge of its real meaning by the Homeric setting of it than we
would form an opinion of the place of the Erinyes or of Demeter in
Greek religion by Homer’s occasional references to them.
The fact then that Homer, in accordance with the Achaean religion,
considered the dissolution of the body to mean the annihilation of
the body and represented the soul as alone entering into the lower
world is wholly immaterial to the present enquiry. It is the Pelasgian
conception of future bliss with which we are concerned; for that alone
can account for the eagerness of the dead to obtain dissolution. What
then are the blissful occupations of the righteous in the other world?
‘Some,’ says Pindar, ‘take their joy in horses and feats of prowess,
and others at the draught-board, and others in the music of lutes.’
Clearly these dead are very different beings from the souls which
peopled the Homeric under-world. Athletics could be no pastime for
feeble unsubstantial spirits; the game of draughts would be ill suited
to them that have no mind in them[1316]; and those whose thin utterance
is like the squeak[1317] of a bat would get and give little pleasure
by singing to the lute. No; the pursuits of the dead as depicted by
Pindar are the pursuits which men of flesh and blood enjoy; and the
abode in which they dwell, the paradise of flowers and fruits and sweet
odours, is an abode to gladden men of flesh and blood. But a people
whose ideal of future bliss lay in bodily enjoyments cannot surely have
looked forward to the annihilation of the body and the survival of the
soul alone; the joys which they anticipated hereafter presupposed the
continuance of some kind of bodily existence.
Such a notion moreover cannot but seem more in harmony with the whole
spirit of the Greek world than the Homeric doctrine of the survival
of the soul only. A nation so conspicuous for their love of human
beauty and their delight in the human form could not have viewed the
extinction thereof with any feeling other than the most poignant
regret--a feeling which, as we know, the Homeric doctrine did actually
inspire in those who accepted it. The more thoughtful and hopeful
religion of the Pelasgians, unless it had anticipated the philosophy
of Plato in decrying the body and exalting the soul--an idea of which
there is no trace--was bound to give promise that body as well as soul
should survive death and dissolution.
Again it may fairly be claimed that in any religion of a profounder
character than the Achaean, in any religion which contains some
positive ideas of the future life and does not view it merely as the
negation of the present life, that which men hope to become in the
future state is something more similar to the deity or deities in
whom they believe. Their conception of godhead and their conception
of their own condition after death are of necessity founded upon the
same ideal of happiness--a happiness which the gods already enjoy and
which men hope to share. The Buddhist looks forward to the day when he
shall become like his deity--even one with his deity--clean from the
grossness of matter, free from bodily desires and necessities, spirit
unalloyed. The Christian believes in a God who became man and survived
the death of man not in the form of a spirit only but with flesh and
bones, and he himself looks forward to the resurrection of the body.
Socrates held that wisdom and goodness were one and pertained to the
soul only, and the God into whose presence his soul would pass after
death was ‘the good and wise God,’ rightly called Hades, that is, the
invisible and spiritual, with whom the soul has kinship[1318]. But
what of the ordinary Greek? His gods were not invisible or spiritual.
Pelasgian and Achaean deities alike were beings of flesh and blood,
robust, active, sensuous; they ate and drank, they waked and slept,
they married, they begot or bore children. Such was the Greek’s
conception of godhead, such his ideal of blessedness. How then should
he look forward to the annihilation of the body with any feeling but
dismay? How could his hopes of future bliss not involve of necessity a
belief in the survival of both body and soul?
I suggest then that the dissolution of the body, which the dead so
eagerly desired, far from being regarded as a final and complete
severance of soul and body, was in the Pelasgian religion the means of
their re-union in another world. Death was only a temporary severance
of the two entities which together form a living man capable of
enjoying physical pleasures. The soul at the moment of death went down
to the nether world in advance, or, it may be, as is sometimes held
by the peasants of modern Greece[1319], hovered about the body until
its dissolution was complete. But the dead body certainly remained in
this world, at the place where it lay evident to men’s eyes; it could
not pass to the other world at once; it could not ever pass thither
without the assistance of friends still living; it was too gross and
too impotent, bereft of the soul, to make its own way to the home of
the dead. Therefore upon the survivors was imposed the sacred charge
of resolving it into elements more refined, and of enabling it thus to
pass out of human touch and sight to a home which the soul could reach
unaided. When this process was effected by inhumation, the period of
forty days required for complete dissolution was the critical period
in the dead man’s existence; if the body was ‘bound’ and indissoluble
for any cause and the soul re-entered it before the proper time, the
_revenant_ was a pitiable wanderer, sharing in the joys neither of this
world nor of the next; the mourners therefore took such measures as
they could to prevent that calamity, by entertaining the acquaintances
of the dead man and prevailing upon them to revoke any curses wherewith
he was bound, and by laying in the dead man’s mouth a charm which
should bar the soul’s re-entry. When cremation was employed, the
dissolution of the body was more speedy and more sure; and it is not
therefore difficult to understand that the Pelasgians, conscious
though they must have been that in religion they were as far in advance
of the Achaeans as in material civilisation they were behind, should
have early adopted the use of fire in the interests of the dead. But
no matter which rite was employed, the ultimate effect was the same;
the heavy, helpless corpse that had been laid upon the pyre or in the
grave vanished, and nought but the bones remained. Whither then had it
vanished? How had the visible become invisible? Surely by passing from
this visible world to the world invisible. There is nothing to suggest
that this disappearance meant to the Greeks annihilation; that word
indeed had no counterpart in their speech; the strongest term of the
Greek language by which one might attempt, and would still fail, to
render the word ‘annihilate,’ would be ἀφανίζειν or ἀιστοῦν, ‘to make
unseen.’ And on the other hand their conception of future happiness in
another world is positive evidence that they believed dissolution to
mean not annihilation, but the vanishing of the body to be re-united
with the soul in the unseen world.
