Classical Greek Burial Rites as Evident through Classical Mythology - Essay Example

ical Greek Burial Rites as Evident through ical Mythology At the end of The Illiad,Homer writes about the funeral that was given to Hector. Hector, killed in an honorable duel with Achiles, was given back to his family dead with a promise from Achilles that the war would pause while they buried his body. The passage, from translation, reads “Achilles gave his word,/At my dismission, that twelve days he would keep sheathed his sword,” (Warner, Mabie, Warner, and Runkle 7568). This indicated that the length of time needed to mourn a prince of Troy was twelve days. On the tenth day, they lit a funeral pyre and burned the body of Hector. While the body of Hector was around for more time than that as it was kept near while the funeral of Patroclus was conducted, the funeral games and rites were shown to be the twelve day long period. Another funeral takes place in The Illiad for Patroclus, but it is conducted more swiftly than that of Hector. Patroclus was killed accidentally by Hector and was a relative to Achilles. To honor his death, Achilles had his men built a tall funeral pyre on which he killed oxen and offered jars of oil and honey. They placed Patroclus on the pyre where the hounds and horses that Patroclus had owned had also been sacrificed. Twelve of the dead Trojans, killed in the honor of Patroclus, were piled upon the pyre. When all of this was in place, Achilles cut his long hair and offered it is a sacrifice, putting it into Patroclus’ hands. The pyre was set on fire and the ashes were put into an urn, with the mound where the fire had been lit covered with earth. After this was done, games were held in which characters such as Ajax and Odysseus participated (Gale and Homer 128-130). The games serve, from the literary point of view, as a way to say “farewell to the major heroes such as Agamemnon, Menelaus, Diomedes, Odysseus, Nestor, Ajax, Idomeneus and Meriones (Toohey 41). During the twelve days that were given to mourn for Hector, games were played, at the end of which his body was burned, although the funeral rites were done in reverse for Patroclus. The difference is predicated by the appearance of the ghost of Patroclus who asks Achilles to bury him immediately. From a literary standpoint, however, one can see that as a contrast Hector embodies civilization where Achilles has embodied the brutality of the warrior, even in his honorable nature. During Hector’s funeral, his body, which was destroyed by Achilles and defiled by the treatment that it was given at his hands, lays waiting throughout the athletic events (Toohey 41). Hector’s body has lain in the camp of Achilles during the time of the funeral of Patroclus. Priam must go to Achilles to beg for the body of his son. By the time he gets it back and his body is finally laid to rest, it has been dead for quite some time (Thompson 54). In the Greek epic poems, bodies were burned after death. Oxen and sheep were sacrifices, as were the dogs and horses of the dead, just as it was seen in the funeral of Patroclus. The body was wrapped in the fat of the sacrificed creatures with “ungients and honey placed near” (Jeb 71). The bones were collected by friends and family who washed them in oil and wine before covering them with cloth. This is then placed in a funerary urn which is buried in a grave which is described as a mound of earth (Pritchett 85). Until rites are said, the ghost cannot join the afterlife and is left to wander the earth, thus the plea from Patroclus to bury him as quickly as possible (Jeb 71). One of the more important aspects of the funerary process was the need of women to lay out the bodies, to touch the urns, and to provide emotional context for the sorrow of the event. “The women give the final public statements over the body of Hector” (Foley 40). Women are the expressive side of the event, where men provide the physical expression of strength and honor through their games. One of the more prevalent concepts within the mythologies of the Greeks was the connection of the works of the gods to the deaths of their more famed heroes and characters. While most cultural spirituality is defined by the way in which death is considered, the Greeks believed in the direct intervention of the gods and also in the need for rites to be preformed to control the crossing of the dead into the afterlife. In Greek mythology, one of the more important points of funeral instruction was to cover the eyes of the deceased with coins. The mythological character Charon, was the ferryman who crossed with the soul of the departed across the River Styx. If a soul showed up without coins, it would be driven away and left to roam, lost and without connection to the loved ones who had passed over (Daly and Rengel 34). There is a socialization that occurs through the funerary rites in the epic poems of the ancient periods. According to Vernant “The funeral rites aim to procure for the person who has lost his life access to a new state of social existence” (55). While in the Western culture a funeral is a ritual performed to give closure to the bereaved, the Greek culture