DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0367
344
New Chapters in Greek History.
[Chap. XI.
of sacred rites does hollow pretence more commonly take
the place of reality than in those connected with funerals
and tombs.
Such, in merest outline, is the history of Greek beliefs
as to the life beyond the grave during the course of the
historical ages. And if we examine a few examples of
the various groups of sepulchral monuments to be found
in various parts of Hellas, we shall find ample illustration
of our sketch.
Among the earliest of Greek sculptured tombstones are
those Spartan reliefs of which mention has already been
made. In them we see the departed ancestor and ances-
tress seated like gods to receive the homage of survivors.
When the seated hero holds out a wine-cup, it seems
a broad hint to survivors to fill it. Accordingly, in
Boeotian and other reliefs, we actually see a female
figure approaching to fill from a pitcher the extended
vessel. And upon Greek graves there commonly lay, as
we learn from the testimony of excavations, an amphora
of coarse ware to receive the doles of wine brought to
the cemetery. The food brought by suppliants on the
Peloponnesian stelae consists of eggs and fowls, and more
especially the pomegranate. This last seems to have
been the recognised food of the shades. Hades gives it
to his stolen bride, Persephone; and she, by eating it,
becomes incapable of quitting the place of the dead to
return to her bright existence in the upper air. And
to this day pomegranate seeds are one element in the
sweet cakes which are made to be distributed by those
who have lost a friend, at certain intervals after his death,
cakes evidently representing those bestowed in old times
on the lost friend himself.
This realism of offerings to the dead naturally suggests
to us that the idea of offerings of food and wine to the
deities themselves arose from the transfer to them of
New Chapters in Greek History.
[Chap. XI.
of sacred rites does hollow pretence more commonly take
the place of reality than in those connected with funerals
and tombs.
Such, in merest outline, is the history of Greek beliefs
as to the life beyond the grave during the course of the
historical ages. And if we examine a few examples of
the various groups of sepulchral monuments to be found
in various parts of Hellas, we shall find ample illustration
of our sketch.
Among the earliest of Greek sculptured tombstones are
those Spartan reliefs of which mention has already been
made. In them we see the departed ancestor and ances-
tress seated like gods to receive the homage of survivors.
When the seated hero holds out a wine-cup, it seems
a broad hint to survivors to fill it. Accordingly, in
Boeotian and other reliefs, we actually see a female
figure approaching to fill from a pitcher the extended
vessel. And upon Greek graves there commonly lay, as
we learn from the testimony of excavations, an amphora
of coarse ware to receive the doles of wine brought to
the cemetery. The food brought by suppliants on the
Peloponnesian stelae consists of eggs and fowls, and more
especially the pomegranate. This last seems to have
been the recognised food of the shades. Hades gives it
to his stolen bride, Persephone; and she, by eating it,
becomes incapable of quitting the place of the dead to
return to her bright existence in the upper air. And
to this day pomegranate seeds are one element in the
sweet cakes which are made to be distributed by those
who have lost a friend, at certain intervals after his death,
cakes evidently representing those bestowed in old times
on the lost friend himself.
This realism of offerings to the dead naturally suggests
to us that the idea of offerings of food and wine to the
deities themselves arose from the transfer to them of