DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.13851#0571
op the miscellany customs of greece.
543
Do you, since ancient custom so requires,
Salute the corpse, and take your last farewell.
The procession was commonly made on horseback or in coaches ; but at
the funerals of persons to whom a more than ordinary reverence was
thought due, all went on foot : which respect the Athenians paid to the
memory of Theophrastus, as an acknowledgment of his excellent vir-
tues (1). The relations went next the corpse, the rest walked some
distance off: sometimes the men went before it, with their heads unco-
vered, the women following it. Patroclus was carried to his funeral,
surrounded by the Grecian soldiers : but the ordinary way was for the
body to go first, and the rest to follow : which appears, as from many
other instances, so from that of Terence (2) :
Funus interim
Procedit, sequimur.--
Meanwhile the funeral proceeds ; we follow.
Whereby the survivors were put in mind of their mortality, and bid to
remember they were all following in 'he way the dead person was gone
before (3). At the funerals of soMiers their fellow soldiers attended
with their spears pointed towards the ground, and the uppermost part of
their bucklers turned downwards, as has been formerly observed (4).
This was not done so much (a- some fancy) because the gods were carv-
ed upon their bucklers, whose faces would hnve been polluted by the
sight of a dead body, as that they might recede from their common cus-
tom ; the method of mourning being to act contrary to what was usual at
other times ; and therefore not oniy their buckl.r-, but their spears, and
the rest of their weapons were inverted Nor was this only a martial
custom, but practised likewise in peace ; for at the funerals of ma-
gistrates, their ensigns of honour were inverted, as appears from the
poet (5) :
Quos primum vidi Jasc.es, in funere vidi,
El vidi versos, indiciumque mail.
The fasres first I at a funeral saw,
With heads turn'd downward , the sad badjre of woe.
To perform this ceremony, tbev termed sx-rfe^siv, tfa^atfs'fjwrtiv, and #£o-
tfsfjwrsiv ; the first with respect to the house, out of which the bod* was
carried forth : the second with respect to the places, by which it pass-
ed ; and the last, to the piace whither it was conveyed.
CHAP. V.
of their mourning for the dead.
The ceremonies by which they used to express their sorrow upon the
death of friends, and on other occasions, were various and uncertain :
,\) Diogenes Laertius Theophrasto. (4) Lib. iii. cap. 11.
(2) Andria. (5) Pedo Albinovan. Eleg. ad Liviam.
^Donatus in loc. Terentii, Alexand, ab Alex, lib, iii. cap. 8,
543
Do you, since ancient custom so requires,
Salute the corpse, and take your last farewell.
The procession was commonly made on horseback or in coaches ; but at
the funerals of persons to whom a more than ordinary reverence was
thought due, all went on foot : which respect the Athenians paid to the
memory of Theophrastus, as an acknowledgment of his excellent vir-
tues (1). The relations went next the corpse, the rest walked some
distance off: sometimes the men went before it, with their heads unco-
vered, the women following it. Patroclus was carried to his funeral,
surrounded by the Grecian soldiers : but the ordinary way was for the
body to go first, and the rest to follow : which appears, as from many
other instances, so from that of Terence (2) :
Funus interim
Procedit, sequimur.--
Meanwhile the funeral proceeds ; we follow.
Whereby the survivors were put in mind of their mortality, and bid to
remember they were all following in 'he way the dead person was gone
before (3). At the funerals of soMiers their fellow soldiers attended
with their spears pointed towards the ground, and the uppermost part of
their bucklers turned downwards, as has been formerly observed (4).
This was not done so much (a- some fancy) because the gods were carv-
ed upon their bucklers, whose faces would hnve been polluted by the
sight of a dead body, as that they might recede from their common cus-
tom ; the method of mourning being to act contrary to what was usual at
other times ; and therefore not oniy their buckl.r-, but their spears, and
the rest of their weapons were inverted Nor was this only a martial
custom, but practised likewise in peace ; for at the funerals of ma-
gistrates, their ensigns of honour were inverted, as appears from the
poet (5) :
Quos primum vidi Jasc.es, in funere vidi,
El vidi versos, indiciumque mail.
The fasres first I at a funeral saw,
With heads turn'd downward , the sad badjre of woe.
To perform this ceremony, tbev termed sx-rfe^siv, tfa^atfs'fjwrtiv, and #£o-
tfsfjwrsiv ; the first with respect to the house, out of which the bod* was
carried forth : the second with respect to the places, by which it pass-
ed ; and the last, to the piace whither it was conveyed.
CHAP. V.
of their mourning for the dead.
The ceremonies by which they used to express their sorrow upon the
death of friends, and on other occasions, were various and uncertain :
,\) Diogenes Laertius Theophrasto. (4) Lib. iii. cap. 11.
(2) Andria. (5) Pedo Albinovan. Eleg. ad Liviam.
^Donatus in loc. Terentii, Alexand, ab Alex, lib, iii. cap. 8,