saw this is a necessary act to ensure that the spirit of the departed had attained their new position in the realm of the dead. Even in the physical realm, death was considered impermanent if the person who had died transcended death through its glory and found heroic remembrance through literary recordings of his deeds. Death was a period of finding a sense of ‘individualism’ which was defined by Greeks by actions that had given the person credible fame in his or her memory (Vernant 56). This type of event happens in The Odyssey as well. Odysseus calls forth the dead, perpetuating their importance in the physical world past the point of their death (Vernant 60). The dead have become part of a culture that interacts with the living, providing both context and providence through the way in which they create a secondary existence. One of the shades that Odysseus interacts with is Achilles who instructs Odysseus on the glory of life over the listlessness of being dead. “Do not speak to me lightly of death, glorious Oddyseus” said the shade of Achillles, “I would rather be bound down, working as a thes for another, by the side of a landless man, than be ruler over all the dead who have perished” (Finley 53). The Oddyssey provides a glimpse into the realities of life and death as Achilles plays the role of the hero who didn’t seek glorification through death, but glory that would last after his death. The distinction is important as the Greeks, through their rites and their beliefs, had established a set of beliefs that supported an idea that death was a new social setting. However, Achilles, always practical and strategic, sets this belief system straight. The beliefs of the Greeks about the importance of death can be seen in a curse that Aeneas puts on an enemy. He says “…a fond mother will not come to lay you into the ground; she will not lay your body under the weight of the tomb in your country. You will be abandoned to birds of prey or thrown into the abyss of the sea, where the voracious fish will come to lick your wounds. (Bleeker and Widengren 483, taken from Aeneid X). This is not just a challenge or bad comment, but a curse that is one of the vilest comments that a man may say to another. The idea that proper funeral rites would not be given is as foul as it can be to the Greeks. The importance of the proper burial is more important than any other aspect of their experience on earth. Without it, they come to an end that is unceasing and without the relief that everyone desires for their lives (Erasmus: Lawson 449). The character of Aeneas is an example of the way in which it was believed that the gods had a direct interest in both the life and the after life of the Greeks. The story of Aeneas tells of his participation in the Trojan War, and his consequential migration to Italy to begin a new kingdom. Apollo instructed Aeneas to travel to Italy and on the way there were stories of a great number of adventure (Hoena 5). From the story of Aeneas, the concept of deification can be seen. Aeneas is deified by the pleas of Aphrodite to Zeus after his death so that he will be immortal. In this same vein, so are many of the Greeks and Romans (whose belief systems were modeled after the Greeks) whose lives were of sufficient importance. Julius Caesar is declared a deity after his death, and Caligula declared himself divine before his death (Ovid and Musgrove 189). Aeneas, the proto-founder of Rome (where Romulus was the actual founder of Rome) is responsible for the creating of the festival dies Parentales a celebration that lasted for nine days and honored the ancestors. He is also responsible for bringing some minor deities into Rome (Robinson and Ovid 343).The Parentalia is a celebration that renews the importance of the funeral rites in Rome every year. The sacra privata was a yearly anniversary of the death of a loved one where a procession was held for the loved ones to mark the burial event (Fowler 208). The importance of the Greek burial belief system was brought forward to the Roman civilization, inspiring an impact on the way in which that culture believed in the afterlife. Sculptures were used in ancient Greece to mark the graves during the Classical Period (480-320 BC) and some from the Hellenistic Period (323-30 BC) (Grossman 1). The use of very distinctive and monumental sculptural markers was a part of the communicative nature of the Greeks . Public statuary was used as a method of communication to mark many public events. Statuary was more than just art, it was a form of media through which the Greeks discussed their world and the Greek presence within that world. This extended to the way in which graves were marked (Wunsche 89). From the time of the Archaic period, the Greeks buried their dead in a cemetery outside of the city and many had epitaphs that were directed at those entering the city. Grave markers were produced in workshops and none are attributed to the most well known sculptors of ancient Greece, Polykleitos or Lysippus (Grossman 2). Works Cited Bleeker, C. J. and C. Widengren. Historia Religionum: Religions of the Past. Vol. 1. 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