[38] λήκυθοι, τοὔστρακον: Ar., Ec. 1032 f.; χέρνιψ ἐπὶ φθιτῶν πύλαις: Eur., Al. 98 ff. The bowl was called ἀρδάνιον: Sch. Ar., Ec. 1033; Poll. viii, 65 (cf. Phot. 346, 1 ὀρδάνιον). It contained water fetched from another house: Hesych, ὄστρακον—obviously because the water in the house where the corpse lay was regarded as polluted. (Thus when the fire, for example, is “polluted”, fresh fire is brought in from outside: Plu., Q. Gr. 24, p. 297 A; Arist. 20.) Those who left the house purified themselves with it: Hesych. ἀρδάνια, cf. [189] πηγαῖον, πηγαῖον ὕδωρ. A laurel branch (as holy-water sprinkler, as commonly in lustrations) was placed in it: Sch. Eur., Al. 98.
[39] Serv., A. iii, 680: apud Atticos funestae domus huius (cupressi) frondo velantur. The object may have been to warn the superstitious against approaching the “unclean” house: it is a characteristic of the δεισιδαίμων, οὔτε ἐπιβῆναι μνήματι, οὔτε ἐπὶ νεκρὸν οὔτ’ ἐπὶ λεχὼ ἐλθεῖν ἐθελῆσαι, Thphr., Ch. 16. This at least was the reason given at Rome for a similar custom: Serv., A. 3, 64; 4, 507.
[40] Crowning of the dead with garlands, afterwards a general custom, is first mentioned in the Ἀλκμαιωνίς (epical, but hard to date precisely: fr. ii, p. 76 Kink.). On the “Archemoros” vase a woman is about to place a myrtle-wreath on the head of Archemoros. The myrtle is sacred to the χθόνιοι, and hence the myrtle-crown belongs to the Mystai of Demeter as well as to the dead: see Apollod. ap. Sch. Ar., Ran. 330; Ister ap. Sch. Soph., OC. 681. Grave-monuments too were crowned and planted especially with myrtles; Eur., El. 324, 512; cf. Thphr., HP. 5, 8, 3; Vg., A. iii, 23. Not only the dead but graves too were frequently crowned with σέλινον, parsley: Plu., Timol. 26; Smp. 5, 3, 2, p. 676 D; Diogen. viii, 57, and others; cf. above, chap. iv, [n. 21]. The crowning invariably implies some form of consecration to a god. Acc. to Tertul., Cor. Mil. 10, the dead were crowned quoniam et ipsi idola statim fiunt habitu et cultu consecrationis; which at least gets nearer the real sense of the practice than the view of Sch. Ar., Lys. 601: στέφανος ἐδίδοτο τοῖς νεκροῖς ὡς τὸν βίον διηγωνισμένοις.
[41] Pl., Lg. 959 A. Poll. iii, 65. A still stranger reason added ap. Phot. πρόθεσις.
[42] Permission to attend either the πρόθεσις of the corpse (and the funeral lamentation) or the funeral procession (the ἐκφορά) given only to women of kinship μεχρὶ ἀνεψιότητος: Law ap. Dem. 43, 62–3: i.e. within the ἀγχιστεία, to which alone the duty of the cult of the dead belonged in principle. Only these women of the immediate kin are μιαινόμεναi in the case of death: cf. Hdt. vi, 58; this is the reason for the restrictions laid down by the funeral regulation from Keos (SIG. 877, 25 ff.), which makes an even narrower selection within the ranks of the ἀγχιστεία. (From l. 22 μὴ ὑποτιθέναι, etc., the law speaks of the πρόθεσις, even though at the beginning only the ἐκφορά is in question.)
[43] ἀμυχὰς κοπτομένων ἀφεῖλεν. Plu., Sol. 21. The democratizing of life in Attica after Solon’s time may have contributed to the carrying out there of provisions restricting the elaborate funeral rites of the old aristocratic period. The practice of κόπτεσθαι ἐπὶ τεθνηκότι appears, however, to have remained in use: beating of the head at funeral lamentations is a favourite motif in Attic vase-paintings (the so-called “Prothesis” vases); cf. Monum. dell’ Instit. viii, 4, 5; iii, 60, etc. See Benndorf, Griech. Sicil. Vasenb. 1.
[44] τὸ θρηνεῖν πεποιημένα, Plu., Sol. 21: by which is meant funeral hymns carefully prepared beforehand and perhaps ordered from professional θρήνων σοφισταί, not spontaneous expressions of grief breaking out as though involuntarily.
[45] Plu., Sol. 21: καὶ τὸ κωκύειν ἄλλον ἐν ταφαῖς ἑτέρων ἀφεῖλεν. This must surely mean: Solon forbade dirges to be sung at a funeral of one person in honour of another, different from the person actually being buried. (ἑτέρων is only used for variety after ἄλλον and simply = ἄλλων: as frequently by Attic writers: μὴ προϊέμενον ἄλλον ἑτέρῳ τὴν ἀλλαγὴν, Pl., Lg. viii, 849 E: ἕτερον—ἄλλον Isoc. 10, 36, etc.). [190] The tendency to extend the funeral hymns to include others besides the dead man is implied by a prohibition in a funeral ordinance of the πατρία of the Λαβυάδαι at Delphi (fifth–fourth century B.C.), BCH. ’95, p. 11, l. 39 ff. τῶν δὲ πρόστα τεθνακότων ἐν τοῖς σαμάτεσσι μὴ θρηνεῖν μηδ’ ὀτοτύζεν (at the funeral of another person). Was Homer thinking of something of the kind in Τ 302: Πάτροκλον πρόφασιν—?
[46] In Athens it had once been the custom ἱερεῖα προσφάττειν πρὸ τῆς ἐκφορᾶς, i.e. while still in the house of the dead person: [Pl.] Min. 315 C. Such a sacrifice before the ἐκφορά (which is not described till l. 1261 ff.) is implied by Euripides, Hel. 1255, at the burial of the dead body found in the sea: προσφάζεται μὲν αἷμα πρῶτα νερτέροις—where προσφάγιον is used inaccurately of sacrifice at the grave, in which case the πρό is meaningless; as also in the insc. from Keos (SIG. 877, 21). πρόσφαγμα is also thus used, Eur., Hec. 41. Plu. (Sol. 21) says of Solon: ἐναγίζειν δὲ βοῦν οὐκ εἴασεν. Possibly Solon forbade the sacrifice of animals before the ἐκφορά, since the author of the Ps.-Platonic Minos seems also to refer to such a prohibition.
[47] The Solonian restrictions says Plu. (Sol. 21) have been for the most part adopted in our (i.e. the Boeotian) νόμοι—as acc. to the indubitable witness of Cicero, Solon’s funeral regulations had been reproduced eisdem prope verbis in the tenth of the Twelve Tables by the Decemviri. Limits set to ceremonial mourning in Sparta: Plu., Lyc. 27 (whence Inst. Lac., 18, p. 238 D), in Syracuse by Gelon: D.S. 11, 38, 2; cf. “Charondas”, Stob., Fl. 44, 40 M. = iv, 2, 24, p. 153, 10 H. Some degree of restriction was imposed on their members (about the beginning of the fourth century B.C.) by the πατρία of the Λαβυάδαι in Delphi in the τεθμός published in the BCH. ’95, p. 9 ff.