DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.13851#0594
666
OF THE MISCELLANY CUSTOMS OF GREECE.
It was farther customary for persons of quality to institute games, with"
all sorts of exercises, to render the death of their friends more remarka-
ble ; this practice was generally received, and is frequently mentioned
by ancient writers : Miltiades's funeral in Herodotus, Brasidas's in i hu-
cydides, Timoleon's in Plutarch, with many others, afford examples here-
of. Nor was it a custom of later ages, but very common in the primitive
times : Fatroclus's funeral games take up the greatest part of one of Ho-
mer's Iliads (1), and Agamemnon's ghost is introduced by the same poet,
telling the ghost of Achilles, that he had been a spectator at great numbers
of such solemnities (2) : in the age before, we find Oedipus's funeral so-
lemnized with sports, and Hercules is said to have celebrated games at the
death of Pelops (3). The first that had this honour was Azan, the son
of Areas, the father of the Arcadians, whose funeral, as Pausanias re-
ports (4), was celebrated with horse-races. The prizes were of differ-
ent sorts and value, according to the quality and magnificence of the per-
son that celebrated them. The garlands given to victors were usually of
parsley, which was thought to have some particular relation to the dead,
as being feigned to spring out of Archemorus's blood ; whence it became
the crown of conquerors in the Nemean games, which were first institut-
ed at his funeral ( 5).
It was a general opinion, that dead bodies polluted all things about
them : this occasioned purifying after funerals, which Virgil has thus de-
scribed (6) :
Idem ter sociospura circumtuht unda,
Spargens rore levi, et ramofelicis olivK
Lustravitque viros---
Then Chorinaeus took the charge to place
The bones selected in a brazen vase :
A verdant branch of olive in his hands,
He mov'd around and purified the bands. fitt.
Several other ways of purification may be met with, but these containing
nothing peculiar to funerals, and being described in one of the preceding
books, have no claim to any mention in this place. Till this purification
was accomplished, the polluted person could not enter into the temples,
or communicate at the worship of the gods : whence Iphigenia speak?
the following words concerning Diana (7) : #
T« t))c S"£!j $\ fJLifX<pOfJ.tti ITO<p(<rUaT!l,
Ba>(w(£v ctviipy-: (tvo-apov tls Hyxpivin. >
These false rules of the Goddess much I blame ;
Whoe'er of mortals is with slaughter stain'd,
Or hath at child-birth given assisting hands.
Or chane'd to touch aught dead, she as impure
Drives from her altars. potter.
Nor was it Diana alone, of whom the poet speaks, that had such an aver-
sion to these pollutions, but the rest of the gods and goddesses were of
the same temper. Lucian, in his treatise concerning the Syrian goddess,
tells, that when any person had seen a corpse, he was not admitted into
(1) Iliad. (2) Odyss. d,. v. 85. (5) Vid. Archa:olog. nostr. lib. ii. cap. penult.
(3) Dionysius Halicarnass. lib. v. et ult.
(4) Arcadicis. (6) ^neid. lib. vi. v. 229.
(7) Euripid, Jpbigen. Tauric 380.
OF THE MISCELLANY CUSTOMS OF GREECE.
It was farther customary for persons of quality to institute games, with"
all sorts of exercises, to render the death of their friends more remarka-
ble ; this practice was generally received, and is frequently mentioned
by ancient writers : Miltiades's funeral in Herodotus, Brasidas's in i hu-
cydides, Timoleon's in Plutarch, with many others, afford examples here-
of. Nor was it a custom of later ages, but very common in the primitive
times : Fatroclus's funeral games take up the greatest part of one of Ho-
mer's Iliads (1), and Agamemnon's ghost is introduced by the same poet,
telling the ghost of Achilles, that he had been a spectator at great numbers
of such solemnities (2) : in the age before, we find Oedipus's funeral so-
lemnized with sports, and Hercules is said to have celebrated games at the
death of Pelops (3). The first that had this honour was Azan, the son
of Areas, the father of the Arcadians, whose funeral, as Pausanias re-
ports (4), was celebrated with horse-races. The prizes were of differ-
ent sorts and value, according to the quality and magnificence of the per-
son that celebrated them. The garlands given to victors were usually of
parsley, which was thought to have some particular relation to the dead,
as being feigned to spring out of Archemorus's blood ; whence it became
the crown of conquerors in the Nemean games, which were first institut-
ed at his funeral ( 5).
It was a general opinion, that dead bodies polluted all things about
them : this occasioned purifying after funerals, which Virgil has thus de-
scribed (6) :
Idem ter sociospura circumtuht unda,
Spargens rore levi, et ramofelicis olivK
Lustravitque viros---
Then Chorinaeus took the charge to place
The bones selected in a brazen vase :
A verdant branch of olive in his hands,
He mov'd around and purified the bands. fitt.
Several other ways of purification may be met with, but these containing
nothing peculiar to funerals, and being described in one of the preceding
books, have no claim to any mention in this place. Till this purification
was accomplished, the polluted person could not enter into the temples,
or communicate at the worship of the gods : whence Iphigenia speak?
the following words concerning Diana (7) : #
T« t))c S"£!j $\ fJLifX<pOfJ.tti ITO<p(<rUaT!l,
Ba>(w(£v ctviipy-: (tvo-apov tls Hyxpivin. >
These false rules of the Goddess much I blame ;
Whoe'er of mortals is with slaughter stain'd,
Or hath at child-birth given assisting hands.
Or chane'd to touch aught dead, she as impure
Drives from her altars. potter.
Nor was it Diana alone, of whom the poet speaks, that had such an aver-
sion to these pollutions, but the rest of the gods and goddesses were of
the same temper. Lucian, in his treatise concerning the Syrian goddess,
tells, that when any person had seen a corpse, he was not admitted into
(1) Iliad. (2) Odyss. d,. v. 85. (5) Vid. Archa:olog. nostr. lib. ii. cap. penult.
(3) Dionysius Halicarnass. lib. v. et ult.
(4) Arcadicis. (6) ^neid. lib. vi. v. 229.
(7) Euripid, Jpbigen. Tauric 380.