CHAPTER VII.

SICKNESS AND PHYSICIANS, DEATH AND BURIAL.

The Great Plague--Homer’s References to Physicians--_Asklepiadae_--The Oath of Hippocrates--General Practitioners and Specialists--_Plutus_ of Aristophanes--Customs connected with Death, Burial, and Burning--Tombs and their Ornaments.

Greek mythology tells us that in the golden age mankind lived without trouble or sorrows, equally unacquainted with vice and with cruel disease; but when fatal curiosity opened the disastrous box of Pandora, along with a thousand other troubles which pursue mankind, there came forth also the countless diseases which attack men by day and night. The myth thus expresses in simple language that, with the advance of civilisation and the disappearance of the ancient simple mode of life in accordance with nature, the number of diseases also increased. But the greater the number of these attacks on the health and life of mankind, the more eagerly do men seek to avoid them, though, at first, in a purely empirical manner, and, therefore, the beginnings of the healing art are as ancient as human civilisation itself. The oldest literary monument of Greek life, the Homeric Epic, makes little mention of disease, with the exception of the great plague, which devastated the camp of the Greeks before Troy. The reason of this, however, lies in the nature of the poet’s subject, and we must not on that account infer that illness was little known. Even in Homer mention is made of physicians, and though the Homeric doctors were chiefly concerned with healing the wounds inflicted in war, still they possessed some surgical skill in cutting arrows out of wounds, putting on bandages, etc., and were also acquainted with the healing qualities of certain herbs, which they used not only for external treatment of injuries, but also apparently for internal use, in reducing fever, etc. Knowledge of this kind always appears very early, even among nations of slight civilisation, and is handed down from generation to generation. But the healing art was not confined to heroes or demigods, such as Aesculapius and Podalirius, who were afterwards regarded as ancestors of the physicians’ profession, and who traced their origin and their knowledge alike to the gods. There were also, even at that time, professional physicians, and certainly it cannot have been left to chance to determine that some persons possessing surgical and medical knowledge should be with every army.

It is no longer possible to trace in detail the development of the medical profession after the times of Homer. In the historical period we find the healing art developed in two special directions; first, as practised by an actual medical profession; secondly, as a kind of religious mystery in the hands of priests; besides these, quackery was known in antiquity, as in all times.

The professional physicians, who, even in later times, regarded their art as divine, and handed down by their ancestor Aesculapius (on which account they also called themselves _Asklepiadae_), were probably a development from the priestly physicians. It is very likely that in the first centuries after Homer, the practice of the medical art was still directly connected with the worship of Aesculapius, and that the separation which we find in the historic period, where some remained as medical assistants to the priests in the sanctuaries, and others practised independently on their own account, only gradually made way. It cannot be a mere chance that the places where the most celebrated medical schools of antiquity existed, Cos and Cnidus, were also regarded as the chief seats of the worship of Aesculapius. The professional physicians, who practised their art independently, and were not connected with the sanctuaries, naturally received a fee, and though this brought them into somewhat bad repute, with which every art that conduced to making money was regarded, yet their occupation stood in much higher general estimation than any of the trades, and it was a serious reproach if they, as sometimes happened, insisted on receiving their payment beforehand, and in case of inability to pay, refused to give any treatment at all. Their knowledge was not acquired at colleges or hospitals, like that of our modern physicians, but, as a rule, they became assistants or apprentices to old experienced physicians, whom they accompanied on their visits, and by whom they were instructed in diagnosis and therapeutics, as well as in the preparation of medicines. There were sellers of drugs, who kept the most important remedies, but there were no apothecaries in our modern sense, and physicians always prepared their own medicines. There does not appear to have been any examination necessary in early times before practising the medical profession, or any direct control or supervision of the doctors, but in later times physicians seem to have held together in a sort of guild, and, perhaps, even solemnly dismissed their apprentices at the end of their period of instruction before their assembled colleagues. This is suggested by the oath of Hippocrates, which has been preserved to us, in which the young disciple of Aesculapius promises to keep only the welfare of his patient before him, to keep silence, to give no one poison, even at his own request, etc. Probably this oath was only used in the school of Hippocrates and his followers.

