The centre or body was painted white and, on that background, were drawn and painted the funeral scenes with considerable artistic skill and more or less accuracy of drawing and detail according to the grade of article that the artificer desired to make. The ultimate design of the workman was not to produce a work of art but an article of commerce, although, incidentally, figure-painting of a high order of merit was often attained[103]. They were not manufactured later than the second century before the Christian era[104], and represent the customs of the Athenians for a period extending through the fifth and fourth centuries.
When the lecyths were once buried with the corpse, it was considered a very serious offence to disturb them. On a lecyth that was unearthed in a grave at Cumae, there is a curse of blindness invoked on any one who might venture to steal it[105]. The custom of leaving objects of value at the tombs made them liable to depredations and many funeral inscriptions conveyed threats of punishment against those who should take or disturb whatever was thus offered to the dead[106].
Just outside the door of the house within which the body was laid out, stood an earthen vessel of lustral water, so that the visitors who went to look on the features of their friend for the last time, could purify themselves from any pollution which they might have incurred by entering a home defiled by death. Since everything appertaining to the stricken house was held to be contaminated, the purifying water had to be obtained from another house[107]. This vessel which contained the water was variously styled an ostrakon[108], an ardanion[107] or a pegaion[109].
This exposure of the body to the view of the friends was not merely for display but served often as a police regulation, and, at the same time, it prevented the lamentable mistake of burial where unconsciousness had simulated death. To some extent, it took the place of our coroner’s inquest, for we learn from Pollux[107] that “the laying out was for this reason, too, that the corpse might be seen not to have suffered violence.” The utility of this measure was promoted by the law which ordered the prothesis not to be for a longer or shorter time than to show whether the person was in a trance or really dead[110].
V.
OUTWARD GRIEF.
The outward manifestations of grief were very marked. At this point, it is necessary to notice only the lamentation and exaggerated grief which took place at the laying-out and in the procession. A consideration of the signs of mourning exhibited in the dress, should properly be made after a discussion of the other features of the burial.
This lamentation was rendered, to a large extent, by the women[111]. It must be regarded rather as a necessary form than as a genuine expression of woe. There were, of course, cases where real sorrow and affection called forth the tears and lamentations of thousands. Such a tribute to Timoleon’s character was paid by his countrymen, the Syracusans[112]. In the great majority of cases, however, this excessive grief was but a species of empty pageantry. Plato would have had wailing altogether forbidden, as being too common place, at the death of a priest[113]. In the earlier days, this fashionable excess grew to such an alarming extent that Solon was obliged to interfere by a law, to cut down these demonstrations. He forbade the survivors to tear themselves and ordered them to dispense with the hired mourners, whose lamentable notes were intended to excite sorrow[114]. He also commanded that no woman under sixty who was not at least a second cousin to the deceased should enter the house before the interment[115].
Charondas, the celebrated law-giver of Catana and Magna Graecia, made a law, which so far surpassed Solon’s in rigor as to forbid all lamentation. He thought it better that respect for the dead should be shown by decking their graves and otherwise keeping their memory green[116]. It is very unlikely, however that these laws had any permanent effect on the habits of the people. For a time, they may have checked excesses, but there certainly are many late proofs that this custom of violent and loud lamentation was long continued. We find all through the tragedies that the women still tear their hair[117], whenever any of their relations have left this life, and, wound their breasts[118], rip open their cheeks[117], and cry with sorrowful voices[119]. It is possible that the poets intended, in these passages, merely to portray the former customs, or, it might be, that the action is exaggerated to heighten the stage-effect; but, since there are many other proofs that these old barbarities remained in vogue outside the mimic life of the stage, it is unnecessary to speculate on the purpose of the dramatists. Lucian declares that the beating of the breasts, lacerating of the cheeks, pouring of ashes on the head and knocking the head upon the ground always occurred, so that the living were more to be pitied than the dead[120]. Again, we have in Plutarch’s consolatory letter to his wife, on the loss of their little girl, a severe invective against this practice in his time. His philosophy is worthy of the Christian era. “But since,” says he, “our little daughter afforded all our senses the sweetest and most charming pleasure, so we ought to cherish her memory, which will conduce in many ways, or rather manifold, more to our joy than to our grief.” Then, after praising his wife for not disfiguring herself or her maids, or indulging in any other dramatic expression of grief, he goes on to say: “For a virtuous woman ought not only to preserve her purity in riotous feasts but also to reason thus with herself that, in violent grief, the tempest of the mind, must be calmed by patience, and this does not intrench on the natural love of parents toward their children, as many think, but only struggles against the disorderly and irregular passions of the mind[121].”