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AUTHOR: 
 
 GRIEVE, LUCIA 
 
 CATHERINE GRAEME 
 
 TITLE: 
 
 DEATH AND BURIAL IN 
 
 ATTIC TRAGEDY ... 
 
 PLACE: 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DA TE : 
 
 1898 
 
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 Grieve, Lada Catherine Graeme, 1862- 
 
 Death and burial in Attic tragedy. Part i. Death and 
 the dead ... New York, 1898. 
 
 I 83 p. 24r. 
 
 Thesis (ph. d.) — Columbia university. 
 
 Vita. 
 ^^/^^ ^«^ Bibliography: p. 10-12. 
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 DEATH AND BURIAL IN AHIC TRAGEDY 
 
 PART I 
 DEATH AND THE DEAD 
 
 BY 
 
 LUCIA CATHERINE GRAEME GRIEVE, A. M. 
 
 SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS 
 FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR 0^ PHILOSOPHY 
 
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 LUCIA CATHERINE GRAEME GRIEVE, A. M. 
 
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 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Introduction 7 
 
 Bibliography lo 
 
 CHAPTER I. Views Regarding Death . 13 
 
 Universality of death. Stability of burial customs. To the Greeks death 
 was dark, unavoidable, fated, calamitous ; at times, desired and welcomed ; 
 a separation from friends. Farewells to nature. Bad luck in name of 
 
 death, in representations and imitations; in dreams of death; in uninten- 
 tional homicide. Superstition regarding gifts from enemies. Philosophic 
 views of the Tragedians; ai'^r^p; the Eleusinian teachings, rewards for 
 initiated, punishment for uninitiated and mockers; Kaufmann's view; 
 Eleusinian tone of tomb inscriptions. Death full of uncertainties. 
 
 CHAPTER n. Condition and Powers of the Dead 33 
 
 The soul, according to Homer ; its size ; its mode of departure ; its un- 
 substantiality. Ghosts; frequent in Greek story; various sorts; cloud- 
 
 images; apparitions; phantoms in dreams. Stage ghosts. Ghosts of 
 
 murderers ; of animals. Stories in Pausanias. Resurrection ; transforma- 
 tion ; transmigration ; plurality of souls ; external soul. Consciousness of 
 the dead ; readiness for vengeance; power over dreams, and gift of prophecy. 
 Life in Hades a continuation of life on earth, in occupation, character, mis- 
 fortunes. Influence on the future life of the present, of burial rites, of 
 initiation, of a good life. Immortality of the souU 
 
 CHAPTER III. The Other World and Those Who Dwelt There . 53 
 
 The journey of the soul. On wings ; Nike-Eros ; the butterfly. Charon, 
 
 unknown to Homer ; a popular myth. The ship. Charon in Euripides. 
 
 5] s 
 
 I 
 
 , 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS [6 
 
 Hermes, god of sleep and of death ; the Chthonian and the Olympian god. 
 Death a journey by land ; with horses. Marriage of the soul to Hades ; 
 testimony of the vases and stelae, of the Tragedians, of the inscriptions ; the 
 Apulian amphorae. Persephone. Thanatos, double of Hermes, a myth- 
 god, the physician; in the Alcestis ; an epichthonian deity. Offices of 
 Thanatos, Hermes and Charon. Hades, true god of the lower world ; re- 
 ceiver of the dead ; judge ; in Homer ; in Tragedy. Realm of Hades ; 
 
 underground or in the west ; unattractive ; descriptions. Tartarus ; future 
 punishments and rewards. Isles of the blest. The dog. Other dwellers 
 in Erebus. Hecate. Erinyes j described by the Tragedians ; their func- 
 tion as avengers ; their Grove at Athens ; their cult. 
 
 
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 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Ancient Greek life was divided into so many small separate 
 streams, and developed so rapidly towards both its perfection 
 and its decay, that very few statements can be true either of 
 the whole people or of the whole period. While undoubtedly 
 many customs survived through centuries, at the same time 
 fashions changed from generation to generation in even the 
 most important points; the contact with outside i?ations, the 
 introduction of foreign religions, and the experience of new 
 
 forms of government, radically and continually affected 
 
 thought and life throughout the entire nation. Besides, though 
 homogeneous in race, and to a certain extent in language, the 
 Greeks were far from being so in any other respect. In the 
 separate states, the development was remarkably uneven, in- 
 dividualism was the most striking characteristic, and every 
 city and hamlet prided itself on legends and practices pecu- 
 liarly its own. 
 
 The study of Greek life, to be properly understood, should 
 
 be taken up country by country and period by period. Here- 
 tofore this has not been possible ; now, with the multitudes of 
 inscriptions of all sorts coming daily to the surface, with the 
 works of long-lost authors, vases and gems, temples and 
 palaces, perpetually unearthed, we may hope ultimately for a 
 fairly intelligible reconstruction of the daily life and feeling of 
 that great race to whom we owe the best of our culture and 
 the greater part of our civilization. 
 
 In the following pages I have attempted to touch but one 
 
 phase of that multitudinous life, the ideas regarding death, in 
 but one city and age, the Vth century at Athens. Convinced 
 that the later writers, like Lucian, were not to be depended 
 
 7], 7 
 
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 'bkAfk^'A^TD BURIAL /// ATT/C TMAGRD\ 
 
 [« 
 
 on. for the Greeks had no true archaeological sense, I went to 
 thoJH: confcswrd rcflcctonj of daily life, the three great Tragc- 
 dian!(. To be sure, but a .small portion of their works remains 
 to us, but from what is le(^, many stray facts can be gleaned, 
 which, if placed together in the light we now have from 
 
 archaN>logic:i] HourccH, give i^mc t3cii of what was in the 
 popular mind of that day. 
 
 Aristophanes also throws some light on these *ubject«, but 
 his uncurt>cd love of burlesque makes him, in the pft::ient state 
 of our knowledge, unsafe as a g\nde- Similarly Plato, because 
 of his pla>'fu1 cxa^eration when 5]x:aking of popular notions, 
 and the large infusion of his own fancies into what he com- 
 mends, is not generally to be trustc<!. Demosthenes and the 
 Other orators, living in the IVth ccnturj^ under entirely differ- 
 ent conditions^ arc of but little u»c for our present purpose. 
 It is othenvLsc with Hom<:r; though l>ctonging to an age 
 grown legendary, he remained a sort of standard to which 
 many things were referred ; aside from that, through the large 
 familiarity with his works possessed by every educated man 
 in Athens, his influence must have been ver>' great in shaping 
 and directing thought To Pausanias also I have often re- 
 ferred ; for he was by nature and aflfinity an antiquarian, and, 
 
 unlike Lucian. sincere and earnest, preserving many valuable 
 details, and if sometimef; mistaken, not so through any fault 
 of his own. Fragments of the Tragedians, being often 
 but short quotations and frequently wholly ckitached from 
 their context, I have in general avoided as untrustworthy to 
 settle a disputed point, and have used only to express more 
 tersely or in better language ideas found somewhere else ; but 
 
 ^tkk Addbft is M lU 41 Id ktft CkC poM 
 
 9] 
 
 t/fTKOOVCTlOlf 
 
 t*%^ 
 
 the influence, especially of Euriptdw. beginning in this Vth ccn- 
 tur>'. wxs long the dominant tradition. Sejjulchral inscripUons 
 were rare in this centuiy. and the tradition running through 
 those of succeeding ages was, for the most part, of a later 
 begmning, so that I have u>«d them but sparingly. The *maU 
 
 but excellent treatises of Kaufmann and Iwanowitsch have been 
 
 <>i much u>e fo n>c; the former especially in throwing light OH 
 tJM, influence of the Mysteries. Tl.e latter came into my hands 
 just a« my work waa about completed ; had I known before of 
 the existence of this exlwustive study. I might have hcitated 
 to attempt anythioB on a »ubject so nearly the same. As it is 
 excejit where he has formed hin atatetncnts o«i fragmentarj^ 
 evidence or by recasting troublesome tcjits, wherever ow 
 paths lay toeether we have arrived independently at substan- 
 tially the same conclusions. Rohde'* brillant work wa. « i;,tie 
 
 disappoUjting for thi.i period. #incc he draws ver,' larRcly on late 
 authors. After goinc through Homer carefully myself and 
 drawrag my own conclusions. I found BudihoU ao complete 
 and overflowing and pcrfcctl>- sane, that I have preferred citing 
 his page* rather Uian entering into ai>y dlBCu«».on» of my own 
 Prot Percy Gardner's works have been of capeciaJ value to mo. 
 more pamcularly when supplemented. «. they were CiMiHnunlly. 
 by kindly adWoe and criticism on my own work during a veif 
 
 spent m Oxford: and I taVr .his op,H..,„,.„y .„,.,»««, tO hl.« 
 the gratitude I frcl. 
 
 Thanks are due to ProtE. D. Perry I l-mf J. U. wi.eeJcf 
 
 ofColumbJa University, under whonc »..|...,v|,ton thi. I.lllc 
 ^U*e has b««n wrought out; as w..|l «. (o Mlu A. M, A. H. 
 Rogers of Oxford, and to teachers and <«ll..w.rtud«nU in iN.tli 
 Universities who have helped to lighten the i.,»l, V... cao 1 
 
 ♦. 
 
 
 t 
 
4 
 
 lO 
 
 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 [lO 
 
 "] 
 
 INTR OD UCTION 
 
 II 
 
 Aeschyli Tragcedia. Ed. Weil. Lipsise: Teubner, 1889. 
 Sophoclis Tragcedia. Ed. Dindorf. Lipsiae: Teubner, 1889. 
 Euripidis Tragoedice. Ed. Nauck. Lipsiae : Teubner, 1880. 
 Pausania Descriptio Gracia. Ed. Schubart. Lipsise : Teubner, 1881. 
 Homer i Ilias. Ed. Dindorf. Lipsiae : Teubner, 1 890. 
 
 HomtY'i Odyssey. Ed. W. W. Merry. Oxford, 1889. 
 
 Tragicorum Grcecorum Fragmenta. Ed. Nauck. Lipsiae, 1889. 
 
 Epicorum Gracorum Fragmenta. Ed. Kinkel. Lipsise, 1 877. 
 
 Lucianus. Ed. Weise. Lipsiae, 1847. 
 
 Plutarchi Vitce ParalUlce. Ed. Sintenis. Lipsiae, 1873. 
 
 Bacchylides. Ed. F. G. Kenyon. London, 1897. 
 
 Kaibel: Epigrammata Graeca ex labidibus conlecta. Berolini, 1878. 
 
 Preger: Inscriptiones Graecae Metricae. Lipsiae, 1891. 
 
 Dittenberger : Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum. Lipsise, 1883. 
 — C. M. Kaufmann : Die Jenseitshoffnungen der Griechen u. Romer. Frei- 
 burg, 1897. 
 
 ^ G. Iwanowtisch : Oplniones Homerl et Tragicorum Graecorum de Inferis. 
 
 In Berliner Studien, Vol. 16. 1895-6. 
 Rohdc: Psyche. Leipzig, 1894. 
 G. Perrot : La Religion de la Mort. In Revue des Deux Mondes, 1895. 
 
 y 
 
 'K. Robert : Thanatos. Berlin, 1879. 
 
 Brueckner u. Pernice : Ein Attischer Friedhof. In Athen. Mitth., 1893, 
 pp. 73-191. 
 
 Stackelberg: Die GrSber der Hellenen. Berlin, 1835. 
 
 P. Gardner: A Sepulchral Relief from Tarentum. In Joum. Hell. Studies, 1884. 
 
 Furtwangler: Altlakonisches Relief. In Athen. Mitth., 1882. 
 
 Come : Attische Grabreliefs. Berlin, 1893-. 
 
 P. Gardner- Sculptured Tombs of Hellas. London, 1896. 
 P. Ravaisson : Le Monument de Myrrhine. Paris, 1876. 
 E. Poitier : Les L6cythes blancs attiques. Paris, 1883. 
 P. Walters : Rotfigurige Loutrophoros. In Athen. Mitth. 1891, pp. 371-405. 
 Monumenti Inediti delV Institute. Roma, 1827-1885. 
 Passerii Picturae Etruscorum. Roma, 1767-1775. 
 
 Recueil de Gravures d'aprds des Vases Antiques {Hamilton Collection). 
 Naples, 1791-5. 
 
 Furtwangler: Collection Sabouroff. Berlin, 1883-7. 
 Gerhard: Apulische Vasenbilder. Berlin, 1845. 
 
 Gerhard: Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder. Berlin, 1 840-1 858. 
 
 Benndorf: Griechische u. sicilische Vasenbilder. Berlin, 1 868. 
 Genick «. Furtwan^Ur • Griechische Keramik. Berlin, 1 883. 
 Dumont et Champlain : Les C^ramiques de la Gr6ce Propre. Paris, 1888. 
 Rayet et Collignon: Histoire de la C^ramique Grecque. Paris, 1888. 
 
 / 
 
 A. de la Borde: Collection des Vases Grecs de M. le Comte de Lamberg. 
 Paris, 1823-4. 
 
 Lenormant et De Witte : Elites des Monuments C6ramographiques. Paris, 
 1844-1861. 
 
 y. Millingen: Ancient Inedited Monuments. London, 1822. 
 
 E. Robinson: Catalogue of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Vases. (Boston Mu- 
 seum.) Boston, 1893. 
 
 Collection Camille Lecuyer: Terres-Cuites Antiques. Paris, 1882. 
 
 Tllfy: Corpus Juris Attici. Pestini et Lipsiae, 1868. 
 
 Gilbert: The Constitutional Antiquities of Sparta and Athens. London, 1 895. 
 
 C. R. Kennedy: Demosthenes, Vol. III. London, 1880. 
 
 P. Gardner: New Chapters in Greek History. London, 1892. 
 
 Farnell: Cults of the Greek States. Oxford, 1896. 
 
 Z. Dyer: The Gods in Greece. New York, 1894. 
 
 Harrison and Verrall : Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens. Lon- 
 don, 1890. 
 
 M. Collignon : Manual of Mythol(^ in Relation to Greek Art. Translated 
 
 by J. E. Harrison. London, 1890. 
 
 Frazer: The Golden Bough. London, 1890. 
 
 Hart land: The Legend of Perseus. London, 1894-5. 
 
 G. F. Creuzer : Symbolik u. Mythologie. Leipzig, 1836-42. 
 
 Baumeister : Denkmaler des klassischen Alterthums. Mttnchen u. Leipzig, 
 1885-8. 
 
 M. Collignon: Manual of Greek Archaeology. Transl. by J. H. Wright. Lon- 
 don, 1886. 
 
 Tsountas and Manatt: The Mycenaean Age. Boston, 1897. 
 
 Buchholz: Die Homerischen Realien. Leipzig, 1871-85. 
 
 H, Blumner: Leben u. Sitten der Griechen. Leipzig, 1887, 
 
 Gardner and yevons: Manual of Greek Antiquities. London, 1895. 
 Daremher^ et Saglio: Dictionnaire des Antiquit^s. Vol. IV. Paris, 1896. 
 Roscher: Lexikon der griech. und rom. Mythologie. Leipzig, 1884-. 
 Papers of the American School at Athens, 1882-97. 
 
 The following are also recommended : 
 
 Fr. Winiewski: De Euripidis ad extremam hominis sortem spectantes tractandi 
 ratione. Progr. Acad. Mtinster, 1890. (Other papers by this same author cited 
 by Iwanowitsch.) 
 
 De natura et indole animanim ex sententia Euripidis. (Schluss der vorstehen- 
 den AbKandlung.) Progr. Miinster, 1864. 
 
 C. F. Hermann: De vestigiis institutionum vetenim, imprimis Atticorum per 
 Platonis de legibus libros indagandis. Marburgi, 1836. 
 
 Collignon: Note sur les ceremonies fimebres en Attique. Annales de la Fa- 
 culty de Bordeaux, 1879. 
 
 I 
 
li 
 
 I ; 
 
 12 
 
 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY 
 
 [12 
 
 Kumanudis : 'ArriK^g 'E'mypa<l>al 'Eitltvu^lol. Athens, 187 1. 
 y. Girard : Le Sentiment religieux en Grdce. 
 
 Lehrs : Vorstellungen der Griechen uber Fortleben nach dem Tode. Pop- 
 ulare Aufeatze aus dem Alterthum. Leipzig, 1875. 
 
 Furtwdngler : Idee des Todes. Freiburg, 1855. 
 
 E, Mam: Orpheus. Miinchen, 1895. 
 
 J^eisacker: Die Todesgedanke bei den Griechen. Jahr. Konig. Gyna. zur 
 'Trier, 1862. 
 
 M. M. Daniel: A Future Life as represented by the Greek Tragedians. Clas. 
 Jlev., vol. iv. London, 1890. 
 
 Prater: Pausanias' Description of Greece. Oxford, 1898. 
 
 •Catalogue of Vases in the British Museum, I^ndon, 1893. 
 
 Note. — In the first list given above all the chief authorities cited in the follow- 
 ing pages are included, and they are referred to by the authors' names. Where 
 reference is made to other books, the whole title is given. When fragments of the 
 
 Tragedians are cited| A. stands for Aeschylus, S. for Sophocles, and £. for 
 
 Euripides. 
 
 \ 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 VIEWS REGARDING DEATH 
 
 Ever since the advent of the human race, the law of death 
 has held with inexorable force. The short-lived generations of 
 men have flourished and faded, like the leaves from the trees:' 
 
 and gOne-Whither the leaves go-who could tell ? For some 
 such reason there has always been a keen sympathy between 
 human life and nature, especially i„ her vegetable forms ; and 
 among the Greeks this feeling was unusually intense. Plant- 
 hfe was a continual parable of death and resurrection; and it 
 IS a significant fact that Demeter, goddess of the grain, and 
 Dionysus.' god of the vine, were the two divinities of the upper 
 earth most closely connected with the dead. 
 It is as the result of long experience in watching the growth 
 
 decay, and resurrection of plants, confirming native intuition' 
 that we must regard the instinctive belief in the continued ex- 
 istence of the soul. For it is impossible for philosophy to 
 prove such after-existence. Plato tried to do so in his im- 
 mortal treatise, the Phaedo, and failed utterly. For however 
 cogent his arguments may be to those who wish to believe at 
 the cold touch of unprejudiced reason they collapse utterly 
 Me has to fall back on popular superstition and the teaching 
 of the poets. * 
 
 It is not when a nation has reached its highest point of cul- 
 ture that we must look for active belief, but rather at some 
 
 ' //., 6 : 146. For souls compared to leaves, see Ba^ciyl., V., 63-7. 
 ' I>yer: Gods in Greece. See refs. s. v. Dionysus, p. 434. 
 
 '3] 
 
 •3 
 
 J 
 
'm ■ 
 
 14 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY [14 
 
 period in its earlier history, when it is shaking off the trammels 
 of barbarism and projecting its vague notions on a back- 
 ground of conscious thought. Such a time was the Vth century 
 
 B. C, at Athens. When, in the battle of Marathon,' she 
 
 struck the decisive blow for the freedom of Europe from the 
 oppression of Asia, at that same time she drew a distinct line 
 of demarcation between her present and her past. Before that 
 she was but a small state among the many which, without 
 unity or coherence, fringed the south coast of Europe; from 
 that moment she became a leader and head, not merelv of the 
 brief political Athenian empire, but of the great empire of 
 thought that finally conquered even Rome. 
 
 In the burial customs and beliefs, the most stable of all in- 
 stitutions, great changes had come about. Yet in the Vth cen- 
 tury we find the traces, though then almost imperceptible, of 
 an earlier stage of dark demon-worship. The present school 
 of folklore-writers would have us believe the latter was the 
 original and only early stage of every nation's development; 
 but their arguments are far from convincing. What came 
 earlier than this, in Athens at least, has not yet been dis- 
 covered. Pausanias found curious customs prevailing in odd 
 corners of Hellas, that seemed to have come down from primi- 
 tive times ; and the earlier Spartan tombstones present forms 
 and figures which must have been survivals even when they 
 were erected. 
 
 Whenever a custom shows a tendency to become fixed, we 
 may know that the real presence of the belief is vanishing ; 
 while change and variety denote life and growth. The Peri- 
 clean Age presents many examples of both these truths, no- 
 where more evident than in those burial practices, which con- 
 tinuing, though full of contradictions, to survive for many cen- 
 turies, Lucian ridiculed with so much wit. 
 
 But to Aeschylus and his fellow-tragedians they were still 
 
 ^ See Creasy* 5 Fifteen Decisive Battles. 
 
 \\ 
 
 I 
 
 f'-' 
 
 i 
 
 15] VIE PVS REGARDING DEATH ^ jr 
 
 alive with meaning. To them the funeral wail, the solemn 
 procession, the stone-marked tomb, the prayers and offerings 
 to the deceased, were not an idle and empty show, of no 
 
 benefit to the dead or to the living. Rather, the darkness of 
 death was a thick darkness which could be felt, the stifling 
 shadow of the tomb, the damp gloom of the vault, the keen 
 cold wind of the sightless cavern. The lower world was a 
 place deprived of light,' vvKrepog,^ hvavyrrroq,^ avalLog,*' UKdrog,^ fiilag,^ 
 
 KiXaivog,'' ^6<f>og,^ Kve<i)aiog,^ ipe3og,^^ and death a darkness on the eyes.'* 
 To view the light was to live;" to see the light no more, to 
 die.'3. This to be sure was a very materialistic view ; but it is 
 only in a dead faith that we can draw the line sharply between 
 
 the material and the spiritual. With their natural love of life 
 and light and activity — a feeling strikingly strong among the 
 Greeks'* — they feared and dreaded death, not only as some- 
 thing dark and therefore joyless,'^ but because of its silence 
 and inertness, where a man was,'^ 
 
 ov x^P^C> ^ TTo66g, ov (j)pevbg apx^v^ 
 
 sleeping that still cold breathless sleep,'7 rbv ael . . . ariXevrov virvov, 
 
 ^Ag., 1323-24; .4«/., 808-9; i%«7.,624-S; Trad, II44; Hic.,10^\ Her., 
 969; /. A,, 1509; et. al. oft. 
 