Among the professional physicians there was a further distinction between those who practised privately and those who had official positions. The former either gave their advice at home or else visited their patients. Slight invalids, who were able to go out, generally visited the physician in his consulting hours, and there they received not only advice but sometimes also direct treatment, since other apartments for bathing, operating, etc., were connected with the consulting room, and the physician also prepared and dispensed his medicines here. Even those who were very ill, as, for instance, the wounded Lamachus in the “Acharnians” of Aristophanes, were carried straight to the doctor when the case was pressing. Of course a very celebrated physician could not himself treat all his patients, and he therefore employed assistants in his consulting room, who also accompanied him when he paid visits abroad, in order to profit by the master’s experience at the sick bed; and it may not have been very pleasant for the patients when the doctor thus arrived in company of a not inconsiderable troop of students. It was still more unpleasant, however, if want of means compelled them to resort to inferior assistants, who sometimes were even slaves. These slave doctors were not only summoned to the slave population, but they also treated free people, chiefly those who were too poor to pay a high fee. Of these it was said that they differed from the better physicians, who were careful and who studied and watched their patients, in paying very hasty visits, scarcely taking time to inquire after the nature of the illness, and hurrying on after giving any directions that might occur to them. Sometimes a citizen had one of his slaves taught the healing art by some physician, supposing he showed any ability for this profession, and by this means he had someone in the house who, in case of need, could supply help at once. The position of the Greek slaves, especially in Attica, was a comparatively free one, and therefore we must not be surprised that they were willing to entrust the welfare of their body to a slave, seeing that they even left much of the moral training of their children to him. Complaints were often made, too, about free physicians, not on account of their hastiness and carelessness, but rather because of their boastful and haughty bearing; thus, for instance, Menecrates, a physician of Syracuse, was accused of always dressing in the most elaborate fashion, and wishing to be called Zeus. Others were rude or inconsiderate to their patients, like that doctor who answered a patient, when he expressed fear of death, with the words of Homer:--“Patroclus, too, is dead, and he was a better man than thou.” Others gave annoyance by carelessness in their dress and noisy manner, loud talk, etc. Hippocrates insisted that a physician should aim at a certain amount of elegance in dress and care in regard to his person, though he adds characteristically that any doctor is at liberty to do otherwise supposing his patients prefer it.

The position of the public physicians, who were chosen and paid by a community, and therefore bound to receive no fees for their treatment, was a different one, though it is not clear whether they treated all the citizens or only the poor ones. These public physicians sometimes received very high salaries. Thus the physician Democedes, as public doctor at Aegina, received a salary of one talent (about £326); thereupon he was summoned to Athens with a salary of a hundred minae (£393), and in the following year the tyrant Polycrates, of Samos, invited him, probably to fill the post of public physician, not as his own private doctor, and gave him a salary of two talents (probably Attic talents, therefore £471). On the other hand we sometimes hear of rich physicians treating the poor free of charge.

Specialists do not seem to have been common in ancient Greece, the same doctors treated external and internal complaints, and also men and women. It seems, however, from the oath of Hippocrates that there were specialists who undertook the operation of cutting for stone. Oculists were unknown till a later period, when the medical practice generally developed in various ways, and in particular the influence of gymnastics, and the dietetics connected therewith had a very important influence on medical methods.

