I
[1] E. Kammer, Einheit d. Odyssee, 510 ff.
[2] E.g. Il. Α 3, πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς (κεφαλάς Apol. Rhod., as in Λ 55: mistakenly) Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν. Ψ 105, παννυχίη γὰρ μοι Πατροκλῆος δειλοῖο ψυχὴ ἐφεστήκει . . . ἔϊκτο δὲ θέσκελον αὐτῷ (cf. 66).
[3] E.g. Λ 262, ἔνθ’ Ἀντήνορος υἷες ὑπ’ Ἀτρείδῃ βασιλῆι πότμον ἀναπλήσαντες ἔδυν δόμον Ἄϊδος εἴσω. The ψυχή of Elpenor and afterwards that of Teiresias, of his mother, of Agamemnon, etc., is addressed by Odysseus in the Nekyia of the Od. simply as: Ἐλπῆνορ, Τειρεσίη, μῆτερ ἐμή, etc. And cf. such expressions as: Ψ 244, εἰς ὅ κεν αὐτὸς ἐγὼ Ἄϊδι κεύθωμαι, or Ο 251, καὶ δὴ ἔγωγ’ ἐφάμην, νέκυας καὶ δῶμ’ Ἀίδαο ἤματι τῷδ’ ἵξεσθαι . . . or Ξ 456 f., etc.
[4] The first view is Nägelsbach’s, the second that of Grotemeyer.
[5] And of civilized peoples, too, in antiquity. Just such a second self, an εἴδωλον duplicating the visible self of man, were, in their original significance, the genius of the Romans, the Fravashi of the Persians, the Ka of the Egyptians.
[6] ὑποτίθεται (sc. Homer) τὰς ψυχὰς τοῖς εἰδώλοις τοῖς ἐν τοῖς κατόπτροις φαινομένοις ὁμοίας καὶ τοῖς διὰ τῶν ὑδάτων συνισταμένοις, ἃ καθάπαξ ἡμῖν ἐξείκασται καὶ τὰς κινήσεις μιμεῖται στερεμνιώδη δὲ ὑπόστασιν οὐδεμίαν ἔχει εἰς ἀντίληψιν καὶ ἁφήν, Apollod. π. θεῶν ap. Stob., Ecl. i, p. 420 W.
[7] Cf. Cic., Div. i, 63: iacet corpus dormientis ut mortui, viget autem et vivit animus. Quod multo magis faciet post mortem cum omnino corpore excesserit. TD. i, 29: visis quibusdam saepe movebantur eisque maxime nocturnis, ut viderentur ei qui vita excesserant vivere. Here we have precise ancient testimony both for the subjective and the objective elements in dreaming and for their importance for the origin of belief about the soul.
[8] Τὸν δ’ ἔλιπε ψυχή . . . αὖτις δ’ ἀμπνύνθη, Ε 696 f. Τὴν δὲ κατ’ ὀφθαλμῶν ἐρεβεννὴ νὺξ ἐκάλυψεν, ἤριπε δ’ ἐξοπίσω, ἀπὸ δὲ ψυχὴν ἐκάπυσσεν . . . ἔπει οὖν ἄμπνυτο καὶ ἐς φρένα θυμὸς ἀγέρθη—X 466 ff., 475; and ω 348: ἀποψύχοντα.
[9] Speaking of suspirium (= λειποψυχία), Sen., Ep. liv, 2, says, medici hanc “meditationem mortis” vocant. faciet enim aliquando spiritus ille quod saepe conatus est.