 "^Hip., 1388; Or., 1225. ^Pro., 1128. M/r., 437,852; H. M., 607. 
 
 ^Ai., 394; O. C, 1701; Hec, 209; PAoen., 1453; Hip., 837; H. M., 563. 
 
 ^Hip., 1388. 7 Pro., 433. 8 />^.^ 839. jjip^^ 1416. 9 Pro., 1129; Hip., 836. 
 
 ^0 O. C, 1390; At., 395; Hel., 519; Ant., 589; Or., 176. 
 
 " Sep., 403; Ale, 385, 269; Hip., 1444. See also Bacchyl. XIII, 30-1. 
 
 "y^/r., 82, 272, 362; Hip., 1 193; et al. oft. 
 
 " Track., 829 ; Ale, 18, 868, 394-5 ; et al. oft. 
 
 ^* Ale, 301 ; Soph. Jr., 64 ; Eur. Jr., 446 ; it al oft. Eur. makes the nurse 
 explain why, Hip., 193-7 J and gives a warning, /r., 813, //. 6-11 ; /. A., 1385-6. 
 " Or., 1084; ^tal* 
 
 ^*Phil., 860-1; Ale, 404; Per., 840-2; Track., 829-30, 1 169-73; O. T,^ 
 967-8. 
 
 "4^., 1450-I; Track., 1005, 1041-3; Ai., 831-4; ^»/., 76. 832; Hip., 1377, 
 1387; see also //., 11 : 241 ; 14: 482. 
 
l6 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY [j^ 
 
 from which neither affection nor enmity nor interest could 
 arouse him — &av6vr(av & ovSh &?iyoc aTTTerai, says Creon/ and Elec- 
 
 tra' cries despairingly, d nc hf mi xm\ hopeless in its endless- 
 
 ness,3 for, 
 
 rig ^av6vT(.yv t/Mev e^ 'Aidov irdTuv ; 
 
 a slipping away even into nothingness;* ovKiT" ovaav ohSh, Alcestis 
 wails, in spite of the assurances of a happy future life which 
 have been offered to her. In this last point, though we must 
 carefully avoid dogmatism, we may clearly trace a decay in 
 belief; for such expressions belong only to Euripides; 
 Aeschylus never even hints that the dead are nothing, and 
 
 Sophocles* utterances are equivocal. 
 
 Perhaps really the worst feature of death "was that it was 
 utterly unavoidable, that sometime, somewhere, it must over- 
 take its victim, and that there was no escape.^ For in spite of 
 what some modern philosophers say, those evils which are 
 inevitable are always the hardest to be borne. Here courage 
 and valor avail nothing ; and the meeker graces of submission 
 and resignation did not appeal very strongly to the fancy of 
 
 the Hellenes. This feeling of helplessness in the strong ex- 
 presses itself even from Homeric times,^ 
 
 and in Sophocles only the words are changed, 
 
 1 O. 6'., 955; A/c, 875, 937-8; S. £/., 1 170; Tro., 606-7, 638; CAo., 517-8. 
 *S. EL, 356; Tro., 1248-9; Ale, 1091 ; Hel., 1402-3. 
 
 ^H. M., 297, 145-6; Ag., 568-9, 1019-21 ; Eum., 647-8; Per., 689-90 ; 0. C, 
 1701, 1706-7 ; Fhil., 624-5; S. EL, 137-9 ; /. T.^ 481 ; Ale, 985-6; et aL 
 
 *Alc., 387, 322, 381, 390; /. A., 125 1; Tro., 632-3; S. EL, 1 166-7; HeL, 
 1421. Hades is called aidrjTMv, At., 608. See Iwanowitsch, in Berliner Studien, 
 16, p. 57-8. 
 
 * See BacchyL, III, 51-2. 
 
 • Od.t 24: 29. 
 
 ;// 
 
 J 
 
 
 17] VIEWS REGARDING DEATH ^7 
 
 the fate of death is for all.^ Closely akin to its certainty was 
 its relentlessness ; what it had it held : 
 
 teri J* ovK. evE^oSov, 
 dAAwc TE irdvTiDC X^l Kara x^ovoc ^eol 
 Tm^eIv ajJLEivovg elalv ^ fie^iivacj 
 
 says the ghost of Darius." 
 
 Like Homer, the Tragedians consider death the work of fate,' 
 and therefore just and right.* In Aeschylus and Sophocles 
 especially, it is often the work of some of the gods,^ particu- 
 larly of Zeus,^ or on special occasions of Phcebus,^ Athene,* 
 etc.; but though the gods could slay, they could not avert death 
 
 even from the man they loved.9 Sophocles and Euripides have 
 a fancy for attributing ^° it to rlxVf ari abstraction which was 
 rapidly becoming personified in Athens, and which, curiously 
 in contrast with this attribution, was quickly developing into a 
 sort of tutelary divinity of the city, the dya^^ rvxn of the legal 
 inscriptions standing in the usual place of the name of some 
 god, which in Athens would be Athene. This attribution 
 may denote a change in the sentiment of the people towards 
 
 1 .S". £/., 860; Afti., 361-2; O. C, 1220-4; Ale, 21, 112-35, '47» 4'9» '^ ^^'* 
 Eur.fr., 46; et al. 
 
 * Per., 688-90; Ag., 1360-1 ; Ale, 1 12-8, 132-6. See refs. p. 16, n. 3. 
 
 » By Moira: Ag., 145 1-2; Cho., 910-I ; Ale, II, 33; Eum., ^24; Phil.y 
 331; Au,i\^\etaL 
 
 fidipav {^avdrov), Med., 987; Ag., 13 14, 1462, 1365; et aL 
 /ii6pog = fate of death, Ag., 329; Hee, 695. 
 TTETrpoyrai, Ale, 20-2, 26-7, 105, 147, et al. 
 b<}>ei2.eTai, Ale, 419. 
 
 * Ale, 49, 122-9, 3-4» ^^ ^^' 
 
 ^ Sep., 689-90; O. T., 27 J Ai., 950,970; And., 1204; lott, 1244-5; Ale, 
 297—8. So BacchyL, V., 1 34— 5, in war, -^dvarov re <f>ipei roiaiv av Saifzov ^iTiif. 
 
 « O. C, 1460-1 ; Ag., 362-6; Ale, 34; et al. 
 
 T Phil., 335. 8 ^j., 952-3. 
 
 > Hip., 1339-40 ; Ale, 52-3 ; Od., 3 : 236-9 ; et aL 
 
 10 a T, 263; S. fr., 865; Ale, 889; Cye, 605-6; Ai., 1028; dvarvxog 
 daifiuv, S. EL, H56-7. 
 
i8 
 
 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY 
 
 [i8 
 
 
 1 
 
 !l 
 
 death, or may be due simply to the tendency to make 
 Athene the one supreme divine power in Athens. It should 
 
 be remarked that the gods who send death, Zeus, Apollo, 
 Artemis, Ares, and the rest of their circle, are not the gods 
 who receive the dead. 
 
 Death from whatever source was a great calamity ; <j Uvaroi: 
 deivdvKaKdv, was the common verdict;" and the terrified Iphi- 
 geneia declares,' though later she retracts it, kokHh: C^ Kpeicao, a kgXoc 
 ^avEiv. Sophocles' characters speak 3 with no less certain sen- 
 timents : 
 
 ovK lanv ovTQ fiopo^ 6f ^avcZv ip^. 
 
 And Prometheus fears nothing,-* since to him ^amv ov fidpaifiov. 
 Death was felt to be so great an affliction that only sin against 
 the gods could merit it, and that it was therefore a punish- 
 ment,5 so that Admetus complains, 
 
 6p^ ai KOfxif 6vo luiKog TreirpaydTac, 
 ov6h> ^eovc dp&aavraq av&' brov iJavrt. 
 
 Among an emotional people like the Athenians, by the 
 simple reaction of feeling a morbid desire for death laid hold 
 
 on them under the stress of any great calamity, and it was even 
 
 found by contrast to possess many advantages. The Chorus<^ 
 hearing of Agamemnon*s death, crj^ out, 
 
 Kar&aveJp upareV 
 irencuTipa yap fwlpa rrj^ rvpawido^^ 
 
 "It is better for us to die, for death is preferable to this 
 tyranny!" and later they wish,7 n^ ya ya, el^' ip: kdk^u. But such 
 expressions are not to be taken seriously. The Greeks in 
 
 1 / A„ I416; H, M., 281-2. « 7. ^., la^a. 
 
 ' Ant., 220, ?8o-l ; AL, 215, 4 ^^.^ ^y^ 
 
 ^Alx,,24^i Ifac, iiat>.t;^. £L, 134^-55: i?. ^>s, 496-^: ^«., 95»«5 I 
 
 '4r.. «53«J J^'*1i^\ -^.Af/,, 804-5; aC.i«$-9o: 5:j?/.,8it; O. T,, 
 i«57» '^^'^ '3*^33; Ttm4h., 16-7; rr«^. 630-1 : ///r., 497-$ ; A/X/^ 146-7; 
 a aL^ vtrjr comiDoci. 
 
 V •■» 
 
 19] VIEWS REGARDING DEATH i^ 
 
 their moments of depression found life full of evils from which 
 none were exempted :* 
 
 a»rai»r' airfffictv rbv 61 alHtvo^ XP^**^^ »' 
 
 and of which death was not the greatest," 
 
 ov yap "^avelv ix^iarov, 
 
 nor long life the least,3 
 
 ovdh yap iXyoc ohv ^ koXX^ C6v» 
 
 Death was then a release from evils : 
 
 T^ yap &avelv kXev&epovpai ^iXai6,KT(jv kokCiv, 
 
 is the consolation of the hunted Danaidae ;♦ a medicine for sou 
 rov/s, piyiffTov<i>dp/jLaKov, Macaria,^ no less a homeless wanderer, find.^ 
 it; and the tortured Prometheus^ envies those who can so easily 
 end their woes. It was preferable to blindness,' to evil re}>ort ,• 
 to living among enemies ^ and without friends ;'** and to the 
 weary toiler it was welcome if merely for its rest; for says 
 Herakles," at last realizing the true import of the oracle : 
 
 Tolg yap ^avovat pdx^o^ ov npoayiyverat. 
 
 And Orestes," persecuted by men and gods, proudly refuses to 
 
 bewail his approaching fate.'s Vet suicide w^as not common 
 except in case of overwhelming disgrace like that of Aia^» or 
 to avoid a lingering but inevitable death like Antigone ; thus 
 showing that these expressions were the result of merely 
 transitory emotion. Draco'* after cool reflection declares he 
 has no higher punishment for the greatest crimes; and in 
 oaths '5 such words as, " If I speak not the truth I ought to die," 
 abound as the strongest form of asseveration. 
 
 ^Asr., 553-4- *S. £1, X007. 
 
 *A. Su/>., 8o»-3; /^«»/.» 463-4. 
 • ^V^.. 753 4 J •$>/.. 3J^. 6H4. 
 
 ^S.Jr., 509; cf. O. C, 1225-7. 
 
 * ///r., 595-6; //*.. 63$. 
 » O. T„ I3)WL 
 
 ^^^'t 393- " TJwi., 1 173. Si9-3a » /. 7!, 484-9. 
 
 ** Fee the tre*tmeM pC lht& whok mlfcct, lor« of life Mti hatrtd c^ death, ice 
 
 »• /Xy/. .SW.. i6w »» a 7:. 943-4, 66i-a; FAil^ i^u 
 
I 
 
 20 ^EA TH AND B URIAL IN A TTIC TRA GED Y [20 
 
 But whatever advantages death might or might not possess, 
 
 it brought with it one great and certain calamity, the separation 
 from friends and relatives." To us with our long-inherited be- 
 lief in an endless reunion beyond the grave, perhaps with our 
 colder philosophy and boasted greater self-control, the in- 
 tense agony of parting from loved ones felt by the emotional 
 and affectionate Athenians seems far-fetched and overdrawn, 
 especially when we remember how often the fate of war 
 not only slew husband and brother, but scattered forever the 
 survivors of even noble families into the hard lot of slavery. 
 
 Death and distance in such cases amounted to much the same 
 thing, and the traveller's garb on the monuments generally de- 
 notes the journey to the tomb.* As we might expect, very 
 affecting are the Ieave-takings,3 though in most cases too long 
 for quotation, which the Tragedians have portrayed for us. 
 And while the groups figured on the tombstones may some- 
 times refer to a reunion, yet the sentiments expressed are more 
 often of the sorrow of parting, such as the following inscrip- 
 tion^ from the Vth century, accompanying the representation of 
 
 a lady taking leave of her mother and little daughter; 
 
 'KivQoq KovpL6i(f) re irdaei koX firjTpl Xnrovaa 
 Kal Trarpl t<^ ^vaavTL TioT^v^kvT} kv&dde Kelrat. 
 
 Equally touching are the impassioned farewells to nature,^ 
 like Iphigeneia's x^ipe /loi <pilov <i>doc, or that last apostrophe by 
 Aias before falling on his sword on the sandy Ilian shore : 
 ** And thee, O present glory of the shining day and chariot- 
 borne sun, I salute for the last time truly and never again 
 
 ^K M., 512-3; A/cSje-y, 1133-4; ^«>., 838; Tro., 487-8; i^<f^., 1021-3, 
 1038-9; Or., 1018-21 ; ^/ al. 
 
 *See below, chap. III. 
 
 » O, C, 1604-21 ; At., 545-82; Track., 1143-1278; Ale, 156-392; Hec, 402- 
 43 ; H^^y 574-607; Hip., 1391-1461; /. A., 1434-1509 ; et al, 
 
 * Come : Attische Grabreliefs, FL, 66, p. 62. See also Gardner's Sculptured 
 Tombs of Hellas, pp. 168-17 1. 
 
 »/. A., 1509 ; Ai., 412-27; Ale, 244-5, 248-9 ; Hec, 435-7. 
 
 ^I] 
 
 VIEWS REGARDING DEATH 
 
 ,^ 
 
 21 
 
 hereafter. O light, O sacred country of mine own land 
 Salamis, O floor of my father's hearth, and famous Athens, 
 
 and race that shared my nurture, and these ye springs and 
 rivers, even the Trojan plains, I call upon, farewell my foster- 
 ers ! This last word Aias speaks to you ; the rest .shall I tell 
 to those below in Hades." ' 
 
 This gloomy view of death was the normal Greek attitude. 
 For though friends might try to console themselves with the 
 hope of meeting again, and the poets might promise a world 
 free from care and pain, when all had been said it was still an 
 
 unknown world, which was neither home nor fatherland • and 
 
 though all one's friends might come thither at last, it was still 
 an exile and the time was long. Little wonder then that life 
 was loved :' 
 
 and death, especially for the young,3 hated and feared.* The 
 whole of the Alcestis is the glorification of the giving in cold 
 blood of one young life for another as the acme of human 
 virtue.5 
 
 Death, then, being so terrible, was to be avoided even in 
 name. Just how much connection was felt to exist between 
 the name of a thing and the thing itself we do know. Among 
 the Semites to name a thing was to call it into activity, but we 
 do not find this notion prevalent among the Indo-Europeans 
 Still the name had some power or value ; the Greeks escaping 
 the sea after the Trojan war carry back the names of the dead:^ 
 
 VEKpiJv (^kpovrag ovd/iar* elg oIkovq ird'hv' 
 Ul.. 856-65. 
 et\[ ^" '^^°' ^^'" ^""^ ^'^'' ^"' ^"^" '^^-^' ^•■^"- ^^' 537; S./r., 64; 
 
 it'll', ^'^ '''^^' ^^" '°^^^°' ^^'" ^^' '^^* ^^4-5' ^'"'^'^^ '* 5, 6, 12. 16. 
 
 'Ale., 62. 669-72. 681-4; Or., 1033-4; Ant., 220, 580; Hec, 240-1. 24S; 
 E. El, 221; et a I. oft. Plato : Rep. I, 330 e. ** , ^ , 
 
 * Ale, 150-5, 320-5, 425-34, 623-4, et al. 9 Hel., 399. 
 
 V 
 
DEA TH AND B URIAL IN A TTIC TRA GED Y [22 
 
 and in a Vlth century inscription^ Phrasecleia says she is to be 
 
 called K<Apn forever, thus signifying her mystic identification With 
 the bride of Hades. The Greeks were besides very super- 
 stitious about words— probably the relic of some earlier 
 system of divination whose real essence had been forgotten. 
 The mention of death was a bad omen ; //ozpa 6vc(^wm. Homer* 
 says. The messengers from Corinth will not at first say that 
 Polybus is dead, but only that Oedipus is declared king ; and 
 Agamemnon's herald answers the Chorus whose curiosity has 
 
 has been stirred by a vague hint of the probable drowning of 
 Menelaus :* 
 
 tv^r\\i(fv vi^ap oi) irpiwei naKayytT^ 
 yXcjaay fitaivetv, 
 
 Platos tells us that likewise the name of Hades was avoided: 
 
 oi '^oTJ^l <l>o(iovf^oc rb bvof^a HadeS Wh^hruva WCalth-giver KO^vCLV avr6v. 
 
 The name Pluto occurs in the Tragedians^ as an equivalent 
 for Hades, but it is rare and seems to have been introduced 
 chiefly for the metre. 
 
 The visible representation of death was still more ominous ; 
 
 and when, during the Peloponnesian War, the fleet for Syra- 
 cuse was being sent out, the fact that just at that time the feast 
 of Adonis was being celebrated and the efiigies of his dead 
 body filled the streets, was noted with gloomy foreboding,^ 
 especially after the disaster. It is not likely that the Greeks 
 thought that the display of these effigies actually caused the 
 disaster, but rather that it was a sign from the gods ; though 
 they may have had a feeling inherited from earlier times that 
 
 there was some evil influence connected with them. The re- 
 lation of cause to effect is rarely clear in the popular mind. 
 
 1 Kaibel, 6. « //., 12 : 1 16. * O. T., 939-42. 
 
 M^.. 636-7, 1247; Ale, 139, 512-21; Hec, 180-1; /. A., 855-73; ^»>.. 
 797-8CX); et al. oft. 
 
 • Plato : Cratyl. 403 a. • ^^^ ^ \ ^U,, 360 ; H. M., 808. 
 
 iFlut. Alcib., 18; Nic, 13; Tkuc^x 30; Prater: Golden Bough, I, 284-5- 
 
 23] ^lEWS REGARDING DEATH .,. 
 
 To bring the fact home to an individual by calling him dead 
 
 was a degree worse : 
 
 Helen asks doubtfully, and Menelaus finding no other way oi 
 safety answers,* 
 
 KaKoq ftev dpvig- el Se KEpdavu Uyetv^ 
 €Toifi6g elfii fi^ '&avd)v Ady^ ^avelv. 
 
 We must notice how careful each is to put //^ ^avdv before the 
 inauspicious word. Orestes,' when Electra wails over the 
 urn, " Ah me unhappy if I am to be deprived of thy tomb! " 
 
 checks her hastily with the words, "Speak auspiciously!" 
 The Chorus 3 in the Agamemnon raging in fierce helplessness 
 against Aegisthus, snatch up his last word, and twisting it to a 
 new meaning as if they would wrest fate, cry out, dexo^hoL^ 
 Uytiq ^aveiv as. It was a piece of daring, almost of impiety on 
 the part of Orestes, in keeping with his rather reckless char- 
 acter, to bid the Paedagogus report him as dead ; and realizing 
 this, as we have just seen he did, he defends himself rather 
 knavishly;* 
 
 ri ydp fie AvTreZ tov^\ orav ?i6y(f) ^avuv 
 ipyoiai ao)-&C) Ka^eviyKcjfiai K?iiog • 
 SoKo) fikv, ovSev pfjfia avv KipSec kukSv. 
 V6ij yap elSov noXXcKig koX rovg aoii>ovg 
 Uyu fiarrrv ^vyaKovrar eli?' brav SSjuovg 
 IMuoLV av-&iQy EKTeTifiTpn-ai nleov. 
 
 Such a deception, for different reasons, was practiced by 
 Pythagoras and some of his pupils, by Heraclitus, Odysseus, 
 and others, and their success was probably due not only to 
 
 the popular superstition, but to the wonder they excited that 
 they could thus dare fate and live. In later times (beginning 
 we do not know how early), to be actually believed dead and 
 to have the funeral ceremonies performed, was a very serious 
 matter; for in that case, according to the law quoted by 
 Plutarch,s the person was deemed polluted : M vofii^tiv dj^f, ,i^S' 
 
 I Ilel., 1050^2. « S. EL, 1209-10. ^Ag., 1653 ; Hec, 1279-84. 
 