I am of course far from suggesting that these views which I have
sketched formed a definite religious doctrine to which every Greek
would have subscribed. No people have evinced greater liberty of
thought on religious matters; no people have been less hampered
by hierarchical limitations and the claims of authority; nowhere
have wider divergences of religious opinion been tolerated; nowhere
else have the advocates of material philosophies and of spiritual
philosophies been brought into sharper contrast and yet held in equal
repute. But it is not with the vagaries of individuals and the new
departures of great thinkers that I am concerned; my purpose is simply
to trace the general trend of thought as regards the relation of body
and soul after death among the mass of the Greek people.
And in so doing I fully realise the danger of over-statement. Probably
the mass of mankind in religious matters perform many acts without full
consciousness of their motive; they instinctively follow tradition
without enquiring into the meaning and the mutual relation of the
customs with which they comply; and if ever they try to justify to
their reason the acts to which instinct prompts them, they may be at
a loss to form a consistent theory out of the several motives which
they would assign to the several acts. If therefore I try not only
to disengage from among the network of religious and philosophical
speculation a thread of simple popular belief, but also to present
that thread unknotted and continuous, I may be attempting that which
the mass of the Greek people seldom and with difficulty performed
for themselves. To enunciate as a doctrine that which may have been
a subconscious or only partially realised belief--to present as a
consistent theory ideas which, separately apprehended, formed the
acknowledged motives of separate acts, but whose mutual relations were
seldom investigated--to formulate in words that which may have been no
more than a vague aspiration of men’s hearts--this is necessarily to
over-state. There lies the danger. But for my part, while admitting
that in all probability there was among the Greek people of old,
as among the Greek people and others too to-day, a large amount of
unintelligent religion, I claim that some such conception as I have
outlined of the relation between soul and body and of their future
existence is the only possible explanation of the manifold customs and
beliefs relating to death and dissolution which have been discussed,
and fairly represents the general trend of thought among the inheritors
of the Pelasgian religion.
This conclusion is not a little strengthened by the evidence of a
custom common to both ancient and modern Greece, which presupposes
the continuance of physical desires and needs after death. To make a
present of food indicates a belief on the part of the donor that the
recipient can eat; to make a present of clothing implies a belief that
the recipient has a body to be covered; and it is these two things,
food and clothing, the elementary requisites of living men, which have
most constantly been brought, either at the time of the funeral or
later, as gifts to the dead. Other gifts there were also in different
ages; treasures of wrought gold for the princes of Mycenae; articles of
the toilet for Athenian ladies whose first care even beyond the grave
would be their complexion; toys for the children. But while each grave
that is opened may tell its own story, humorous or pathetic, of those
tastes and pursuits of the occupant for which the same provision was
made in the next world as in this, it is in the supply of the common
necessaries of all mankind that the popular Greek notions concerning
the dead are most clearly revealed; for the custom has continued
without intermission or sensible alteration down to this day.
In the Mycenaean age the dead were supplied with a store of food at the
time of the funeral, but there is no evidence to show whether the gifts
were renewed subsequently[1320]. I incline to suppose that they were;
for the belief of later ages in some sort of bodily existence after
death has already been traced back to the Pelasgians; and the custom
of later ages therefore of continuing to supply the dead with bodily
necessaries was probably derived from the same source. But in any case
the Mycenaean custom of providing food for the dead at the time of the
funeral is sufficient proof that the dead were thought to have bodily
needs, and therefore also bodily existence.
The Achaeans of the Homeric age seldom presented the dead man with
gifts of food at the funeral, and never apparently afterwards. The
only gift, if such it can be called, which was commonly burned along
with the dead body was the warrior’s own armour; but it is so natural,
quite apart from any religious motive, for a soldier’s body to be laid
out arrayed in its wonted accoutrements and to have, as it were, a
military funeral, that little importance can attach to it. Other gifts
were rare. The funeral of Patroclus is quite exceptional, and, like
the return of Patroclus’ soul with its urgent petition for burial,
seems wholly inconsistent with the Homeric presentment of after-death
existence. The soul being doomed to a shadowy impotent semblance of
life could have no part in physical needs or pleasures[1321]. Nor does
Homer enlighten us as to the purpose of the abundant gifts, which
included not only food but slaughtered dogs and horses[1322]; he speaks
only of providing ‘all that it beseemeth that a man should have when
he goeth beneath the murky gloom[1323].’ Indeed I question whether
Homer had any clear conception of their utility; they seem rather
to have been vaguely honorific; and since the custom of making such
gifts is neither usual in Homer nor in harmony with his idea of future
existence, I hold it likely that once again he was drawing upon the
Pelasgian religion in order to give to the last rites of Patroclus the
maximum of splendour.