[10] A remarkable idea seems to be obscurely suggested in an expression such as that of ξ 207, ἀλλ’ ἤτοι τὸν Κῆρες ἔβαν θανάτοιο φέρουσαι εἰς Ἀΐδαο δόμους; cf. Β 302. Usually the Keres bring death to men: here (like Thanatos himself in later poetry) they conduct the dead into the realm of Hades. They are daimones of Hades, originally and primitively themselves souls of the departed (see below, [p. 168]), and it is a natural idea to make such soul-spirits, hovering in the air, carry off the souls of men just dead to the realm of the souls. In Homer only a stereotyped phrase preserves the vague memory of such a conception. [45]
[11] Of the dead we read in λ 219, οὐ γὰρ ἔτι σάρκας τε καὶ ὀστέα ἶνες ἔχουσι. Taking the words strictly this might mean that the dead possess sinews but not the flesh or bones that should be held together by the sinews. This is how Nauck, in fact, understood the Homeric words: Mélanges Grécorom. iv, 718. But it is very difficult to picture “shadows” which in this manner possess sinews but no body of flesh and bones: the corrupt words of fr. 229, preserved apart from their context, are quite insufficient to prove that Aesch. derived such an unrealizable impression from the Homeric words.—That the poet of these lines from the Nek. simply meant “flesh, bones, and sinews, too, which might have held them together”, is shown quite clearly by what follows: ἀλλὰ τὰ μέν τε πυρὸς κρατερὸν μένος αἰθομένοιο δαμνᾷ, ἐπεί κε πρῶτα λίπῃ λεύκ’ ὀστέα θυμός, ψυχὴ δ’ ἠΰτ’ ὄνειρος ἀποπταμένη πεπότηται. How, then, could the fire help destroying the sinews too?
[12] The sacrificial character of the proceedings at the rogus of Patroklos has again been called in question by v. Fritze, de libatione veterum Graecorum, 71 f. (1893). He admits this interpretation of the pouring of the blood on the pyre, but explains the other circumstances differently. It would be quite easy to disprove in this fashion the sacrificial character of every ὁλοκαύτωμα for χθόνιοι whether Heroes or the dead. It is true that the bodies of sheep and cattle, horses and dogs, thus completely consumed by fire, are not a “food-offering”, but they are a sacrifice for all that, and belong to the class of expiatory offerings in which the flesh is not offered for the food of the daimon but the lives of the victims are sacrificed to him. That Achilles slays the Trojan prisoners at the rogus κταμένοιο χολωθείς (Ψ 23) does not destroy the sacrificial character of this offering intended to appease the wrath (felt also by Achilles) of the dead man.—The whole procedure gives a picture of primitive sacrificial ritual in honour of the dead and differs in no particular from the ritual of sacrifice to the θεοὶ χθόνιοι. This is recognized by Stengel in his Chthonischer und Todtencult (Festschr. Friedländ.), p. 432, who also marks clearly the differences between the two religious ceremonies as they were gradually evolved in the process of time.
[13] It cannot be denied that the libation of wine poured out by Achilles during the night (to which he expressly summons the psyche of Patroklos, Ψ 218–22) is sacrificial in character, like all similar χοαί. The wine with which the embers of the funeral pyre are extinguished may have been intended to serve that purpose alone and not as a sacrifice. But the jars of honey and oil which Achilles has placed upon the pyre (Ψ 170; cf. ω 67–8) can hardly be regarded as anything but sacrificial (cf. Bergk, Opusc. ii, 675; acc. to Stengel, Jahrb. Philol., p. 649, 1887, they only serve to kindle the flames, but the honey, at any rate, seems a strange material for the purpose. For libations at the rogus or at the grave honey and oil are regularly used—see Stengel himself, loc. cit., and Philol. xxxix, 378 ff.). Acc. to v. Fritze, de libat., 72, the jars of honey and oil were intended not as libations but for the “bath of the dead”—in the next world, in the Homeric Hades!—Honey can only have been used for bathing purposes, in Greece as elsewhere, by those who unintentionally fell into it like Glaukos.
[14] On Greek hair offerings see Wieseler, Philol. ix, 711 ff., who rightly regards these offerings as symbolic and as substitutes for primitive human sacrifice. The same explanation of the offering of hair is given in the case of other peoples also; cf. Tylor, ii, 401. [46]
[15] Patroklos’ request for prompt burial (69 ff.) gives no sufficient motive, since Achilles has already given orders for the funeral to take place next day, 49 ff. (cf. 94 f.).
[16] ll. 19; 179. Again, in the night following the erection of the funeral pyre, when the body is burning, Achilles calls to the soul of Patroklos ψυχὴν κικλήσκων Πατροκλῆος δειλοῖο 221. The person thus called upon is evidently supposed to be still close at hand. This is not contradicted by the formula χαῖρε . . . καὶ εἰν Ἀΐδαο δόμοισι (19, 179), for in l. 19. at least, the words cannot mean in Hades, since the soul is still outside Hades, as it tells us itself, 71 ff. The words can only mean “about”, “before” the House of Hades (like ἐν ποταμῷ “by the river”, etc.). In the same way εἰς Ἀΐδαο δόμον often only means towards the house of Hades (Ameis on κ 512).
