[23] χαίρετε ἥρωες. χαῖρε καὶ σὺ καὶ εὐόδει, CIG. 1956 (more given by Böckh, ii, p. 50; see also on 3278); Inscr. Cos, 343; IG. Sic. et It. 60, 319; BCH. 1893–4, 242 (5), 249 (22), 528 (24), 533 (36); specially noteworthy is p. 529 (28), Λεύκιε Λικίνιε χαῖρε. κὲ σύ γε ὦ παροδεῖτα “χαίροις ὅτι τοῦτο τὸ σεμνὸν | εἶπας ἐμοὶ χαίρειν εἵνεκεν εὐσεβίης”. To call upon the dead is an act of εὐσέβεια.
[24] At the burial of a woman who is being given a public funeral ἐπεβόασε ὁ δᾶμος τρὶς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτᾶς, GDI. 3504 (Knidos; in the time of Trajan). In the same way the name of the ἥρως was called out three times at a sacrifice in his honour: see above, chap. iv, [n. 62].
[25] Tombstone of Q. Marcius Strato (circ. second century A.D.), Ath. Mitt. 1892, p. 272, l. 5 ff. τοίγαρ ὅσοι Βρομίῳ Παφίῃ τε νέοι μεμέλησθε, δευόμενον γεράων μὴ μαρανεῖσθε τάφον· ἀλλὰ παραστείχοντες ἢ οὔνομα κλεινὸν ὁμαρτῇ βωστρέετ’ ἢ ῥαδινὰς συμπαταγεῖτε χέρας. Those who are thus charged answer, προσεννέπω Στράτωνα καὶ τιμῶ κρότῳ.
[26] Often represented on Attic lekythoi: Pottier, Les lécythes blancs, p. 57.
[27] The gods and their statues are honoured in this way: Sittl, Gebärden, p. 182.
[28] βελτίονες καὶ κρείττονες, Arist., Eudem. fr. 37 [44].
[29] χρηστοὺς ποιεῖν euphemism for ἀποκτιννύναι in a treaty between Tegea and Sparta: Arist., fr. 542 [592]. They become χρηστοί only after death. This ancient and evidently popular expression gives far stronger grounds for believing that χρηστός applied to the dead than does the passage from Thphr., Ch. x, 16 (xiii, 3), for the opposite view (the περίεργος writes on a tombstone that a dead woman and her family χρηστοὶ ἦσαν, which Loch concludes that the word really “denotes a quality of the living and not of the dead”, op. cit., 281). It is possible at the same time that those who used such words did not mean anything special by their χρηστὲ χαῖρε, and at any rate only thought of it as a vague adjective of praise. But that was not its real meaning.
[30] χρηστὲ χαῖρε and the like, with or without ἥρως, are very commonly met with on epitaphs from Thessaly, Boeotia, the countries of Asia Minor (and Cyprus as well: cf. BCH. 1896, pp. 343–6; 353–6). On [556] Attic graves the use of the title χρηστός seems to be confined to foreigners and those mostly slaves (see Keil, Jahrb. Phil. suppl. iv, 628; Gutscher, Att. Grabinschr. i, p. 24; ii, p. 13).
[31] With Gutscher, op. cit., i, 24; ii, 39.—From the fact that in Attica this word does not seem to be given to natives no conclusion is to be drawn as to the opinions held by the Athenians about their dead (as though they thought of them with less respect). The word was simply not traditional in this sense in Attica. On the other hand, the word μακαρίτης was specifically Attic as applied to the dead (see above, ch. vii, [n. 10]), and this provides unmistakable evidence that the conception of the dead as “blessed” was current also in Attica.
[32] χρηστῶν θεῶν, Hdt. viii, 111.—ὁ ἥρως (Protesilaos), χρηστὸς ὤν, ξυγχωρεῖ that people should sit down in his τέμενος: Philostr., Her. p. 134, 4 Ks.—Other modes of address intended to mollify the dead are ἄλυπε, χρηστὲ καὶ ἄλυπε, ἄριστε, ἄμεμπτε, etc. χαῖρε (cf. Inscr. Cos, 165, 263, 279, and Loch, op. cit., 281).