§ 5
Such rudiments of a once vigorous soul-worship are not hard to find in Homer. In particular, we may refer to what the Iliad tells us of the manner in which the dead body of Patroklos is dealt with. The reader need only recall the general outline of the story. In the evening of the day upon which Hektor has been slain, Achilles with his Myrmidons sings the funeral dirge to his dead friend: they go three times in procession round the body, Achilles laying his “murderous hands” on the breast of Patroklos and calling upon him with the words: “Hail, Patroklos mine, even in Aïdes’ dwelling-place; what I vowed to thee before is now performed; Hektor lies slain and is the prey of dogs, and twelve noble Trojan youths will I slay at thy funeral pyre.” After they have laid aside their arms he makes ready the funeral feast for his companions—bulls, sheep, goats, and pigs are killed, “and all around, in beakers-full, the blood flowed round the corpse.” During the night the soul of Patroklos appears to Achilles demanding immediate burial. In the morning the host of the Myrmidons marches out in arms, bearing the body in their midst. The warriors lay locks of their hair, cut off for the purpose, upon the body, and last of all Achilles places his own hair in the hand of his friend—it was once pledged by his father to Spercheios the River-god, but Patroklos must now take it with him, since return to his home is denied to Achilles. The funeral pyre is got ready, many sheep and oxen slaughtered. The corpse is wrapped in their fat, while their carcasses are placed beside it; jars of oil and honey are set round the body. Next, four horses are killed, two dogs belonging to Patroklos, and last of all twelve Trojan youths taken prisoner for this purpose by Achilles. All these are burnt together with the corpse, and Achilles spends the whole night pouring out dark wine upon the earth, calling the while upon the psyche of Patroklos. Only when morning comes is the fire extinguished with wine; the bones of Patroklos are collected and laid in a golden casket and entombed within a mound. [13]
Here we have a picture of the funeral of a chieftain which, in the solemnity and ceremoniousness of its elaborate detail, is in striking conflict with the normal Homeric conception of the nothingness of the soul after its separation from the body. A full and rich sacrifice is here offered to such a soul. This sacrifice is inexplicable if the soul immediately upon its dissolution flutters away insensible, helpless and powerless, and therefore incapable of enjoying the offerings made to it. It is therefore not unnatural that a method of interpretation which isolates Homer as far as possible and adheres closely to his own fixed and determinate range of ideas, should attempt to deny the sacrificial character of the offerings made on this occasion.[12] We may well ask, however, what else but a sacrifice, i.e. a repast offered in satisfaction of the needs of the person honoured (in this case the psyche), can be intended by this stream of blood about the corpse; this slaughtering and burning of cattle and sheep, horses and dogs, and finally of twelve Trojan prisoners on or at the funeral pyre? To explain it all as a mere performance of pious duties, as is often done in interpreting many of the gruesome pictures of Greek sacrificial ceremonies, is impossible here. Besides, Homer often tells us of merely pious observances in honour of the dead, and they are of a very different character. And the most horrible touch of all (the human sacrifice) is not put in simply to satisfy Achilles’ lust for vengeance—twice over does Achilles call to the soul of Patroklos with the words: “To you do I bring what I formerly promised to you” (Il. xxiii, 20 ff., 180 ff.).[13] The whole series of offerings on this occasion is precisely of the kind which we may take as typical of the oldest sort of sacrificial ritual such as we often find in later Greek religion in the cultus of the infernal deities. The sacrificial offerings are completely burnt in honour of the Daimon and are not shared between the bystanders as in the case of other offerings. If such “holocausts”, when offered to the Chthonic and some of the Olympian deities, are to be regarded as sacrificial in character, then it is unjustifiable to invent some other meaning for the performances at the funeral pyre of Patroklos. The offering of wine, oil, and honey, at least, are normal in sacrificial rituals of later times. Even the severed lock of hair spread out over the dead body or laid in the cold hand is a well known sacrificial tribute, and must be supposed such here as much as in later Greek ceremonial or in that of many other peoples.[14] In fact, this gift in particular, symbolically representing as it does a more valuable sacrifice by means of another and less important [14] object (in the giving of which only the goodwill of the giver is to be considered)—this very offering, like all such symbolical substitutions, bears witness to the long duration and past development of the cultus in which it occurs—in this case of the worship of the dead in pre-Homeric times.