These physicians, although they at times made use of strange or “sympathetic” means of treatment, yet in general aimed at scientific methods, building on the knowledge handed down to them by their predecessors, and enriching it by their own experience and studies. On the other hand, the healing processes, to which the priests of the Aesculapian sanctuaries resorted, seem to have occupied a very doubtful position between empirical therapeutics and superstitious hocus-pocus. It had been a custom from ancient times for the priests of Aesculapius to practise the healing art. Their knowledge was supposed to be in part very ancient, handed down by the god himself, and in part divine revelation, which was continually renewed. Some of the sanctuaries of Aesculapius were renowned and visited beyond all others on account of their wonderful and successful cures, in particular Cos, Cnidus, Tricca, but especially Epidaurus, and afterwards also Pergamum. To these sanctuaries the invalids who sought healing went as pilgrims, just as people still go in Catholic countries to wonder-working shrines, and as in these we see countless memorials of successful cures, pictures and descriptions of diseases, wax or silver imitations of the part or limb that was healed, etc., so in ancient times thank-offerings were made to Aesculapius, sometimes in the shape of coin, sometimes also imitations of hands, legs, eyes, ears, and breasts, etc., in marble, silver, or gold, or else in simple wax or clay, together with the name of the person who found healing there. Some also dedicated tablets, on which was inscribed a detailed account of their illness and cure, and the priests set up large tablets in the domain of the temple, on which all manner of wonderful cures were described. The geographer Strabo tells us of such inscriptions, describing diseases, in the sanctuaries of Epidaurus, Cos, and Tricca. Pausanias saw in the temple domain at Epidaurus six large tablets of this kind. Very considerable fragments of two of these were found a few years ago, which give us a very interesting insight into the proceedings at the Aesculapian sanctuaries.

The healing methods of the priests of Aesculapius were especially distinguished from those of the professional physicians by the veil of secrecy and miracle which surrounded them, since they rightly understood that the love of wonders among the common people would always bring them success. The healing was effected by what was called “incubation”; the patient had to lie down at night in the sanctuary and sleep; in a dream the god appeared to him, and either suggested to him the remedy which would cure him, or else undertook, on the spot, to heal the sleeper, so that the patient, when he awoke, found himself restored to health, and went joyfully away! Aristophanes, in his “Plutus,” drastically depicts one of these cures in the temple. The blind god of riches comes to the temple of Aesculapius to seek for healing; after taking a bath in the sea, he is conducted to the sanctuary; he offers a sacrifice and then lies down to sleep, together with other patients, and one of the temple servants warns them to keep unbroken silence. The servant who accompanies Plutus, and who relates the proceedings, seems to be a somewhat free-thinking rogue. He cannot sleep, and as he observes that after the invalids have gone to sleep, the priests take away and pocket the offerings laid upon the altars, he also takes the opportunity to filch a pot of porridge from an old woman near him. After a time the god himself appears, accompanied by two goddesses of healing. He goes round, examines the individual patients, and, at last, comes also to Plutus; he feels his head, dries his eyelids with a linen cloth, and one of the goddesses puts a purple veil over his face. Suddenly two great snakes come from the interior of the temple, creep under the veil, and lick the eyelids of Plutus, who thus recovers the power of sight. Here the cure takes place during sleep, as also in the stories which are related on the inscriptions of Epidaurus, mentioned above. There, too, an account is given of the cure of a blind woman to whom Aesculapius appears in a dream, and restores her sight by dropping some healing lotion into her eyes, in return for the promise that she will dedicate a silver pig to Aesculapius (to whom pigs were often sacrificed), as a penalty for having come to the temple in a state of unbelief. Such cures of blindness are often mentioned in the inscriptions; sometimes the dog, which was also sacred to Aesculapius, takes the place of the god, as the snakes did in Aristophanes, and cures the eyes by licking them; in another case the snake of Aesculapius cures the wounded toes of a patient by licking. Many cases are even more wonderful. A man, who has completely lost one of his eyes, receives the lost eye again by means of healing lotion poured into his sockets by the god during sleep. A woman, who has a worm in her body, dreams that Aesculapius cuts it open for her, takes the worm out, and sews it up again. A man has moles on his forehead, which the god removes by laying a bandage over his brow, whereupon next moment it appears perfectly white and pure, while the moles are left on the bandage; another man has lost the use of the fingers of one hand, the god jumps on his hand and pulls his fingers straight again, whereupon he is once more able to use them, etc., etc. Indeed, Aesculapius not only cures sick people, but also lifeless objects. A slave has broken his master’s cup, and as he sits sadly looking at it, a passer-by laughingly says that even Aesculapius could not mend that. That suggests to him taking the fragments into the temple, and next morning, when he opens the case in which he has put them, behold, the cup is whole again!

