[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.