The whole narrative presupposes the idea that by the pouring out of streams of blood, by offerings of wine and burnt offerings of human beings and of cattle, the psyche of a person lately dead can be refreshed, and its resentment mollified. At any rate, it is thus thought of as accessible to human prayers and as remaining for some time in the neighbourhood of the sacrifice made to it. This contradicts what we expect in Homer, and, in fact, just in order to make this unusual performance plausible to an audience no longer familiar with the idea, and to make it admissible on a special occasion, the poet (though the actual course of his story does not really require it)[15] makes the psyche of Patroklos appear by night to Achilles. And, in fact, to the end of the narrative Achilles repeatedly greets the soul of Patroklos as though it were present.[16] The unusual way in which Homer deals with this whole affair, so full of primeval, savage ideas as it is, seems, indeed, to betray a certain vagueness about what its real meaning may be. That the writer has certain qualms on the subject is indicated by the brevity—not at all like Homer—with which the most shocking part of the story, the slaughter of human beings, together with horses and dogs, is hurried over. But the thing to be noted particularly is that the poet is certainly not devising such unpleasant circumstances for the first time out of his own imagination. This epic picture of the worship of the dead was adopted by Homer from an earlier source (whatever that source may have been),[17] and not invented by him. He makes it serve his special purpose, which is to provide a satisfactory climax to the series of vivid and emotional scenes beginning with the tragic death of Patroklos and ending with the death and dishonouring of the champion of Troy. After such emotional exaltation the overstrained nerves must not be allowed to relax too suddenly; a last flicker of the superhuman rage and grief that made Achilles rave so furiously against his foes must show itself in the serving up of this awful banquet to the soul of his friend. It is as though a primitive and long-suppressed savagery had broken out again for a last effort. Only when all is over does the soul of Achilles find repose in melancholy resignation. More calmly he calls upon the rest of the Achæans to take their seats “in a wide circle round about”; and there follows the [15] description of those splendid “Games”, a subject that must have awakened the enthusiasm of every experienced athlete in the audience—and was there ever a Greek who was not an athlete? It is true that athletic contests are described by Homer mainly on account of their own peculiar interest and for the sake of the artistic effects that their description allowed. Still, the selection of such games as a fitting conclusion to a chieftain’s funeral cannot be fully understood except as a survival of an ancient and once vigorous worship of the dead. Such athletic contests in honour of the great immediately after their death are often referred to by Homer;[18] indeed, a funeral is the only occasion[19] recognized by him as suitable for the exhibition of athletic prize-competitions. The practice never quite died out, and it became usual in later post-Homeric times to mark the festivals of Heroes and, later of gods, too, by Games which gradually became regularly repeated performances, developed from the traditional contests that had concluded the funeral ceremonies of great men. Now, no one doubts that the Agon at the festival of a Hero or a god formed part of their religious worship. It is only reasonable, then, to suppose that the funeral games which accompany the burial of a chieftain (and are confined to that one occasion) belong to the religious cult of the dead, and to recognize that such a mode of worship can only have been introduced at a time when men regarded the soul, in whose honour the ceremony took place, as capable of sharing consciously in its enjoyment. Even Homer is certainly conscious of the fact that the games, like the rest of the offerings made then, were intended for the satisfaction of the dead and not solely for the entertainment of the living.[20] We may also cite the declared opinion of Varro, who says that the dead in whose honour funeral games are celebrated are thereby proved to have been regarded originally, if not as gods, at least as very powerful spirits.[21] Of course, this feature of the original cultus of the soul was very easily stripped of its real meaning—it recommended itself quite apart from its religious significance—and for that very reason remained longer than other performances of the kind in general use.
If we now survey the whole series of ritual acts directed to the honouring of the soul of Patroklos, we can deduce from the seriousness of these attempts to please the disembodied spirit what must have been the strength of the original conception—how vivid must have been the impression of enduring sensibility, of formidable power possessed by a soul [16] to whom such a cult was offered. It is true of the cult of the dead, as of any other sacrificial custom, that its perpetuation is due solely to the hope of avoiding hurt and obtaining assistance at the hands of the Unseen.[22] A generation that no longer anticipated either help or harm from the “Souls” might be ready to perform last offices of all kinds to the deserted body out of pure piety, and to offer to the dead a certain traditional reverence. But this would testify rather to the grief of those left behind than to any special reverence felt for the departed.[23] This is mostly the case in Homer. It is not, however, what we should call piety, but much rather mistrust of a “ghost” become powerful through its separation from the body, that explains the exaggerated fullness of the funeral offerings that are made at the burial of Patroklos. They cannot be made to fit in with the ordinary circle of Homeric ideas. Indeed, that this circle of ideas excluded all misgiving at the possible action of unseen spirits is quite clearly shown by the fact that the honours paid even to a dead man held in such veneration as Patroklos are confined to the solitary occasion of his funeral. As the psyche of Patroklos himself assures his friend, once the burning of the body is completed, it, the psyche, will take its departure to Hades, never to return.[24] It is easy to see that from this point of view there was no motive whatever that could lead to a permanent cult of the soul such as was common among the Greeks of later times. But it should be noticed further that the luxurious repast offered to the soul of Patroklos on the occasion of his funeral had no point if the goodwill of the soul which was to be assured by that process would never have an opportunity in the future of making itself felt. The contradiction between Homeric belief and Homeric practice on this occasion is complete, and shows decisively that the traditional view that would see in this description of soul-worship at the funeral of Patroklos an effort after new and more lively ideas of the life after death, must certainly be wrong. When new surmises, wishes, conjectures begin to arise and seek a means of expression, the new ideas generally find incomplete utterance in the old and inappropriate external forms, but express themselves more clearly and certainly (generally with some tendency to exaggeration) in the less conservative words and language of men. Here just the opposite occurs: every word the poet utters about the circumstances contradicts the elaborately wrought ceremonial which those circumstances call forth. It is impossible to point to a single touch that accords with the belief implied by the [17] ceremonial. The poet’s bias is a different and, indeed, an opposite one. Of this much at least there cannot be the slightest doubt: the funeral ceremonies over the body of Patroklos are not the first budding of a new principle, but rather represent a “vestige” of a more vigorous worship of the dead in earlier times, a worship that must once have been a complete and sufficient expression of belief in the great and enduring power of the disembodied spirit. It has, however, been preserved unaltered into an age that, with quite other religious beliefs, no longer understands, or at best half-guesses at the sense of such strange ceremonial observances. Thus ritual generally outlives both the state of mind and the belief which originally gave rise to it.