[58] In the list of quotations from individual authors from the fifth century on, given in Becker Char.2 iii, 98 ff. [= E.T.3 pp. 390–1], only the foll. speak for burial as the prevailing custom: Plu., Sol. 21. οὐκ εἴασεν (Solon) συντιθέναι πλέον ἱματίων τριῶν, and Plu., Lyc. 27, συνθάπτειν οὔδεν εἰασεν (Lycurg.) ἀλλὰ ἐν φοινικίδι καὶ φύλλοις ἐλαίας θέντες τὸ σῶμα περιέστελλον: cf. Th. i, 134, 4. Cremation, on the other hand, is implied as the more common in Athens (fourth century) by Is. 4, 19: οὔτ’ ἔκαυσεν οὐτ’ ὠστολόγησεν; so, too, the will (third century) of the Peripatetic Lykon (D.L. v, 70): περὶ δὲ τῆς ἐκφορᾶς καὶ [192] καύσεως ἐπιμεληθήτωσαν κτλ. Cf. Also Teles ap. Stob. 40, 8, i, p. 747, 5 H.; τί διαφέρει ὑπὸ πυρὸς κατακαυθῆναι—which is here regarded as Greek funeral usage.—In the graves recently discovered before the Dipylon gate in Athens those belonging to the earliest period almost without exertion have their dead buried (without coffin); the following period (into the sixth century) generally burnt their dead; later, burial seems to have been more usual—see the account by Brückner and Pernice of the excavations before the Dipylon gate, Ath. Mitt. 1893, pp. 73–191. Thus it appears that in the later period burial was the prevailing practice in Attica (L. Ross, Archaeol. Aufs. i, 23), as also, being essentially cheaper than cremation, in other parts of Greece as well (a few references given in BCH. ’95, p. 144, 2).
[59] ὠστολόγησεν, Is. 4, 19.
[60] The custom of ἐκφορά on an open κλίνη is not in harmony with the intention of laying the body of the dead in a coffin, but evidently presupposes that the body is to be placed either unenveloped in the ground or else to be burnt. The practice of coffin-burial (probably introduced from the East) later became common, but was never completely harmonized with the ancient ceremonies of the ἐκφορά.
[61] Coffinless burial was usual in the graves of the “Mycenaean” period, and also in the oldest times in Attica. The Spartans were merely keeping up this ancient custom when they ἐν φοινικίδι καὶ φύλλοις ἐλαίας θέντες τὸ σῶμα περιέστελλον (buried), Plu., Lyc. 27. Here everything points to the retention of primitive usage. The bodies were buried in the ancient fashion, not burnt; they were wrapped in a crimson robe. Crimson is otherwise the special colour for war and festival dress (cf. Müller, Dorians, ii, 264); here it is used in connexion with chthonic cult: ἔχει γάρ τινα τὸ πορφυροῦν χρῶμα συμπάθειαν πρὸς τὸν θάνατον says rightly Artemid. 1, 77, p. 70, 11 H. This can hardly be because of the red colour of blood; any more than that is why θάνατος is called πορφύρεος. But even Homer Ω 796 makes Hektor’s bones wrapped πυρφυρέοις πέπλοισι—the bones only in this case instead of the whole body: clearly a vestige of an older custom which survived unchanged in Sparta. Similarly Ψ 254. So, too, e.g. in the Dipylon graves at Athens burnt bones were found wrapped in a cloth, Ath. Mitt. 18, 160–1, 185. The head of the murdered brother φοινικίδι ἐκαλυψάτην καὶ ἐθαψάτην the two other Kabeiroi in the religious myth related by Clem. Al., Protr. ii, p. 16 P. Crimson frequently occurs as a colour used in chthonic cult: e.g. at the ceremonial ἄραι implying consecration to the infernal deities in [Lys.] 6, 51; at sacrifices to the Plataean Heroes: Plu., Arist. 21; at the transfer of the bones of Rhesos: see above, chap. iv, [n. 36]; Polyaen. vi, 53; at sacrifices to the Eumenides, Aesch., Eum. 1028.—The custom of burial upon leaves was also retained by the Pythagoreans: they buried their dead (without burning them, Iamb., VP. 154) in myrti et oleae et populi nigrae foliis (in fact, the trees regularly sacred to the χθόνιοι), Plin. 35, 160. Fauvel (ap. Ross, Arch. Aufs. i, 31) found in graves by the Melitean gate at Athens le squelette couché sur un lit épais de feuilles d’olivier encore en état de brûler. (Olive stones in Mycenaean Graves, Tsundas, Ἐφ. Ἀρχ., ’88, p. 136; ’89, p. 152.)
[62] Thus in the letter of Hipparchos, in Phlegon, 1; similarly Xen. Eph. 3, 7, 4 (see my Griech. Roman, p. 391 n. 2). Plato wished his Euthynoi to be buried like this on stone κλῖναι (Lg. xii, 947 D); and this is probably how the bodies were placed in the rock burial-chambers provided with separate couches, such as occur at e.g. Rhodos and Kos [193] (see Ross, Arch. Aufs. ii, 384 ff., 392): cf. esp. the description given by Heusey, Mission arch. de Macédoine (Texte), p. 257 ff., ’76. It is the regular mode of burial in Etruria (following Greek models?): several skeletons have been found there lying on couches of masonry in the grave-chambers.
[63] As though the dead had not entirely departed καὶ ὅπλα καὶ σκεύη καὶ ἱμάτια συνήθη τοῖς τεθνηκόσιν συνθάπτοντες ἥδιον ἔχουσιν Plu., Ne Suav. Ep. 26, p. 1104 D. Restrictions in Law of the Labyad. (l. 19 ff.) ὅδ’ ὁ τεθμός περ τῶν ἐντοθηκῶν· μὴ πλέον πέντε καὶ τριάκοντα δραχμᾶν ἐνθέμεν, μήτε πριάμενον μήτε ϝοίκω.
[64] Helbig, Hom. Epos. 41.
[65] βελτίονες καὶ κρείττονες. Arist., Eudem. 37 [44] ap. Plu., Cons. Apoll. 27, p. 115 BC.
[66] [Pl.] Min. 315 D. To raise doubts on this point is mere perversity. It is of no avail to advance the argument (which is commonly used also against the similar statements about Rome in Serv., A. v, 64; vi, 152) that this story only intends to explain the origin of the worship of the household Lares. The Greeks did not have this particular worship, or else it was so completely forgotten that no explanatory account of its origin was ever offered.—Beside the hearth and the altar of Hestia the most ancient resting place of the head of the house must have been placed too. When the wife of Phokion had had the body of her husband burnt abroad ἐνθεμένη τῷ κόλπῳ τὰ ὀστᾶ καὶ κομίσασα νύκτωρ εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν κατώρυξε παρὰ τὴν ἑστίαν, Plu., Phoc. 37.—It was wrongly believed that in the remarkable rock-graves in the neighbourhood of the Pnyx at Athens examples of such graves situated inside the house had been discovered. See Milchhöfer in Baumeister’s Denkm. 153b.
[67] This occurs among the New Zealanders, Eskimos, etc.; cf. Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, pp. 465, 511, etc.