It is difficult to say which part of these stories is mere charlatanism and what refers to real medical treatment by means of operation. It is but natural that the priests at first got information by questioning each patient about his illness. The sleep in the sanctuary, which was indispensable for healing, was probably not a natural one, but either a mesmeric sleep--since undoubtedly the ancients were acquainted with this--or else a half-sleep induced by some narcotic, during which the priests in the service of Aesculapius or their assistants appeared and performed slight surgical operations on the sick people. This hypothesis is the more probable, since all the cures mentioned in these inscriptions from Epidaurus (which, though dating from the time of Alexander the Great, are copies of older inscriptions, probably of the fifth century) deal only with external means and never with internal treatment; no medicine or healing drink is mentioned.

The cures which took place later on in the sanctuaries of Aesculapius by means of incubation, or temple sleep, which were customary even in the Roman period, were of a different nature. The invalids were not actually cured during their sleep, but they received in a dream an indication from the god of the manner in which they could be freed from their sufferings, directions sometimes in reference to dietetic measures, such as baths, fasting, etc., and sometimes to medicines. In these cases, too, we must suppose that the invalid fell into a state of half-sleep, during which a priest in the form of the god appeared, and gave the directions in question, for which a quantity of medical knowledge, gradually acquired by experience, stood the priests in good stead. Sometimes healing _thermae_, or springs, which were found near some of the sanctuaries, did good service, especially if the invalids remained there for some time. The Greek sanctuaries of Aesculapius were almost always situated on high ground, where the air was healthy and pure. There must always have been houses for the reception of sick people, especially those who came from a great distance. Thus the sanctuary of Aesculapius at Epidaurus was about four miles from the town, but, to prevent any pollution of the holy place, no children must be born there and no one must die there, and on this account pregnant women and dying people were mercilessly sent away. Of course the priests did not give their aid for nothing, but were repaid in money or offerings to the shrine, and we find many allusions to these offerings; indeed, the sanctuary at Epidaurus could vie in wealth with that at Delphi.

It was not only in the temples of Aesculapius that dream oracles existed. Many other gods or heroes took similar care for suffering humanity, just as at the present day the shrines which possess miraculous pictures of Madonnas or relics vie with one another. Thus sick people were received in the temple of Hades, situated between Tralles and Nysa, in Lydia, but here it was the priests and not the patients to whom the method of cure was revealed in sleep, and this was also the case in the temple of Amphiaraus at Oropus, on the borders of Attica and Boeotia.

Mention must also be made of quackery and sympathetic cures. The belief in the latter was very general in antiquity, and was shared even by unprejudiced men of considerable education. This was effected by amulets, supposed to ward off or heal diseases, and also by magic words which we should now describe as conjuring; laying on of hands, symbolical washing, etc. The sellers of drugs were specially occupied with quackery; besides rouge, paint, and other means of promoting beauty, they also sold medicines and offered their wares in mountebank fashion. Very often, when sick people had failed to obtain alleviation or cure from a regular physician, they gave him up and resorted to quackery instead.

There were a number of half symbolical, half superstitious, customs connected with death and burial, which were partly due to the belief that the soul would be more easily received and allowed to remain in the dark realm of shadows in consequence of this care of the body; but the ancients also regarded fitting burial and care for the grave as the fulfilment of a duty imposed by the gods, and likely also to bring blessing to the surviving members of the race. This duty was, therefore, only neglected in the very rarest cases. Criminals were buried without any ceremony, or were left to rot unburied; suicides, too, were refused the common honours of public burial, and were put away by night, a time which was not customary for funerals.