The Dipylon-period puts an end to all uncertainty; thenceforward down
to the present day the Greek custom of providing the dead with the
necessaries of bodily life will be found to have been uniform and
continuous. There has been no interruption of the simple practice of
providing the dead with food both at the time of the funeral and at
stated intervals thereafter. For the Dipylon-period this has been
proved by the contents of the graves and by the strata of burnt soil
observed at Eleusis[1324] above them. The same phenomena continue
to present themselves also in the case of later graves at Athens,
certainly down to the third century B.C., and, though any detailed
description of graves of a still later date is hard to find, the custom
unquestionably still prevailed; for literary evidence, overlapping that
of archaeology at the start, carries on our knowledge of the custom
into the Christian era.
The _Choephori_ of Aeschylus takes its very name from the practice of
pouring wine or other beverages on the graves of the dead for them
to consume; and the word χοαί was specially applied to this kind of
libation as opposed to the λοιβαί or σπονδαί wherewith gods were
propitiated. Similarly the Greek language possessed a special word for
gifts of food (or other perishable gifts such as flowers) brought to
the graves of the dead; these were called ἐναγίσματα in strict contrast
with the sacrifices (θυσίαι, etc.) by which gods were appeased[1325].
These presents of food were regularly made on two occasions at least
after the funeral; there were the τρίτα brought, according to modern
computation, on the second day, and the ἔνατα on the eighth day: how
regular was the custom of bringing them may be judged from the passing
references of Aristophanes[1326], Isaeus[1327], and Aeschines[1328].
In addition to these two meals there were others either on the
thirtieth day after the funeral or on the thirtieth of each month--for
the interpretation to be put on the term τριακάδες[1329] seems
doubtful--also γενέσια[1330], apparently a birthday-feast given to
the dead, and νεκύσια[1331] to commemorate the anniversary of the
death. The exact details of date however are of minor importance;
the significant fact is this, that at certain intervals after the
well-known περίδειπνον or funeral-feast, held on the day of burial,
other meals were served to the dead; and the Greek words themselves
corroborate the view that ‘meals,’ not ‘sacrifices,’ is the right
term to use; for as the funeral-feast is περίδειπνον, so also the
νεκύσια are called by Artemidorus[1332] not ἱερὰ but δεῖπνα. These
meals, being burnt over the place where the dead body lay, or being
deposited unburnt in some large vase set up at the head of the grave,
were thereby devoted to the use of the dead and became ἐναγίσματα in
that curious half-way sense between ‘sacred’ and ‘accursed’ for which
our language has no equivalent save the imported word ‘taboo’--objects
devoted to a sacred purpose and bringing the curse of desecration on
anyone who should pervert them to another use. The Greek language then
was careful to mark the difference between gifts presented to the
dead and propitiatory offerings made to the gods; and the difference
was observed, not because the presents differed in kind, but because
the conceptions of their purposes were different. The gods demanded
sacrifices under pain of their displeasure; the dead needed food as
living men need it, and their friends supplied it, not in fear, but in
love.
These old pagan customs were at first discountenanced by the
Church[1333]. But the common people clung to them with great
tenacity[1334], and after a while they appear to have received even
official encouragement; for St Anastasius Sinaites, bishop of Antioch
during the latter half of the sixth century, enjoined the observance of
them, and in so doing used some of the old names by which the customs
were known in pre-Christian times. ‘Perform,’ he wrote, ‘the offices
of the third day (τρίτα) for them that sleep, with psalms and hymns,
because of him who rose from sleep on the third day, and the offices
of the ninth day (ἔνατα) to remind those that yet live of them that
have fallen asleep, and the offices of the fortieth day according to
the old law and form (for even so did the people mourn for Moses),
and the offices of the anniversary in memory of the dead, with gifts
from his substance to the poor as a remembrance of him[1335].’ In this
passage the cloak of Christian decency which St Anastasius provided
does not entirely cover the nakedness of heathen superstition. There is
indeed much aetiological skill in the saint’s manipulation of Biblical
references; but the τρίτα and ἔνατα practised in his day, despite the
addition of Christian prayers and hymns, were without doubt the same
in essence as those to which Aristophanes and others allude--meals
provided for the dead; for such indeed they still remain.
At the present day the funeral service usually concludes with a
distribution of baked-meats and wine to the company assembled at the
grave-side, and a share of both is given to the dead. In some districts
this function means more than the serving of light refreshments, and
the grave-side becomes the scene of a substantial meal, from which
however meat is excluded; for, owing to Christian ideas of fasting, it
is generally held to be ‘spiritual’ for the mourners to abstain from
meat for the period of forty days. It is to this meal at the graveside
that the word μακαρία seems to be properly applied, in the sense of
a ‘feast of blessing,’ and it obviously corresponds with the term
μακαρίτης, ‘blessed,’ which was in antiquity, and still remains, the
Greek equivalent of our ‘deceased’ or ‘late.’
