[42] No detailed proof of this statement is needed. We will only remark that the attempt to conceal the grave is often met with among so-called “savage” tribes and has the same purpose as in the Greek Hero-cult: cf. on this subject Herbert Spencer, Princ. of Sociol. i, p. 176.
[43] See Helbig, D. hom. Epos aus Denkm.1, p. 41.
[45] Β 603 οἳ δ’ ἔχον Ἀρκαδίην ὑπὸ Κυλλήνης ὄρος αἰπύ, Αἰπύτιον παρὰ τύμβον.—Cf. Paus. 8, 16, 2–3.—In the Troad the frequently mentioned Ἴλου σῆμα, the σῆμα πολυσκάρθμοιο Μυρίνης which “men” call Βατίεια, were similar monuments.
[46] The ceremonial announcement of death, the καταμιαίνεσθαι of the proper persons (as usual the next of kin to the dead); the assembling of Spartiates Perioikoi and Helots (cf. Tyrt. fr. 7) with their women to the number of several thousands, the extravagant expression of grief and praise of the dead, the period of mourning (no business in the market for ten days, etc.)—all this is described by Hdt. vi, 58. He compares this grandiose funeral with the pomp customary at the burial of an Asiatic (Persian) monarch.—The Lycurgan νόμοι by these funeral rites οὐχ ὡς ἀνθρώπους ἀλλ’ ὡς ἥρωας τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίων [145] βασιλεῖς προτετιμήκασιν, Xen., Rep. Lac. xv, 9. King Agis I ἔτυχε σεμνοτέρας ἢ κατ’ ἄνθρωπον ταφῆς, Xen., HG. 3, 3, 1.—A peculiar circumstance at the burial of a Spartan king is mentioned by Apollod., fr. 36.—The burial places of the royal Houses of the Agiadai and the Eurypontidai (apart even in their death), Paus. 3, 12, 8; 14, 2 (cf. Bursian, Geog. ii, 126).—Embalming of the body of a king who dies abroad, Xen., HG. 5, 3, 19: D.S. 15, 93, 6; Nep., Ages. 8; Plu., Ages. 40.—Besides this the participation in primitive times of the whole people in the funeral of the Herakleid kings in Corinth may probably be deduced from the story told of the compulsory attendance of the Megarian subjects of Corinth at the funeral at Corinth of a king of the Bakchiad family: Sch. Pi., N. vii, 155 (cf. AB. 281, 27 ff.; Zenob. v, 8; Dgn. vi, 34). In Crete τῶν βασιλέων κηδευομένων προηγεῖτο πυρριχίζων ὁ στρατός (as at the funeral of Patroklos, Ψ 131 ff.), Arist. ap. Schol. V., Ψ 130.
[47] Εὐπατρίδαι, οἱ . . . μετέχοντες τοῦ βασιλικοῦ γένους, EM. 395, 50.—Thus the Bakchiadai in Corinth were descendants of the royal family of the house of Bakchis. The Βασιλίδαι, a ruling family of oligarch nobles in Ephesos (Ael. fr. 48), Erythrai (Arist., Pol. 1305b, 19), and perhaps Chios as well (see Gilbert, Gr. Alt. ii, 153), also traced back their descent to the old kings of those Ionic cities. Respect paid to those who were descended ἐκ τοῦ γένους of Androklos at Ephesos, Stra. 633.—The Aigid Admetos, priest of Apollo Karneios at Thera was descended Λακεδαίμονος ἐκ βασιλήων, Epigr. Gr. 191; 192.
[48] Here some reference might have been expected to Fustel de Coulanges’ brilliant and penetrating work La Cité antique. In that book the attempt is made to fix upon ancestor-worship, la religion du foyer et des ancêtres, as the root of all the higher types of worship (among the Greeks: only that part of the book concerns us here); and to show how out of these ancestor-worshipping aggregations, begun by the family, larger communities of ever-widening membership developed, and finally out of these the πόλις itself—the highest and most extensive political as well as religious community of all. For the author of that book the proof of his theory lies entirely in the simple logical consequence with which the details and, as far as we know it, the development of both private and public law follow from the original causes adopted by him essentially as postulates. A strictly historical proof that should not have to deduce the original causes from the results but should start from known beginnings and demonstrate the actual existence of every step was indeed an impossibility. The whole historical process must have been already finished when our knowledge first begins: for Homer shows us the πόλις and its component parts (κρῖν’ ἄνδρας κατὰ φῦλα κατὰ φρήτρας Ἀγάμεμνον) as well as the worship of the gods as fully established and developed. It is no disparagement of the valuable and fruitful suggestions made in that book if we say that its leading idea—as far as Greece is concerned—cannot be considered as more than an intuition, which though it may be just and true, must remain unproved. If there ever was a time when ancestor-worship was the only Greek religion at least we cannot see into that dim epoch long anterior to all tradition. To that remote period long before both the all-powerful religion of the gods and the earliest records of the Greek genius, even the narrow and slippery path of inference and reconstruction will hardly lead us. Natural as it might seem, therefore, so far as the subject itself is concerned to deal with such questions, I have taken no notice in the [146] present work of any attempts to deduce Greek religion from an original sole worship of ancestors (such as have been made by many scholars besides F. de Coulanges both in England and in Germany).
[49] Those worshipped by a γένος regarded as its progenitors, γονεῖς: AB. 240, 31 (τὰ θύματα δίδωσιν) εἰς τὰ γονέων (ἱερὰ) τὰ γένη.—Physical relationship between the γεννῆται, originally a fact though afterwards only occasionally demonstrable, is indicated by the ancient name ὁμογάλακτες applied to the members of the same clan (Philoch. fr. 91–4) and meaning strictly παῖδες καὶ παίδων παῖδες (Arist., Pol. 1252b, 18).—The word πάτρα with the same meaning as γένος (Μιδυλιδᾶν πάτρα, Pi., P. viii, 38), makes it still more clear that the members of such a group are regarded as the descendants of a single ancestor. See Dikaiarch. ap. St. Byz. πάτρα.
[50] Whose names were chosen by the voice of the Delphic oracle out of a hundred submitted to the Pythia. Arist. Ἀθπ. 21, 6. Cf. Mommsen, Philol., N.F. i, 456 f.
[51] Instead of the common ἐπώνυμοι we also find the word ἀρχήγεται used of the Heroes of the phylai: Ar. Γῆρας, fr. 126 H.–G. (AB. 449, 14); Pl., Lys. 205 D, cf. CIA. ii, 1191; 1575. It is even plainer that the Hero is regarded as the ancestor of his φυλή when he is called ἀρχηγός: thus Oineus was the ἀρχηγός of the Oineïdai, Kekrops the ἀρχηγός of the Kekropidai, Hippothoön ἀρχηγός of the Hippothoöntidai in [Dem.] 60, 30–1. The ἀρχηγὸς τοῦ γένους is its physical forebear and progenitor, Poll. iii, 19: thus Apollo ἀρχηγὸς τοῦ γένους of the Seleucids, CIG. 3595, 26; cf. Isocr. 5, 32. Thus too the members of a phyle are actually described as the συγγενεῖς of their Hero eponymos: [Dem.] 60, 28.