In order to gain some insight into these customs, let us turn once more to that house which we visited in order to be present at the birth and early life of an Athenian of the well-to-do class. Let us suppose that after spending a long and honourable life in the service of his country, he has lain down to take his last rest. Surrounded by the nearest members of his family, he has breathed his last breath, after having himself, with his dying hand, drawn one of the points of his garment over his face, in order to spare his friends the painful sight of the death struggle. One of the survivors now steps up to the bed, uncovers the face of the dead man, and softly closes his eyes and mouth. According to the curious ancient belief, not peculiar to the Greeks, that a human being is unclean immediately after entrance into life, and also on his departure from the world, and as this uncleanness is extended to the whole house and all who associate with it, immediately after the death a vessel of consecrated water, which must be brought from another house, is placed before the door, and everyone who leaves the dwelling sprinkles himself from it, in order to be once more pure and able to associate with others. The corpse is then washed by the women of the family, anointed with fine oil and sweet-scented essences, and clothed in pure white garments. These are the dress of common life--the chiton and the himation, but so put on that both arms are covered and only the head and feet seen. Youths were probably clad in the chlamys, and the Spartans preferred to clothe their dead in the scarlet military cloak, while at Athens coloured garments were sometimes used instead of white. On the dead man’s head they put a wreath of real flowers--whatever the season might supply--or else laurel, olive, or ivy. At burial, this was often replaced by an artificial wreath of beaten gold leaf, and numerous remains of these death-wreaths, which were often of very artistic workmanship, have been found in Greek graves. Relations and friends also sent fresh wreaths and garlands as a token of sympathy, and these were used for decking the bier and grave. In the dead man’s mouth they put a coin, as passage money for the ferryman who had to ferry the souls over the Styx; for after the belief in Charon, which was unknown in the Homeric period, had taken firm root among the Greeks, it was regarded as a pious duty to supply the dead man, as soon as possible, with this passage money, in order that the shade might not wander too long restlessly by the shore of Styx. The coin was put in his mouth, because in common life it was not unusual to put single coins in the hollow of the cheek, since pockets were unknown in ancient costume; large sums were seldom carried about, or else they were put in a bag. It was a similar superstition which made people in some places put a honey-cake by the side of the corpse to pacify the dog Cerberus, the fierce guardian of the lower regions. Previous to the funeral there was a solemn laying-out of the body, when friends and acquaintances came to see the departed for the last time, and the near relations took part in the funeral lament for the dead. This laying-out, or πρόθεσις, usually took place in the central hall of the house, but care was taken that the sun should not shine on the corpse, since even the Sun god must not pollute himself by the sight of a dead body. On a couch covered with cushions and hangings, adorned with flowers and branches, the dead man was laid, his feet turned towards the house door, through which he must take his last journey; round about him, at any rate at Athens, they placed large or small oil flasks (λήκυθοι), adorned with paintings, all depicting scenes dealing with death or graves, which were made in one of the Attic vase factories specially for this purpose, and were probably sent by sympathetic friends as funeral offerings. Besides the nearest relations, intimate friends also took part in the solemn funeral lament, and were sometimes specially invited for the purpose. The servants of the house also stood by the couch with the other mourners, and joined with them in the lament, in which men and women, standing apart, joined alternately. This lament was no wild, irregular wail, but a regular hymn of sorrow, and very often singers were specially hired in order to add to the beauty of the performance, and the hymn was sometimes broken from time to time by choruses sung either by the whole assembly or by semi-choruses. Many external marks of sorrow were also shown, such as are customary in the south, where the character of the people is more violent and excitable, viz., beating the breast, lacerating the cheeks, tearing out the hair, rending the garments; and sometimes cries of grief

interrupted the song of mourning. Solon had ordered moderation in these marks of sorrow, but it must have been difficult, if not impossible, to keep within bounds by any legal decrees the expression of wild despair, especially on the part of the women.

The custom of these funeral laments is a very ancient one. We find it universally adopted in the Homeric period, and here, too, in the form of responsions; the wail is heard at Troy by the corpse of Hector, as well as in the Greek camp by the bier of Achilles. We find the laying-out of the corpse and the funeral lament represented on a great many vase paintings, as, for instance, in the one depicted in Fig. 108. Here we see the dead man lying on a richly-decked couch, in front of which stands a footstool; he is enveloped in his mantle up to his neck, he wears a wreath, and his head rests on several cushions. In front of the couch and at the sides stand six women, all raising their arms with gestures of grief; some of them are touching their heads, as though to tear out their hair. A little girl in a similar attitude stands at the foot of the bed; on the right, turning away from the scene, stands a boy. Fig. 109 is similar. Here we see under the dead man’s couch his shield, helmet, and cuirass; of the wailing women, who are almost all tearing out their hair, one holds a lyre in her hand, and another a fillet; the former is accompanying the lament, the other is about to deck the corpse or the bier. The hot climate of the south generally necessitated limiting the duration of this ceremony to a single day, and, indeed, Solon expressly commanded that this should be done; only where special measures were taken for preserving the body was it possible to leave it for several days. Embalming was not customary in Greece; it was only when the corpses of those who had died in foreign lands were brought home to be buried, that they were placed in some substance to check the dissolution--for instance, in honey, as the Spartans did with those of their kings who died away from home.

