Part 6
This primitive conception of the persistence of a latent life in the cold and rigid corpse or of its passage to a vaporous being like the body, is connected with the belief that the dead retain all the needs and feelings which were previously theirs. The funeral cult, celebrated at the tomb, is born of this belief. It proceeds from fear as much as from piety, for the dead are prone to resentment and quick in vengeance. The unknown force which inhabits them, the mysterious power which causes them to act, inspired great awe. If the natural course of their existence had been interrupted, especially if they had died before their time, they were suspected of being victims of some mischievous enchantment; their sickness was looked upon as an invasion of maleficent spirits provoked by spells. The wrath of those who had thus been torn from their homes and their wonted way of life was to be dreaded. Loud outbursts of grief followed by prolonged manifestations of mourning must prove to them, in the first place, that they were truly lamented and that no attempt had been made to get rid of them. Then, in their new abode to which they were conveyed, they must be ensured a bearable existence, in order that they might remain therein quietly and not trouble their families nor punish, by some intrusion, those who neglected them. Solicitude for the beloved, the desire to prevent their suffering, the hope of obtaining their protection, partly account for the origin and maintenance of these practices, but they were above all inspired by the terror which spirits called forth, as is proved by the fact that they were the same for all the departed without distinction, for those who had been loved and those who had been hated.
The tomb is the house of the dead. This is an idea common to the whole ancient world, going back in Italy beyond the foundation of Rome. The prehistoric cemeteries of the first iron age have yielded a number of cinerary urns exactly reproducing the various types of huts which sheltered the tribes who then peopled the peninsula. The burial places of the Etruscans are often on the plan of their dwellings, and Roman epitaphs leave no doubt as to the persistence of the conviction that the dead inhabit the tomb. The diffusion of Oriental cults revived archaic beliefs on this point as on many others. The name “eternal house” (_domus aeterna_), borrowed from the Egyptians and the Semites, often occurs in funeral inscriptions of the imperial period.[107] One text even specifies that this is “the eternal house in which future life must be passed.”[108] The tomb is thus no mere passage through which the soul goes on its way to another region of the world; it is a lasting residence. “This,” says an inscription, “is our certain dwelling, the one which we must inhabit.”[109] In the _Aeneid_, a cenotaph is raised to Polydorus, whose body had been lost, and his “soul” is installed there by a funeral ceremony,[110] for the shade which has no sepulchre wanders, as we shall see, about the earth. But when a fine monument is given to a dead man, he is happy to be able to offer hospitality there to passers-by and invites them to stay on their way. Sometimes he is imagined as in a bedchamber, where he sleeps an endless sleep,[111] but this is not the primitive nor the dominant idea. This idea, on the contrary, was that his rest was at least not unbroken, since he had many requirements. It was necessary not only to ensure him a roof but also to provide for his support, for he had the same needs and tastes beneath the ground as he had upon it. Therefore the clothes which covered him, the jewels which adorned him, the earthen or bronze vessels which decked his table, the lamps which afforded him light, would be placed beside him. If he were a warrior he would be given the arms he bore, if a craftsman the tools he used; a woman would have the articles necessary to her toilet, a child the toys which amused him; and the amulets, by the help of which all that was maleficent would be kept away, were not forgotten. “It is against common sense,” says Trimalchio in Petronius’ romance,[112] “to deck the house of the living and not to give the same care to the house which we must inhabit for a longer time.” In fact, the larger number of the articles of furniture and household use preserved in our museums come from tombs, which, in the climate of Egypt, have sometimes been able to yield up to us, intact, some precious volume intended for a mummy’s bedside book.
