Among all the peoples of antiquity the blood was looked upon as the seat of life;[[117]] the vapour which rose from the warm red liquid, flowing from a wound, was the soul escaping therewith from the body; and therefore when blood was sprinkled on the soil which covered the remains of a relative or a friend, a new vitality was given to his shade. With the same motive women were wont to scratch their faces with their nails in sign of mourning.[[118]] This ancient conviction that fresh blood was indispensable to the dead, was maintained in some countries with surprising tenacity. In Syria, as late as the seventh century of our era, Christians insisted, in spite of episcopal objurgations, on immolating bulls and sheep on tombs, and in Armenia, where these practices were sanctioned by the national clergy, the faithful remained persuaded that the dead found no happiness in the other life unless the blood of victims had been made to flow for them on the days fixed by tradition.[[119]]
Other libations performed in the funeral rites of the Greeks, as of the Romans, were intended to produce the same effect, the libations, namely, of wine, milk and honey. The use of wine has been explained as that of a substitute for blood, as wine is red. Servius even interprets the purple flowers which Aeneas threw on the tomb of his father Anchises by the same association of ideas, as an “imitation of blood in which is the seat of life.”[[120]] Many proofs could be cited of the fact that wine has often taken the place of the liquid which flows in our veins, but its use in connection with the dead can be explained also by its own virtue. It is the marvellous liquid which gives divine drunkenness and which in the mysteries ensures immortality to such as are, thanks to this sacred draught, possessed by Bacchus.[[121]] In the same way it vivifies the Manes to whom it is poured out. Similarly melikraton, a mixture of milk and honey, is the food of the gods, and when the dead absorb it, they too become immortal.
Such is the first meaning of these offerings, one which was never quite forgotten. Their object is the infusion of new vigour into the enfeebled shades who slumber in the tomb. This intention can also be discerned in the fact that the same offerings are used in magic, which often preserved ideas abolished or superseded in religion. In order to evoke the phantoms, the necromancers dug a ditch and poured blood, wine, milk and honey into it. These liquids had an exciting effect on the spirits of the dead, arousing them from their torpor, and the wizard took advantage of it to question them.
Precautions lest the dead should ever suffer from lack of nourishment were multiplied. In order that they might be fed on other days than those of sacrifices, all over the ancient world it was customary to place food on their tombs—eggs, bread, beans, lentils, salt, flour, with wine. Hungry vagrants did not always respect their offerings but would help themselves to the proffered viands.
The institution which is most characterised by the persistence of the ancient ideas of life in the tomb is however that of the funeral banquets. These family repasts, which had previously been celebrated among the Etruscans, took place in Rome on the grave immediately after the funeral (silicernium) and were repeated on the ninth day following (cena novemdialis). In Greece and in the East the ceremony took place thrice, on the third, ninth and thirtieth or on the third, seventh and fortieth day. Everywhere it was subsequently renewed every year on the anniversary of the death and on several other fixed dates, as on that of the Rosalia in May, on which it was customary to decorate the tombs with roses. Memorial monuments of some importance are often found to include, beside the burial chamber, a dining-room (triclinium) and even a kitchen (culina). The importance attached to these meals is proved by several wills which have been preserved, and which make considerable endowments to ensure their perpetuity. For instance, at Ravenna a son bequeaths a sum of money to a college on condition that its members annually scatter roses on his father’s grave and feast there on the Ides of July.[[122]] When Aurelius Vitalio had built at Praeneste a family tomb, surmounted by a room with a terrace, he wrote a letter in incorrect Latin to the brothers of the society to which he belonged: “I ask you, my companions, to refresh yourselves here without quarrelling.”[[123]] An African settled in Rome similarly writes to his relatives and friends, “Come here in good health for the feast, and rejoice together.”[[124]] And in Gaul a will commands that the burial vault be furnished and receive a bed with coverings and cushions for the guests who have to meet on the memorial days.[[125]]
These funeral repasts go back to a prehistoric antiquity. They are found in India and in Persia as well as among the European peoples. They are doubtless as ancient as wedding and festal banquets. Among the Egyptians and the Etruscans it was even customary to place the representation of a perpetual feast on the walls of a tomb in order to secure to the dead person the relief it gave. The shade of a guest might well be pleased with the likeness of dishes.
It was believed that at funeral feasts the Manes of ancestors came to sit among the guests and enjoyed with them the abundance of the food and wines. Lucian tells of repasts of this kind, which he witnessed in Egypt, at which the dried mummy was invited to eat and drink at the table of his kin.[[126]] In Greece, even in the Roman period, those present at the feast used to summon the dead to it by name. An epitaph of Narbonne jokingly expresses the vulgar idea as to the participation of the deceased in the banquet: “I drink and drink again, in this monument,” says the dead man, “the more eagerly because I am obliged to sleep and to dwell here.”[[127]]
Nothing is further from our spiritual ideas as to the holiness of graveyards than the conviviality occasioned by the cult of the departed; among the guests crowned with flowers, the drinks went round (circumpotatio) and soon produced a noisy intoxication. Do not think this was an abuse due to a relaxation of morals and which came into being in later times. The character of these funeral banquets was such from the beginning, and such it has remained down to modern times in many countries. You all know the practice of the Irish “wake” which has been preserved even in the United States.
For it was long believed that the dead had their part in the merriness and inebriation of the companions at table and were thus consoled for the sadness of their lot. “Thou callest,” says Tertullian,[[128]] “the dead careless (securos) when thou goest to the tombs with food and delicacies, but thy real purpose is to make offerings to thyself, and thou returnest home tipsy.” And indeed, as we shall see,[[129]] these feasts were no longer of profit to the dead only but to the living also, because there came to be a confusion between them and the Bacchic communions in which wine was a drink of immortality.