[17] From descriptions in ancient poetry? or had similar customs—at least, at the funerals of chieftains—survived into the poet’s own time? Especially magnificent, e.g., were the burials of Spartan kings—and also Cretan kings, it appears, so long as there were any; cf. Arist. fr. 476, p. 1556a, 37 ff.
[18] Funeral games for Amarynkeus, Ψ 630 ff., for Achilles, ω 85 ff. Such games are referred to as being quite the usual custom in ω 87 ff. Later poetry is full of descriptions of such ἀγῶνες ἐπιτάφιοι of the heroic age.
[19] As Aristarchos noticed: see Rh. Mus. 36, 544 f. Rather different are the (certainly ancient) games and contests for the hand of a bride (cf. stories of Pelops, Danaos, Ikarios, etc.).
[20] Cf. Ψ 274, εἰ μὲν νῦν ἐπὶ ἄλλῳ ἀεθλεύοιμεν Ἀχαιοί, i.e. in honour of Patroklos; cf. 646: σὸν ἑταῖρον ἀέθλοισι κτερέϊζε. κτερεΐζειν means to give the dead man his κτέρεα, i.e. his former possessions (by burning them). The games are therefore on exactly the same footing as the burning of the personal effects of the dead in which the soul of the dead man was supposed still to take pleasure.
[21] Aug., CD. viii, 26: Varro dicit omnes mortuos existimari manes deos, et probat per ea sacra quae omnibus fere mortuis exhibentur, ubi et ludos commemorat funebres, tamquam hoc sit maximum divinitatis indicium, quod non solent ludi nisi numinibus celebrari.
[22] Quae pietas ei debetur a quo nihil acceperis? aut quid omnino, cuius nullum meritum sit, ei deberi potest? . . . (dei) quamobrem colendi sint non intellego nullo nec accepto ab eis nec sperato bono, Cic., ND. i, 116; cf. Pl., Euthphr. pass. Homer speaks in the same way of the ἀμοιβὴ ἀγακλειτῆς ἑκατόμβης, γ 58–9 (cf. ἀμοιβὰς τῶν θυσιῶν from the side of the gods, Pl. Smp., 202 E).
[23] τοῦτό νυ καὶ γέρας οἷον ὀϊζυροῖσι βροτοῖσιν, κείρασθαί τε κόμην βαλέειν τ’ ἀπὸ δάκρυ παρειῶν, δ 197 f.; cf. ω 188 f., 294 f.
[24] οὐ γὰρ ἔτ’ αὖτις νίσομαι ἐξ’ Ἀΐδαο ἐπήν με πυρὸς λελάχητε, Ψ 75 f.
[25] —ἰόντι εἰς Ἀΐδαο χερσὶ κατ’ ὀφθαλμοὺς ἐλέειν σύν τε στόμ’ ἐρεῖσαι, λ 426; cf. Λ 453, ω 296. To do this is the duty of the next of kin, mother or wife. The necessity for closing the sightless eyes and dumb mouth of the dead is intelligible without reference to any superstitious arrière pensée. Such an idea is, however, dimly discernible in such a phrase as ἄχρις ὅτου ψυχήν μου μητρὸς χέρες εἶλαν ἀπ’ ὄσσων, Epigr. Gr., 314, 24. Was there originally some idea of the “soul” being released by these means?—Seat of the soul in the κόρη of the eye: ψυχαὶ δ’ ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖσι τῶν τελευτώντων, Babr. 95, 35 (see Crusius, Rh. Mus. 46, 319). Augurium non timendi mortem in aegritudine quamdiu oculorum pupillae imaginem reddant, Plin., N.H. 28, 64; cf. Grimm, p. 1181. (If a person can no longer see his or her εἴδωλον [47] in a mirror it is a sign of approaching death, Oldenburg, Rel. d. Ved., 526 [p. 4493 French tr.].)—Among many peoples it is believed that the eyes of the dead must be closed in order to prevent the dead person seeing or haunting anyone in the future: Robinsohn, Psychol. d. Naturv., 44; cf. Cic., Verr. v, 118 (of the Greeks); Vg., A. iv, 684 f.: extremus si quis super halitus errat ore legam. Serv. ad loc.: muliebriter, tamquam possit animam sororis excipere et in se transferre (cf. Epigr. Gr., 547; IG. Sic. et It., 607e, 9–10). ψυχή making its exit through the mouth: I 409; cf. “Among the Seminoles of Florida when a woman died in childbirth the infant was held over her face to receive her parting spirit and thus acquire strength and knowledge for future use,” Tylor, i, 433.