But the tombs have kept for us only a small part of the offerings made to those who were leaving this world, for often their wardrobe and implements were delivered with them to the flame of the pyre in the belief that somehow they would find them again in the Beyond. Lucian relates that a husband loved his wife so dearly that at her death he caused all the ornaments and the clothes which she liked to wear to be buried with her. But seven days after her death, as, stretched on a couch, he was silently reading Plato’s _Phaedo_, seeking therein solace for his grief, his wife appeared, seated herself beside him, and reproached him for not having added to his offering one of her gilt slippers which had been left behind a chest. The husband found it there, and hastened to burn it in order that the poor woman might no longer remain half barefooted.[113]
Above all, the dead must be offered food, for the shade, like the human body which it replaces, needs nourishment for its subsistence. Its feeble and precarious life is quickened and prolonged only if it be constantly sustained. The dead are hungry; above all they are thirsty. Those whose humours have dried, whose mouths have withered, are tortured by the need to refresh their parched lips. It therefore is not enough to place in the tombs the drinks and dishes, the remains of which have often been found beside skeletons; by periodic sacrifices the Manes must be supplied with fresh food also. If they are left without nourishment they languish, weak as a fasting man, almost unconscious, and in the end they would actually die of starvation. This is why the flesh of victims was, in funeral sacrifices, wholly destroyed by fire, none of it being reserved for those present. People always retained the conviction that the offerings burnt on the altar or the libations poured into the grave were consumed by him for whom they were intended. Often there is in the tombstone a circular cavity, the bottom of which is pierced with holes; the liquid poured into it went through the perforated slab and was led by a tube to the urn which held the calcinated bones. It is comprehensible that an unbeliever protested against this practice in his epitaph. “By wetting my ashes with wine thou wilt make mud,” he says, “and I shall not drink, when I am dead.”[114] But how many other texts there are which show the persistence of the ancient ideas! “Passer-by,” says a Roman inscription, “the bones of a man pray thee not to soil the monument which covers them; but if thou be benevolent pour wine into the cup, drink and give me thereof.”[115]
If the dead ask for fresh water, with which to quench their insatiable thirst, they are above all eager for the warm blood of victims. This sacrifice to the dead was at first often a human sacrifice of slaves or prisoners, and barbarous immolations of this kind had not entirely disappeared even in the historic period. When, after the taking of Perugia, Octavius, on the Ides of March (that is, on the anniversary of the slaying of Julius Caesar), caused three hundred notables of the town to be slaughtered on Caesar’s altar,[116] this collective murder, inspired by political hatred, perpetuated an old religious tradition. Fights of gladiators, whose blood drenched the soil, originally formed part of the funeral ceremonies by which the last duty was paid to the remains of an illustrious personage. It is said that these sacrifices were intended to provide him who had gone to the other world with servants and companions, as the offering of a horse gave him a steed, or else that, in case of violent death, they were meant to appease the shade of a victim who claimed vengeance. And doubtless these ideas, which correspond to conceptions already evolved, contributed to keeping this cruel custom in force. But originally the object of this sacrifice, as of the sacrifice of animals, was essentially to ensure the duration of the undefinable something which still inhabited the tomb.
Among all the peoples of antiquity the blood was looked upon as the seat of life;[117] the vapour which rose from the warm red liquid, flowing from a wound, was the soul escaping therewith from the body; and therefore when blood was sprinkled on the soil which covered the remains of a relative or a friend, a new vitality was given to his shade. With the same motive women were wont to scratch their faces with their nails in sign of mourning.[118] This ancient conviction that fresh blood was indispensable to the dead, was maintained in some countries with surprising tenacity. In Syria, as late as the seventh century of our era, Christians insisted, in spite of episcopal objurgations, on immolating bulls and sheep on tombs, and in Armenia, where these practices were sanctioned by the national clergy, the faithful remained persuaded that the dead found no happiness in the other life unless the blood of victims had been made to flow for them on the days fixed by tradition.[119]
Other libations performed in the funeral rites of the Greeks, as of the Romans, were intended to produce the same effect, the libations, namely, of wine, milk and honey. The use of wine has been explained as that of a substitute for blood, as wine is red. Servius even interprets the purple flowers which Aeneas threw on the tomb of his father Anchises by the same association of ideas, as an “imitation of blood in which is the seat of life.”[120] Many proofs could be cited of the fact that wine has often taken the place of the liquid which flows in our veins, but its use in connection with the dead can be explained also by its own virtue. It is the marvellous liquid which gives divine drunkenness and which in the mysteries ensures immortality to such as are, thanks to this sacred draught, possessed by Bacchus.[121] In the same way it vivifies the Manes to whom it is poured out. Similarly _melikraton_, a mixture of milk and honey, is the food of the gods, and when the dead absorb it, they too become immortal.
Such is the first meaning of these offerings, one which was never quite forgotten. Their object is the infusion of new vigour into the enfeebled shades who slumber in the tomb. This intention can also be discerned in the fact that the same offerings are used in magic, which often preserved ideas abolished or superseded in religion. In order to evoke the phantoms, the necromancers dug a ditch and poured blood, wine, milk and honey into it. These liquids had an exciting effect on the spirits of the dead, arousing them from their torpor, and the wizard took advantage of it to question them.
Precautions lest the dead should ever suffer from lack of nourishment were multiplied. In order that they might be fed on other days than those of sacrifices, all over the ancient world it was customary to place food on their tombs—eggs, bread, beans, lentils, salt, flour, with wine. Hungry vagrants did not always respect their offerings but would help themselves to the proffered viands.