 'S. EL, 59-64. 5 pi^t. Quaes. Rom., 5. 
 
 r - 
 
i 
 
 2 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY [24 
 
 mentirig on this law « describes at length the -ru^us proce^^ 
 through which persons once really supposed dead had to go 
 to be restored to their former rights as living men; and the 
 names v<n.,>^o,.o. and <!e.r«pd.o;..o: were given them. Ihe 
 reason was that such persons were considered consecrated to 
 the lower gods and therefore impure; and Herakless warns 
 Admetus not to speak to the restored Alcestis for three days, 
 until she is freed from her consecration to the chthon.an 
 
 divinities. . , ^^ 
 
 Since dreams were often looked upon as supernatural re- 
 velations, it was especially bad to dream of being dead or 
 clothed in the garments of the dead ; and when, early m this 
 Vth century. Mardonius sent a messenger as his representa uve 
 to the oracle, and that messenger dreamed of bemg killed, 
 it clearly foretold Mardonius' own death.* 
 
 The unintentional causing of the death of another was likewise 
 ominous-though that may have been owing to the vengeance 
 of the departed spirit-as when Clytaemnestta warns Achilles 
 
 lest Iphigeneia's death be of evil omen to his marriage.= And 
 even to wail too much for the dead might stir up wrath from 
 
 the lower eods.^ . . i- i. 
 
 Sophocles records for us a curious superstition, which 
 though the scene is laid in Homeric times, is not mentioned 
 by Homer.' that a gift from an enemy is fatal.' A.as attributed 
 all his misfortunes to the sword given him by Hector, ac- 
 cording to the popular adage," 
 
 and Teucer, gazing on the dead body of Aias, moralizes, 
 
 1 Tilfy: Corput Juris Attici, 1446- * ^".J"*-' '• "• 
 
 *Alc., 1144-6; see 22-3, 75-6. 
 
 * Plut. Alcii., 39 ; see Aristid., 19 \ Pa"'- 4 = '3 = '• 
 ./.^., 987-9. • O. C. . 751-3- 
 
 'Cf.//.,7=303ff. M,-., 661-5. 1026-35. 
 
 25] VIEWS REGARDING DEATH 
 
 "Knowest thou how at last Hector though dead was doon^ed 
 
 to be thy destruction ? Consider before the gods the fate, .,;,, 
 of two mortals : Hector by the very girdle which was given 
 him by this man, was bound to the steed-borne car, and con- 
 
 Ta^I '^l /"^ "'^"^'^'^ ""*'■' ^^ breathed out his life 
 And this other, Aias. through Hector's gift, the sword, perished 
 by Its means through a deadly fall. Did not Erinys forge 
 this sword, and Hades the fierce workman make that girdle?" 
 So too It will be remembered the gift of blood from Nessus' 
 caused the death of Herakles. through in this case intentionally. 
 These were^the inherent, the spontaneous, popular notions, 
 denved, possibly, from a rude reasoning, from far-traveled re- 
 ports, from the echoes of some forgotten cult. However and 
 whencesoever they came, they were the common heritage of 
 the people. But had the philosophers, the real thinkers; the 
 great popular teachers, nothing better to say? In later times 
 the many philosophical sects, foreign elements in religion 
 
 as m the worship of Dionysus and of Isis, lent a different color-' 
 
 '"f ^°l^\P^'^^^°^°Sy at least. But in the Vth century be- 
 s,des the fact that foreign religions were not tolerated phil- 
 osophy-real philosophy concerning thelsoul-was only begin- 
 ning^ In the days of Aeschylus it served simply to steel the 
 heart against the inevitable : f / cci ine 
 
 jys Cassandra in despair »; and Prometheus,3 who knows he 
 IS deathless, can very well advise, 
 
 r^ nCKpUtjLltVTfV 6i xp^ 
 alaav <f>ipeiv <if p^ara, }cyv6aKov^' bri 
 TO r^c avAyKtiQ ecr' aS^pirov (r&ivof, 
 
 Sophocles, belonging to a later phase, makes Aias* say: 
 
 > Track,, 555-81. 
 » Pro,, 103-5. 
 
 *^^-, 1304. 
 Mi;, 479-80. 
 
1 
 
 26 DEA TH AND BURIAL IN A TTIC TRACED Y [26 
 
 And again he says:^ 
 
 6(TTff di ^vrrrHrv -davarov bppuSel "kiav 
 
 and when he is old : ' 
 
 tifl <^vvaL rbv anavra vm ^70V' rb cT, end <^vv, 
 Tzokv deirepov, cjf TdxiOTa^ 
 
 as if he had found life, in spite of his many SUCCeSSeS fuU Of 
 cai and weariness.3 i„ Euripides, the friend and follower of 
 ^Sph^rs. we expect and find a different H- o^ th-.ht. 
 He is speculative, and speaks « of awo .x^,^ ^-. and says . 
 
 6 vovg 
 iiUvarov elg aMvarov alW «/^^c^<^»'» 
 
 something which comes rather near our notion of pure^rit 
 
 The Whole theory however !s abstrusc. and ai% 311 entirely 
 
 Lrtarn concepT It was a Homeric term for the abode of 
 the tods and as a later Athenian inscription calls .t vyp6c 
 tmp it was probably conceived of as in the cloudy slcy and 
 it is often mentioned interchangeably with ovpa^. trom 
 various lines of the Helena^ taken together we should judge 
 that oipcv^cwas the place, and al^P the substance. But we 
 need not suppose that every mind held the same .mage o so 
 neeanoib pp thoueh the stone-cutters 
 
 intang b e an idea as a.%; and, tnougn •• 
 
 thouehtS may have risen no higher than the cloudy sky. the 
 poet and the seer doubtless looked into the vast spaces be- 
 
 i5./r., 865. 
 
 « a c, 1225-7. 
 
 3 See S. £1., 1007, and/r., 509, quoted on p. 19. 
 ^Med., 1039 ; ^/^.. 21 ; ^^'*' ^°^7 i ^- ^'* ^S^^' 
 ^Hel.t 1014-6; see E.fr.,A^1' 
 • Gardner: New Chapters in Greek History, pp. 330-2. 
 
 •'Ilel., 583-4* 33-4» 705. I2'9. 605-7. 
 
 27] 
 
 VIEIVS /REGARDING DEATH 
 
 V 
 
 yond. The inscription over the warriors slain at Potidaea 
 
 432 B. C, reads : » 
 
 and Kaufmann,» remarking on this, adds that al^^p^ according 
 to Anaxagoras and the other philosophers, is not the soul- 
 substance merely, that is. the breath, the air, but Olympus, the 
 abode of the gods, Elysium ; he quotes also two IVth century 
 inscriptions : 3 '" v 
 
 and, 
 
 V,vpvfx&XOv rfwxi^v koI l7rep<f,id2x)vc diavoiag 
 al^p vypbg kxu, adfm 6i rv/ifiog bde- 
 
 Qv[ibv6T) Khicvov Kal i'!Ttp<f>i61ovq diavoiag 
 ai^VP ?M/i7rpbc Ixei, aC>fMa 6k rhfi^og b6e 
 
 l^T u V'"^'''^ '"''"^''' ''"'^"^" ^^^^^i^o which indicates 
 that whether by invitation of the Potidaean one or not tws 
 
 Sne cu«r1 'T ;'^ ^°""°" '^™'"^'°^ °^ ^^^ ^-^ 
 
 Stone-cutter. Sophocles/ too, once speaks of ^s^- - • .u 
 
 sense ot the future wor d w th the wnrri a- ^ r . 
 
 TT r » . woro Swai used so often in 
 
 agam he says, , ^,„, ^j,^,, , ,,,, ^, jf ^^ese terms were equiva- 
 en Euripides also speaks of the ai,(,a,iya. into which Elec- 
 ra sends groans for her father to hear; and in addition places 
 
 Z^Z'JT'' "-'''' '-'"'' '^ '^ ^'^ -- ^'"•n^. '■-away 
 
 av' iypbv ainzrairrv aUkpa iropcu yai- 
 ac 'E/J.Aav/af , aarepag ea-Trepovg^ 
 
 ohv olov aXyoc Irra^ov, (piAai. 
 People used to disparage the Eleusinian Mysteries on the 
 
 ^Kaibel, 21; II., 5, 6. 
 
 *^*''"92. »ac,i47,. 
 
 « E. El, 59. , ^^^^ ^^g_^ 
 
 1 
 
 / 
 
U I 
 
 ■■« i 
 
 ,8 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY [28 
 
 ground that they really gave but little con^fort concerning the 
 future life But Kaufmann,' in his admirable httle book, has 
 
 hoTn L they were not as ineffectual as - ^^erly ^^^^ 
 posed Nagelsbach, he tells us,' m commentmg on the d.Her 
 ences between the three great sets of Mysteries, says : " In he 
 Omhic men sought for purity and holiness; m the D.onys.ac 
 fofbSssedness Ld ease; in the Eleusinian, for comfort and 
 
 e t'n he future life." It will be remembered m how much 
 
 fevor the Mysteries, especially the Eleusinian, were he W; wha 
 mmense numbers of people, even from afar, were m.t.ated , 
 irhow carefully the secrets, though known to so many, were 
 kept : and this all goes to show how deeply these teach.ngs 
 were impressed on the hearts of the people, and how truly 
 these sentiments entered into their life and thought.s 
 
 When we look closely we find traces, often very clear ones 
 Of These Eleusinian teachings regarding the future hfe. The 
 Mvstae in the Fro^s* claim that .... i^ bdOHg the bkSSingS 
 wWch Herles L somewhat irreverently descnbed m an 
 Tartr passage. The Pseudo-Plato^ claims for them a front 
 Sace in the realms of the blest: 5,„,c ,^ oJv ev r, C«v ^«^.- "ra^^c 
 m. eic r. r. ..,. ..^ oU.w, .-. etc. (a ^e-npt. n 
 the Elvsian fields), h^av^o roic .^."//'^^'f *<^' "^ '^'""''''"- "^ 
 t sSn ;hat the ikinitiated are not excluded ^om ^le-dn^ 
 if thev have led good lives, but that the m.t.ated have the 
 Sonor Of *e front'rank. a reward which appealed to the amb.- 
 Ss and emulous Greeks. In Polygnotus" great pa.ntmg of 
 Hades in the Lesche at Delphi, we- see the mfluence of the 
 Sleusinian Mysteries throughout. At the very begmn.ng^ 
 . C. M. Kaufmann: DU JemHUhoffnun.en dcr GrUcHen u. Rmn, .897. 
 
 :"et:::;r;;= ... No.e.Uo.Ke«re.popu.ari.yorthena»«De.. 
 teios among the Modem Greeks, surely a survival. 
 • Frogs, 454-5- '54-7- 
 
 M*.VA..37ic.d. See A»M, p. 288, n. I. 
 
 *Paus., 10: 28: 3- 
 
 29J 
 
 VIEWS REGARDING DEATH 
 
 29 
 
 Cleoboea is seated in Charon's boat, holding the mystic cyst 
 «'/?"T^f, on her knees, receiving honor because she first intro-' 
 duced the Mysteries into Thasos. On the tombstones and 
 vases we frequently find this box. often called a " jewel-box " 
 represented in the hands or on the knees of a lady At the 
 end of Polygnotus- painting." among the great criminals, are 
 four people who have mocked the Mysteries; a man a boy 
 and two women : „i ^. m.. ^i^„,, ,,„p ,,, „j ,, ^^^l 
 
 ri^ ■ri^ov. Just wherein consists the severity of such punish- 
 ment it is hard to realize, unless on the one hand the actions 
 may be highly symbolical, or on the other they may merely 
 denote that endless and unremunerative labor, the doing of a 
 simple thing that yet never is done, which was the Greek ideal 
 of perfect unhappiness. Our painter seems to have been of 
 that severe school who consider sins of omission as equally 
 
 heinous with sins of commission ; for not far3 from the mockers 
 
 are two women carrying water in broken pitchers, with an in- 
 scr.pt.on above them stating that they are " not of the initi- 
 ated," oi, fu^v^,,ivun,. Pindar < speaks of the fine rewards in Ely- 
 sium which await those "purified." Kaufmann' thinks the 
 Eleus.n.an influence was very wide and deep; and its effect on 
 our three Tragedians he sums up thus : " The fundamental idea 
 oi the Aeschylean works is that death is better than life • and 
 in the seven surviving tragedies of Sophocles no less than six 
 persons die voluntarily, although they hold only the first inti- 
 mations of a better existence in a future life. And as far as 
 Eurip.des m his poetic art departs from Aeschylus and 
 bophocles, so near does he approach again when he speaks of 
 death or hfe ; many remarks show life beautiful and agreeable, 
 
 ' Come, PI. 30. 68. 83 ; Gerhard.- Ap. Vasenb., PI. ,6, ./ al. oft 
 
 ^ Paus.y 10: 31: 9. 
 
 * ^W. 01. o^.s., .. 1^4 £f. 5 ^au/mann, p. 3. 
 
 H 
 
 ^H 
 
iil 
 
 30 
 
 1 I 
 
 i \ 
 
 a 
 
 DEA TH AND BURIAL IN A TTIC TRACED V [3O 
 
 yet more make it a burden; and only in Euripides do we al- 
 ways find verses which speak openly of a reward m the future 
 Thl seems to be making too much out of too h tie. Wh ch 
 six of Sophocles' characters he refers to >s not clear^ If the 
 six suicides are intended: locaste. Deiane.ra and A.as had 
 done deeds so horrible that they could dread nothmg worse 
 than their present life ; Antigone preferred a qu.ck departu. 
 
 to the slow agony of starvation, the most rational thing She 
 could do, independently of any thought of a future hfe; and 
 Haemon and his mother yielded weakly to affect.on. .mpelled 
 by the unrelenting curse. If Oedipus and Herakles are m- 
 ciuded. both were worn out with long suffering. ^^^^^JZ 
 annihilation would have been welcome. In Eunp.des plays 
 the AUestis is a glorification of life triumphant over death 
 and in many of the others the heroes and heromes, w.th no 
 loss Of their heroism, consider no deception too unworthy, no 
 impiety too great, if they may thereby save the.r hves In 
 Tschylus. a! far as his plays are left to us there .s not one 
 suicide, no matter how great the evil or disgrace. On the 
 ontrao^, Aeschylus teaches a noble and dignified res.gna .on 
 to an inevitable evil ; Sophocles, that, since life conta ns o 
 much of good, the after-life may not be so very bad. and should 
 ZL with equanimity; and Euripides, with his greater^n- 
 sitiveness to suffering and injustice, that since We here h- 
 
 „uci. of pain and sorrow, and the gods ate just and gracious 
 
 S^ere must be compensation somewhere, and the only possible 
 pl^e is beyond the tomb. These differences are largely due 
 to the differing temperaments of the poets, but at the same 
 time their mental attitude was doubtless in great part the re- 
 flection of progressive states of thought f--g »h; P^°^;^^,^ 
 large due not to accident but to natural development. Kauf 
 mann is ready to attribute all these better views of a future life 
 to the Mysteries. But one must not be dogmatic. In any 
 
 Le the J views had a tendency to overstep the formal and 
 S^row limits of the Eleusinian teachings. We have seen that 
 
 31] VIE IVS REGARDING DEA TH , 
 
 Aristophanes and Pindar held that future blessedness was C/ 
 only for the initiated; the teaching of Musaeus and Orpheus, 
 as currently received among the people, was to the same 
 effect ; ' and Sophocles," according to Kaufmann, taught the 
 same. But the Pseudo-Plato, whenever he lived, gave them 
 only the front rank. And Euripides, who is frequently in ad- 
 vance of his generation, would lead us to infer that goodness /^ 
 
 without initiation is sufficient of itselD 
 
 The tomb-inscriptions of the IVth century often follow the 
 Euripidean tradition, as this * from Athens, 394 or 373 B. C: 
 
 ek 'A.i6a Kare/Sa naaiv fiaKapiarog i6e(r&ac. 
 
 There are others, however, more Eleusinian in tone, as the 
 following,5 both from Athens, probably early in the IVth cen- 
 tury : 
 
 haria fiev kqI adpmg l^^i ^^(jv rralda rbv ^div^ 
 
 and, 
 
 acifia fiev kv kSXttoic KarSxei r6Se yaZa JlTidTuwoCj 
 rlwxr) (T lao^iow rd^iv l^^t fiaKdpow. 
 
 Speusippus considers « that rd^cv fmKdpuv is the same as xc>poc evcs^cr., 
 m which, as we have seen, the Pseudo-Plato gives the Mystae 
 the first rank, and the ^dXafim^ evaefiiuw is doubtless another ex- 
 pression for the same idea.^ 
 
 Thus then did death, viewed from the standpoint of natural 
 
 impulse, of philosophy and of religion, appear to the baffled 
 and sensitive minds of the Athenians ; the most uncertain of 
 all certainties, for they fully realized that in the midst of life 
 we are in death, and cord^vai ^ is a frequent term for " to live •" 
 
 > P/a/o, Rep., ii, 364-5. ^Soph. fr., 753 ; Kaufmann, p. 4. 
 
 M/r., 744-6: /r., 848; quoted below, chap. II, ad fin. 
 
 * Kaibel, 26, 11. 8-9. 
 
 * Kaibel, 90 ; Pregtr, 12. e Kaufmann, p. 21. 
 
 ' Kaufmann, p. 2, quoted below, chap. II, ad Jin. 
 
 ■ E. EL, 60 ; Hec, 73 ; Hel., 297, it al, oft. 
 
I il 
 
 i 
 
 'I ! 
 
 :\ I 
 
 ,2 DEATH A JVn BURIAL IJ\7 ATTIC THAGBnV [^^2 
 
 coming no one knew whence, from god or fate or demon ; strik- 
 ing no one knew whom, for '* somehow the treacherous and 
 the wily the gods delight in rescuing from Hades, but the just 
 and the upright they are ever dismissing ;'" leading no one 
 knew whither, and in this lay its real horror ; for though fancy 
 might indulge in pleasing dreams, though philosophy might 
 argue for a life no worse than this, though religion might 
 
 promise blessedness and contentment, the only certain verdict 
 was that " after death there await men such things as they 
 think not nor expect." ' 
 
 1 Phil., 448-50. 
 
 > Heraclitus, fr. ,122. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 CONDITION AND POWERS of the dead 
 
 Thk Greeks do not seem to have formed a verj. definite 
 co„cept.o„ of the difference between the state of life and that 
 of death. Buchholz has worked Homer's notions out into an 
 elaborate scheme. He says : « " The psychological principle- 
 
 Th "!l IT'tv'^"^- "'"' fe-'-g-dwells in .„^ and \^, 
 he breathable hfe-pr„ciple in the ^,, but the bod^-principL in 
 
 H.l« r. Z ' """'"'' *' ^^' ^'^' t° the shades in 
 
 cist '■ f}^^ ''^''!'^' °^ '^' '"-''■ '^^ '"'-^ -'J the ..., 
 ceases and dies utterly, and thereby the man lose.s his con- 
 
 scous personality, his proper e^o, his somato-psychic exist- 
 ence ; for all on which the animal and spiritual (i^«i,/..) life 
 
 u^ tmct and feehng, devoid of all affection, it continues a most 
 
 m.serab e existence." The ^,,, then, by no means corre- 
 
 Ponds to the modern idea of a soul, being far less comprehen- 
 
 nirr Kk" ' u"^ '"'' '°''^'''"'' "'*'^°"' «"'-'*te speechfbut 
 .ke g.bbenng bats3 or birds, and revived for a time oni; by 
 
 ceedmgly gloomy, perhaps needlessly so. For, while his con- 
 du.^ons can be supported by reference to particular passages. 
 Homer takes no trouble to be consistent; and certainly the 
 sp.nts mtervewed by Odysseus retained their memory and 
 ^^'^^l^/iAoh: Die Homeriuk^ SeaU.„. m. b. 36; .« iir. b. ,-e^.. „. v 
 
 33] 
 
 33 
 
 i 
 
 lii 
 
■'i 
 
 34 
 
 DEATH AISTD BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY 
 
 [34 
 
 interest in things terrestrial : the gloomy Achilles ' at last re- 
 joices in the renown of his son; Elpenor and Teiresias' both 
 recognize Odysseus without drinking of the blood ; and the 
 wrathful Aias,3 mindful of his wrongs at Odysseus' hands, 
 seeing him from afar, will not even approach the libations in 
 the trench. 
 
 The soul, shorn of so much of its former glory, would nat- 
 urally be conceived of as diminutive in size ; and so it appears 
 on the vases,* though it is never thus represented in either 
 Homer or the Tragedians. That it could issue from a small 
 opening is no proof in point, for spirits, in story at least, are 
 very compressible, and the full-sized eUiS)^ of Iphthime passed 
 easily through the keyhole.s Besides, the ghosts seen by 
 Odysseus were probably of human proportions, for there is no 
 
 Statement to the contrary. In a Vlth century vase-painting « 
 
 at the British Museum, the soul of Patroclus is really gigantic. 
 The -^xh in Homer issues from the mouth,^ 
 
 leaving, doubtless, with the breath, though in the other cases » 
 where the life is breathed out, it is ^vfxbg that is named, but 
 probably interchangeably with fvxv- It could also depart 
 through a wound.9 The Tragedians, maintaining the belief 
 that the soul issues from the mouth, made no attempt at keep- 
 ing fvxv separate from the other terms ; and we find the ex- 
 pressions," 
 
 ovTU Tcrv avrov ^vfiav bpvydvei ireauv, 
 
 and, /?,w Unviov. In other cases, f»m is a mere concourse of 
 activities which ceases with death." 
 
 lOJ., II : 540. »0</., II : S'-4. 90-6- *'^''- " = 543-6- 
 
 * />««.•«-.• Licy/Aes Blanks, pp. 75-9, pl- », " ; GfrAarJ.- AuserUstne Vasm. 
 aider, pl. 198 (2), 199 (1); tt al., often, esp. on white lekythoi. 
 