[26] And even ἀνὰ πρόθυρον τετραμμένος, Τ 212, i.e. with feet turned towards the door. The reason for this custom—which existed elsewhere, too, and still exists—is hardly to be sought only in the ritus naturae, as Plin. 7, 46, thinks. This has generally little to do with the customs observed on the solemn occasions of life. The meaning of the practice is much more naively revealed in a statement about the manners of the Pehuenchen Indians in South America given by Pöpig, Reise in Chile, Peru, etc., i, 393. There they carry the dead man feet foremost out of the door “because if the corpse of the dead man were carried out otherwise his wandering ghost might come back into the house”. The Greek custom, though in Homeric times long faded to a mere symbol, must be supposed to have depended originally upon similar fears of the return of the “soul”. (Similar precautions arising from the same belief were customary at funerals elsewhere: Oldenberg, Rel. d. Veda, 573–4 [489 F.T.]. Robinsohn, Psychol. d. Naturv., 45 f.) Belief in the incomplete departure of the soul from this world has dictated these customs, too.
[27] The details of the procedure until the funeral dirge are given in Σ 343–55.
[28] τύμβος and στήλη, Π 457, 675, Ρ 434, Λ 371, μ 14. A heaped-up σῆμα as the burial-place of Eetion round which the Nymphs plant elms: Ζ 419 ff.—which preserves a trace of the custom, obtaining also in later times, of planting trees and even a whole grove round the grave.
[29] κτέρεα κτερεΐζειν in the formula σημά τέ οἱ χεῦαι καὶ ἐπὶ κτέρεα κτερεΐζειν, α 291, β 222. Here the κτερεΐζειν comes after the heaping up of the grave-mound—possibly the κτέρεα are to be burnt on or at the grave-mound. Schol. B on Τ 212 is, however, mistaken in the rule deduced from these cases: προὐτίθεσαν, εἶτα ἔθαπτον, εἶτα ἐτυμβοχόουν, εἶτα ἐκτερέϊζον. All the cases refer to the ceremonial at empty graves. Where the body was obtainable the relatives or friends would have burnt the κτέρεα with the body. This is done in the case of Eetion and Elpenor, and it must be understood in the close connexion of the words ἐν πυρὶ κήαιεν καὶ ἐπὶ κτέρεα κτερίσαιεν, Ω 38, and again ὄφρ’ ἕταρον θάπτοι καὶ ἐπὶ κτέρεα κτερίσειεν, γ 285.
[30]—a custom that originally belonged to all primitive peoples and remained in force for a very long time among many of them. All the possessions of a dead Inca remain his own absolute property: Prescott, Peru4, i, 31. Among the Abipones of Paraguay all the possessions of the dead are burnt: Klemm, Culturges. ii, 99. The Albanians of the Caucasus buried all the dead man’s possessions with him, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο πένητες ζῶσιν οὐδὲν πατρῷον ἔχοντες, Str. 503. Of ancient origin are also the extravagant burial customs of the Mingrelians living in what was formerly Albania: Chardin, Voy. en Perse (ed. Langlès), i, 325, 298, 314, 322. [48]
[31] Examples given by O. Jahn, Persius, p. 219 fin.