The funeral usually took place in the early morning before sunrise, and throughout the whole of antiquity both burying and burning were common, sometimes subsisting side by side, while at other times one fashion or the other was more general. It seems as though burying had at first been more common among the Greeks than burning. It is true we find only burning mentioned in the Homeric poems, but we must not forget that we are concerned with exceptional circumstances in the Iliad, since the warriors who fell before Troy did not die at home; and in such cases, even in later times, burning was preferred, since it enabled the survivors to bring the ashes of the dead man home with them. Still, even in those early times, burying was very common, as is proved, in spite of the lack of literary evidence, by the ancient burial grounds discovered at many places in Greece; and similarly, in the historic period, the burning of dead bodies, though certainly practised, was not so common as burying, if only for the very practical reason that the latter was far cheaper and much less troublesome. Whichever form was chosen by the friends, or had been appointed by the dead man himself, the solemn funeral procession was never omitted; the crematoria, like the cemeteries, were outside the city gates, since at Athens, and probably in most Greek states, they were not allowed to bury their dead within the walls; the Doric states alone seem to have made an exception to this rule. A very ancient painted vase seems to afford a proof that it was customary in early times to convey the dead to the cemetery on a car drawn by horses, but in the historical age, at any rate, the corpse was taken to the grave on the same couch on which it had been exposed to view. This duty was generally performed by the slaves of the household, and where there were not sufficient of these, gravediggers were specially hired; while in the case of men who had deserved well of their country, the citizens regarded it as an honour to perform this duty themselves. If the dead man had died a violent death, a spear was carried in front of him, which pointed to the revenge to be taken; the spear was then fixed in the earth near the grave, and the nearest relation pronounced a curse against the murderer, after which the place was watched for three days. This did not, however, point to revenge on the part of the relations alone, but to the punishment to be inflicted by the legal authorities. As a rule, the male relations and friends walked at the head of the processions, and the women behind the corpse; but one of Solon’s ordinances limited the female followers to the nearest relations not extending beyond the nieces. Among the more distant relations, only women over sixty years of age were allowed to follow. This law does not, however, seem to have been quite strictly observed. All the mourners wore grey or black mourning; the nearest relations cut their hair off, for the custom of shaving the hair in case of death is a very old one, and even in Homer we read that the hair cut off was sometimes placed in the dead man’s hand. During the procession laments were again sung, and accompanied by the wailing tones of a flute; but here customs differed somewhat, and at Ceos, for instance, where the ordinances concerning burial, differing in many respects from the Attic customs, have been preserved to us, there were especial directions that the body should be carried out in silence. The dead man wore the clothes in which he had been laid out, but extravagance and excessive luxury necessitated some limitations by the law, so that Solon expressly ordained that the number of garments should not exceed three, and the above-mentioned ordinance allowed only one under garment, one cloak, and one pall or covering, the whole value not to exceed 300 drachmae, and also ordained that the couch on which the dead man was carried to the grave, and the other hangings or cushions, should not be burnt or buried, but brought back again.