 ^Od., 4: 838-9. 'Go-hard: Austrl. Vasen., pl. 198 (l). V/., 9: 409- 
 
 'II., 13 : 654 ; 16 : 468 ; « <»/. *I': «4 = 5 'S-g- 
 
 ^Ag., 1388. 1493. "'<''•. 3o« ; o^' '034- 
 
 35] COI^DITION^ AND POWERS OF THE DEAD 
 
 While the Greeks, to form some idea of the soul, compared 
 It to a dream.' to smoke,- to the shadow which th; sun caTts 
 on thewall.aand finally adopted as their favorite term ti: 
 word .^.^. or picture, ,s.^, it is .ikely that these tertLs 
 osmg the,r first mtention of shadowiness and unreality came 
 to denote something more distinct and substantial.4 It k true 
 
 ' wTSut .^ °' '"' unsubstantiahty of a spirit asks'' 
 
 W.It thou bury h.s „„, ? and Electra laments « that of Orestes 
 
 she has „oth.„g left but „.„... . .„, ,„,, But we find Sophoc es 
 
 on the other hand using the term as a mournful synonym for 
 
 and. 
 
 6p& yap ^fiag ovSiv bvra^ hl%o ttI^ 
 
 &vi»p<j7r6s ioTc Tcvevfia mi OKid fi6vov. 
 
 olH .! [ ! °'*' '°"'*^ '""■^^ themselves visible is as 
 
 such manifestations has been questioned and ridiculed but has 
 
 trdeoart^dt'T''- .°" *' '""*''^'^' *^ -appearance of 
 the departed spirit is what men believe might naturally hap- 
 pen. The Greeks as a race evidently thought so at least and 
 
 ir/naT" ' P'""°P'"' ^''' ^"^ '^'''' d^"'"^d it until in 
 late and decaying times materialism displaced faith in the gods 
 
 and all supernatural phenomena. Homer, as we might expect 
 mentions them freely. Odysseus' visit to Hades • and the 
 glimpse into the underworld with the suitors,* may be mere 
 ^ec digressions; but we learn from them the nature of a 
 
 w^eo and Tk " '"'^ -palpable, seen and heard, able to 
 weep and speak, but not to touch or to be touched, "like a 
 
 'OJ., II, 207-8. »/>&/,, Maedo, 70 ; //.. 2, • ,00.1 .„,/ ,„ 
 ir D '/")•"•> *j • loo-i. 'ffictti, common. 
 
 ^. /W.A .„ ^,«,, d.s I>,u. Mond», .895. 'ff„., ,240. .s, El 
 
 W. ..5-6; ^.A. ..;>. 859. -C.^., 11: 34-^33. 
 
 "Ud., 24: 6-9, 14, 9&-104. 
 
 ^ 
 
36 
 
 DEA TH AND B URIAL IN A TTIC TRA GED Y [36 
 
 III 
 
 dream." ' These, it is to be noticed, were the souls, the fvxai, 
 in Hades, whether of buried or of unburied bodies; for El- 
 penor's plaint* does not accord with what we hear of the 
 suitors.3 They were the actual spirits of the dead in their final 
 home. Whether they strayed up to earth and appeared be- 
 fore the waking eye, Homer does not tell US ; but the pxf) of 
 Patroclus* visits Achilles in sleep and is something more than 
 a mere dream. There was another sort of ghost, eidu?^, visible 
 to the seer Theoclymenus, though not to the others,* 
 
 EUGi7Myv 6e rrlkav npd^vpov, Tvleir] 61 koX avArj 
 kfikvuw 'Epe^ooSe vnb l^6<j>ov, 
 
 apparitions of the living but foreteUing their death. There 
 was still another sort, one fashioned by the gods to deceive 
 
 people whether for good Of ill, but having no real connection 
 
 with the person represented and no direct effect on his life ; as 
 when Apollo, after carrying off Aeneas, made an eldu^.ov of him 
 for the Greeks and Trojans to fight over f or when Athene 
 made an dSuiov like Iphthime, which, having cheered Penelope 
 in a dream, *' slipped away by the bolt of the door and passed 
 into the breath of the wind," 7 an objective entity and not a 
 mere subjective impression. 
 
 In historical times this belief in ghosts and apparitions re- 
 mained substantially the same, but became more definite and 
 specific. The gods were stiU held to create ei6u?.a, entities 
 wholly independent of the persons they resembled. Thus 
 Clytaemnestra at one time denies that she killed Agamemnon, 
 but says,^ " The ancient ruthless evil genius of Atreus . , . 
 likened io the wife of this dead man hath visited him with 
 vengeance." And not Helen, some supposed, but only an 
 
 1 Od., 1 1 : 204-23, 391-4. ' ^^^'^M 11:51-4. ' ^^'^-^ 24 : 99-104. 
 
 * //., 23 : 65-107 ; frequent on the vases at the dragging of Hector. 
 
 » Ot/., 20 : 355-6. 
 
 « //., 5 : 449-53- 
 
 ' Od., 4 : 795-841, Lan^, Leaf and Myers' transl. " Ag,y 1500-3. 
 
 37] CONDITION AND PO WERS OF THE DEAD 
 
 image like her, was carried to Troy. This .u.^ of Helen^! 
 interesting, not only for the large part it played in Greek literl 
 ture, but because we have a more complete account of it thW 
 any other. Helen herself speaking of it calls it -. I 
 
 -. o«^ J 1 TT &"**'' ^^"S ^t etdwAw ^uTTvow sent 
 
 wa<! fnfn -.^ A '° '* f '''^•^'"f. a fancy. Its departure' 
 was into a.^,f, and ol,pav6c. Its unreality and unsubstantialitv 
 then, are strongly insisted on. On the other hand n7as 
 represented as seeming ver, real. Menelaus dragged it bv 
 he ha.r from Troy, saved it from the wreck, and hfd it n a 
 cave; and the Messenger's astonishmenfo at finding that it 
 
 was only a cloud is very plain. 
 
 Ofthe apparitions ofthose about to die, the Tragedians as 
 
 tlls^uoTnthT "^"'''"■"^' '"* ^^^^--^ '" her^xtremi" 
 calls upon the living Herakles to help her," 
 
 eW^ KOI oKia. (pdvTT&c juoi 
 aXmp yap IMdv Uavov av yevoio U. 
 
 And Pausanias" tells us that when Teurosthenes was victor at 
 Olympia, an apparition, ^..,«, closely resembling him aDDeared 
 
 at his home and announced hfs victory. ^ ' appeared 
 
 Phantoms which appear in dreams are less open to criticism 
 
 1 thl ;-7''"kT ^' ^'^ "^"^^^>- ^"^ '^^ cfreeks Cgh 
 out their histoo^ beheved them to be at least possibly objective 
 
 been only the common language of affection, Moreovef their 
 appearance generally foretold misfortune, as when Darius 
 
 ' i%/., 33-4. 
 
 *^//., 705. 1219. 
 V/JiV/., 119,36. 
 
 '• I6id„ joy ff. 
 »^/<r., 354-6. 
 
 */^/V., 582-6. 
 
 ^Ibid.^ -jQ-j^ 750. 
 
 8 Ibid., 1 219, 605-7. 
 
 " H. M., 494-5. 
 
 • ^. EL, 1282-3. 
 «y^iv/., 1135-6. 
 
 • fitd, 116,412-3,424-5. 
 " I'aus,, 6 : 9 : 3. 
 
 ill 
 
t 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 i § 
 
 38 
 
 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY 
 
 [38 
 
 appears to Atossa/ and Eteocles sees the phantoms,' h^zi^ 
 
 iwirvii^ i^vraofi&ruv, dividing the property. The <i>daimra, ^vT&ajiara 
 
 of Achilles and of her son appear to Hekabe' as a premonition 
 of evil. Clytaemnestra calls herself bvap, and it is possible she 
 
 ghould be thought of as seen by the sleeping Furies alone, and 
 
 as soon as they awake she vanishes/ Dream-phantoms are 
 the only sort which Sophocles mentions, and that but once^ 
 when he admits that Clytaemnestra « twice saw Agamemnon 
 
 in a dream. 
 
 The general belief in ghosts, however, was so strong that 
 both Aeschylus and Euripides bring them on the stage. The 
 calling up of Darius by means of libations, chanting and prayers 
 to the x^^v^oi, is very dramatic ^ and unquestionably is meant 
 
 to represent an actual materialization of his Spirit.7 But Cly- 
 taemnestra.S ^s we have just said, is possibly merely a dream, 
 visible to the audience for stage effect, and very probably is no 
 more to be imagined as on the same plane of physical actuality 
 with the other characters in the play than are the gods who 
 stand in the midst of pedimental battles. lo speaks? of see- 
 ing the ghost of Argus ; but though she refers to the shrill 
 sound of the reed, it is not likely that the phantom was per- 
 ceptible to any but herself, or that it was represented on the 
 
 stage. Euripides is more bold and realistic in his treatment 
 of stage ghosts. The dduTurv of Polydorus'** speaks a long pro- 
 logue and very considerately moves away lest his mother be 
 frightened at sight of him. The ghost of Achilles is freely 
 talked of as appearing to the whole army;" and Admetus 
 fears lest the restored Alcestis be some phantom from the 
 
 i/Vr., 197-8, 518-9. » Sep., 710-1. 
 
 * £um.y 116. 
 
 « Jer., 619-22, 633-80, 686-8, 697, etc. 
 
 8 j5:«»*., 94-139. 
 
 ^^Hec, 1-58. 
 
 ^Hec, 69-77, 92-5, 702-9. 
 
 i S. El, 417-23- 
 T ibid.^ 681-842. 
 
 * Pro., 567-71,574-5- 
 "/<5j^., 37-4I» 108-15. 
 
 39] CONDITION AND POWERS OF THE DEAD 
 
 dead,' ^„^ ^,prip^_ In 1;^^ nj^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^ .^ 
 
 HeSe i" ^'^' ^""^ "^^"^'^"s that she is a phantom from 
 
 Murderers cut off the extremities of their victims and wiped 
 
 he blood on the.r heads to prevent their ghosts from a„„oyW 
 
 then,; 3 though Sophocles merely says it was for purificatL! 
 There would seem to have been reason for this practice, since 
 we hear of ghosts evoked to declare their murderersV But 
 P^to who tries to turn everything to moral account, says 
 ghosts are the souls of those who have died not pure^Z 
 «.^ap^f anoXv^uaac ; and as murderers for this reason are esoeci- 
 
 t^:r ''-''' - ^-'^^ °^ »-- - ^eep ghosts' 
 
 Homer mentions the ghosts of animals,. Orion hunting " the 
 very beasts that himself had slain i„ the lonely hills;" but the 
 Tragedians say nothing on this subject. 
 
 Greek story and legend were full of ghosts. Pausanias 
 mentions them many times and accounts fof them, if one Z 
 
 soul. He tells how, up to his time, at Marathon they foueht 
 
 seekers could never see them;" that a host of a6.Xa dwelt in 
 
 the TemiJe of Is.s in Phocis, and so terrified an intruder thlt 
 he died shortly after;" that the «v.Ao. of Actaeon at Orcho 
 -nus . troubled the people until they performed proper buriai 
 '/J-'"''- •^'•/•. 7^-3.569-70. 
 
 Vol. vCIoff: ^^- ""'■•*■■ ^^- See also ^y^.^^. in ^„„,. ^«,.„.,,/ ^,,,<,/.. 
 5 *S. El.^ 445-6. 
 
 Apul. Metam., 2: 35; Heliodor, EtA.,6: I4. See also Mnr- T ' 
 2; 1 : 900, etc. ^''•^- ^y^^5., 14; 
 
 2''.- ^--, 837 b; J^ar„eU.. Gr^.k Cults. 11. j.j ; H.I.. 569-70. 
 ^^,n=„^5. .o/.«„.,4..3,,,. ../«^.,,:3.:4. 
 
 t i 
 
 \ \ 
 
40 
 
 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY 
 
 [40 
 
 ii 
 
 ^i 
 
 II 
 
 rites for him ; that the 6aiiu^ of one of Odysseus' sailors mur- 
 dered at Rhegium annually insisted on having a girl sacrified 
 to him, and ended his inhuman demands only after a wrestling 
 match with a famous athlete in 468 B. C— but the hand of 
 
 the priest is too evident in this last phenomenon. He tells 
 also' of the occasional appearances of such heroes as Neopto- 
 lemus, Echetlaeus, and others, at battles and elsewhere. He 
 holds too that phantoms in dreams are real manifestations,3 as 
 of Pindar, who appeared soon after his death to an old woman 
 and dictated to her his last poem. 
 
 From ghosts to a resurrection is a natural and easy step in 
 belief To rise again was however a difficult matter in prac- 
 tice, to be accomplished only by the direct intervention of the 
 
 gods : ♦ 
 
 «t yf }iil Tig "^eov avaerfjCEii viv* 
 
 though their power to intervene was generally acknowledged.* 
 Asklepios especially was the god who raised the dead ; but 
 for this Zeus struck him with his thunderbolt, thus indicating 
 that it was not a right thing for him to do.^ Henceforth only 
 by trickery, as when Apollo cheated the Moirai ^ or Sisyphus 
 
 the gods of the underworld;* or by superhuman force, as 
 
 when Herakles wrestled with Thanatos for Alcestis;^ or by 
 some great spell, such as the music with which Orpheus won 
 back Eurydice,'** could the dead be brought to life again. To 
 the Greeks of historic times the visible destruction of the 
 body by fire or decay was a stumbling-block to belief in a res- 
 urrection ; for though in Homeric days a goddess might pre- 
 
 1 Pans., 6:6: 7-10. 
 
 «/W..,l:4:4; i : 32: S; 4J 42:4; ^^«^'/ ^^«'' ^^^'t 35? Thtmist.i^. 
 
 * Paus.y 9 : 23 : 4 ; 4 : 13 ; 4 J 26 ; 7, 8 ; <r/ a/. ^^ H, M,,i\^\ et al. 
 
 ^Alc.,2i^~9, 
 
 • Idui.y 122-9, 3-4 ; Ag^t 1022-4. A non-Homeric idea, Iwanowitsch^ p. 39, 
 See Dyer : Gods in Greece^ ch. on .^Esculapius. 
 
 ' Ale, 1 1-2, 32-4. » Phil, 624-5. » Ale, 1 140-2, w Ibid., 3S7-9- 
 
 41] CONDITION AND POWERS OF THE DEAD 
 
 serve intact the body of some favorite as of P.f 1 ^^ 
 succeeding centuries the art of embllmL 11 u f "''^ '" 
 parently even by the ^ods V^T^T^^ ^^^" ^^'^' ^P" 
 
 bodied souls fr'om find n, some 2 "' ''^T ''''''' 
 
 though it were less comLdious Or 1;^^?^ ^^^f ^' 
 needs; and if they could content theLves^^^^^ ^ r \ 
 convenience of an animal body whv nnf i . '"^^"^" 
 
 plant or mineral? Thus Cadmus and r" "'' '''' "' ^ 
 formed to serpents' the wffr f t ""™^"^^ ^^^ trans- 
 Niobe to a stoL^^u " to T '" ' "^•^htingale,3 
 
 others to like objects T.n ' '""'^^ '^''''^' ^"^ ^^"^ 
 stances;^ but Plato thenar ^"'' '"""'' '^"^^^^ '^' 
 
 •hey mos, ..X: ^^z^uzj:;"^'"'^ 
 
 storied moreo^^ of i" ^^ ^ ^"^^ ^' ^-^^^ There were 
 as He;akles, or taken o to h""' '""'^^"^^ '^ ^^^^^^ 
 
 regions. The transt^C of^JoTls^^* t^^ ""T ''''''' 
 bodies is a kindrerl fh.^ ^. '"*° °*'^^'' ^uman 
 
 than the first of thr... u ^^^ ^^^ '^^t rather 
 
 ^ ^^-^ '9 • 3^. 
 
 ^Bac, 1330-3, i354_6o. ^ A Su^ (^ . . 
 
 ' I'lato : Phaedo, ch. xxxi. 
 
42 
 
 ( ^ 
 
 IIP 
 
 ! ■» 
 
 I 
 
 u 
 
 DEA TH AND B URIAL IN A TTJC TRA GED Y [42 
 
 In this connection arises the interesting question as to 
 whether a man possessed more than one soul. The Trage- 
 dians say nothing definite on this point ; but Homer, though 
 
 in the Iliad ■ he says plainly, h Si la t^xi, " there IS but OHC UtC 
 within" tells us in the Odyssey- that Herakles' e;<!<.W WaS in 
 ErebuL and himself at the feast of the gods. The Tragedians, 
 however, hint at something of this sort, possibly m the doc- 
 trine 3 of the ve,ec,c. but especially in the appearance of Darius 
 to Atossa in her dream, a real objective appearance, which his 
 ghost when it rises does not seem to have known about/ 
 Lucian's expression,' Saifmva^ ^aKapnav, referring to but one dead 
 man. may have a like import. In vase-paintings sometimes sev- 
 eral little dduM flutter about one corpse or in one tomb. The ap- 
 pearance of Taurosthenes in a distant town,' and of the phan- 
 toms of the suitors in the hall before their death,« and Megara s 
 call for the «m of the living Herakles,' these and similar phe- 
 nomena point to a detachable something that is near akm to a 
 soul This leads to the belief in the " external soul," of which 
 we hear so much in modern folk-lore,- and which was repre- 
 sented in Greek myth by the stories of Nisus and Meleager," 
 
 that the external soul of the one resided in the purple lock of 
 
 hair which his daughter cut off, and of the Other in the fire- 
 brand which his mother caused to be burned. 
 
 The majority of the dead, however, never played the part 
 V/ of ghosts nor wandered into other bodies. What, then, be- 
 came of them ? There was always a vague feeling, the result 
 of a materializing philosophy, that the dead, even if still sus- 
 taining a sort of life of their own so as actually to feel the weight 
 
 . 71., « : 569. r. L.M. ^Od.,n: 601-3. ' S. EL, 146^7- 
 
 * Per., 187-8, 681-93. ' LucUn : De Luctu, 24. 
 
 • See Rouher, 11, illustrations on pp. 1150, ii47- ' ^''"'■' ^ = 9 : 3- 
 
 . Od., 20 : 355-6. » H. M., 494-5- " P'-"'^ ■■ ^"^'^'^ ^"'^''' "• 3^'- 
 " Cho., 613-22. 604-12 ; Paus., 1 : 19 = 4 ; 10: 31 : 3, 4- 
 
 43] CONDITION AND PO WERS OF THE DEAD 
 
 of mould upon them,^ were unconscious and forgetful of earth^- <- 
 a.o<>.(v„^,a«a.dvo^A^; and Iwanowitschs remarks that thev 
 
 ?:afth::r T^^''^^^^^'"^''^'"- ^-^^^-'1 3 
 
 lear. though operating from different causes, both militated 
 Strongly against these notions. Homer, is ^ot cleaTon this 
 point and his statements are often contradictory bu^the 
 Tragedians have much to say. though their expre s.ons Ire 
 not always quite consistent. The ghost of D^^rino I 
 
 perfectly all that happened up tote t mf 'h STtl b^ 
 
 famous prophetic power seems to have been simply his recol- 
 lection of the oracles he had heard before dy^ the m 
 port of wh,ch he now by the light of current events bednsTo" 
 
 ateT: , th^f- "'^^^ °' ^'^^--nestra,^ howevt, isTee„ y 
 alive to al that is going on, her perceptive faculties having 
 become only sharper through death ; and this seems to ace" rd 
 with the general belief.. The dead, if they were not conscS^s 
 
 r and p^°P'^.'^'='^^' *^"^ - that they received news through 
 •n a distant land learning of things on earth by the arrival of 
 
 new-comers, and criticising the actions of the Lng- T^ev 
 
 were supposed to take pleasure i„ monuments erectfd inlheT 
 honor, and by some considered their due,.^« and ifreturn the 
 
 ' A/^., 463-4 ; i%/., 852-4. 
 
 •^•^/..n59.n70; C,o.,si7; Tr..6o^,, a C. 955. ,,.,, „ft. 
 I«>a„o^iisci. pp. 65-6; lU. of refs. for prayen unanswered. 
 
 • Od.. ,0: 49,_5; „ passim,- ,t al. . p,,_^ ^,j_^g_ 
 
 * ^w>w., 94-139. 
 
 '-^«.. 54., 65-6; .S-. BL, 400; o. C, ,774_j; Or., 674-s. 
 
 'Hrtf ' ''"'°' " "'' °'- ''• ''^'■'^''-'' ^- ^^^S. passim. 
 S.E,,,^_ '°^-.4..-3;^«-.,32<..;.., «^„...3e^. 
 
