Here there can be no reason for supposing any alien influence; on the contrary, the high importance attached by the ancient Greeks to funeral-rites is everywhere apparent. It was these which Patroclus’ spirit returned to implore; these which Antigone risked her life to give. The sin of Clytemnestra culminated in that she ‘dared to bury her husband without mourning or lamentation[1065]’—an essential part of the Greek funeral; and again in historical times Lysander’s honour was tarnished not so much because he put to death some prisoners of war, but because ‘he did not throw earth even upon their dead bodies[1066].’ What effect such neglect was anciently believed to have upon the dead is a question to be considered later; but the general idea is plainly Hellenic.
(2) Those who meet with any sudden or violent death (including suicides), or, in Maina, where the vendetta is still in vogue, those who having been murdered remain unavenged.
The most important element in this class is formed by those who have been murdered, especially when, as in Maina, they are believed to return from the grave with the purpose of seeking revenge upon their murderers. Such an idea, as will be shown later, is thoroughly consonant with ancient views of bloodguilt. But it appears also from a passage of Lucian[1067] that any ‘violent’ or ‘sudden,’ as opposed to ‘natural,’ death was commonly held to debar the victim from rest no less effectually than actual murder. The whole class may therefore be accepted as Hellenic, and may probably be considered to have always comprised all persons whose lives were cut short suddenly before their proper hour had come.
(3) Children conceived or born on one of the great Church-festivals, and children still-born.
The first division of this class may be variously explained; either the child may be supposed to suffer for the sin committed by its parents on a day when the Church enjoins continence, or else the notion, that children born between Christmas and Epiphany are subject to lycanthropy[1068] and therefore also, according to Slavonic views, to vampirism, has become associated with other church-festivals also. Children still-born are probably to be numbered among victims of ‘sudden’ death. Thus the first division, being of ecclesiastical or Slavonic origin, is to be set aside; the second may probably be included in a larger Hellenic class already considered; neither therefore requires any further discussion.
(4) Those who die under a curse, especially the curse of a parent, or one self-invoked, as in the case of a man who in perjuring himself calls down on his own head all manner of damnation if what he says be false.
The dread which a curse, above all a parent’s curse, excited in the ancient Greeks is well known. No one can have read Aeschylus’ story of the house of Atreus, nor followed with Sophocles the fortunes of Oedipus and his children, without perceiving therein the working of a curse that claims fulfilment and cannot be averted. The idea therefore here involved is purely Hellenic.
(5) Those who die under the ban of the Church, that is to say, excommunicate.
This class is an ecclesiastical variety of the last.
(6) Those who die unbaptised or apostate.