FIG. 2. LYING IN STATE.
After the laying out, π�όθεσις, came the �κφο�ά, or burial. Early in the morning the body was taken, decked and clad as it was, and laid on a wagon, or on a bier to be carried on the shoulders of friends. A procession was formed, including near friends, musicians, hired wailing-women, and others who carried the vessels needed for the last sad rites. To the modern visitor in Greece none of the existing customs is more striking than that of bearing to the grave bodies decked out and painted, and looking more like wax images from Tussaud’s than the actual relics of humanity.
Several monuments of the early period present us with representations of the �κφο�ά so clear that we can judge with certainty even of its details. Of these the earliest are vases of the eighth century from the Dipylon cemetery. One engraved in the Monumenti of the Roman Institute[4] clearly represents the funeral of a distinguished chief. The body lies on the top of a lofty bier, supported by four columns, which again is carried on a car drawn by two horses. Immediately behind the car come the relatives: and it is accompanied by long strings of mourners, who are depicted in the childish fashion of the art of the time as alike naked. The women are distinguished by the breast merely, the men by swords which they carry at the waist. The geese which seem to follow the procession are only inserted to fill up vacant spaces in the design; since there is nothing to which the early vase-painter objects more strongly than leaving any part of the ground without figures. On another contemporary vase, published on the same plate, is a scene of π�όθεσις; the corpse on its bier is surrounded by mourners, who seem to be sprinkling it with lustral water. These glimpses into the daily life of pre-historic Athens are very attractive; and the life which they reveal differs but little from that of the historic Athens of the Persian wars.
An archaic terra-cotta, here engraved ([Fig. 3])[5], gives us a vivid representation of the appearance of the funeral cortége.
FIG. 3. FUNERAL PROCESSION.
FIG. 4. ARRIVAL AT THE TOMB.
The corpse is placed on a car drawn by two horses. It is accompanied by a woman who bears on her head a jar of wine for the funeral libations, and by two wailing-women who tear their hair as they walk. Behind, comes a bearded flute-player, and two young men, doubtless the next of kin. A vase of the sixth century, which also we engrave ([Fig. 4]), represents a comparatively modest funeral[6]. The arrival at the tomb is depicted. The dead man, whose face is uncovered, lies on a bier drawn by two asses. The procession resembles that of the last representation; the flute-player, who wears a long white robe, and the next of kin follow the bier; of the wailing-women, two are perched on the funeral wagon, other two stand in front of the grave, which appears as a square erection to the right. The cock who is to form part of the offerings to the dead stands between two trees which mark the graveyard.
Such was the actual prosaic procession to the grave. But the artists who painted the white Athenian lekythi, vessels especially made to be placed in the tomb[7], preferred in their representations of funerals to take refuge in the realm of imagery and fancy. For the actual carriage of the body to the place of burial they substitute a poetic fiction. When in the battles before Troy, Sarpedon fell beneath the spear of Patroclus, we are told in the Iliad that the gods took charge of his body which the foeman had despoiled[8].