 ""■' 3'9-«' ; UTaiM, 7, 2. 3. 4. ,0, ,/ al. 
 
i 
 
 % 
 
 %r ^ 
 
 f I 
 
 '. 
 
 Ulii 
 
 lit j 
 
 BE A TH AND B URTAL IN A TTIC TRA GED Y [44 
 
 44 
 
 pious donors received benefits, as from the tombs of Oedipus 
 at Athens and of Solon at Salamis.' 
 
 But whether conscious of the present or not, they were gen- 
 erally mindful of what had happened on earth;' and though 
 
 sometimes ready to lend aid, as when Orestes and Oedipus 
 promise to help the Athenians '—though Iwanowitsch * com- 
 pares such aid to that from modern relics— or at least to give 
 gift for gift,' as the gods did, yet they were most often thought 
 of as ready for vengeance ; as when Herakles threatens Hyllus, 
 if he does not fulfil his wishes,' 
 
 el Sc fiij, fuvu a' iyt> 
 Kal vip^ev ln> apaioc slffaei jiapvc 
 
 and they were most often invoked to aid ^ in some vengeful 
 scheme, as when Electra prays, 
 
 Tolg (T havrtoLg 
 Myo (JMVVvai aov, rrdrep, rifidopov. 
 
 The dead had various ways of expressing their displeasure. 
 
 The best known, of course, was by sending the Erinyes to 
 
 .avenge murder, as in the Eumenides and the Orestes, But 
 
 ^when these were not in order, they had other means, such as 
 secretly shedding the blood of their victim,^ or causing open 
 disaster, as did the drowned Myrtilus,9 or by arousing frenzy 
 and vague fears at night - But their special method of annoy- 
 
 V ance was by the sending of bad dreams : " 
 
 ropbq yap bp^S^pi^ <j>6(3oc 
 
 66fiuv bveipSfiavTig, k^ vnvov kStov 
 
 ^Jebb : Oed. Col. p. xxx. « S, El, 482-4. ^t al, oft. 
 
 • Euni., 767-74. 598 ; o. 6'., 4", 1520-5 ; ^^^-^ 1030-6. 
 
 * I-oanoivitsck, p. 51. * Cho., 93-5*. '^ O,^' 
 
 « Track., I20I-2 ; Ag., 345-7 ; Cho., 324-6 ; Eum., 768-71 J ^. -£/-, 495-8; 
 et aly oft. 
 T Cko., 142-3 ; E, El, 677-84 ; E, Sup., 1 143-5 ; '^ ^^' 
 8 S. El, 1419-23. • S. El, 508-15 ; Ag., 345-7. 
 
 w Cho., 286-8, 293-4. " Cho., 32-41, 523-50 ; ^' El. 459-60. 
 
 45 
 
 45 J CONDITION AND POWERS OF THE DEAD 
 
 nviuv, aup6wKTov afi^dafia 
 fivx6-&ev eXoKE nepl ^6/3(f), 
 
 r^acKslomv h doifiamv ^apk mrvuv. 
 
 Kptrac re THivS" bveipdrcjv 
 ■&e6^ev IXaKov vniyyvoc 
 filfi<j>ea^ai rove yac vkp^ev nepi^i,,^^ 
 rolg KTavovai f eyKoretv. 
 
 Indeed dreams, whether good or bad, as well as their 
 fulfilment, were under the control of he dead and to 
 the dead prayers concerning them were made ■ Th° 
 was part of their general gift of prophecy»wh"ch they lav 
 have acqmred from their close ccn'ectfon with elZ 
 
 elltf Hor: r "? *^^ ^y'""?.^ like Cassandra and 'sev^ 
 
 ExcentT 1 °"' *'"'' "y anticipation the same gifl. 
 the hetftTde r "T "^""^ ^^ P-phecy and vengeance, 
 TJ A ,t, r ' ^' ^^' ^' ^^^'^^^^' ^"d occupation went 
 
 rchille?6 1""'''m" °' ''' '°"" ^'''^ '■" ^he same play 
 
 Ach^lles.« the noblest of the living, is still the noblest of S 
 
 'A;fMA*of, 6f fiera ^6vto)v or' tjv 
 
 sies on fi,» K / rJ^ '" ''"^""- Cassandra prophe- 
 
 sies on the banks of Cocytus and Acheron.^ Enmity did not 
 
 Per., 219-43 ; Paus., 4 : 26 : 8. 
 
 ^Rohdi: Psyche, pp. i9g_9^ ^^^^ 
 ' Eum.. 2. 4 ^ 
 
 Anst Fro,s, 8a. . p,,,, .3.^3 . o.., „ : 484-6. 
 
 ^ £1, 837-4,; p,r., 69, ; CHo., 35^60; Od.. „ : 56(^-71. 
 Hec, 547-52. 
 
 •^.T.. i.ec^l ; Od, ., : 90-6; see also Ag., ,528 ; Od, „ .. 57^.5. 
 
 \ 
 
 m 
 
46 
 
 DEA TH AND BURIAL IN A TTIC TRA GED Y [46 
 
 I ■' 
 
 ill! 
 
 cease with life, though Antigone argues that it should^ 
 Even bodily defects were retained, especially the wounds which 
 
 had caused death, so these were carefully closed and bound 
 w up •/ and for a like reason Oedipus blinds himself 3 that he may 
 not see his murdered father in Hades : 
 
 ky(b yap ovk olfT bfifiaoiv iroioic pJiruv 
 Tzarepa ttot' av TrpoaeUov elq "kidov fio7.bv 
 ovS" av Tdlaivaif firirtp\ olv kfiol dvolv 
 ipY earl Kpeiaaov' dyx^vr/^ elpyaafiha. 
 
 Of course it was but natural that friends should meet again, 
 
 and such scenes may be depicted on the tombstones,^ but we 
 are not certain. Philoctetes s speaks of going to search for his 
 father in Hades; Aias' last words ^ are that he will tell his 
 griefs to those Kdru- Creon 7 bids Antigone, 
 
 KaTD vvv hWov(f, tL (julirriov^ (jti'^t 
 
 and she expresses a hope of meeting her parents and brother 
 there « Admetus 9 even bids Alcestis prepare a home for him 
 against his coming. But of all the pictures of meeting in the 
 
 lower world, that one, though intended to be taken ironically, 
 of the little Iphigeneia running to meet her father '° is by far 
 the most gracious : 
 
 dAA' 'liftiyiveid viv daizaaiui 
 
 ■&vydT7jp, (I)C XP^i 
 
 irarkp' dvridaaaa Trpbg cjKhiropov 
 
 Trdp'&fievju.' dxi<^ 
 
 TTspl X^^P^ (3alovaa (^Lkijaei. 
 
 In early times, when retribution followed swift on wrong- 
 
 1 Ant.. 5 14-24. ' ^- ^'^ ' "7-8 \"ol-> °ft- 
 
 s 0. T., 1371^ ; Eum., 103. 
 
 « Come: Att. Grab., PI., 4^5'' " "'■ 
 
 s I%il., I2I0-I. • '^'•> 8^5- 
 
 '^«A. 524-5. • /W.. 897-901. 
 
 » Ale, 363-4; see Htl., 836-7 ; E. £/., "44-6 ; Tro., 1234. 
 
 ^"Ag., 1555-9. 
 
 W 
 
 47] (CONDITION AND POWERS OF THE DEAD 
 
 doing, When man took summary vengeance and the gods were 
 supposed to do the same, there was little need of felegatine 
 punishment to the future life. The mere necessity of dyini 
 was a sufficient punishment in itself,- and so became a purify 
 .ng agency to the soul. I„ Homer, severity was visited only 
 on special offenders against the gods, like Tityus and Tantalus 
 and Sisyphus,' and not on merely moral delinquents; with the 
 exception however of perjurers, whom Zeus and the other gods 
 punished in the underworld : 3 ^ 
 
 01 imtvep&t Ka/i6vTa( 
 dv^pi,wm^ Tivw^cw oTii K- iniopm bfidaari 
 As civilization and especially philosophy advanced, the pun- 
 ishment of evil-doers receded more and more into the future 
 life so that Pausanias^ remarks that in his age "on the 
 wicked the wrath of the gods falls late and on those who have 
 departed hence." The Tragedians were beginning to realize 
 hat not only many wrong acts besides perjury escaped detec- 
 tion on earth, but that there were crimes for which no earthly / 
 puni^ment, not even death, was sufficient, such as the 
 
 murder of a near relative or a suppliant. The King of Argos 
 says to the suppliant daughters of Danaus : 5 
 
 eK66in-ec v/udc rbv 'tTav61e-&pov ■&ebv 
 (iapvv ^vvoiKov ^Tjadjuea^' dUcropa, 
 dg M kv "AlSov rhv ^ai^dvr' klev^epoi. 
 Electra not Very graciously tells her mother,^ 
 
 KttKug 6?MU), fiTjdk & EK y6(jv TTori 
 Tuv vvv dixakM^ELav 01 Kara ^eoL 
 
 And the Erinyes assure Apollo concerning Orestes/ 
 
 v-n-S re yav <j>vy(bv oh ttot' eXev^epovvrac 
 TTOTirpdnauig wv rf* erepov kv Kdpg, . 
 fiidoTop' elaiv ov TcdaeraL. 
 
 I See p. 18, n. 5. for refs. . Od., 1 1 : 576-625. 
 
 ' ^., 3 ; 278-9; 19 : 259-60. Iwanowitsch denies this and emends these lines 
 
 S. El., 291-2 ; Eum., 95-6. t Eum., 175-7, 340. 
 
^iv r. 
 
 1 ■ i 
 
 llii 
 
 I 
 
 %M 
 
 .48 DEA TH AND £ URIA L IN A TTIC TRA GED Y [48 
 
 On the other hand, special favorites of the gods, like 
 
 Herakles or Helen, were taken to heaven or some other bliss- 
 
 ^ ful abode,^ though many of them were by no means exem- 
 plary characters. Moral heroism, the passive heroism of 
 suffering, seems to have had its first really great representa- 
 tive in the Alcestis of Euripides ; and her reward is simply to 
 be brought back to earth. 
 
 The Greeks of the Vth century had not succeeded in draw- 
 ing a very distinct line between the good and the bad, especi- 
 
 / ally with reference to retribution in the life to come. As late 
 
 as Euripides it was possible to say,* 
 
 Tobq eiryevelg yap ov arvyovai daifwveg, 
 rCrv (T dvapc-&fjt^(Jv fiaT^kdv tlai ol ndvoty 
 
 the *• nobles" in contrast to the ''herd" being favored even in 
 the other world. But the active and aggressive minds of the 
 Greeks were not content with being wholly the playthings of 
 fate. That there must be some means of influencing the future 
 and unseen world by the present and visible, was felt in very 
 
 early times. In Homer's day this influence seemed to be ex- 
 erted by the dead body over the departed soul, and proper 
 burial rites insured a happy passage to the land of shades, 
 \/ while their neglect condemned the soul to perpetual wandering.3 
 How deeply this feeling— for in historical times it could have 
 been nothing more— was engrafted in the very fibreof the Greek 
 soul, is seen in the insistence on at least a formal burial, such 
 as that for which Antigone was ready to sacrifice her life ; * in 
 the laws lasting into late times concerning the burial of 
 
 strangers washed up by the sea or otherwise found ;s and in 
 the much-practiced custom of adoption ^ by which a man 
 secured proper burial and the subsequent offerings and atten- 
 tions at his tomb. This idea must have entered the Hellenic 
 
 ^ See p. 41, n. 8, for rcfs. 
 *Sep., 1026-41; et al. 
 ^Gardner and Jevons, p. 550. 
 
 ^Hel.y 1678-9. *Od, 11:51-6. 
 
 ^Paus., 2 : 1 : 3; 10 : 5 : 4 ; ^/ «/. 
 
 49] CONDITION AND POWERS OF THE DEAD 
 
 49 
 mind while it was still in an early and formative stage But 
 
 as the Greeks grew more spiritual in their ideas, and recog- 
 nized the soul as not the possession but the master of the 
 
 body, they perceived that some action by the soul itself before 
 death was necessary to insure future happiness. This gave 
 rise to the Mysteries and to much of the teaching of the early 
 philosophers, to say nothing of the strolling priests whom 
 Plato' criticises as "persuading not only private persons but 
 even cities that forsooth there are purifications and cleansings 
 from unrighteousness through sacrifices and childish pleasures, 
 
 not only for the living but even for the dead, which they call 
 the Mysteries" of Musaeus and Orpheus, "which will release 
 us from evils there; but for those who do not sacrifice terrible 
 things are waiting." At Athens these sacrifices and purifica- 
 tions took a definite and regulated form in the Eleusinian 
 Mysteries, of whose great influence we have spoken above » 
 and initiation into them, which was in general open to all was 
 considered the key to future blessedness.3 Plato again criti- 
 cises this point of view, i^^^^ ^l Uy.ra^<^r^a r^ ^^^^iv.v. ^c hlr^^ 
 rov Mcnov xp6vov fierd to ^e(Jv didycma, SC. ^x^. Sophocles says : « 
 
 6>f rpig 67i/3ioi 
 KElvoL jipoTuv 01 TavTa Sepx-^kvTe^ reXn 
 fi6?iova' eg "AiSov rolq 6k yap fidvoig hel 
 Cvv icTi, Toic aXXoiai Trdvr' f/cel KUKa. 
 
 Kaufmann claims this as Sophocles' general belief, but Iwano- 
 witsch says Sophocles recognizes neither reward nor punish- 
 ment in the future world, and that this, therefore, is only a 
 
 tribute to the Eleusianians.^ Kaufmann is probably right for 
 not only was this the belief of Aristophanes, Pindar, and 
 Others, with whom Sophocles is classed, but the expressions 
 
 ^» ^^ato : Rep, ii, 364-5. 2 See p. 28. » Phaedo, 81 a. 
 
 *See Hym. Ham., 5 : 480-2; Pind, fr. 137 /?; inscr. quoted by Kaufmann, 2, 
 
 ^Soph.^fr, 753. 
 
 ^Iwanowitsch, pp. 5 1, 53. 
 
 \\ \ 
 
 II 
 
' I 
 
 1 1! ; 
 
 1 
 
 '!!! 
 
 Hi ti >< 
 
 CO ^£^ TH AND BURIAL IN A TTIC TRA GED V [50 
 
 about the " great aether," quoted above/ seem to indicate two 
 
 contrasting places whither the soul of man may go j and it 
 seems probable that the division was made along the line of 
 those depx^evreg te?.v, that is, the initiated. Polygnotus' painting » 
 is, as it were, bounded by Eleusinianism, for while friends are 
 enjoying each other's society and men and women are carry- 
 ing on their ordinary avocations or rehearsing some notable 
 event of their lives, at one end a lady who had introduced the 
 Mysteries into one of the islands is receiving honor therefor, 
 and at the other those who had mocked the Mysteries are 
 being punished. 
 
 We learn, then, from the Tragedians of only three classes of 
 sinners who receive punishment in the future world ; the un- 
 initiated, particular offenders against the gods, and murderers, 
 ^ with the last of whom traitors were probably classed, for their 
 bodies received the same punishment of being cast out un- 
 buried.3 
 
 With Socrates and Euripides came definiteness in the new 
 
 doctrine, that goodness of itself, purity of the soul, inde- 
 
 V pendent of external forms, was the only true path to eternal 
 
 happiness. om Iotlv dvdpl d-ya^o) kukov ovdkv ovte ^(ovtc ovte reT^vrijaavTi^ 
 
 are Socrates' words;* and Euripides, though narrowing the 
 application a little, almost echoes them : * 
 
 bariq 6e rot)c TEKdvrag kv (iio) ak^si 
 hS' earl koX Cwv Kai ■&avd)v i^eoZf 0fXof. 
 
 It is true that Plato in another place, putting into the mouth 
 
 of Socrates a very similar sentiment, adds, Qomp ye Kai naat 
 
 UyeraL^ but there is little of it known to us in the earlier lit- 
 erature. Euripides 7 has not a great deal to say on this sub- 
 ject, but what he says is very plain : 
 1 See p. 27. ^P^^^' 10:28-31. 
 
 8 O. C, 406-7 ; PL Laws, 838 b; Sep., 1013-24; et al. 
 
 ♦ PL ApoL, 41 c ; €t al., oft. * £- A 848, //• 1-2. 
 
 • Fl. Phaedo, 63 c. See Geddes-, Phaedo of Plato (1885), note on this pas- 
 sage. ' Ale, 744-6. See Iwanowitsch, p. 72, n., for Euripides as an Orphic. 
 
 51] CONDITION AND POWERS OF THE DEAD 
 
 51 
 
 t\ 6e n mm 
 
 TrXiov ear' dja^oig, tovtuv fiere^ova' 
 "Aidov vvfj.<j)Tfv irapedpevoig- 
 
 and the omission of any reference to the initiated as a favored 
 class, except when Herakles somewhat jocosely assigns his 
 having seen the Mysteries as the reason why he was able to 
 bring up the dog,' is significant. As for fuiKapiaro^ a IVth cen- 
 tury inscription gives a man this epithet because he had saved 
 three tribes, without any reference to initiation.' 
 
 The question whether the Greeks ever arrived at a clear be- 
 lief in the immortality of the soul, is not yet settled. It is l^ 
 true that even on Dipylon tombstones from Athens and 
 Eleusis we find a sort of immortality hinted at. Kaufmann^ 
 quotes a Vth century inscription which he calls " the oldest 
 Greek epitaph in which the soul is clearly pronounced im- 
 mortal : " 
 
 KOLvbv ^epae(f>6vt/g ndaiv exeig ^dXafiov, 
 oojfia fiEv hM6e aov, Aiovvaie, yala aalvizTEL 
 irVXVV Ss aHvarov koivoc ^xei ra/xiag. 
 
 The Tragedians do not commit themselves definitely. The 
 best that Aeschylus ♦ can say is : 
 
 TEKvov, ^pdvTjfia Tov ^avovTog ov 6a/id- 
 Cei nvpog fia^Epd yvd-&og, 
 <f>aivEi & vGTEpov opydg' 
 
 and Euripides' speculations is only more vague: 
 
 6 vovg 
 rwv Kar^avdvTuv f// nh ov, yvmrjv (T ix^i 
 
 d^dvarov eig d^dvarov al-&ep' euneacjv 
 
 and elsewhere ^ he says : 
 
 6 vovg yap ^fiuv iariv h EK&arLi ■&e6c' 
 
 while Sophocles 7 rather questions the whole matter : 
 
 ' ^' ^'* 613. 8 ATatM, 26. 
 
 ' ^«'"-» 2784, //. 5-7- See Kaufmann, p. 2, for further references. 
 
 * Cho., 323-6. ^Hel., 1014-6. ^E.fr. 1007. '^. C 998-9. 
 
i ( 1 
 
 w 
 
 11 'I 
 
 III 
 
 i 
 
 ' ' 
 
 52 
 
 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY 
 
 olf eyiii ovSe rrjv Trarpbc 
 tfwxvv av olfiai Cotaav avrenzeiv kxtLV 
 
 [52 
 
 though we have seen that he speaks of the reward of the ini- 
 tiated as ;fjv. Pericles gives a hint in the same direction in his 
 famous funeral oration." Plato, as we may infer from pass- 
 ages quoted above and many others, apparently believes in 
 immortality, but the arguments he brings forward to prove it 
 ^ are by no means convincing, and Cicero in the Somnium 
 
 Scipionis, takes him to mean only a limited and by no means 
 
 endless duration. Indeed, immortality is quite beyond the 
 grasp of finite minds, and the immortality of the soul is by no 
 means susceptible of proof; but a belief in the soul's immor- 
 tality is not thereby precluded. 
 
 ^Plut. Peric, 8. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE OTHER WORLD AND THOSE WHO DWELT THERE 
 
 Since it was felt that the dead were in existence some- 
 
 where, we are prepared to find much speculation as to their 
 abode and companions. 
 
 But first a word should be said touching the journey of the 
 soul. The journey of the body ' to its last resting-place may 
 have affected the phraseology; but death as a journey is too 
 trite and too natural a figure to need justification or illustra- 
 tion.' It has been claimed 3 that the position of the body dur- 
 ing the prothesis, with its feet toward the door, was typical of *^ 
 
 this journey. When we remember that what testimony we 
 have from the monuments 4 goes to show that in the proces- 
 sion the body was carried head foremost, this position at the 
 prothesis would be full of significance, did we not reflect that 
 whatever fancies may have grown up later, both these posi-' 
 tions were the most natural and convenient for the purpose in 
 hand. In Homer the journey is but a crude instinct. The 
 souls, gibbering like bats, somehow flutter away to Erebus 5 
 
 Later, the likeness to birds becomes more apparent, assisted U 
 
 perhaps by such myths as that of Philomela, or the tradition 
 of the Memnonides.^ On a Sicilian vase in the British Mu- 
 seum,7 above the head of Procris, who is just slain by Cephalus, 
 
 ' ^^^.» 609-10 ; et al « Ale, 262-3 ; ei al oft. 
 
 ^Blumner: Leben u. Sitten, II, 76. 
 
 ^Baumeister, III, p. 1943; I, p. 727 ; Gardner and Jevons, p. 363. 
 
 *0^.,24: 1-14. «/'^«J., 10:31:6. 
 