Subsequently, in the evening after the funeral or even on two or
three evenings thereafter, the nearer friends and relatives of the
dead assemble for another funeral-feast. This meal, which in ancient
times was called the περίδειπνον is now commonly known as the
παρηγορία[1336] or ‘comforting.’ It is held in the house of the nearest
relative[1337], as was done in the time of Demosthenes[1338], and its
modern name seems to indicate that the ‘consolation’ of the bereaved is
its chief purpose; and certainly some temporary solace is on many such
occasions poured into the mourners’ breasts; for the Greek peasants,
always abstemious save on certain great festivals such as Easter and
these funeral-parties, make no scruple of drinking and pressing their
host to drink until a riotous cheerfulness prevails. But though the
feast is designed to assuage the grief of the living, the dead are not
forgotten; for a special portion of food is often sent to the grave
from the house of mourning before the guests of the evening arrive.
Thus, though the dead is not felt to have any part in the actual ‘feast
of comforting’--for this feast is really provided by the guests, who
bring their own contributions of food and wine, while the host provides
only the accommodation for the company[1339]--yet the physical needs of
the departed are satisfied on this first day beneath the earth in the
same measure as when he was above ground. Two meals are provided, one
immediately after the funeral, the other in the evening.
Nor is the nature of this food lacking in interest. Locally indeed many
varieties may be found, the gifts including such ordinary comestibles
as bread, cheese, olives, caviare of the baser sort, _piláf_ (the
well-known Turkish dish of which the main ingredients are rice and
oil), and probably indeed anything, save meat, which the peasant’s
larder can supply; but the most generally approved viand is a specially
baked flat cake spread with honey. Now it will be remembered that jars
of honey were among the gifts of food on the pyre of Patroclus[1340],
but a more striking coincidence is to be found in Aristophanes’ mention
of a μελιτοῦττα or honey-cake in connexion with a funeral. ‘What,’ says
Lysistrata mockingly to the old deputy (πρόβουλος), ‘what do you mean
by not dying? You shall have room to lie; you can buy a coffin; and I
myself will knead you a honey-cake at once[1341].’ From this passage
it would appear that not only has the custom of providing food for the
dead remained in force from very early days, but even the kind of food
has not changed in more than two thousand years. The honey-cake, though
no longer known as μελιτοῦττα, in reference to its chief attraction,
but ψυχόπηττα[1342], ‘soul-cake,’ in reference to the occasion of its
making, is still apparently prepared according to a classical recipe,
and sweetness still gratifies the palate of the dead.
The dates subsequent to the funeral at which food is provided for
the dead have already[1343] been mentioned. Where the custom is most
fully observed, these are the third, sixth, ninth, and fortieth
days, the last days of the third, sixth, and ninth months, and three
anniversaries, the last of the three being also usually the day for
the exhumation of the bones. But in many villages the custom is less
extended, and it is held sufficient to observe in this way the third,
ninth, and fortieth days[1344] and the first anniversary. This minimum
of modern practice, it will be observed, is the exact tale of days
recommended for observance by St Anastasius, and without doubt the
sanction of the Church has helped to preserve the custom.
The Church likewise is wholly responsible for the name by which these
days are known, μνημόσυνα or ‘memorial-feasts’; and it would be wrong
to infer therefrom that the peasants attach no meaning to these rites
save that which the name ‘memorial-feast’ suggests. Rather it would
seem that the Church in permitting the continuance of a pagan custom
tried to diminish its significance. The words of St Anastasius make
it clear that such was his attitude. He bids that the anniversary be
observed ‘in memory of the dead, with gifts from his substance to the
poor as a remembrance of him’; and the repetition contained in the
phrase shows in what aspect he wished the custom to be viewed. But as
a matter of fact the real purpose of the custom was not to keep green
the memory of the dead by charitable distributions of his goods, but
partly, as we have seen, to induce those persons who were invited to
the feast to forgive the dead man and to revoke any curses with which
they had bound him, and partly to minister to the dead man’s own bodily
needs; and in spite of ecclesiastical influence to the contrary, this
twofold purpose is still generally recognised, and that portion of the
food which is not consumed by the company invited or by the priests,
but is actually left on the grave, is honestly intended as nourishment
for the dead body there interred.
This motive was fully appreciated by a French traveller of the
seventeenth century; describing these grave-side feasts, he says,
‘Frequent presents of cakes, wine, rice, fruits, and other eatables,
decked out with flowers and ribbons, are taken to the tomb.’ There,
he continues, the priest blesses the food and takes a good share of
it, and a feast is then held ‘wherein they seek to make the dead
man participate as well[1345].’ Thus even now, after centuries of
Christianity, there seems to be no change of feeling among the
common-folk, and their intention, or one part of it, is still best
summed up in the phrase of Euripides, ‘to render sustenance unto the
dead[1346].’
The food proper to these meals subsequent to the day of the funeral is
known as κόλλυβα. It consists of grain, usually wheat, boiled whole,
and thus closely resembles the English ‘frumenty.’ It is sometimes
garnished and made more palatable by the addition of sugar ornaments,
almonds, raisins, and pieces of pomegranate, but the essential thing
is boiled grain[1347]. How the word κόλλυβα obtained this meaning is
not known to me[1348]; but the food itself is quite probably a legacy
from the ancient world. The _silicernium_ or funeral-feast of the
Romans took its name apparently from _siliquae_, some kind of pulse,
which must therefore be supposed to have formed the chief dish; and
beans are at the present day an important part of the funeral-meats in
Sardinia[1349]. It is not unlikely therefore that the use of boiled
beans or grain in the service of the dead is an old custom common to
the coasts of the Mediterranean. The honey-cake on the day of the
funeral is of ancient prescription; the boiled wheat on later occasions
may equally well be so. At any rate the principle of supplying the dead
with meals both at the funeral and on certain fixed days thereafter
remains absolutely unchanged, and the custom is still understood to be
a means of ministering to the bodily needs of the dead.
