Who dares to tremble on this signal day,
That wretch, too mean to fall by martial power,
The birds shall mangle, and the dogs devour.”
Incineration was denied Ajax, one of the greatest Grecian heroes, because he had slain himself in a fit of indignation. Hector’s defiance of the Greek princes (Iliad, B. VII, L. 85) shows that it was also the custom among the Trojans to burn the dead. There is further evidence of this in the truce, between Priam and Agamemnon (vide Iliad, B. VII, L. 898 and 450), for the purpose of burning the dead of both armies. Homer’s narration of the burning of Patroclus, Achilles’ friend, gives such an accurate description of the method then in use, that I will be pardoned for quoting it here. The passage to which I refer occurs in the twenty-third book of the Iliad, and is as follows:—
“They who had the dead in charge
Remained, and heaped the wood and built a pyre
A hundred feet each way from side to side.
With sorrowful hearts they raised and laid the corpse
Upon the summit. Then they flayed and dressed
Before it many fatlings of the flock,