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The institution which is most characterised by the persistence of the ancient ideas of life in the tomb is however that of the funeral banquets. These family repasts, which had previously been celebrated among the Etruscans, took place in Rome on the grave immediately after the funeral (_silicernium_) and were repeated on the ninth day following (_cena novemdialis_). In Greece and in the East the ceremony took place thrice, on the third, ninth and thirtieth or on the third, seventh and fortieth day. Everywhere it was subsequently renewed every year on the anniversary of the death and on several other fixed dates, as on that of the _Rosalia_ in May, on which it was customary to decorate the tombs with roses. Memorial monuments of some importance are often found to include, beside the burial chamber, a dining-room (_triclinium_) and even a kitchen (_culina_). The importance attached to these meals is proved by several wills which have been preserved, and which make considerable endowments to ensure their perpetuity. For instance, at Ravenna a son bequeaths a sum of money to a college on condition that its members annually scatter roses on his father’s grave and feast there on the Ides of July.[122] When Aurelius Vitalio had built at Praeneste a family tomb, surmounted by a room with a terrace, he wrote a letter in incorrect Latin to the brothers of the society to which he belonged: “I ask you, my companions, to refresh yourselves here without quarrelling.”[123] An African settled in Rome similarly writes to his relatives and friends, “Come here in good health for the feast, and rejoice together.”[124] And in Gaul a will commands that the burial vault be furnished and receive a bed with coverings and cushions for the guests who have to meet on the memorial days.[125]
These funeral repasts go back to a prehistoric antiquity. They are found in India and in Persia as well as among the European peoples. They are doubtless as ancient as wedding and festal banquets. Among the Egyptians and the Etruscans it was even customary to place the representation of a perpetual feast on the walls of a tomb in order to secure to the dead person the relief it gave. The shade of a guest might well be pleased with the likeness of dishes.
It was believed that at funeral feasts the Manes of ancestors came to sit among the guests and enjoyed with them the abundance of the food and wines. Lucian tells of repasts of this kind, which he witnessed in Egypt, at which the dried mummy was invited to eat and drink at the table of his kin.[126] In Greece, even in the Roman period, those present at the feast used to summon the dead to it by name. An epitaph of Narbonne jokingly expresses the vulgar idea as to the participation of the deceased in the banquet: “I drink and drink again, in this monument,” says the dead man, “the more eagerly because I am obliged to sleep and to dwell here.”[127]
Nothing is further from our spiritual ideas as to the holiness of graveyards than the conviviality occasioned by the cult of the departed; among the guests crowned with flowers, the drinks went round (_circumpotatio_) and soon produced a noisy intoxication. Do not think this was an abuse due to a relaxation of morals and which came into being in later times. The character of these funeral banquets was such from the beginning, and such it has remained down to modern times in many countries. You all know the practice of the Irish “wake” which has been preserved even in the United States.
For it was long believed that the dead had their part in the merriness and inebriation of the companions at table and were thus consoled for the sadness of their lot. “Thou callest,” says Tertullian,[128] “the dead careless (_securos_) when thou goest to the tombs with food and delicacies, but thy real purpose is to make offerings to thyself, and thou returnest home tipsy.” And indeed, as we shall see,[129] these feasts were no longer of profit to the dead only but to the living also, because there came to be a confusion between them and the Bacchic communions in which wine was a drink of immortality.
No religious ceremony was more universally performed in the most diverse regions of the Empire than this cult of the grave. At every hour of every day families met in some tomb to celebrate there an anniversary by eating the funeral meal. Peoples remained strongly attached to practices the omission of which would have seemed to them dangerous as well as impious, for the spirits of the dead were powerful and vindictive.
It is therefore not surprising that these practices persisted in the Christian era in spite of the efforts of the clergy to suppress them. St. Augustine reprimands those who, like pagans, “drink intemperately above the dead”—these are his words—“and who, while serving meals to corpses, bury themselves with these buried bodies, making a religion of their greed and their drunkenness.”[130]
In the East, however, ecclesiastical authority tolerated a custom which it could not uproot, contenting itself with forbidding the abuse of wine and recommending a moderation the absence of which might often be deplored. Ecclesiastical authority also insisted that a part of the feast should be given to the poor, thus giving a charitable character to the old pagan practice.[131] Therefore in many countries, and especially in Greece and in the Balkans, the habit has survived to this day, not only of placing food on tombs, but also of eating there on certain anniversaries, with the idea that the dead in some mysterious way share and enjoy the meal.
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In Rome, in historical times, the funeral repast might be taken not at the tomb but in the house. Among the feasts celebrated by the confraternities in honour of some dead benefactor, on the dates fixed by his last will, many were held in the meeting-place of the guild. But the belief continued in the real presence of him whose “spirit was honoured,”[132] and whose statue or picture often adorned the banqueting hall.