And as with the gifts of food, the ancient ἐναγίσματα, so also with
the gifts of drink, the ancient χοαί. It is on record that among the
Greeks of Macedonia, Cappadocia, and other outlying districts[1350],
the custom of pouring out red wine on the graves of the dead at the
so-called memorial-feasts is still sedulously observed; and though I
have nowhere witnessed the practice, I have been told on good authority
that in Aegina also and in some parts of Crete it is in vogue. For the
use of water I can myself answer; and it is not a little interesting to
observe that while the dates on which food is set before the dead man
have been somewhat conventionally limited in number, water, the prime
necessary of life, is often taken to the grave daily[1351] up to the
fortieth day.
Again, in the matter of providing clothing for the dead, ancient
practice is well known. A store of raiment was buried with the dead,
and so great a store that it was necessary for Solon to impose a
legal limit by which three outer garments (ἱμάτια) were named as
the maximum[1352]. But this restriction applied only to the actual
funeral, and did not prohibit renewed gifts of clothing at subsequent
dates. To judge from a passage of Thucydides, this was an annual duty.
The Plataeans, in their appeal to the Lacedaemonians for protection,
are made to plead their performance of this kindness as a claim upon
Spartan gratitude. ‘Turn your eyes,’ they say, ‘to the tombs of your
fathers, who fell in the Persian wars and were buried in our land. Year
by year we were wont to do them honour at the public charge with gifts
of clothing and all else that is customary[1353].’
Some vestiges of this custom remain to the present day. The dead are
commonly dressed in their best clothes for the lying-in-state and for
the procession to the grave, during which, it must be remembered, the
body is always carried on an open bier, exposed to view. Often too
these clothes are buried with the dead; but sometimes when, as among
the poorer peasant-women, the richly-embroidered festival dress is
too costly a thing thus to abandon, and is handed down as an heirloom
from mother to daughter, the body is stripped at the grave-side of its
fine array; and indeed so far, I am told, has the custom degenerated
in Athens and some of the other towns, that costumes of special
magnificence may be hired from the undertakers and sent back from the
churchyard to them. In such cases the old meaning of the custom is
lost, and a vulgar desire for pomp and parade has taken its place. But
among the simpler folk of the country this is not the case; for, apart
from the custom of burying the dead in their best clothes, there is
in the folk-songs mention of gifts of clothing and other necessaries
of life sent by the hand of one recently dead to those who have gone
before[1354].
It appears then that the ancient custom of providing for the bodily
wants of the departed is still alive, still significant; and surely it
is incredible that a people who for more than two thousand years have
continued to resort to the graves in which the dead bodies of their
friends are laid, and there to set out meat and drink and clothing and
other things suited to their erstwhile needs and pursuits, could all
along have believed that these gifts were vanity, that the food could
not strengthen, the wine could not cheer, the clothing could not warm
the departed, but that they lay henceforth cold, tasteless, insentient.
For if men had so believed, then a custom, not merely lacking the
alliance of religious belief, but standing in perpetual antagonism to
it, could not have held its ground, as this custom has done, century
after century with vigour unabated. Rather the continuity of the custom
might alone prove, even if other considerations had not guided us to
the same conclusion, that the departed were held to possess a nature
no less corporeal, an existence no less material, than that which
belonged both to living men and to the gods whom they hoped to resemble
even more closely hereafter. The same food as men ate was offered to
the gods in sacrifice that they too might eat; why bring it to the
dead, if they had no power to eat? The wine that men drank was poured
out for the gods in libation, that they too might drink; why waste it
upon the soil of the grave, if the dead had no power to drink? A robe
such as Athenian women wore was presented to Athene year by year, that
she might wear it; why furnish the dead with gifts of raiment, if it
must rot unworn? It is impossible to evade the conclusion that the same
bodily needs and propensities were ascribed by the Greek folk to the
departed as to living men and to deathless gods.
Thus then the people of Greece are shown to have pursued constantly two
aims in their treatment of the dead--to ensure the dissolution of the
body, and also to provide the body with the necessaries of existence.
Unless therefore anyone is prepared to suppose that the Greek people
have been constantly actuated by two conflicting motives, the desire to
annihilate and the desire to keep alive, dissolution cannot have meant
to them annihilation, but rather a modification of the conditions of
bodily existence; and that modification can only have meant that the
existence of the body in this world indeed ended--for the substance
laid in the grave vanished--but continued in another world. But if
bodily existence continued in that other world whither the soul too
sped, the body and the soul having reached the same place would surely
not be imagined to remain separate, but to be re-united. The eagerness
for dissolution meant therefore eagerness for the re-union of body and
soul.