There were various ways of burying the dead. If they were placed in a grave it was customary to make use of a coffin, which was let down into the grave by the bearers. We see this represented on the vase picture, Fig. 110. Two men, who look like barbarian slaves or men of the lower classes, are standing in the grave and holding up their hands in order to receive the coffin, which is carefully let down by two men of similar appearance; on the right and left stand weeping women. The coffins were sometimes made of wood, especially Cyprus wood, which was occasionally decorated with costly carving and painting; sometimes of clay, less often of stone, although stone sarcophagi have been found in Greece, but the custom of decorating their sides with sculptured pictures did not become common until the Roman period. The shapes of the

coffins differed; there were square box-like coffins, and also others of an oval shape, or pointed coffins, made of flat terra-cotta tiles. Poor people were generally buried in some common cemetery, in simple coffins, and in graves made to hold a large number. Richer people had special vaults, which were either constructed by hollowing out the rocky ground below or above the earth, or by the artificial building up of a tumulus. The curious _tholos_ buildings of Mycenae, Orchomenus, Attica, etc., are generally supposed now to be nothing but large vaults of this description; and, indeed, throughout the whole of Greece, Sicily, and Lower Italy, numerous tombs, either vaulted out of the rock or constructed of large blocks of stone, have been discovered, not to speak of the temples and towers which are chiefly found in Asia Minor, and usually appear to be due to non-Greek origin or influence. In these vaults, which often served for whole families, they laid their dead, either in coffins or without them, merely in their grave clothes, generally resting on a flat stone. Thus the Attic vase picture in Fig. 111 represents the dead man in his tomb, the vaulting of which the painter has imitated, wrapped in a white cloth, a cushion under his head; fillets hang down from above. In Attica it was the custom to place the bodies so that their heads turned to the west and their feet to the east, while the opposite position was usual at Megara, where the customs differed in other ways, and three or four corpses were sometimes put in the same coffin. The custom of placing various objects required in daily life in the grave by the side of the dead man was universal, chiefly the things with which he had been occupied in his lifetime, or which belonged to his profession; clothes, money, oil-flasks, and other vases were put in, and besides them, in the case of a child, his toys; in the case of a warrior his arms; a woman’s spindle or ornaments and mirror; a young man’s strigil and oil-flask; a musician’s flute or lyre. We owe nearly all the small art treasures which have come down to us from antiquity, such as vases, terra-cottas, cameos, gold ornaments, caskets, etc., to this custom of adorning the graves of the dead with the objects used in daily life. Many of these, especially vases, lamps, candlesticks, arms, etc., seem to have been specially made with a view to being placed in the grave, since they were often of no use for practical purposes. There were no doubt special places outside the walls devoted to burning the bodies, though it is quite possible that some people were burnt on their own land if that happened to be large enough. Wood, twigs, and other easily-combustible substances were used for erecting a pile; the body was laid on it, along with the cushions destined to be burnt, among which, besides the objects already mentioned, the favourite animals of the dead were often included; and the pile was lighted with a torch. Round about stood the mourners, who called aloud many times on the dead, bidding him farewell. There do not appear to have been any other ceremonies connected with the funeral, nor did it bear a specially religious character, such as would be given it by the presence of priests or the offering of sacrifices; still, we must not forget that the mere act of burying or burning was regarded as a religious one. Funeral orations were only pronounced in the case of soldiers who had fallen in war, or men who had deserved specially well of their country. When the corpse was consumed by the fire and the pile had burned down, the glowing remains were quenched with water or wine. This act is represented on a vase painting (Fig. 112), which gives a scene from the Apotheosis of Hercules. The ashes and pieces of bone which had not been completely consumed were then collected and put in a special vessel. For this purpose they used urns, coffin-like boxes, and small vessels, which were afterwards placed in larger cases. These were constructed of different materials, clay or stone, brass, lead, sometimes even silver or gold. The urns were then placed, like the coffins, in a vault or under the earth.

When the burying or burning was ended, it was the custom for the relations and intimate friends of the deceased to return to the house of the latter, and after both the house and its inhabitants had been purified from the pollution connected with the death, by means of incense and sprinkling, or washing with consecrated water, they took part together in a funeral banquet. At this the near relations, who had hitherto

refrained from food, or at any rate from meat, for the first time again partook of it, a custom which could probably only be carried out when the funeral took place on the second day after the death. On the third and ninth days after, the nearest relations went to the grave with libations, which consisted in part of bloodless offerings, such as milk, honey, wine, etc., and partly in the sacrifice of real victims. On the spot where the body or the ashes were buried, unless the remains were placed in some vault above the earth, they erected a funeral monument, which bore the name of the family and home of the deceased, sometimes in metrical form; and even gave details about