 ''Millingen : Ined Mon., Ser. /, />/., 14. 
 
 if 
 
 111 
 
54 
 
 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY 
 
 [54 
 
 flies a bird with a human head. Some such idea may have 
 been in the mind of Theseus when he says ' of his unhappy 
 wife: 
 
 ■k7]6tjii' eg "Aidov Kpanrvov opfiijaaad fioi. 
 
 On the vases,* especially the Attic white lekythoi, above the 
 dead person or his stele frequently flies one or more little 
 black-winged creatures, generally held to be the soul of the 
 
 1^ departed ; while on a vase from Pikrodaphni, inside the mound 
 of a tomb four of these tiny beings are fluttering about.3 On 
 a black-figured amphora ^ of the Vlth century in the British 
 Museum, flying over a ship is the ghost of Patroclus furnished 
 with large wings like those of an eagle. A bird is also some- 
 times oflered s at a tomb or flies ^ over it. 
 
 This little soul, curiously enough, becomes confused with 
 the child Eros,7 and may be the prototype of the Nike- Eros « 
 
 which appears on late hero-chapel and Persephone vases. 
 The interesting question arises whether the dual meaning of 
 the word v^^a:^, soul and butterfly, had anything to do with the 
 attribution of wings to the soul ; but ^wx^ meaning butterfly is 
 not found in early writers, and may be a late development ; and 
 Passow tells us that its accent was possibly ■^ixn,'^ while Furt- 
 
 ^Hip., 828-9; Or., 674-6; E. Sup., 1142; O. 7!, 175-8; Ion, 796. 
 
 spottier: L. B., PL 4; Rayet et Collignon, pp. 233, 235 (figs. 86, 87); Roh. 
 inson : Cat. Gk. Vases, p. 165 ; Roscher : Lextkon, II, US©; ei al 
 
 » A then. Mitth., 16, p. 379. 
 
 * Gerhard: Auserl. Vasen., PI. 198 (l). 
 
 6 Pettier. ' L. B., PL 4, p. 146 (no. 49) ; Cat. Vases in Br. Mus., Ill, D 69; 
 IV, F 336. 
 
 » Hamilton Collection, III, 30 ; Cat. Vases in Br. Mus., IV, F 333. 
 
 ' Pottier : Z. B., PI. 2; Roscher, II, p. 1151 (fig). 
 
 8 Genick: Gr. Keratnik, PL 7 ; Milling en : I, M., I, /»/. 16; et aL 
 
 9 Passow: Worterbuch der gr. Sprache (1857), s. v. i/n>;t^, 3 and 5 ; see also 
 Liddell and ScoH, S. V. t^vxh- 
 
 55] 
 
 THE OTHER WORLD 
 
 55 
 
 wangler says that the earliest known representations of Psyche 
 that ,s m the Second and First centuries B. C, show h^; 
 with the wmgs of a bird and not those of a butterfly. On the 
 other hand, on a white lekythos in the British Museum^ from 
 Eretna, 420 B C, a youth is offering in a net something Zt 
 closely resembles a butterfly. And in a grave of Mycenae 
 there was found a miniature pair of scales of gold leaf, on one 
 of which was stamped the figure of a butterfly 3 
 
 But travelling with wings was not realistic enough for the 
 popular mmd- and just as the shadows of early demon! 
 worship faded, and the other world approxin^ated in fts fancied 
 appearance to this, so the modes of reaching it became m7re 
 hke the earthly methods of travel. In HoL, notXlT 
 
 Sv^r T^ "^7^" '""''-^ ^"^ '' '''' -cntionef rthe 
 
 ct if and 7a ."^"'' ""^^^ ""^^'^^^^^ ^"^^"^ the lower 
 classes and worked ,ts way up into literature • for though 
 firmty established in the Vlth centu^^,^ neither A^lZsnor 
 Sophocles makes any clear allusion to it 
 
 wotTal'^dTn^'^"^^'^"'' "' ^^.Wd.... the fer^^ of 
 by a 'chts of sS^^^^^^ ''''''-' ''''-''- ^ -' ^-t -^-^^ 
 
 kalev6l''Axhovr^;iel0eTac 
 rav vaiaroAov fieMyKpoKov ^eopiSa, 
 Tdv aoTi(Brf '7r62,7u^i^ rav dvdTuov, 
 rrdvSoKov elg a<pav7j te x^paov 
 
 • Numbered V u , ™ ' "'■ ^^'^■' "• ^'3-4, but no refs. 
 
 ,c > ■ . ' isountas and Manatt d ioc 
 
 •Souk without winps- M«n r.,.j ti n """> P- '^S- 
 
 If'/,^"'' '■ "■ ^'"""'»' »'S>'i>-.g from Paus. lo : 28: 2. 
 ^ ■«>«.«-.• Z.i?., p. 44, ^,„fs. 
 
 4?.. .558 ; .r««l. .. ford " by Vcrratl. • Sip., 856-60. 
 
eg DEA TH AND BURIAL IN A TTIC TRA GED V [55 
 
 On the Dipylon monumental vases often appears a ship,' 
 which is variously interpreted, but which, together with the 
 tombstone relief of the warrior Democlides," may well have 
 had some reference to this ^eupk of souls, and this sacred ves- 
 sel in its turn to that other which in legendary times carried 
 the sorrowful Cretan sacrifice, and during whose annual ab- 
 sence no condemned soul might be sent forth from earth.3 
 In Euripides we hear not only of the voyage,* but of Charon 
 
 himself with his boat,s which is always a rowboat, 
 
 rdv & dvdaTi/jxrv riicvcjv 
 Xdpuvog lirtfiivei iz^Ara. 
 
 Though the boat is often called two-oared,^ on the vases the 
 ferryman stands holding but one oar,^ or rather pole, Kovr<5f,* 
 much as the ferryman of to-day does on the shallow English 
 rivers. In the Alcestis 9 he is a rude, impatient fellow, appear- 
 ing before the eyes of the dying lady, with Thanatos instead 
 of with his usual companion Hermes, and calling to her 
 to hasten. The obolos for his vavkov '° is not mentioned by any 
 of the Tragedians, and by the testimony of the cemeteries " 
 was of very rare occurrence in early and classical Attica. 
 
 But since for the living the most natural mode of travel was 
 by land, on foot or horseback, in this way too the dead were 
 generally pictured as journeying to their distant home ; and 
 Hermes," 
 
 Kfi^v^ liiyiare rwv dvu re /cat Karcj^ 
 
 * Brueckner und Pernice^ pp. I52-3. * Conze^ PI. 122. 
 
 » PI. Phaedo, 58 a, b. *Z A.^ 667-9; H. M., 427. 
 
 ^ H. M.^ 431-2- ^Alc, 252, 444 ; Paus., 10 : 28: I. 
 
 ^ Alc.^ 361 ; Dumont et Chaplain : Or.y I, 11. 34 ; Baumeistir^ I, p. 378 \ 
 Gardner: Sc. Tombs He I., p. 31 ; Pottier : L, B., PI. 3; Lecuyer : Terres 
 Cuites Ant., I, PL T2. 
 
 » Ale, 254 ; et al. » Ale, 252-6. 
 
 ^^ Lucian : De Luctu, 9. " Brueckner u. Pernice, pp. 1 87-8. 
 
 *' Cho.f 165 (placed after 123 in IVeiPs text). 
 
 THE OTHER WORLD 
 
 57] 
 
 was both protector of travellers and guide of departing souls ' 
 H.searhest office in this latter connection, was that of Ser 
 .litTJ '°t '" "°'""" ^'"" ' '""^ >^^t libations bSe 
 
 rsi:;si:s;:^°"'^^^ onhi. Aiascansato .„n hi. t: 
 
 kjoKu S" dua 
 nofiTcalov ^^pfifp, xUv'lov ei fie Koifiiaar 
 
 and probably the line/ 
 
 <^^ TOl KlKlfjOKQ Tbv aUwTTVOV 
 
 is addressed to him, if aU^^s rather than „;,„._« be the 
 correct reading. In the late twenty-fourth book' of the 
 Ojlyssey, when Sleep and Death have 'become re::gni/ed a 
 bro hers, Hermes uses his sleep-inducing wand to lead the 
 Tewr *'' ^"'f - ^Hades . and becomes their gu!de and 
 
 comes ;r;J\ T-P'""'' ^^ ^"'■^^' """^^^ -«, he 
 comes w th Persephone to lead away the soul,' or with Hades 
 
 receives .t ; O a„d to meet Hermes is to die, 
 
 as was said of the slain Nisus- It is he who with the other 
 chthoman gods brings or sends up the shades" and with them 
 or m the.r stead helps to vengeance for murder " 
 
 Ihe question arises whether the Chthonian Hermes is 
 
 "s, but m the Tragedians, the evidence seems to be that he is 
 - see -~.., pp. 99-100. for epithets of Hermes in the T^^edians. 
 >T'I ' '* ' "^5 ' '*' ""'"""'• "I- ^' ^93 and refe. 
 
 ■^t.f 031—2. . _ 
 
 8 zr ' ^' ^'* ^578; see below. 
 
 ff«^a„„ (,827), MUcA,ll (,S^), Wunder (,832), rf al. 
 
 edJr^' (18..), aHH, (.8.3). Sc^„.i^ (.8.6). i./„^^„ (.859), and n.ost 
 
 'Od y ,.,0; see C. Perrot: S,l. d. la Mori, p. ,08, n. 
 O. C, i547_8. ,^ 
 
 " i-to., 622. 11 ^, , _ 
 
 „^^ "at;., 124.6; Per., 620. 
 
 cho., i_2, 727 J s, ^/., ,10-8; Cho,, 124-7. 
 
 m 
 
58 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGED\ [58 
 
 not. In the latter, Hermes, son of Maia, is once invoked,^ 
 not however as x^^^oq or 'Koin^bq, but for the quite earthly pro- 
 tection of Orestes in his wily scheme of vengeance ; while the 
 Hermes of the dead is almost always designated by one of 
 these epithets.' Plato 3 makes Socrates, when about to die, 
 speak of going Trapa ^^ubq hX-kfvqy as if a different set of gods existed 
 in the other world ; and furthermore, on a red-figured stamnos* 
 in the Vatican we find both forms of HermeS together, the 
 Olympian and the Chthonian, engaged in conversation. In view 
 of this, the Yaq 'Koi KoL Tapr&pov^ may very well be the god whose 
 function is to fly forever between earth and Hades ; he it is 
 who, as the Argus-slayer, could most readily still the fierce 
 Cerberus, and as god of sleep could give eternal sleep ; and 
 lastly, since Hermes tto/zttoc and /} veprkpa ^edg are supposed to be 
 standing close at hand (1. 1 548), and the prayer begins to the 
 latter (1. 1556), not only would the final invocation to Hermes 
 
 complete the chiastic arrangement so dear to the Greek heart, 
 but there would, on the other hand, be something very strange, 
 after calling upon all the chief x^6vioi, in omitting Hermes, one 
 of the most important, and one who, besides, is supposed to 
 be present. That the lines could not be addressed to Thanatos*^ 
 is clear from the fact that he has a different genealogy, that he 
 is never called upon in the Tragedians to give sleep, that he 
 apparently never himself descends into Hades and therefore 
 
 would have nothing to do with the dog, and that the miracu- 
 lous departure of Oedipus would make a prayer to Thanatos 
 singularly inappropriate. 
 
 On the sepulchral reliefs 7 and vases,^ the dead man is often 
 
 » S. El, 1395-7. *See refe. above. » PI Phoido, 63b. 
 
 * Gerhard: Auserl. Vasen., PI. 240 (i) ; see (2) also. 
 
 6 O, C-., 1574-8- 
 
 •The Scholiasts are divided as to who is meant; see MitcheWs Sophocles 
 (1844), note to 11. 1574, 1578. For Thanatos see below, p. 65 If. 
 
 1 Come, ri. 90, 92 (no. 380), 131 (no. 682), et al. 
 
 « FasseHi, II, 182 ; Hamilton Col., II, 15 ; III, 33 ; *' ^^• 
 
 59] ^^^ OTHER WOKLD 
 
 59 
 
 represented in the hat and cloak of a traveller, sometimes with ^ 
 the addition of spear and shield,' and occasionally accompanied 
 by his htde slave to carry them, a motif that clearly points to 
 the journey of death with its attendant dangers. Beside the 
 youth often stands his horse,' which further emphasizes the 
 journey he ,s to take, and is, like the traveller's hat and cloak 
 ma measure a symbol of death. The horse in its chthonian 
 
 relations played a large part on the tombstone reliefs of the 
 Spartans; 3 and a favorite Homeric - epithet for Hades was 
 ^6..^, Hades of the goodly steeds, probably with reference 
 to the rape of Persephone. Demeter, too, in her Eleusinian, 
 that IS, her chthonian character, in Arcadia is closely con- 
 nected with horses.s Pausanias^ gives the legendao^ account 
 of the burial of two horses with Marmax; and Euripides ^ 
 speaks of the sacrifice of a horse at the tomb as an Egyptian 
 
 custom. We remember the horses slain at the p^re of 
 
 Patroclus;3 and the bones of horses have been found in early 
 graves.. All of which shows that the horse was the animal ^ 
 
 s r dLT '"'■^ *' "■^"*- ™" '"'"'>' «>"-'«' 
 
 There is one whole series of monuments" of a little later 
 date, m which horses play a conspicuous part, the lar^e 
 funeral vases of the IVth century adorned with the so-callfd 
 marriage scenes, in which the bride and groom are tj^pified by 
 
 by Persephone and Hades. It is more likely however that 
 ' ^<^««^ PI' 49. ^% (no. 366), 93. 147 (no. 627), ./ al. 
 
 26^7Zf'""'' '''' "'' ^^"''^^'^ ^'''•'"'^^^ ^---^ "' '90; III, 
 » Furtw&ngler, in Athen. Mitth., 1882. 
 
 *//., 5 : 654, et al; see Autenrieth's Homeric Dictionary, s. v. 
 • Pans., 8 : 25 : 4, 7-10 ; 8 : 42. • Paus., 6 : 21 : 7. 
 
 "^ Hel., i2c8. 8 T7 
 
 ' ^ •-^-^.»23: 171-2. 
 
 Tsounias and Manatt, p. 152, et al. 
 '" The « Apulian Vases " of the IVth century. 
 
6o ^^A TH AND B URJAL IN A TTIC TRA GED Y [6o 
 
 the carrying away of the soul by death is intended. For 
 some reason, perhaps because of the migration from one 
 home to another implied in both, perhaps because of the con- 
 trast between the marriage festivity and the funeral mournful- 
 ness, perhaps because of some forgotten mysticism reaching 
 back into barbaric times, the Greeks were fond of coupling 
 marriage and death together. To give avrl yanoio rd(j)av is a 
 favorite threat in the Odyssey;^ and Diomedes' taunt to the 
 amorous Paris » that he should have " more birds than women 
 around him," and the sad remarks concerning the slain, that 
 " they were lying upon the earth much dearer to vultures 
 than to their wives," both point by irony to death as a sort of 
 marriage. In Dipylon times we find the loutrophoros — an 
 amphora with a long neck and tall handles especially conse- 
 crated to carrying water for the bridal bath— appearing in 
 
 great numbers upon tombs, and having always a marriage or 
 a funeral scene painted upon it.-* A funeral scene on a mar- 
 riage vessel would have been of evil omen ; « consequently vases 
 thus adorned must have been intentionally prepared for the 
 tomb, and the presumption is strong that those with wedding 
 scenes were made for the same purpose. And since these are 
 the only two sorts of scenes hitherto discovered, it naturally 
 follows that wedding scenes must have been considered pecu- 
 liarly appropriate as a variant for funeral scenes, and therefore 
 
 full of meaning. Loutrophoroi on tombs were common at all 
 periods in Athens;^ and in Demosthenes' time had apparently 
 become the sign that the deceased was unmarried.^ That this 
 however could not always have been its general signification 
 on Athenian tombs, we must conclude from the inscriptions ^ 
 
 1 O^., 20 : 307 ; gf al. * //., " : 395- 
 
 s //.^ 1 1 : 161-2. * Collignon^ in Amer. Jour. ArcA.^Xy p. 407. 
 
 6 See above, p. 22. • Brueckncr u. Pernice, pp. 145-6. 
 
 » Demos.y 1086, 18; if the reading and our understanding of it be correct. 
 •C. /. ^., II, 3» 1731- 
 
 61] TI/B OTHER WORLD ^ 
 
 and reliefs on the tombstones themselves. For instance one 
 stele' shows a loutrophoros between two sphinxes, and above 
 a relief representing two men, both named, apparently father 
 and son. On another, a stone loutrophoros,' we find in the 
 relief three men, one of them quite old, and a woman all 
 named, apparently a family group. On still another,3 there is 
 
 an elderly man clasping the hand of a young lady; the differ- 
 ence in their ages makes the relationship of brother and sister 
 unhkely; the lady must be either the wife or the daughter of 
 the man. On another stele 4 we find what is certainly a family 
 group: a lady sitting with her child beside her clasping the 
 hand of her husband who is dressed for a journey while 
 behind him stands his old father; below is a Siren beating her 
 head, while at the bottom is a loutrophoros whose lip and 
 handles were probably painted. All of these and many 
 similar ones are from the Vth and IVth centuries at Athens 
 In the Tragedians the connecting of marriage and death 
 becomes veiy marked. Not only is the dwelling of the dead 
 frequently referred to as ^d^^or, " bridal chamber," or ;..^dc 
 which IS almost invariably the women's apartments, but 
 Antigone calls her tomb,5 6 w^^eiov, " bridal chamber," and says 
 she will be married to Acheron^ (here standing for Hades) 
 ^Axip<n^cvvfu^evau; Creon advises 7 Haemon to let r^ ^azd' h ^AcSov 
 
 Tiv6e W,j(l>skiv TLvi But to whom did he refer as rcvi ? Certainly 
 not to his son, though we might infer that the latter was the 
 groom from the messenger's words s a little later, when he 
 nnds him dead beside Antigone, 
 
 rd WjLupiKo, 
 rklTi "hixlav 6eDmloq elv "Aidov 66/iotg. 
 
 1 Conze, PI, 214 (no. 1074). 
 
 ' <^^«w, PI, 56 (no. 208). 
 ^Ant,, 891. 
 
 M«/., 654; ffec.,612. 
 
 * Contt, Pi. 130 (no. 728). 
 
 *Cm^, /y. 94(no. 383). 
 M«/., 816; /. A., 1399. 
 
 ^Ant., 1240-I ; Tro., 445; Med., 985. 
 
62 
 
 DBATU ANV ttVKiAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY 
 
 [62 
 
 Hi 
 
 The bridegroom was Hiidcs : 
 
 Agamemnon xayi' of his daughter; and Uter* he exclaims, 
 
 w^ffrrr^^vtt bcing thc technical term for giving in marriage and $0 
 employed by Polyxene.J 'Jah w/Mmdt'^ kfth 6i^, Such expres- 
 siort-s were used not merely of maidens but of married women 
 as well; *AUvr ptpf^fT nrxrxfdv^, sdys Pyladei* of Helen; and they 
 were used even of men, for Megara, after naming the brides 
 she would have chosen for her sons, continues: 
 
 ifioi ^ 46k(i%iq XBVTf>6' dtcrpioc ^po^. 
 
 I Iccatc, as was filling at the soul-marriage, carried the torch ; 
 
 says Cassandra.^ The myrtle, too, which was especially sacred 
 to Aphrodite, belonged equally to death, and was laid 00 
 graves ; ' and Aphrodite herself had a close connection with 
 tombs and the underworld.* The later epigrams m the An- 
 thalifgy^ have much that is pathetic to say about the bride of 
 HadcJi ; but wc have an early Attic inscription,'® one from the 
 Vltli century, tK;»t is instructive : 
 
 iyrl yifu^ itafA 4tAi¥ f»&f» A^JTOli^ 4m|^ 
 
 She was to be called Kore forever. Now Korc, the Maid, wa$ 
 
 »///r.. 36S. 
 
 »//. if.,48o-4i Ant,, 1204-5. 
 
 •^^mrmrit^ II, p. 652; r«A. on p(K 754, 653, ^99. 
 ♦ ^lattm* Amlh^g:); Bk. VII, B^ 13, iSa, // a/. 
 
 • ^Tr^., 32J-4. 
 