And there is a good means of testing the popular belief even as
regards this last step. If the body and soul were really believed to
be re-united as soon as dissolution was complete, the dead man in the
lower world would assuredly be as well able to take care of himself as
he had been while dwelling in this world, and the obligation of his
relatives to provide him with food would cease, although of course
they might, voluntarily and without any compulsion of duty, continue
their gifts[1355]. But it would be at any rate permissible, on this
theory, to discontinue all care for the dead when once his body was no
longer helpless but restored to its activity by re-union with the soul;
and it is to be expected that the Greek people should sometimes avail
themselves of the exemption from the task of feeding and otherwise
tending the dead. Such action would be the natural outcome of the
belief that dissolution meant the re-union of body and soul; and if I
can show that such action has been or is commonly taken, the existence
of the belief will have borne the best test, the demonstration of a
custom arising from it.
The period required for dissolution, according to common belief, is
either forty days or three years--the former being the really popular
period, while the latter was fixed indeed by the Church but in many
districts has been popularly accepted. Hence, if my views are correct,
the meals provided for the dead and all other marks of care ought
to cease sometimes at the fortieth day and sometimes at the third
anniversary.
As regards the present time, I do not know of any place, though it
would not surprise me to hear of one, in which the so-called memorial
feasts are discontinued after the fortieth day; but I have already
cited evidence to show that the memorial-feasts of later date are
definitely ecclesiastical in origin, and even retain to this day in
one district a distinctly ecclesiastical tone[1356]. Therefore before
a necessitous priesthood had succeeded in extending the custom, the
ministration to the bodily wants of the dead clearly did cease when
dissolution was popularly supposed to be complete. This conclusion
is fortified by a most striking piece of evidence. The priests’
interest has naturally been limited to the food and wine supplied to
the dead; for a supply of water they have not been dependent upon the
perquisites of their office. Hence it comes that the water, which, as
I noted above, is often supplied to the dead day by day, without any
accompanying provision of food, ceases to be brought after the fortieth
day. The wants of the dead man have been assiduously satisfied until,
in popular reckoning, his dissolution is complete, and ecclesiastical
influence has had no motive for encouraging a longer continuance of the
custom so far as water is concerned. The fortieth day then was without
doubt the old popular limit of the time during which the supply of all
kinds of provision was obligatory.
Nowadays, on the contrary, the presents of food to the dead are
generally continued up to the third anniversary, when exhumation
takes place. Then, if the evidence of men’s eyes assures them that
dissolution has been duly effected--that the body is gone and only
the white bones remain--there is no further thought or provision for
the dead; but in the rare cases in which the disintegration of the
corpse is not yet complete, the relatives are not freed from their
obligations. I witnessed a remarkable case of this kind at Leonídi
on the east coast of Laconia. Two graves had just been opened when I
arrived, and the utmost anxiety prevailed because in both cases there
was only partial decomposition--in one case so little that the general
outline of the features could be made out--and it was feared that one
or both of the dead persons had become _vrykolakes_. The remains,
when I saw them, had been removed to the chapel attached to the
burial-ground. Meanwhile the question was debated as to what should be
done with them. Dissolution must be effected both in the interests of
the dead themselves and in those of the whole community. Extraordinary
measures were required. The best measure--I am reporting what I
actually heard--the best measure next to prayer (which had been tried
without effect) was to burn the remains, and the bolder spirits of the
village counselled this plan; but this would have been a breach of law
and order, and the authorities of the place would have none of it. The
priest proposed re-interment; but here the relatives objected. They had
had trouble enough and expense enough; they had kept ‘the unsleeping
lamp’ burning at the grave, and had provided all the memorial feasts;
they would not consent to re-inter the body and to be at the same
charge for an indefinite time, without knowing when the corpse might be
properly ‘loosed’ and their tendance of it over. They would find some
way of dissolving it, and that speedily.
And so indeed they did; and I, for a short time, was a spectator of
the scene. On the floor of the chapel there were two large baskets
containing the remains; there were men seated beside them busy with
knives; and there were women kneeling at wash-tubs and scouring the
bones that were handed to them with soap and soda. The work continued
for two days. At the end of that time the bones were shown white and
clean. All else had disappeared--had probably been burnt in secret, but
the secret was kept close. It was therefore claimed and allowed that
dissolution was complete.
The attitude adopted by the relatives on this occasion makes it
perfectly clear that all the care expended on the dead is obligatory
up to the time of dissolution, but no longer. So long as the fleshly
substance remains in this world, provision of food must be made for it;
when it has disappeared and only the bones are left, the departed cease
to be dependent upon their surviving relatives, and no further anxiety
is felt for their welfare.
Nor must it be supposed that the cleaning and whitening of the bones
in the case which I have described had anything to do with a desire
to preserve the bones as relics of the dead. Such a custom is indeed
well known in Greek monasteries; at Megaspélaeon, for instance, the
wealthiest and most famous monastery of Greece proper, there is an
ossuary in which the monks take great pride. On one side, ranged
against the wall, stands a large triangular heap of skulls; the
opposite wall is decorated with cleverly-designed geometrical figures
carried out in other bones; while in a corner perhaps may be seen a
basket or two full of material awaiting the decorator’s convenience.