his life and his virtues. This was usually decorated in an artistic manner. The commonest form was the “Stele,” which was sometimes a tall column, at others merely a horizontal gravestone, and represented the dead man in some occupation of daily life. A boy might be seen playing with his ball, and a girl with her doll; a young man holds his quoit; a strong warrior stands fully armed as though ready to depart; a countryman accompanied by his faithful dog, leans on his knotted stick; a young wife sits near her work-basket or gazes with pleasure at her ornaments, like the one represented on the relief in Fig. 113, where the lady seems to be taking a ring from a jewel case held for her by her attendants; others represent the dead person alone or with others, not engaged in any occupation, but in some simple natural attitude, like the two women on the stone represented in Fig. 114; others suggest death, since the relations are taking leave of a member of a family. On one it is the mother who is dying, and the smallest of the children is creeping up to her (compare Fig. 62), or they are holding out to her a child still wrapped in swaddling clothes for her last kiss (compare Fig. 58); the husband steps to his wife, who is resting in an easy chair, and gives her his hand for a last farewell, with an expression of sorrow mingled with self-control. On some tombstones of a longer shape the family meal is represented; the husband lies on the couch, the wife sits near him, the children are pressing around them, and even the faithful animals, the dog and favourite horse, are not forgotten. This subject is a very common one; sometimes it is a simple scene from daily life, sometimes the master is represented in a more heroic attitude as already dead, and his relations are paying the

departed the fitting honour and adoration. There seems to be little attempt at representing real portraits on most Greek tombstones; they are ideal types, often of extraordinary beauty, now and then, perhaps, with some slight resemblance to the dead, but by no means realistic portrait statues. But whether it is a scene from real life that is represented by art, or the bitter last farewell, or whether it is any hint of the life in a future state, which last is by no means uncommon, these reliefs are always distinguished by their moderation in the expression of pain, and a peaceful feeling of calm and worthy expression of sorrow, which can but have an elevating effect even on those who have grown up in the views of Christianity. This is the case even where some simple stonemason has roughly expressed in stone the thought of parting and reunion; how much more, then, in those magnificent

creations of the finest period of Attic art to which the examples represented above belong.

There were many other shapes adopted for these tombstones. Very often the stelai were decorated with painting instead of reliefs; in some the surface was extended and the background hollowed out, which gave them an altar-like character, and they were often framed in correspondingly by pillars and gables. Occasionally the stones bore the shape of a vase, especially of the oil-flask, so important in its association with death, and this, too, might be decorated with sculpture. Sometimes they set low columns of round or square shape on the grave, on which they often represented a siren, who had a special significance as singer of mourning songs; sometimes whole statues--ideal pictures or portraits of the deceased--were placed there, though the custom was more common in the Hellenic period than in the best ages of art.

Childish affection and belief led them to decorate these graves still further with wreaths, fillets, growing plants, etc. These were often renewed, and especially on the anniversaries of birth and death the relations came with libations and sacrifices, pouring out sweet odours or wine, or by other means showed that the memory of the departed was not gone from them. There are many pictures extant, especially on vases, depicting the care of the graves. Fig. 115, from a vase painting, shows two women approaching a stele, carrying plates with flasks and fillets. Similarly, in Fig. 116, the weeping woman at the end of the stele is drawn with especial grace.

Thus the Greeks held the memory of their dead worthily in honour, although their time of mourning did not last nearly as long as is customary with us, but

was generally limited to one or a few months. Even in the case of those who had died away from home, and whose remains could not be brought back, as, for instance, those who were drowned at sea, or altogether lost to sight, they erected cenotaphs, in order to have some spot with which to connect the ceremonies devoted to the memory of the dead. The tombstone represented in Fig. 117 was probably that of a man who had lost his life in some such way, perhaps in a shipwreck. The relief shows the dead man sitting sadly on land near his ship, and gazing towards his distant home which he was not permitted to see again. In the empty space below, his name and probably also the details of his death were inscribed in writing, which has now been effaced.