From the earliest period, the spirit of the dead was indeed not regarded as inseparable from his remains or as a recluse cloistered in the tomb. He dwelt there but could issue thence, although for long it was believed that he could not go far away but remained in the neighbourhood of the burial place. He was brought back to it by the necessity of taking food, which was no less indispensable to him than to men. He returned, therefore, to it, as a dweller returns to his home, to repair his energies and to rest. This idea that the soul wandered around its “eternal house” often caused pains to be taken to surround this house with a garden. Sometimes such a garden was planted with a practical object: it was a vineyard, an orchard or a rose-garden which supplied the wine, fruit or flowers necessary for the offerings to the dead.[133] But elsewhere a mere pleasure-garden, with shady groves, bowers, pavilions and sparkling fountains, surrounded the burial place. The care which the living took to fix, by their will, its extent and its planting is a measure of the intensity of their conviction that their shade would take pleasure in refreshing itself in this quiet haunt. There, about the tomb, it would enjoy the delights which would afterwards be transported to the Elysian Fields, as we shall see later.
The cult of the grave has not ceased in these days; the ancient rites have not been discontinued. Tombstones are still surrounded with flowers; they are decked with wreaths; in Italy lamps are kept burning over them. But the reasons which established these customs have disappeared; for us they are no more than a way of betokening our care for the beloved, of piously showing our intimate feelings by outward signs and marking the duration of our regrets and our memories. They are survivals which have lost all the concrete and real meaning which they had in the far-off days when men believed that a being like themselves sojourned in the place in which bones or ashes were deposited.
The dead were not then cut off from the society of the living; the connection between them and their surroundings was not broken; the continuity between the hour which preceded and that which followed their decease was not interrupted. It has often been remarked that in this respect ancient ideas were profoundly different from ours. Those lost to sight did not then cease to partake of the life of their families; they remained in communication with their friends and their kin, who met together in their new dwelling, and an effort was made to render their isolation less hard to bear by bringing them into touch with many people. Our dead rest in peaceful and remote graveyards where no noise or din may trouble the tranquil mood of afflicted visitors. The Romans placed their dead along the great roads, near the gates of towns, where there was press of passers-by and the rolling of chariot-wheels. Their wish was not, when they buried them beside the most frequented highways, to recall their destiny to mortals, although philosophers have thus explained the custom.[134] On the contrary, they wanted to cause those who were no more to forget their own destiny. “I see,” says an epitaph,[135] “and I gaze upon all who go and come from and to the city.” “Lollius has been placed,” we read elsewhere,[136] “by the side of the road in order that all passers-by may say to him, ‘Good day, Lollius.’”
The inscriptions in which the dead speak, addressing those who stop before their monuments, are innumerable. They console such as continue to love them, thank those who are still busy on their behalf and express wishes for their happiness, or else they impart to their successors the wisdom acquired by experience of life. Often they take part with them in a dialogue, answering their greetings and wishes: “May the earth be light on thee!”—“Fare thou well in the upper world”;[137] or else: “Hail Fabianus.”—“May the gods grant you their benefits, my friends, and may the gods be propitious to you, travellers, and to you who stop by Fabianus! Go and come safe and sound! May you who crown me with garlands or throw me flowers, live for many years!”[138]
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Thus throughout antiquity, in spite of the evolution of ideas as to the future life, the persuasion always remained invincible that the spirits of the dead moved about among men. These disincarnate intelligences, which were, however, provided with light and swift bodies, did not let themselves be imprisoned in the tomb. They fluttered unceasingly around living beings, causing them to feel the effects of their presence. There is here, mingled with the primitive idea that a mysterious being, like it in appearance, has its place in the ground beside the buried corpse, the other and equally ancient idea that the soul is a breath exhaled by the dead at the moment when they expire. To breathe is the first act which marks the life of a newly born infant and to cease to breathe is the first sign which betokens the extinction of life. Primitive people therefore naturally thought that the principle which animated the body was a breath, which entered it at birth and left it at death. The very name which denotes the vivifying essence is in most languages witness to the general predominance of this conception. Ψυχή in Greek is connected with ψύχω, “to blow”; the Latin _animus_ or _anima_ corresponds to ἄνεμος, “wind,” and in the Semitic languages _nefeš̱_ and _ruaḥ_ have a similar meaning. At the moment in which man expired, his soul escaped through his mouth and floated in the ambient air. The Pythagoreans, when they taught that “the air is full of souls,”[139] were conforming to an old belief which is not Greek only but universal. When Virgil[140] shows us Dido’s sister, at the time of the queen’s suicide, receiving the last breath which floats on her dying lips, he is lending a Roman custom to the Carthaginians, the custom of the last kiss which, according to a widely held belief, could catch on its way the soul which was escaping into the atmosphere.