My guide, I remember, pointed out to me the skulls of many of the
distinguished monks of past time, and indicated with great satisfaction
the spot which he had bespoken for his own. But the usage of monastic
bodies has in truth little bearing upon the popular semi-pagan beliefs
and customs; the practice of storing up the bones of members of a
religious order in an ossuary is more closely akin to the old custom
of preserving relics of saints and martyrs; it is to the usage of the
common-folk in such matters that we must look. And what do they do
with the white or whitened bones? They throw them away and expend no
more care upon them. At Leonídi itself, close beside the fenced-in
burial-ground, but unprotected from the intrusion of man or beast,
there is a square open pit into which the bones of many generations
have been tipped like rubbish, lying at random in confusion as they
fell. Nor is this a solitary case. In far-away Sciathos I recall
the same scene as at Leonídi--a chapel set on a wooded hill, the
churchyard about it neatly kept and the graves of the recently buried
well-tended, but just beyond its precincts a rough hole in the ground
open to sun and rain, and ‘some two fathoms of bones,’ as a peasant
said jestingly, lying in neglect and disarray. These pits, which are
to be seen throughout Greece, are indeed dignified by the Church with
the name of cemeteries (κοιμητήρια[1357]); but they command no respect
on the part of the peasant. He will cross himself as he passes chapel
or enters churchyard, but he will jest over the depository of outcast
bones. In a word, when it is seen that every trace of the dead body
save only the white bones has disappeared, the common-folk exchange
their extraordinary devotion to the duties of tending the dead for a
total unconcern. And the reason for this can only be that the dead
body no longer lies helpless and dependent for its existence upon the
sustenance which they from time to time provide, but has vanished to
a land where, re-united with the soul, it regains its activity and
independence.
Such, I believe, is the trend of religious thought which, almost
insensibly, has guided the actions of the Greek people from the
Pelasgian age until now in their treatment of the dead; the benefit
which they have sought to confer upon the dead by the dissolution of
their bodies has been the re-union of body with soul and the resumption
of that active bodily life which death had for a time suspended.
FOOTNOTES:
[1292] Plato, _Phaedo_ 115 C ff.
[1293] Hom. _Il._ XXIII. 65 ff.
[1294] Hom. _Il._ XXIII. 72.
[1295] Cf. the constant contrast of αὐτὸς and ψυχή, as in _Iliad_ I.
3-4, and twice in the passage before us, _Il._ XXIII. 65 f. and 106 f.
[1296] Hom. _Od._ XI. 489 ff.
[1297] Hom. _Il._ XVI. 857.
[1298] The few inconsistencies in the _Odyssey_, such as the physical
punishment of Tityos, Tantalos, and Sisyphos (_Od._ XI. 576 ff.), or
again the mention of the ‘asphodel mead’ (_Od._ XI. 539, XXIV. 13),
are unimportant. They are, I think, adventitious Pelasgian elements in
the Homeric scheme of the future life, and it may be noted that the
_Iliad_ is singularly free from them, while in _Odyssey_, Bk XI., where
they chiefly occur, they are obviously incongruous with the general
conception of the lower world.
[1299] See above, p. 99.
[1300] Pindar, Fr. 129 (95).
[1301] See above, p. 345.
[1302] Πολίτης, Μελέτη, p. 407 ff.
[1303] Ἐκθ. ὀρθοδοξ. πίστεως 11 (25); Migne, _Patrolog._ (_ser.
Graec._) Vol. XCIV. p. 916.
[1304] Plutarch, _de occult. viv._ cap. 7, cited by Bergk in _Lyrici
Graeci_, _ad loc._
[1305] Pind. _Ol._ II. 134.
[1306] Pind. _Ol._ I. 1.
[1307] νὰ δροσίσουν τὴ λαύρα τοῦ πεθαμένου.
[1308] Cf. Theodore Bent, _The Cyclades_, p. 220.
[1309] This is of course only one out of several passages in which
Pindar speaks of the future life, and he does not adhere to any one
doctrine; elsewhere, as in _Ol._ II., his views are coloured largely
by Pythagorean or Orphic eschatology, although there is a close
resemblance between the isles of the blest there described (126-135)
and the abode depicted in this fragment.
[1310] Hom. _Il._ IX. 632 ff.
[1311] Herod. II. 51.
[1312] Herod. II. 171.
[1313] Aristoph. _Frogs_, 884.
[1314] _Op. cit._ 1032 ff.
[1315] A conspicuous example is Delphi, where the Achaean god Apollo
had usurped the place of some oracular deity of the Pelasgians, cf.
Plutarch, _de defect. orac._ cap. 15 p. 418. See Miss Harrison,
_Proleg. to the Study of Greek Religion_, pp. 113 f.
[1316] _Il._ XXIII. 104.
[1317] _Il._ XXIII. 101.
[1318] Plato, _Phaedo_, cap. 29 (p. 80 D).
[1319] Cf. Κωνστ. Ν. Κανελλάκης, Χιακὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, p. 341.
