During the days of preparation for burial and that on which the departed was entombed, his relatives either overcome by sorrow or bound down by the usages of the time, had been fasting. This abstinence had the usual effect, and, by the time the remains of the dear one had been laid under ground, his immediate family were almost ready to faint with hunger. That they might no longer thus afflict themselves and that their friends might offer them suitable comfort, the Greeks instituted the perideipnon, or funeral feast[266]. At this feast, the dead man was considered the host and it was regarded as his expression of thanks to his comrades for their courtesy in burying him[267]. Since it was the duty of the nearest surviving relative to provide for all the customary obsequies[268], properly this entertainment was provided at his house[269]. When the question of a funeral feast in honor of Patroclus was considered, Achilles, being his nearest friend then present, prepares for it in his own tent. The perideipnon for all those who had lost their lives in behalf of Greece at the disastrous battle of Chaeronea was held at the house of the orator Demosthenes. That was for the reason, as he himself states, that although each was nearer to his own kin than the orator, yet no other man was so near to them collectively[270].
The perideipnon was the beginning of a series of feasts or ministrations having for their object the nourishment of the dead in their new state of existence[271]. It was a belief common to some other earlier nations as well as the Greeks that those who had experienced the change of death were still in need of food and drink and it was conceived to be the duty of the living to satisfy the desire for sustenance of that nature. The ancient Hindus believed that, at the feasts, the manes of their ancestors seated themselves at the table near the living and enjoyed the viands set before them. The Greeks seem to have entertained the same belief and to have followed the same custom. Those rites long outlasted the beliefs which gave rise to the observances. The provision of material food for the dead was not only regarded as a duty but was viewed as a means of propitiating their good will.
If the funeral repasts were not continued at frequent intervals, it was believed that the spirits became malevolent and came out from the tombs, that the wandering shades could be heard in the silent night, reproaching the survivors with impious negligence and that they sought to punish their recreant relatives with sickness and unfruitfulness of the soil, until the neglected office was resumed.
It was the habit of the Greeks at these festivals, to recount whatever virtues the deceased may have possessed, but, quite contrary to the modern notion of the obituary and the epitaph, no exaggeration or embellishment was allowed, for it was reckoned impious to lie on such occasions[272]. It was from this usage of presenting the best view of the dead, that there arose the sarcasm applied to bad characters, “you would not be praised even at your funeral entertainment[273].” At this supper, whatever fragments might chance to fall from the table were always consecrated to the manes of the departed[274]. Pythagoras, having in mind, perhaps, the belief that all which fell to the floor belonged to the dead, strictly forbade his disciples to pick up the particles they may have dropped in any of their feastings[275].
XI.
SACRIFICES AT THE GRAVE.
The last step, or rather steps, in the obsequies, were the succession of sacrifices which were performed in honor of the deceased at his grave. No one but a relative was allowed to offer these sacrifices since a person visiting a strange tomb was suspected of a design to steal the bones for superstitious purposes[276]. This oblation to the dead was discriminated among the Hellenes from the ordinary sacrifices to the gods by a word peculiarly appropriated. The word which indicated this species of offering was enagisma and the idea implied in it may best be rendered into English by the word “purification[277].” The enagisma seems to have been divided, according to its character, into two kinds of sacrifice; namely, the choe, or “libation,” and the haimacouria or “blood-propitiation.” The choe or milder form, consisted merely of a libation of water, milk or wine, together with an offering of olives, honey and wreaths of flowers, “the offspring of all-producing earth[277].” At the haimacouria, on the other hand, before the wine was poured, it was the custom to slay a black ram[278] or a black bull[279]. This blood sacrifice, however, was probably used only when they were sacrificing in honor of a number of men. For instance, the warriors who were slain in Boeotia, while defending Greece from Mardonius, had that ceremony, on the anniversary day of each year, performed at their graves by the archon and the inhabitants of Plataea[279]. By the law of Solon, heifers, as victims, were proscribed in these solemnities[280].
The offerings, however, were gradually made more and more expensive until, on some occasions, a regular feast was laid out and consumed by fire. In a Greek dialogue that has come down to us, the old ferryman, Charon, who had come to the upper world to view the customs of men, expresses his surprise at these sepulchral propitiations. “Why then,” says he, “do they crown these stones and perfume them with unguents? Why do they heap up funeral pyres before the graves and burn these expensive feasts and pour wine and a mixture of honey and water into this trench[281]?”