 ^JCaiM.^ 
 
 63] ^-^-^ Oyy/iSfA- WORLD gj 
 
 the £avorite name for the mystic bride of Hades, oft-received, 
 snatched away unwilling from the bright earth to his gloomy 
 abode. We are hardly going too fer when we *ec in Kore the 
 type, the mystic representation of every departed .soul. If this 
 be so, at once the connection between marriage and death be- 
 
 comes clear and fitting, and the loutrophoros with its wedding 
 scenes finds its mast cnduringly appropriate place upon tlie 
 tomb. The magnificent Apulian vases* mentioned abov^ 
 probably served the same purpose and were manufactured 
 with Uiis end in view. They are large and heavy amphorae 
 with a weaitJi of adornment ; and tJiough they present a great 
 variety of .Mibjectj, it is likely that all refer more or les» 
 directly to death. Many represent the ** deified dead " stand- 
 ing or sitting inside a small heroon,* ^mctimes with the at- 
 tribute or name of i?omc hero attiicKcd. while. outi»klc. friends 
 are bringing offerings of all sorts. Other* repr^wjnt daily 
 occupations, a w^^ frequent on tombstone reliefs and the white 
 lekythoi. But many are of the so-called marriage scenes.J 
 The general scheme is the four-horse chariot \\\ which stands 
 I fades with one arm around Persephone, who turns to bid 
 tirewdl to her mother; Hermes and, frequently, Dionysus ac- 
 company the chariot, and Hecate awaits it witli torches. 
 Sometimes Nike-Eros flics above. Tlicsc, as we have seen, all 
 c>ccc|>t possibly the last, belong to the chthonian cycle, and it 
 is much more natural and Hellenic to sec in these a variation 
 of the scheme of the " deified dead," than the ai)otheosis of 
 some human wedding, which could far better be typified by 
 an Olympian or heroic bridal, than by that of the sinister 
 powers of decay and oblivion. Of rarer occurrence, but con- 
 
 » The rmot colle^tioo of (hew is in (ik. Vaw Poem 4 of Br, Mac, 
 
 -Mom. uui^^ su /V. 4« ^/ ^ifh^m ,^ in^. iV.„., I, lAi /:^4.-7, 
 Auuri, K.,,^^., yy. ^ ^.j^ ^,, ,^^^^ ^,. ^,^ ,.W4*f./, n Jll (I illll ii)r 
 
I 
 
 III 
 
 .! 
 
 m 
 
 64 
 
 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY 
 
 [64 
 
 veying the same fundamental idea is the carrying away ' of 
 
 the soul of Herakles by Athene, or of a youth by Nike ; ' or 
 even, by Laius, of Chrysippus,3 whose early and pathetic death 
 would make his abduction an especially appropriate subject. 
 And, still more in point, on a late vase we find Nike driving 
 
 through the air in her four-horse chariot, met by Hermes and 
 a youth, apparently the soul of the dead boy whom a lady sit- 
 ting below amid her friends, is holding in her arms.* 
 
 But among the populace, whose tendency is always to make 
 things concrete, Persephone stood out as a distinct figure. 
 In Homeric times, befitting the age, she is gloomy, the august, 
 ayavfi UepaeipdvEia, who sends up ghosts, ddwAa,^ and takes under- 
 standing from the dead.^ Hers is the grove of the sad wil- 
 lows and poplars/ and it was from fear of her that Odysseus 
 
 at last hurriedly departed from Hades.^ On the Dipylon 
 tombs, the house of the dead is hers, dcjfxa UepaetpdvTj^j* koivw Uepae- 
 ip&vrjq irdaiv i^^^c ^dXafKyv.^^ Likewise in the Tragedians, she receives 
 V the dead," who are hers by lot," and she has the power to send 
 them back if she wishes.*3 To her Electra prays for help in 
 vengeance,'* and it is to her that Macaria is offered/^ But 
 though dread and powerful, she is not — perhaps owing to the 
 influence of the Mysteries — a repulsive being ; on the contrary, 
 
 Euripides*^ calls her Kalliirmc avaaea and TCLv xpvco(jTS(i>avmf KSpav] and 
 to her in common with her mother the narcissus and crocus '7 
 were sacred.'^ 
 
 1 Mon. Ined.y IV, Fl. 41 j et al.^ oft. By Nike, Passerii^ III, 276. 
 
 2 De la Borde : Col. des Vases Gr.y I, PI. 75; £t al. 
 8 Gerhard: Ap. Vasenb., PI. 6. 
 
 * Passer iiy III, 274. 
 ^Od., 10: 494-5- 
 8 O^., 1 1 : 634-5. 
 
 ioA7wM,3S.11.3-4. 
 
 " Or., 963-4. 
 
 »* Cho., 490. 
 
 ^' Or.y 964; 7<?«, 1085. 
 
 6 Od.^ II: 213. 
 ' Od.y 10: 509-11. 
 » Kum.j 426. 
 
 »M«/., 893-4; i4/f., 851-2; a c, 1547-8. 
 
 " H/ie., 962-5 I Ale, 357-9. 
 ** Her.f 408-9, 600-1. 2 
 " O. C, 681-5. 
 
 ^* See Iwanowitsch^ pp. 93-5, for epithets of Persephone. 
 
 65] THE OTHER WORLD g- 
 
 The name of Hades is of frequent occurrence whether as a 
 god or a place. But first let us consider Thanatos, a sort of 
 double or offshoot of Hades, or rather of Hermes. That he 
 had no altars and received no gifts, 
 
 \mo(; i^€Qv yap Odvaro^ ov 66pmf epg, 
 
 ovS" av Ti -d^vuv ovd' knianivduv dvfof, 
 ovtT ioTi PcjfiSg, ov6e Traiavl^erai,^ 
 
 shows that he was not a true cult god, but only a myth ; as 
 Buchholz^* says, a personification " not of lifelessness but of the 
 departure from life to death." In Homer the personification 
 is only beginning,3 and finds its highest form in the beautiful 
 picture of Sleep and Death bearing away Sarpedon's body.* In 
 the Tragedians we find the personification complete; and as 
 
 Charon the rude ferryman, boorish and unkempt, is the death- 
 myth of the populace, so Thanatos, the gentle physician, the 
 all-powerful healer, is the death-myth of the cultured classes. 
 When Asklepios, for meddling with the latter's prerogatives of 
 destruction, was slain by Zeus,5 it would seem as if some of the 
 virtue of the a/ivfwvog ivrvpog^ had descended on his victorious rival : 
 
 0) edvare Uaidv, fir] fi dTifiT^ayg fidXeiv^ 
 fidvog yap el (W rav dvTjKearuv naKuv 
 larpd^^ aXyog 6' ovdh anrerai veKpov, 
 
 says Aeschylus ;7 and Sophocles : « 
 
 a?i?,' icr&^ 6 ■&dvaTog ?Af)aTog larpbg voaurv 
 
 and Eunpides,9 
 
 Kai fWL edvarog Jlaidv IWoi. 
 
 Macaria '° claims: 
 
 rh yap ^avelv 
 Kanaif fihyujTov (pdpfxoKov vofii^erai. 
 
 U 
 
 ^A.fr. i6Z,Herm. 
 
 *//., 16: 853. 
 ^Alc, 3-4, 122-9. 
 ^ A.fr. 250. 
 
 •^»>-> 1373- 
 
 ^Buchhoh, III. a., 317-8. 
 * //., 16; 454. 
 
 « Il.y 4 : 194. 
 8 S. fr. 636. 
 w^y^r., 595-6. 
 
ill 
 
 66 
 
 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY 
 
 [66 
 
 ^7'\ 
 
 THE OTHER WORLD 
 
 67 
 
 Aias' in mental anguish calls upon him, 
 
 <1) Odvare 6dyare, vvv /z' ETriaKeipai fwXSv , 
 
 and likewise Philoctetes,' when tortured with bodily pain, 
 
 d -Odvare ^dvare^ ttq^ del Kah)i)fievo^ 
 
 while the Chorus ^ in Oedipus at Colonus call him the helper 
 
 of all alike, b S tmKovpog laoriXearog. 
 
 The Thanatos of the Alcestis^ is not at all the true Thanatos 
 of the poets and the inscriptions, but a stage-villain introduced 
 to be worsted by the hero Herakles. The motif of the play 
 required some such character, and neither Hades, Hermes nor 
 Charon was appropriate. Thanatos alone remained, and in 
 
 one respect was eminently fitted for this part; since his work,, 
 unlike that of the others, does not take him into the lower 
 world, but, like that of his brother Hypnus, has to do with the 
 body rather than with the soul.5 Many things show this. On 
 the vases we never find him pictured in lower world scenes,, 
 nor in company with Hades or Charon, but sometimes with 
 Hermes,^ with whose office he was closely associated; he is 
 generally employed, alone ^ or with his brother Hypnus, in 
 carrying away the dead^ or in laying them in the grave.^ 
 
 There is nothing in either Homer or the Tragedians that does 
 not accord with this. In the Alcestis he is the priest of the 
 
 1 Ai.y 854. 
 
 ' Phil.y 797-^. Why Dindorf ^fx.% not use capitals here as in the previously 
 quoted passage is not clear. 
 
 ' O. C, 1220-3. ^Alc.^ 28-71. 
 
 ^ Buchholzy III. a, 317, classes him as epichthonian. 
 
 ^Gerhard: Anserl. Vasen.^ PL 121 ; Dumont et Chaplain: Ctr. Gr. Pr.y 
 1,27. 
 
 ' Br. Mus. Gk. Vase E 463, Kantharos from Nola, 400 B. C. (Rare.) 
 
 ^Jahrbuch des Inst.y 1895, ^^' 2; Gerhard: Anserl. Vasen., PI. 121 ; et al. 
 
 ^Dumont et Chaplain: Cir. Gr. Pr.^ I, PL 27, 29; Robert: Thanatos, 
 PL 1,2; et aLf frequent 
 
 dead,' hpfj ^avdvruv, who shears their locks with the sword, the 
 servant appointed* Kreiveiv bv dv xpv- Qdvarog ^vfzopaioT^g, Homer3 
 calls him. In the Tragedians he carries the bodies to rest,* 
 MvaTog TTfxxpipuv a^fiara riKvuv^ and lays them in the tomb s 
 
 and a pre- Persian inscription reads,^ 
 
 dv iddvaroc [SaKpvjdeic ica^ixec. 
 
 Being to so great a degree a divinity of the upper world, it was 
 quite within the bounds of poetic possibility that Herakles 
 should meet and wrestle with him. He expects, with good rea- 
 son, to find him hovering around the tomb 7 to drink the blood, 
 and it is only if unsuccessful with him, that he proposes follow- 
 ing Alcestis to Hades and rescuing her thence, where she is out 
 of the hands of Thanatos and in those of Persephone.^ But as 
 the common conception of Thanatos was too dim and ill- defined 
 for stage purposes, Euripides gives him a rough and boorish 
 character, like that of Charon, but with wings and a sword, 
 and brings him on the stage hallooing and swaggering, vaunting 
 his power as a priest, but owning himself a servant, and by his 
 ill-bred lack of feeling and greedy avarice richly meriting the 
 
 contempt and dislike that Apollo bestows upon him. Robert 
 says 9 that when Alcestis sees him, she sees some one but does 
 not know who it is. Rather, she stes two daemons and recog- 
 nizes them both very clearly, Charon the boatman, who 
 stands at his oar and calls to her ; ^° and the " black-browed, 
 winged Hades," who leads her away and by his presence 
 darkens her eyes "—both offices of Hermes. In this last we 
 see the triple character which the Alcestian Thanatos bears : 
 that of Hermes who gives sleep to the eyes and leads the 
 
 * Ale, 25, 74-6. 
 
 ' 0. t:, 942. 
 
 8/l/r.,8so-3. 
 
 'M/f., 259-63,47, 268-^. 
 
 » Ale, 49. 8 //., 13 : 544. 4 J/^a'., 1 1 1 1. 
 
 ^RTaibel, 15, 1. 2. t Ale, 843-5, "42. 
 
 ^Robert: Thanatos, p. 35. ^^Alc, 252-6. 
 
68 
 
 DEA TH AND BURIAL IN A TTIC TRA GED Y 
 
 w 
 
 [68 
 
 soul away ; ' that of "Kcdaq in" 6<ppvai KvavavyeoL ^Unuw^ and that of 
 Thanatos himself, indicated by the wing^s, TrrEfH^dq, which he 
 wears as Saifidvuv r^ Koipdvif),^ for though the daemons are often 
 winged, the great gods are never so.3 Nowhere in the Alcestis 
 is Charon confused with Thanatos, but wherever mentioned ^ 
 
 he keeps his own place as ferryman, while Thanatos takes 
 the part usually assigned on the vases ^ to the Chthonian 
 Hermes, who, by the way, is mentioned only once in this 
 drama, where with Hades in the lower world he receives 
 Alcestis.^ 
 
 Thanatos, then, as we have seen, heals the ills of life by 
 releasing the soul from the body ; Hermes is guardian and 
 guide on the strange and untried journey; and Charon, re- 
 placing the latter in Euripides, ferries the souls across the 
 river of death. 
 
 The true god of the dead was Hades ; his was the house 
 ^where they dwelt,7 his the realm through which they wandered.^ 
 He was the receiver of the dead,9 veKpodFyfiovoq^ the treasurer of 
 souls,'° ra//taf, to whom in fierce irony Aias sends his sword also." 
 Because of his greed he is called 0(5viof," and death is compared 
 to a net,'3 as if like a fisherman or a hunter he goes about seek- 
 ing whom he may ensnare ; and only rarely and grudgingly 
 
 ^ See above, p. 56 fF. ^ Alc.^ 1140. 
 
 ' Robert : T^anatos^ p. 34, quotes Kaibel^ 89, 1. 4, as the only other place in 
 which Hades is called winged. 
 
 *^/^., 361,439-41. 
 
 ^ Benndorf: Gr, u. Sic, Vasend., PL 27. i; Lecuyer : Terres Cuites Ant.t I, 
 PI. T2 ; et al. 
 
 ^Alc.f 743-^.; the only place in Eur. where he is mentioned, Iwan.^ p. 100. 
 
 ' Ant.y 804 ; et al.y oft.; iv or cf "Afdov is very common. 
 
 * Hades is the name in the Tragedians for the ivhole realm of the dead. 
 
 ® Pro.y 153 ; Trach.f 1085 ; et al., oft. See Rokde, p. 192. 
 
 w Kaibel, 35b. " Ai., 658-60. 
 
 " O. C, 1688 ; often. " Med., 986-7 ; Bac, 958 ; et al. 
 
 69] THE OTHER WORLD c^ 
 
 does he let a soul return to earth." He is supreme in his own 
 land, where he rules even x^^px, ^eOv,^ t^^i^ 5,^^ ^Id...^,* paadev r 
 kvtp<^v*' 6 napd rbv 'A^epovra ^e6^.^ There he examines concerning 
 deeds done in the body :^ 
 
 fdyag yap 'Aidrig karlv Mwo^ Pfmuv 
 SeXroypa^ 6e it&vt erroTrg, <f>pevr 
 
 and like another Zeus judges crimes .-7 
 
 KOKel diKd^ei TdjurrXaK^fia^', ug Myog 
 Zevg dAJlof ev Kafwvaiv vardTOQ dUac 
 
 but he justifies the innocent,^ Acdc vsKpor. c<^ripo,. Plato,9 as well as 
 Pindar and Orpheus,- insists on judgments, but gives them 
 over into the hands of Rhadamanthys and Minos, of whom the 
 
 Tragedians say nothing;" while Homer" gives them, as far 
 as they go, to the Erinyes, who in the Tragedians '3 are only 
 helpers of Hades, as was the nether Dike '* presumably. A 
 IVth century inscription's mentions Sophrosyne as Hades' 
 daughter. 
 
 In Homer, Hades is a dread and mysterious power,'« but 
 loses dignity when he becomes anthropomorphic.'^ He was V 
 never a cult god,'^ except in Elis where he had once rendered 
 service in some mythological battle.'9 Though properly 
 
 1 Per., 649-51, w. 689-90 J et at. 
 
 » O. C, 1559-60. 
 
 ^S. El., 184. 
 
 M. Sup.y 230-1 ; O. C, 1606. 
 
 »/»/. ^<;>., II, 366a. 
 
 " Except Cyc, 273-4, which is not to the point. 
 "/A, 19 ; 259-60; see above, p. 47, with n.3. 
 " See below, p. 76 ff. " Ant., 451-2. 
 
 ''Od., 11: 21^- 11,^ y, 845,654;^/ a/. 
 
 "^/., 20: 61-5 5 5: 395-7 i ^f «/. See BuchhoU, III. a, 329-35, for the 
 Homeric Hades; iTvanoTvitsch, pp. 90-3 for epithets in Homer and the Trage- 
 
 "^Rohdi,^. 11^. ^^ Pans., 6: 25: 2. 
 
 * Hec.y 2. 
 
 * Per., 629. 
 *Eum., 273-5. 
 
 " Ro^<^^f pp. 566 ff., 420 ff , 500 ff 
 
 " RTaibel, 34. 
 
i 
 
 III 
 
 
 70 
 
 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY 
 
 [70 
 
 aaTvavdog,^ prayers * were made to him ; and we hear in a poetic 
 or ironic way, of his songs 3 and dances.* The dead were his 
 victims; 5 and Clytaemnestra gave Agamemnon the third blow 
 as a votive offering to him.^ Like Hermes he is sometimes 
 
 called upon to send the sleep of death ; ^ 
 
 evvacov evvaaov oiKtrntTtji, fji6p<fi 
 Tov jueXeov <f>^iaag' 
 
 and: 
 
 .8 
 
 eWe fJLE Koifiiaeie rbv Svadaifiov* 
 'Atdov fieTiatva v^Krepd^ r* avdyKa- 
 
 but it will be seen that this is done through agents, uKinriTtn /i6p(^ 
 and avdyKaf which very probably stand for Hermes. In another 
 
 instance we find him sending death by the sword given to 
 Aias, and for this Teucer calls him the fierce workman.^ 
 
 Hades, then, in the Tragedians is an autocrat with unlimited 
 sway in his own dominion, greedy of sovereignty, but just in 
 the exercise of his power, never appearing on earth, but trans- 
 acting his business there by means of his ministers. 
 
 The whole realm of the dead was called Hades, or the house 
 of Hades. Neither Homer '° nor the Tragedians were very 
 
 sure whether it was situated below the ground or in the ex- 
 treme west. The favorite Homeric term is Erebus," a word of 
 Semitic origin and meaning " evening " or " west," but rather 
 rare in the Tragedians," showing that it had no strong hold on 
 the language. The earliest native Greek idea was probably 
 
 1 Ale, 424. 
 
 ».s>/., 868-9; -£• ^^', 145; ^^«/- 
 
 ^AIc, 25-6, 74-6; H. M.f 451-3. 
 ' Trac/i»f 1040-2. 
 
 a a C, 1558-64; f/al 
 
 * E. Sup., 75. 
 
 ^Ag., 1385-7; Phom., 1575-6. 
 
 8 ^j))., 1387-8. 
 
 « Ai.y 1035. 
 
 " Od., II : I-I2; //., 20: 61-2 ; see Buchholz, I. a, 49-52, 33^-8. 
 
 *i //., 16 : 327 ; et al., oft. 
 
 " Or.f 176 • et al.; Iwanowitsch^ p. 89. 
 
 71] THE OTHER WORLD ^j 
 
 that the land of the dead was underground, as we may judge 
 from the great " beehive " tombs built for them there, and from 
 the fact that there was^ no consistency in orienting the dead, 
 either in the Mycenaean age,' or in Dipylon or classical times 
 
 in Athens.' As all existing hero- chapels, beginning with the 
 
 famous Harpy Tomb, open to the west, and the lonians we 
 know were noted for burying the dead so that they might look 
 toward the setting sun,3 it seems likely that these eastern 
 Greeks borrowed the idea from some of their non-Hellenic 
 neighbors and passed it on to their brethren. Homer, because 
 of his Ionian feeling, elaborated this theory most, and perhaps, 
 also, because it was new ; but the old was stiU strong in men's 
 minds. The Tragedians speak of Hades as kanipov ^tovf' but 
 h Kara x^woq 'kiSag IS a much more common term ; « under Orphic 
 influence there is an inclination to place the abode of souls in 
 the upper air.^ As we have seen,7 this realm is not a pleasant 
 place, but secret,^ dark,9 full of groans,^° vague and dreadful. 
 
 But the Periclean Greeks were not without descriptions of 
 the land of the dead from the hands of the poets. They had 
 not only the Odyssey but the more specialized epics of the 
 Minyad and the Nosti^"^ the former of which, Pausanias " teUs 
 us, Polygnotus followed in general in his great painting at the 
 
 Lesche. These descriptions appealed to the imagination 
 rather than to the belief of the people ; as is evident from the 
 fact that Aristophanes in the Frogs adheres to them much 
 more closely than do the Tragedians. Still, some such gen- 
 
 * Tsountas and Manatt, pp. 97, 89. 
 
 ' Brueckner u. Pernice, see Plan of the Cemetery. 
 
 ' ^/«A Solon, 10. * O. T, 178. Cf. kvwxiow&va^ O. C, 1559. 
 
 » PAoen., 810 ; At., 571;^/ al. « See above, p. 26. 
 
 ''See atx>ve, p. 15. 8 o. C, 1552; et a/., oft. 
 
 * ^i., 394 ; ei at., oft. >« JVo., 433 ; et at. 
 
 " For fragments of these see Kinkel: Epic. Graec. Frag., pp. 215-7, 52-6. 
 " Pans., 10 : 28 : 7. 
 
il 
 
 
 I ^1 
 
 ' ! 
 
 ' i 
 
 I 1 
 
 72 I>^A TH AND B URIAL IN A TTIC TRA GED Y [72 
 
 eral sketch must have been in the mind of the latter. In the 
 prayer for Oedipus/ we have the plain of the dead, and the 
 Stygian dwelling, and the dog growling at strangers, but in 
 
 the next breath a prayer for eternal sleep. The rivers of 
 
 Erebus were a striking feature well worked out by Homer,* 
 especially the Styx, that terrible name by which the gods 
 swore their most solemn oaths.3 The Tragedians frequently 
 mention the Styx, Cocytus and Acheron, and Sophocles 
 \^ speaks of 'A/da 'Kaymivm U^ivaqy^ but their typography is by no 
 means clear ; and it is probable that the words really mean 
 little more than woe and wailing. 
 
