A DISSERTATION BY FRANK PIERREPONT GRAVES, COLUMBIA COLLEGE . BROOKLYN. May 1891....

The author of this thesis does not lay claim to profound scholarship or extended research. It may contain errors that are perceptible to a careful student of Greek archaeology, even without subjecting the paper to a minute scrutiny. The material has been found scattered through the writings of ancient and modern authors and in the records of many excavations and the treasures of many museums. In the process of gathering from so extended a field, it is but natural that mistakes should have crept

Besides the writers of ancient Greece, the following authorities have been consulted in the preparation of this dissertation: ANACHARSIS , Travels of, Par l’abbe Barthélemi. English translation, London, 1800. BECKER, W. Adolph, Charicles, or Illustrations of the private life of the Ancient Greeks. Excursus on Burials. BENNDORF , Griechische und Sicilien, Vasenbilden. BOS , Antiquities of Greece, London, 1772. CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM GRAECARUM , Edidit Augustus Boeckhius, Berolini. COULANGE , La Cit

The task of investigation in this field of Grecian antiquities is akin to that of a blind man, patching together the fragments of a shattered vase with no guidance but the rough outline of innumerable pieces. Every nook and corner of Greek literature must be explored, every exhumed inscription, monument, statue and vase must be carefully scanned, to find a hint here and there to illustrate and illuminate the subject. Using the word monument in a broad sense, it is from monuments, rather than lit

So stringent was the law concerning the duty of burial among the ancient Greeks. Yet there were extreme cases where burial was forbidden. It was the severest aggravation of the penalty of execution for a crime that the body of the criminal was denied interment. Such corpses, both at Athens and Sparta, were cast with the halter and their garments into a pit in an allotted quarter of the city, where the flesh might decay or be eaten by carrion birds. At Athens this barathrum [8] , as it was usuall

With the exception, possibly, of one or two features, survivals of their ancient religion, a description of the burial customs of the representative Greeks during the historic period, would, to-day, in no way, seem barbarous nor even extraordinary. In the Homeric times, the blood of men and animals was regarded as the nourishment most agreeable to the dead. Achilles, on the tomb of Patroclus, slew twelve young Trojans, four horses, two dogs and a herd of cattle and of sheep [33] . Ulysses, sacri

After the body had been made ready for burial, it was laid out in state. This was called the prothesis , and probably took place on the day after the death, in order that the corpse might have an early burial. From the statement of Pollux [76] concerning the order of the ceremonies, it must be inferred that this was the proper time. That author states that the prothesis came first, and was followed successively by the ekphora or procession and the tertial sacrifices. Those sacrifices came on the

The outward manifestations of grief were very marked. At this point, it is necessary to notice only the lamentation and exaggerated grief which took place at the laying-out and in the procession. A consideration of the signs of mourning exhibited in the dress, should properly be made after a discussion of the other features of the burial. This lamentation was rendered, to a large extent, by the women [111] . It must be regarded rather as a necessary form than as a genuine expression of woe. Ther

By the third day [125] , it was thought that time enough had elapsed to show whether life was really extinct [126] . A procession was then formed to accompany the body to the tomb. After a time, this delay of three days may have been less rigidly observed for the interment was permitted on the day immediately following the decease. Callimachus sings of a youth “whose friends saw him alive one day, and the next day they wept at his grave [127] .” Again, Pherecydes, the philosopher, eaten up by di

Did the Greeks burn their dead like many nations of the ancient world, or did they bury them immediately like the majority of people since the Christian era? The question has been vigorously debated. Lucian, in a general way, declares that the fashion of the Greeks as contrasted with the various customs practiced respectively among the Persians, the Indians, the Scythians, and the Egyptians, was to cremate their dead [158] . Some have accepted this statement in a literal sense; on the other hand

Numerous excavations and the close scrutiny which modern scholars have given to Grecian graves have made it possible to state with considerable accuracy the materials employed for coffins, and the various styles of coffins, tombs and monuments used in ancient Hellas. The earlier coffins were usually made of baked clay [190] , but the authors inform us that, in the case of those Athenians who fell in battle, and whose bodies were not found, chests of cypress-wood were buried as cenotaphs [191] .

Of the tombs themselves, the recent excavations have also made us acquainted with the construction and the varieties. Cumanudis [198] , a Greek archæologist, now living at Athens, enumerates eight distinct types of tombs. His classification is rather too minute in some respects. For all practical purposes, there were four kinds of tombs, differing from each other in general form. They were variously known as (a) the stelae or shafts, (b) the kiones or columns, (c) the trapezae or square-cut tomb

During the days of preparation for burial and that on which the departed was entombed, his relatives either overcome by sorrow or bound down by the usages of the time, had been fasting. This abstinence had the usual effect, and, by the time the remains of the dear one had been laid under ground, his immediate family were almost ready to faint with hunger. That they might no longer thus afflict themselves and that their friends might offer them suitable comfort, the Greeks instituted the perideip

The last step, or rather steps, in the obsequies, were the succession of sacrifices which were performed in honor of the deceased at his grave. No one but a relative was allowed to offer these sacrifices since a person visiting a strange tomb was suspected of a design to steal the bones for superstitious purposes [276] . This oblation to the dead was discriminated among the Hellenes from the ordinary sacrifices to the gods by a word peculiarly appropriated. The word which indicated this species

In addition to the appointed sacrifices, there were apparently other celebrations held at stated times beside the tomb. These seasons Plato euphemistically called “days not to be mentioned,” and he did not, think it right at that time to hear sorrows of any kind [304] . These latter celebrations seem to have consisted for the most part of libations to the dead, and to have been celebrated by a cessation from the ordinary duties [305] . One of these mourning holidays was that called genesia [306]

[1] Aelian, Var. Hist. V. 14. [2] Eurip., Sup. 524. [3] Isoc., Plat. 416. [4] Isaeus, de Nicos. Her. 78. [5] Isae., de Phil. Her. 143. [6] Lysias, in Philon 883. [7] Aeschines, in Tim. 40. [8] Hdt., 7, 133, Plat., Gorg. 516 E, and Ar., Nub. 1450. [9] Plut., Them. 22. [10] Pausan., 4, 18, 4. [11] Thucyd., 1, 134. [12] Aeschin., in Ctes. § 245. [13] Simcox, ibid. [14] Plato, Legg. IX., 12. [15] Eurip., Troad. 446. [16] Becker, Char. p. 401. [17] Philostrates, Heroics 7, 8, 10. [18] Thuc., I., 138.