[32] ψυχὴ δ’ ἐκ ῥεθέων πταμένη Ἄϊδόσδε βεβήκει, ὃν πότμον γοόωσα λιποῦσ’ ἀνδροτῆτα καὶ ἥβην, Π 756. Χ 362 cf. Υ 294, Ν 415. ψυχὴ δ’ Ἀϊδόσδε κατῆλθεν, κ 560, λ 65. Complete departure into the depths of the kingdom of Hades is more clearly expressed in such words as βαίην δόμον Ἄϊδος εἴσω, Ω 246, κίον Ἄϊδος εἴσω, Ζ 422, etc. Again, in λ 150, the soul of Teiresias while speaking to Odysseus is still in Hades in the wider sense but is more exactly on the extreme edge of that region: we are told ψυχὴ μὲν ἔβη δόμον Ἄϊδος εἴσω—now at last it goes back again into the depths of the Kingdom of Hades.
[33] Aristonikos on Ψ 104: ἡ διπλῆ ὅτι τὰς τῶν ἀτάφων ψυχὰς Ὅμηρος ἔτι σωζούσας τὴν φρόνησιν ὑποτίθεται. (Rather too systematically put by Porph. ap. Stob., Ecl. i, p. 422, 20 ff., 425, 25 ff. W.) Elpenor is the first to approach Odysseus’ sacrificial trench οὐ γάρ πω ἐτέθαπτο, λ 52. His ψυχή had not yet been received into Hades (Rh. Mus. 1, 615). Achilles’ treatment of the body of Hektor shows that he thought of his enemy (because he was still unburied) as being able to feel what was done to him: lacerari eum et sentire credo putat, Cic., TD. i, 105.
[34] Plin. vii, 187, explains the change among the Romans from burial to cremation as being due to the fear that in times of war and disturbance the dead might be deprived of their rest. If a man dies in war time, i.e. during a period of temporary nomadism, his body is burnt, but a limb (sometimes the head) is cut off to be taken home and buried ad quod servatum iusta fierent, Paul. Festi, 148, 11; Varro, LL. v, 23; Cic., Lg. ii, 55, 60. The same custom is found among certain German tribes: see Weinhold, Sitzb. Wien. Ac. xxix, 156; xxx, 208. Even among the negroes of Guinea and the South American Indians practices resembling the os resectum of the Romans are found in the case of those who die in war in foreign country; cf. Klemm, Culturg. iii, 297; ii, 98 f. In every case burial is regarded as the ancient and traditional mode of disposing of the dead, and the one strictly required on religious grounds.
[35] Only once is there any mention of taking home the burnt bones, Η 334 f. Aristarch. rightly recognized this as being in conflict with the normal conceptions and practice of Homer and regarded the lines as the composition of a later poet (Sch. A ad loc. and on Δ 174; Sch. EMQ., γ 109). The lines may have been inserted to account for the absence from the Troad of such enormous grave-mounds as the burial of the ashes of both armies should have produced. The same reason—the desire expressed in these lines to bring back those who have died in a foreign country to their own land at last—is implied as the origin of cremation in the illustrative story of Herakles and Argeios, the son of Likymnios, in the ἱστορία (derived from Andron) of Sch. A on Α 52.
[36] Kl. Schr. ii, 216, 220.
[37] It would apply better to Roman beliefs; cf. Vg., A. iv, 698–9—though even that means something else. (Cf. also Oldenberg, Rel. d. Veda, 585, 2.)
[38] Cf. esp. Ψ 75–6, λ 218–22.
[39] Serv. ad A. iii, 68: Aegyptii condita diutius servant cadavera scilicet ut anima multo tempore perduret et corpori sit obnoxia nec cito ad aliud transeat. Romani contra faciebant, comburentes cadavera ut statim anima in generalitatem, i.e. in suam naturam rediret (the pantheistic touch may be neglected).—Cf. the account given by Ibn Foslan of the burial customs of the pagan Russians [49] (quoted from Frähn by J. Grimm, Kl. Schr. ii, 292): the preference for burning was due to the idea that the soul was less quickly set free on its way to Paradise when the body was buried intact, than when it was destroyed by fire.
[40] Cf. the Hymn of the Rigveda (x, 16) which is to be said at a cremation, esp. v. 2, 9 (quoted by Zimmer, Altind. Leben, 402 f.), and also Rigv. x, 14, 8 (Zimmer, p. 409). The Indians also wished to prevent the return of the dead to the world of the living. The feet of the corpse were chained so that the dead could not return (Zimmer, p. 402).