 In Homer, Tartarus and Erebus are carefully distinguished j 
 
 the former is for overthrown gods and situated as far below 
 Erebus as heaven is high above the earth.s Aeschylus still 
 regards Tartarus as a place of punishment for gods,^ but makes 
 no clear distinction between it and Hades ; ^ nor does Sophocles,' 
 nor Euripides.9 Whether or not the Homeric epics teach, as 
 V Iwanowitsch holds, that there is no future punishment for 
 mankind, the Minyad, followed by Polygnotus, insists strongly 
 that there is ; " and the Tragedians hold with them. Aeschylus 
 tells of the threats of the Furies," of the " other Zeus " who 
 
 punishes crimes," and of the punishment of Sisyphus.'s So too 
 Euripides tells of Tantalus and Ixion.'* They speak also very 
 clearly of future rewards for those who are good and pious, as 
 
 > O. C, 1556-78. * Od., 10: 513-5- 
 
 "See Buchhoh, III. b, 317-8, for Homeric rivers. 
 
 *5. El., 137-8 ; see Sep., 690, 855 ; Per., 669 ; et al. See Iwanowitsch, pp. 
 84-5, for refe. 
 
 * //., 8 : 13-16. See Buchhoh, I. a, 52. • Pro,, 219-21. 
 
 T Pro.y 1028-9, et al. ' O. C, 1389-90. 
 
 • Or., 265. See Iwanowitsch, pp. 86-7, for refe. 
 
 »o Paus., 4 : 33 : 7 ; 10 : 31 : 9-I i ; et al. oft. 
 
 " Eum., 2lb'9>-*j^ ; et al, "^. Sup., 230-1, 415-6- 
 
 w A. fr. 221. " Or., 982-5 ; H. M., 1298. 
 
 73] 
 
 THE OTHER WORLD 
 
 71 
 
 we have seen.' The best that Homer could do for ordinary 
 people was to let their tUiSka wander over the gloomy asphodel 
 meadows ;=» but by Plato's time, under the influence of Musaeus 
 and his son, the just and pious were supposed to spend their 
 time in pleasure, which the populace imagined to consist in 
 
 feasting and drinking, iiynakuEvoi KoklLarov aptrvq ^cadbv iikBrrv al6viov.^ 
 
 But no feasting scenes, otherwise than the simple offering of a 
 basket of cakes or fruit,* appear on Athenian tombstones until 
 a late date, though on Spartan and Boeotian they are common. 
 The Tragedians say nothing of feasting ; rather, poetic tradi- 
 tion developed, out of the picture of the Elysian plain, "where 
 life is easiest for men," and to which Menelaus and Helen 
 
 were to be transported,s the fancy of the "isle of the blessed :"^ 
 
 Kal T(p 7r?nvr/Ty MtviPieu i^ewv Kapa 
 uaKapcjv KaroiKElv v^a6v egti fidpaiuov 
 
 Achilles was to be there, and Cadmus and Harmonia.7 Homer 
 had placed it at the end of the earth and presumably in the 
 west; but Euripides locates it, once at least,^ 
 
 AevKTjv Kar' aKTrjv hrog Ev^eivov ndpov. 
 
 Farnell 9 says there is a legend of the Chthonian Cronus ruhng 
 
 over the isles of the blest and the departed heroes. In the 
 Orphic Argonautica^'' there is said to be in the fabulous N. W. 
 Europe, near the golden-flowing Acheron, a city Hermioneia, 
 m which dwells ytvn SiKaiuTdTuv avOpoTrw, omv dnoip^ifihoig aveotg vavloLO 
 rirvKToi. 
 
 * See above, pp. 28, 50. 
 
 *0d., 11: 539. 8 />/. ^^^^ 11^ ^6^ ^^ 
 
 * Conze, PI. 93; common on funeral vases. See also H, Von Fritz: Zu der 
 
 Griech. Totenmahlrelie/s, in Mittheil., 1896. 
 
 * Od., 4 : 563-7. 6 Hel., 1676-7. 
 
 ' And., 1260-2; Bac, 1338-9. ^ And., 1262 ; /. T., 436; see Bac, 1361-2. 
 » Farnell: Gk. Cults, I, 30; see Hesiod: Works and Days, 169 ; Pindar, Ol, 
 2, 70- (I owe these references to the courtesy of Mr. Farnell.) 
 ^"^ Lines 1135-47; see Rohde, p. 200, for further refs. 
 
 )/ 
 
 ir 
 
 
-4 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY [74 
 
 Homer calls Hades' ^vUprm> Kpare,«,io, and the country itself 
 wide-gated.' The Tragedians often mention the gates of 
 Hades,3 and as guardian of these, the dog. Sophocks Calls 
 
 'Aidov rplKpavw OKvT^ie, aizpoafrnxov repag, 
 
 and describes him as couching at the gate of Hades,' where 
 Hermes is implored to keep him quiet. Admetus « calls h.m 
 , nMrc^of «W; and .,^ he always is in Horner;^ whence Pau- 
 sanias' argues with much force that he was not originally a 
 dog but more probably a serpent, as «,<.«. is a term for any 
 
 fierce beast. In the vase paintings, especially the later ones, 
 
 he appears frequently as a three-headed dog, and that type 
 had probably become fixed before the Vth century In the 
 Tragedians he figures chiefly as the captive of Herakles m h.s 
 famous visit to the underworld.' On the tombstones we do 
 not find the three-headed monster; and though a dog often 
 appears,- it is probably the pet of the household or the com- 
 panion of the hunter, and not the savage guardian of the 
 lower regions. . , , t, i 
 
 The only other dweller of the land of the dead whom Foly- 
 gnotus introduces into his paintings is the horrid demon 
 Eurynomus, who, according to Pausanias." is not mentioned in 
 the literature up to that time and may be an allegorical figure. 
 But the Tragedians tell us that Erebus had other mhabitants. 
 There dwelt Night," whose anger even Zeus feared ; '3 and her 
 daughters the Moirai ; '- and those other daughters, the dread- 
 
 1 £?</., 11:277- '//.,23=74. 
 
 >M^J..^^3^■,eial. * Track, mi-i. 
 
 » O. C, I56S-78. •^^,360- 
 
 ' See Iwauowitsci, pp. IO3-5. " /'««*•. 3 = ^5 : 4-5- 
 
 » H. M., 24-5 ; et al. 
 
 i» Conte, PI. 23, 28, 130 (no. 677), et al. oft. 
 
 "/•flBJ., 10:28:7. "On, 174-6- 
 
 « //., 14 : 259-6.. " P""""' ^- ^•' '• *'-'• 
 
 75] THE OTHER H^ORLD 75 
 
 ful Keres, of whom we hear so much in Homer,' and whom 
 Megara pictures her sons as marrying,' and whom later Lyssa 
 says Herakles is calling up by his bellowing.' The Sirens, 
 
 though not actually dwellers in the other world, are by Homer 
 placed on the way thither ; * and from their frequent represen- 
 tations on tombstones from the Vlth century down,' and their ^^ 
 office of carrying souls as depicted on the Harpy Tomb,* 
 they may have shared with Charon the duty of transporting 
 the souls of the dead to Hades. Euripides mentions them as 
 Xi^ovdf /c(5/5ai, and singers of mournful songs.7 Nemesis was 
 another daemon closely connected with the dead, ready to re- 
 sent any insulting word regarding them.^ The Sphinx was 
 sent up from Hades,9 and had a fitting place on the tomb." 
 Another uncomfortable neighbor was lambe or Baubo, men- 
 tioned in the Frogs, whom M. Heuzey " supposes to be the 
 antitype of "the numerous caricatures of old women and 
 nurses found among the terra-cottas placed about the dead." 
 A more prominent figure is Hecate, who, though not men- 
 tioned in Homer, is one of the chief characters on the vases of 
 the IVth century. Hesiod first mentions her as a victim of 
 
 the anger of Artemis, w^hose follower and chthonian double 
 she became; and Farnell ^* thinks she was of Phrygian origin 
 and came into Athens about the middle of the Vlth century. 
 Before the Peloponnesian War, her image was placed at the 
 doors of the Athenians to avert evil.'3 She presided over 
 graves, and her images stood at crossroads to keep ghosts 
 down. "The character of Hecate YJ^L6ovx<Ky the guardian of 
 
 » Buchhohy III. a, 318-21. » H, M,, 480-3. 
 
 *H. M., 870. * Od., 12: 39-46. 
 
 * Come, 35, 94, et al. • Collignon : Hist. Sc. Gr., I, 261—5. 
 
 "^ Hel., 167-71. ^ S. El.y 792, 1467 ; see Farnell, II, 488-93. 
 
 • Phoen., 807-11. 1® Come, 97, 10, et al. 
 
 ** Quoted by F. Lenormant, s. v. Gephyrismoi, in Dar. et Sag., IV. 
 
 ^^ Farm II, II, 507 (quoting Strabo, 473), 508. ^^ Fame II, II, p. 509. 
 
'1 
 
 76 D£A T/f AXD BURIAL IX A TTIC TRACED Y [76 
 
 the gate, is shown by the key which appears xn the hands of 
 many of her figures, and possibly tliis alludes not only to the 
 gate of the house and the city but to the gate of hell, which 
 
 Bhc might be jjupj^oscd to keep, as the key U known to have 
 been also the badge of Hades." In Caria there was an annual 
 iMtival of the key in honor of Zeus and Hecate his wife." 
 SophoclcH > represents her with her head crowned with oak 
 leaver and serpents. Alcamenes was the first to give her 
 three heads and three bodies.3 To this triple Hecate living in 
 the midst of infernal monsters, the whip is often given to 
 maintain order among the shades.* 
 
 ' In the Tragedians Hccalc is confused with Artemis ' 
 
 and with Persephone.^ 
 
 She is the mistress iA spells invoked by Medea ;' and, ruling 
 over journeys by ^y and night, the Chorus^ implore her to 
 aid Crcusa in poisoning Ion. She sends ghosts'' and madness;- 
 and, as in the later vase-paintingn, she carries the torch at the 
 marriage of the soul to Hades.'* 
 
 The only daemons whom Buchhok will admit into the circle 
 of the chthonians with Hades and Persephone are the Erinyes." 
 Aeschylus calls them daughters of Night » and dwellers of 
 Tarunis H but Sophocks calls them children of Earth and 
 
 ' FarmtK H* $01-12. 556^ ^Ol. 
 
 •^\ /^ira Sik X>«r. #/ S»/., IV, p. 1156. 
 »/)**<•<?., 109 »ow •/«». 104^ 
 
 t-l/M:.W-7- i/m. IC4*.S«- 
 
 " 7^., 3»3-4; Mm. /if/./,. VI. /Y. 4^ B ; // a/. 
 
 i^BucAA^h, III. •. 34S-5«: "I- ^ 3*^ 
 
 w Emmi,, ^21-2, /r cL »• £*"»* 7«-J. '' «^ 
 
 '&A. 490. 
 
 jyl THE OTHER WORLD 77 
 
 Darkness.* r«f r, «i s**rtv c^w^ Aeschylus is fond of using 
 their name in connection with evil, as when he calls Helen an 
 Erinys of bridal lamentation.' or Tydcus. '^h^^^ ^^r^ ;> the 
 
 destruction of war he calls. T«.mti ^M 'E^«*w.^ They are called 
 »A^> and K^* and «)itTrup.' and they ^cni to have pat taken 
 of the nature of all of these.* They were black in color* 
 MthEmii ff 'IV-fcf , like iywm *i\fr,- angry dogs, and from their 
 
 eyes distilled blood." The Priestess of Delphi describes 
 them:" ** A wondrous troop of women sits sleeping in the 
 seats, though not women but Gorgons I call them . . . wing- 
 less and black in appearance, abominable in kind. And they 
 snore with unapproachable breath, and from their eyes they 
 diHtil hateful violence. Their dress !s fit to wear neither at the 
 images of the gods nor in the dwellings of men." They are 
 mad. and are woven about with crowding serpents."^ It is no- 
 tkeable that though in the Ckciphorof and the other plays they 
 are visible to Orc$t« only, in the Eumenides they arc visible 
 to all. as is necessary from the nature of the play. In Sopho- 
 cles they are many Iwndcd and many- footed.'* and he speaks 
 of the twin-fury ."5 as though there were but two. Euripides 
 says there arc three f and his description differs a little from 
 
 that of Aeschylus:" •• Do you not j»cc thiu t»n»kc of Hade*, 
 that she wishes to slay me> with horrid vipers fringed against 
 me ? And breathing forth from her garments fire and murder, 
 die beats with her wings^ bearing my mother in her arms, a 
 
 • o. C% 40, 106. 
 
 • Srf,. 5T4- 
 
 » Enm.^ 417. 
 
 » Or.. 154^ 
 
 ^ Ai,, A,<yy-^\ rt aL 
 
 » CJU,, 1058L 
 
 » £9(m.^ in \ ^^ i04»-50, 
 
 *^S. EL,i<ax 
 
 ■ A^., 749. 
 
 •A^.,^$**f^' 
 
 • £. EL, i2S2;0. 71,47^ 
 
 •Set /nuncwiUfA^ pp^ 95^» '*^' ci«l»«<*- 
 
 » CA^, 1054, 
 » £mm, 4^6. 
 
 MCV..411I. 
 
 " /. T:, 3S5-V0: tta Or,, asS-^i ^ *'» 
 
 II 
 
78 DEATH AND BURIAL IN ATTIC TRAGEDY r-g 
 
 rocky mass, that she may throw it upon me!" The effect on 
 their victim was what might be expected. Orestes has fits of 
 
 madness, eats no food nor indulges in the bath ; and though 
 
 he has lucid intervals, in these he weeps and laments.' He 
 could not have endured this torture long, if Apollo had not 
 lent him arrows wherewith he might gain respite." 
 
 We are most impressed with the function of the Erinyes ta 
 haunt a matricide, since this is the leading, or at least a 
 prominent theme in no less than three plays, Eumenides^ 
 Orestes and Iphigeneia in Tauris ; and comes as a climax inta 
 the Choephoroe and Euripides* Electra (though not in Sopho- 
 cles'); in all of which Orestes is tortured for a morally right 
 action, since it is bidden by the purest of the gods, his natural 
 instinct struggling against the divine command. Like angry 
 dogs they follow him always,3 sucking his blood till he be- 
 comes a shadow,^ and threatening to take him alive to Hades 
 and torture him there.s They protest in the Eumenides that 
 they punish only kindred blood,^ but in the Choephoroe the 
 blood of Aegisthus is a third draught for the Erinys ^ who 
 avenges the stains on the house of Agamemnon.^ In the 
 
 Septem they come at the curse of Oedipus to slay his sons;«> 
 but none feel their presence as does the matricide Orestes. 
 Otherwise they are good and kind," but fear of them keeps 
 men from murder and evil-doing." 
 
 In Sophocles their mission is somewhat different. They do 
 not fall on Orestes at all ; but Clytaemnestra fears them," and 
 Electra implores them with the other chthonians to help her 
 and her brother in their enterprise ; '3 and says that the slaying 
 
 I Or., 34-45, et al. « Or., 268-70. 
 
 » Cko., 924; Eum., 75-7; et al. * Eum., 264-5, 3^2, 305. 
 
 5 Eum., 267-8. « Eum., 210, 604-5. 
 
 7 CAo., 577-8. 8 cAo., 651 ; ^/ aL oft. 
 
 ' -^^A* 720-S, et al. 10 Eum., 313-5, 895 ; *S>/., 699-701. 
 
 II Eum., 494-524. " S. EL, 275-6. w S. EL, 1 10-7 ; et aL 
 
 j^-\ THE OTHER WORLD -9 
 
 of Aegisthus will destroy the twin-fury,' as if the sacrifice of 
 the really guilty man would stay their anger. Oedipus in- 
 vokes the Erinyes to carry out his curses on his sons' for 
 
 their harsh treatment of him. But outrage on the dead as 
 well as unjust death claimed their attention, as is shown by 
 the threat 3 to Creon and to the enemies of Aias, as well as 
 those to the slayers of Laius and Herakles. 
 
 In Euripides, again, though the Erinyes are not limited to 
 the chastisement of kindred slaughter,* we have the tortures of 
 the matricide Orestes with added detail. In the Choephoroe, 
 the Erinyes sieze him immediately, but in the Orestes^ they 
 
 do not come upon him until at night when he is watching be- 
 side his mother's body. In the Eumenides, Athene by her 
 judgment and her persuasions frees him ; but in Euripides she 
 drives them away with her Gorgon-headed shield,^ and instead 
 of departing satisfied and with blessings, they rush in terror 
 into the chasm,^ and do not all acquiesce in Athene's decision.^ 
 It is Sophocles who draws the picture of the Grove of the 
 Eumenides, one of the finest bits of natural scenery in the 
 Tragedians. Here among the bay, the olive and the vine, the 
 nightingales sing sweetly, undisturbed by human sound, and a 
 limpid stream flows through the untrodden grass.9 Expiation 
 for entering their grove must be made by pouring a triple 
 libation of spring water and honey from a cup wreathed with 
 fresh-shorn lamb's wool; thrice nine branches of olive must be 
 laid on the place; and after a prayer calling them Eumenides 
 and spoken inaudibly, the trespasser must slip away without 
 looking back.^° 
 
 » s. EL, 1080. * o. c, 1391, 1433-4. 
 
 *Ant., 1074-6; Ai., 835-44: O. T., 47 '"^ 5 Track., 808-9. 
 
 *Med., 1389 ; E. EL, 1546-8. » Or., 401-2, 408. 
 
 • E. EL, 1252-7. "^ E' ^^M 1270-2. 
 
 8 /. T., 970-1 ; see 940-86. • O. C, 16-8, 124-32, I5S-60. 
 
 M O. C, 466-90. 
 
So DEA TH AND B URIA L IN A TTIC TRA GED Y [go 
 
 The Eumenides had a regular cult at Athens, sharing in the 
 
 worship of Athene in the abode of Erechtheus, receiving the 
 first fruits of the sacrifices, honored with blazing torches, with 
 processions of youths and women in purple robes, with burnt- 
 offerings and songs and libations/ And in the statues which 
 the Athenians erected of them there was nothing horrible.* 
 They were worshiped also at the hearth of the home with 
 wineless soothing libations.3 
 
 The idea of death was never absent from the mind of the 
 V Greek. Turn where he would, engage in what occupation or 
 
 pleasure or duty he saw fit, the eyes of the dead and of the 
 mighty gods of the dead were upon him. Sacrifices and 
 prayers to the deities of high heaven might be slighted or 
 omitted, but those to the x'^^viol never. Their power arose 
 from the ground on which he trod, and penetrated even to his 
 dreams and to his most secret plans ; it dogged every step of 
 his life, and extended into the remotest future. The Olympians 
 were a gay and joyous folk, content that mankind should be 
 
 reasonably happy and prosperous, since this was to their in- 
 terest ; and however vindictive they might be, their vengeance 
 of necessity stopped with the dissolution of soul from body. 
 But they of the lower world were ever envious and grudging 
 against him who enjoyed the blessings they had lost, regard- 
 ing him with a vigilance unforgetting, unrelenting and unre- 
 mitting, not to be put off with excuses or appeased with paltry 
 offerings. Man, the living man, owed them a heavy rent for 
 the brief lease of his tenement, and they exacted payment to 
 
 the uttermost farthing. What wonder that Plato's teaching 
 fell on charmed but unbelieving ears; that Stoics and Epi- 
 cureans alike, finding the burden too great to be borne, de- 
 \/ clared there is no hereafter; that the populace seized upon 
 every new orgy, and welcomed every foreign god of the dead, 
 
 1 Eum., 804-7, 833-6, 854-7, 1022 flf., 1033-47. 
 
 \' 
 
 81 
 
 THE OTHER WORLD 
 
 [81 
 
 like the mystic Dionysus or the solemn deep-eyed Serapis ; or 
 that of all the gods, most popular by far was Asklepios the 
 
 healer ; for he prolonged man's little span of life and for a brief 
 moment held back the curtain which must envelop him. 
 Rightly was the disembodied soul named okl^, for it was the 
 shadow which the Greek could never elude or escape. 
 
 •^ 
 
 /: 
 
 yf-t, 
 
 
 ^ Paus.y 1 : 28: 6. 
 
 * Eum.^ 106-9. 
 
VITA 
 
 Lucia Catherine Graeme Grieve was born of Scotch parents 
 in Dublin, Ireland, April 30, 1862. Her early education was 
 received in Mrs. J. T. Benedict's French and English School 
 
 in New York city. In 1878 she entered Wellesley College in 
 
 the Academic Department, and in 1883 received the A. B. 
 degree. For the next ten years she was engaged in teaching 
 in preparatory schools and colleges. In 1893 she received 
 the A. M. degree from Wellesley College for work in Greek 
 and Roman Philosophy. From 1893 till 1898 she was a 
 student in Columbia University, her subjects being Greek, 
 Sanskrit and Hebrew, under the direction of Professors Mer- 
 riam. Perry and Wheeler, Jackson and Gottheil. The summer 
 
 of 1894 was spent in the British Museum in the study of the 
 Greek Vases, under the general guidance of Prof A. C. Mer- 
 riam. During the year 1 896-7, she attended courses in Oxford 
 University, England, given by Prof Percy Gardner, Mr. Haigh, 
 Mr. Sidgwick, Prof Macdonnell, and Canon Driver. 
 
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