[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).