[41] It lies at the root of the stories of Demeter and Demophoon (or Triptolemos), and also that of Thetis and Achilles, when the goddess, laying the mortal child in the fire, περιῄρει τὰς θνητὰς σάρκας, ἔφθειρεν ὃ ἦν αὐτῷ θνητόν, in order to make it immortal (cf. Preller, Dem. u. Perseph., 112); cf. also the custom observed at certain festivals (? of Hecate, cf. Bergk, PLG. iii, 682) of lighting fires in the streets and leaping through the flames carrying children, see Grimm (E.T.), p. 625; cf. also Cic., Div. i, 47: o praeclarum discessum cum ut Herculi contigit mortali corpore cremato in lucem animus excessit! Ov., M., ix, 250: Luc., Herm., 7; Q.S. v, 640 ff. (For more about the “purifying” effects of fire, see below, chap. ix, [n. 127].)
[42] Nothing else than this is implied by the words of Η 409–10, οὐ γὰρ τις φειδὼ νεκύων κατατεθνηώτων γίγνετ’, ἐπεί κε θάνωσι πυρὸς μειλισσέμεν ὦκα. The souls of the dead must be quickly “assuaged with fire” (their longing gratified) and so their bodies are burnt. Purification from what is mortal and unclean, which Dieterich (Nekyia, 197, 3) thinks is referred to in this passage, is certainly not suggested as such by the words of the poet.
[43] Light may be incidentally thrown on the question of the transition from burial to cremation by such a story as that which an Icelandic Saga tells of a man who is buried by his own wish before the door of his house; “but as he returned and did much mischief his body was exhumed and burnt and the ashes scattered over the sea” (Weinhold, Altnord. Leben, 499). We often read in old stories how the body of a dead man who goes about as a vampire is burnt. His soul is then exorcized and cannot come back again.
[44] It is natural to think of Asiatic influence. Cremation hearths have recently (1893) been discovered in Babylonia.
[45] See Helbig, D. Hom. Epos aus d. Denkm. erl., 42 f.
[46] That the men of the “Mycenaean” culture, though much affected by foreign influences, were Greeks—the Greeks of the Heroic age of whom Homer speaks—may now be regarded as certain (see esp. E. Reisch, Verh. Wien. Philol., 99 ff.).
[47] See Schliemann, Mycenae, E.T., 155, 165, 213–14.
[48] Helbig. Hom. Epos2, p. 52.
[49] Cf. K. Weinhold, Sitzb. Wien. Ak., 1858 (Phil. hist. Cl.), xxix, pp. 121, 125, 141. The remarkable coincidences between the Mycenaean and these North European burial customs do not seem as yet to have been noticed. (The object of this elaborate foundation and covering may have been to preserve the corpse from decay longer, and especially from the effects of damp.)
[50] Also in the domed grave of Dimini: Ath. Mitth., xii, 138.
[51] The soul of a dead man from whom a favourite possession is withheld returns (equally whether the body and the possessions with it are burnt or buried). The story in Lucian, Philops., xxvii, of the wife of Eukrates (cf. Hdt. v, 92η), is quite in accordance with popular belief. [50]
[52] Schliemann, Myc., 212–13: see plan F. A similar altar in the Hall of the Palace of Tiryus: Schuchhardt, Schliemann’s Exc. (E.T.), p. 107.
[53] ἐσχάρα is essentially ἐφ’ ἧς τοῖς ἥρωσιν ἀποθύομεν, Poll. i, 8; cf. Neanthes ap. Ammon., Diff. Voc., p. 34 V. Such an altar rested directly on the ground without anything intervening (μὴ ἔχουσα ὕψος ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ γῆς ἱδρυμένη), it is round (στρογγυλοειδής) and hollow (κοίλη): cf. esp. Harp., 87, 15 ff. Phot., s.v. ἐσχάρα (2 glosses); AB. 256, 32; EM., 384, 12 ff.; Sch. on ζ 52; Eust., Od., p. 1939 (ψ 71): Sch. Eur., Ph., 284. It is evident that the ἐσχάρα is not very far removed from the sacrificial trench of the cult of the dead: thus it is actually called also βόθρος; Sch. Eur., Ph., 274 (σκαπτή S. Byz., 191, 7 Mein.).
[54] Stengel has a different view (Chthon. u. Todt., 427, 2).