The last step, or rather steps, in the obsequies, were the succession of sacrifices which were performed in honor of the deceased at his grave. No one but a relative was allowed to offer these sacrifices since a person visiting a strange tomb was suspected of a design to steal the bones for superstitious purposes[276]. This oblation to the dead was discriminated among the Hellenes from the ordinary sacrifices to the gods by a word peculiarly appropriated. The word which indicated this species of offering was enagisma and the idea implied in it may best be rendered into English by the word “purification[277].” The enagisma seems to have been divided, according to its character, into two kinds of sacrifice; namely, the choe, or “libation,” and the haimacouria or “blood-propitiation.” The choe or milder form, consisted merely of a libation of water, milk or wine, together with an offering of olives, honey and wreaths of flowers, “the offspring of all-producing earth[277].” At the haimacouria, on the other hand, before the wine was poured, it was the custom to slay a black ram[278] or a black bull[279]. This blood sacrifice, however, was probably used only when they were sacrificing in honor of a number of men. For instance, the warriors who were slain in Boeotia, while defending Greece from Mardonius, had that ceremony, on the anniversary day of each year, performed at their graves by the archon and the inhabitants of Plataea[279]. By the law of Solon, heifers, as victims, were proscribed in these solemnities[280].
The offerings, however, were gradually made more and more expensive until, on some occasions, a regular feast was laid out and consumed by fire. In a Greek dialogue that has come down to us, the old ferryman, Charon, who had come to the upper world to view the customs of men, expresses his surprise at these sepulchral propitiations. “Why then,” says he, “do they crown these stones and perfume them with unguents? Why do they heap up funeral pyres before the graves and burn these expensive feasts and pour wine and a mixture of honey and water into this trench[281]?”
The sacrifices at the sepulchre took place on stated days. At the first of these ceremonies, called the trita, from the fact of its falling on the third day[282] after the interment, a lunch was brought out for the corpse[283]. Following that tertial offering, came another, the ennata, on the ninth day. This ninth day sacrifice, since Aeschines speaks of it as if it were the only one to be considered[284], and since Isaeus mentions the great expense connected with it[285], was very probably of more importance than the others. It is uncertain of what it consisted, since it is not specified in any of the Grecian authorities; but, if any reliance can be placed on the description of a Roman author, it was a regular banquet prepared for the deceased[286]. The ennata among the Athenians, inasmuch as we find no mention of anything farther in our ancient writers, probably concluded the customary ceremonies. The Argives, varied these rites by omitting the trita and ennata, and substituted a sacrifice on the first and on the thirtieth day. It was their custom upon losing one of their kindred or friends to sacrifice immediately to Apollo and thirty days after to Hermes[287]. The Spartans, on the other hand, always moderate in all their passions, limited their sacrifices to one on the twelfth day to Ceres, after which they ceased to mourn outwardly[288]. But, with the Athenians, the completion of the obsequies by no means ended all the customary observances of a mourner. The thirtieth day, however, seems to have been the limit set at Athens for the public manifestation[289]. Any semblance of happiness on the part of the mourner before that time was strongly disapproved. Aeschines makes a serious accusation against Demosthenes when he denounces him for having offered sacrifices of thanksgiving for the death of Philip when his daughter had been dead only seven days[290]. Euphiletus, an every-day citizen of Athens, has his suspicions of his wife’s infidelity intensified and corroborated, because one day, before her brother had been dead thirty days, he discovered her with her cheeks painted[291].
Of the objects that were employed in the sacrifices and services at the tomb, the basket that serves to carry the offerings to the column is always in the hands of a woman. It is always the same in appearance, long, without a cover and shallow. This basket is often mentioned in the descriptions of religious ceremonies[292], where it is called kanoun, kanes and kaniskion. It appears on the bas-reliefs as well as on the vases. The young girls who carry the offerings at the Panathenaia are called canephorae[293] from the name of this basket.
The casket, which the women hold in the paintings, is usually a quadrangular box with a flat cover, and sometimes has little projecting feet to support it. This casket sometimes contains a precious offering, such as a golden statuette or a lyre of ivory[294].
