Archilochus points one of his verses with a beautiful metaphor by indirectly likening the whiteness of the ashes to which the corpse has been reduced to the “pure robe” of death[64].
Artemidorus states clearly in his work on the interpretation of dreams that the appearance to a sick man of “white garments indicates death, because the dead are wont to be buried in white; while the black dress prophesies safety, since not those who have died, but those who are in mourning use the latter dress[65].” Finally, in the scene where the Greeks prepare the body of Patroclus for burial, after drawing on some underwear of fine linen, over all they cover the hero’s body with a snowy funeral robe[66]. The Cean inscription directs that the dead be wrapped in three white cloths[67]. Aeschines arraigns Demosthenes because he appeared in a white garment when he should have been in mourning for his only daughter[68].
Yet it might be a hasty inference to conclude that the dress of the mourners was absolutely and unqualifiedly black. In some of the paintings, on the vases, which have been discovered, the colors are remarkably well preserved. On the lecyths, only one woman has been found wearing a dead black robe[69]. It will be noticed that the expression employed by the ancient authors, does not apply strictly to the color black, as we generally understand it. In this connection, a black robe need not imply anything more than a dark shade of garment in contrast with the whiteness of the material in which the dead body is robed. Homer says “black wine,” “black sea,” and “black blood[70].” The color black is very rare in the vase paintings, and particularly in funeral scenes. On one lecyth, the ornamental bands which lie over and hang down from the funeral bed, and the covering of the bed, are painted in violet[71], on another lecyth, the shroud is dark green; the undergarment of one of the women is dark green, and her outer garment is brown; on another lecyth, a man is represented wearing an outer garment of dark lilac, and a woman has a mantle of brown[72].
These white lecyths, by the way, were small vases, the body of which is generally of a white or gray color. They varied in height from four inches to twenty inches and more[73]. They were simply filled with perfumes and placed near the funeral bed, that they might envelop it in their fragrant emanations[74]. They held the myrrh, of which Plutarch also speaks, in his description of the funeral rites in honor of those who died at Plataea, and which filled the urns borne by the young people in the processions[75]. Some beautiful specimens of the white lecyths are to be found in the museums at Athens, in the Louvre, at Vienna, London, Berlin, at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and in some private collections. On the body of the vase, are painted scenes connected with the funeral ceremonies. Their authority is final as to the burial customs which they portray, and, on many of them, the colors are brilliant, clear and unaffected by time.
IV.
THE LYING IN STATE.
After the body had been made ready for burial, it was laid out in state. This was called the prothesis, and probably took place on the day after the death, in order that the corpse might have an early burial. From the statement of Pollux[76] concerning the order of the ceremonies, it must be inferred that this was the proper time. That author states that the prothesis came first, and was followed successively by the ekphora or procession and the tertial sacrifices. Those sacrifices came on the fourth day, that is, the third after the day of the demise[77], and the procession came on the day following the prothesis[78]. Therefore, it is necessary to conclude that the prothesis, procession and sacrifices came respectively on the first, second and third day after the decease. The basis for that calculation is found in Antiphon’s oration on the death of the chorus singer[79]. Probably that order of events was established by the law of Solon, which is reported somewhat imperfectly in Demosthenes[80]. In the case of those Athenians, however, who had fallen in battle, the lying-in-state took place three days before the procession[81].
This desire which the Greeks had for an early burial, was due to the same solicitude that caused them to be in haste to provide the passage-money for crossing the Styx.