[1320] Rohde (_Psyche_ I. cap. 1) contends that the discovery of
an altar, of the type used in the worship of Chthonian deities,
superimposed upon one Mycenaean grave, proves both that offerings to
the dead were continued after the interment and also that the offerings
were of a propitiatory character. On this slight foundation he rears
the edifice of his theory that a vigorous soul-cult flourished in
Mycenaean and earlier ages. Accordingly he views all gifts to the dead,
including those made at the time of the funeral, as offerings intended
to propitiate departed souls, although he is forced to admit that from
the Homeric age onwards there is no evidence that fear of the dead was
a feature of Greek religion; the offerings made, on his view, to the
soul of Patroclus were merely, he holds, a ‘survival,’ a custom no
longer possessed of any meaning. The accident of an altar belonging
to some Chthonian deity having been found above the grave of some man
seems to me insufficient basis for any theory.
[1321] The blood which in the _Odyssey_ is used to attract the souls of
the dead and is given to Teiresias to drink forms, I imagine, part of a
magic rite, which has no connexion with the present point.
[1322] I omit the twelve Trojan prisoners; the slaughter of these is
clearly stated to have been an act of revenge. See _Il._ XXIII. 22 f.
[1323] _Il._ XXIII. 50.
[1324] Φίλιος, in Ἐφημερὶς Ἀρχαιολ. 1889, p. 183. Possibly also at
Athens, cf. Brückner and Pernice, in _Athen. Mittheil._ 1893, pp. 89-90.
[1325] I am not overlooking the fact that ἐναγίσματα were also made
to Chthonian deities (cf. Pausan. VIII. 34. 3), but there was a
distinction in character even between these ἐναγίσματα and those made
to the dead. Wine, for example, was excluded from the former and
included in the latter. Possibly in origin ἐναγίζειν was the Pelasgian
rite, θύειν the Achaean.
[1326] _Lysist._ 611.
[1327] _Menecl._ 46 and _Ciron_ 55 (p. 73. 26).
[1328] _Ctesiphon_, 226 (p. 86. 5).
[1329] Pollux VIII. 146; Harpocrat. s.v. τριακάς.
[1330] Herod. IV. 26.
[1331] Artem. _Oneirocr._ IV. 83.
[1332] _loc. cit._
[1333] Bingham, _Antiq. of Christian Church_, Bk 23, cap. 3.
[1334] See Chrysostom, _Homily_ 47 in 1 Cor., p. 565.
[1335] Anastasius, _Quaestio_ XXII., in Migne, _Patrolog. Graeco-Lat._
Vol. LXXXIX. 288.
[1336] Known also as τὸ ζεστόν (‘the warming’) according to Bybilakis,
_Neugriech. Leben_, p. 67.
[1337] According to Bybilakis, _loc. cit._, in the dead man’s house.
This, naturally, would be the usual case.
[1338] p. 321. 25.
[1339] Hence it is probable that the ancient περίδειπνον also was
conducted on the principle of the ἔρανος.
[1340] Hom. _Il._ XXIII. 170. Cf. also the use of μελίκρατον, Hom.
_Od._ XI. 27, and Eur. _Or._ 115. Cf. also Aesch. _Pers._ 614.
[1341] Ar. _Lys._ 599 ff.
[1342] In some villages of Chios, the diminutive ψυχοπῆττι or a word
ψύτση is used (Κωνστ. Κανελλάκης, Χιακὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, p. 337). The commoner
form ψυχόπηττα is that of Crete (cf. Bybilakis, _op. cit._ p. 69),
Kasos, and other Asiatic islands (Πρωτόδικος, περὶ τῆς παρ’ ἡμῖν ταφῆς,
p. 17) etc.
[1343] See above, pp. 486-7.
[1344] Called respectively τρίμερα, ἐννι̯άμερα, and σαράντα.
[1345] Sonnini de Magnoncourt, _Voyage en Grèce et en Turquie_, Vol.
II. p. 153.
[1346] Eur. _Or._ 109.
[1347] Cf. Suidas s.v. κόλυβα, σῖτος ἑψητός. The spelling with λλ is
preferable.
[1348] The classical meaning of κόλλυβα was ‘small coins.’ The
scholiast on Aristoph. _Plut._ 768 mentions κόλλυβα among the
καταχύσματα thrown over a new slave on his introduction to the
household. These consisted mainly of sweetmeats, etc. (cf. _op. cit._
798) whence apparently Hesychius (s.v. κόλλυβα) explains that word by
τρωγάλια. More probably small coins were thrown along with various
sweetmeats; for the kindred custom of throwing καταχύσματα over a bride
on her entry into her new home has continued down to the present day,
and these certainly now comprise small change as well as sticky edibles.
[1349] Gregorovius, _Wanderings in Corsica, etc._ (tr. Muir), II. p. 46.
[1350] Πρωτόδικος, περὶ τῆς παρ’ ἡμῖν ταφῆς, p. 17. Ἰ. Σ. Ἀρχέλαος, ἡ
Σινασός, p. 92.
[1351] Cf. Bybilakis, _Neugriechisches Leben_, p. 67.
[1352] Plutarch, _Vita Solon._ cap. 21.
[1353] Thucyd. III. 58. 4.
[1354] See above, p. 345.
[1355] This occurred in old time in the case of heroes, whose offerings
are called ἐναγίσματα and χοαί, like those of other dead men; but since
the state and not the individual provided for them, the gifts were made
not for a time only, but regularly year after year.
[1356] See above, pp. 487 f.
[1357] As opposed, in correct speech, to νεκροταφεῖον, the place of
preliminary interment. But the two terms are often confused.