The vases, of all the accessories of the funeral, are the most varied in form and usefulness. The hydria was used to mix the liquids for funeral libation, the oenochoe and the prochoos contained the pure wine or water, the phiale was a kind of shallow plate employed for making the libation, the phlemochoe was a vase having the form of a top (a rim placed inside this vase retained the solid part of the contents and permitted only the purest part of the liquid to be poured out), the alabastron and the aryballa held the oil which was poured on the stone column for anointing it and perfuming it, as if it were the dead person himself[295].
The repast prepared for the dead was presented in two forms: (a) fruits or cakes placed in a basket, (b) a libation poured out on the steps of the pillar. It is difficult to determine the nature of these fruits or this food. Our only knowledge is obtained, for the most part, from the paintings on the vases and the resemblance of an egg to a pomegranate is so close that the object in the picture may be mistaken for either. The delineation of the cake is not altogether clear, although without doubt the honey-cake, the melittouta, is intended. This cake is mentioned by Aristophanes[296], and was composed of meal and honey. For the libation, they used water or pure wine or milk, and sometimes a liquid made from honey[297]. The pictures that have been mentioned have no representation of the libations of blood nor holocausts of victims that occur in the authors.
With rare exceptions, the basket containing the offering is borne by women, and it is women who bind the bands around the pillar and place the crowns on the base. Their gestures are, in general, calmer and more measured in the ceremonies at the grave than in the prothesis. Some of them, however, are yet seen carrying their hands to their heads, as if to tear out their hair, but their usual attitude is tranquil. There is less of the expression of grief than of religious respect and melancholy resignation. Yet one of the gestures appears to signify something more than vague regret and reverence. In a certain number of the paintings, the characters depicted extending their hands toward the tomb, or raising them to their faces bring together the thumb and forefinger, in a manner specially noticeable. In the museum of Dresden, there is an ancient monument representing the seizure of the tripod of Delphi by Hercules; a priestess is attaching some bandalettes to it; she raises her right hand, pressing together the thumb and forefinger. The vases, also, offer other examples of this gesture, which is plainly ritualistic.
M. Benndorf regards, also, as a ritualistic gesture, the open hand extended toward the pillar, with the palm turned downwards. He supports this opinion by a citation from Euripides[298], where the slave of Admetus extends his hand after that manner. Another verse[299] of the same poet, evidently alludes to this custom. All these attitudes appear on the paintings of the white lecyths, and confirm the opinion that they express religious homage rendered by the living to the dead, and were part of the funeral ceremony.
Another peculiar observance is seen where the mourners extend their hands toward the tomb, with a motion which seems to indicate that they talk to the dead. These are the pictures of familiar conversation, bearing the formula of adieu, chaire, or a little dialogue between the deceased and a passer-by.
There appears, also, to have been a custom of making music at the foot of the tomb, for the purpose of cheering the deceased in his solitude. The instrument used is the lyre. On one of the paintings, it is a young man, probably the deceased, sitting, who holds the lyre while the assistants appear to listen.
Such were the practices of the Greeks while the bereavement was recent, but it was always the duty of the survivors, as long as their lives might last, to tend their ancestors’ graves. Socrates, to rebuke his son, who has been angered with his mother, and to impress upon him how necessary it is properly to respect one’s parents in their lifetime, reminds him that it is the custom for the state, in its examination of candidates for the archonship, to inquire if they have kept in good condition the graves of their ancestors[300].
Leocrates, who, in violation of the law, had left Athens during the critical period following the battle of Chaeronea, is arraigned by Lycurgus for having abandoned his native land, having neglected the religion of his country, and having deserted the tombs of his forefathers[301]. To the Athenian mind, Isocrates made a most touching appeal, when he represented the Plataeans as being in such a decimated condition that not enough of them were left to tend the graves of those who had defended Greece against the Persians. After this master-stroke, nothing was left for the Athenians to do but to make war on the impious Thebans, who had so mercilessly reduced their allies[302]. Finally, listen to the exhortation which Aeschylus, in “The Persians,” attributes to the herald before the battle of Salamis:
“Advance! O, sons of Greece! preserve the freedom of your native land; keep from foeman’s grasp your children, your wives, the temples of your ancestral gods, and the sepulchres of your progenitors. Now the struggle is for all[303].”
