Civilization, Homeric; Epic poetry, Greek -- History and criticism; Homer; Homer -- Homes and haunts -- Greece
After gifts of hair and the setting up of jars full of oil and honey,
Achilles has the body laid on the top of the pyre in the centre. Bodies
of sheep and oxen, two dogs and four horses, are strewed around: why, we
know not, for the dead is not supposed to need food: the rite may be
a survival, for there were sacrifices at the burials of the Mycenaean
shaft graves. Achilles slays also the twelve Trojans, "because of mine
anger at thy slaying," he says (XXIII. 23). This was his reason, as far
as he consciously had any reason, not that his friend might have twelve
thralls in Hades. After the pyre is alit Achilles drenches it all night
with wine, and, when the flame dies down, the dead hero's bones are
collected and placed in the covered cup of gold. The circle of the
barrow is then marked out, stones are set up round it (we see them round
Highland tumuli), and earth is heaped up; no more is done; the tomb is
empty; the covered cup holding the ashes is in the hut of Achilles.
We must note another trait. After the body of Patroclus was recovered,
it was washed, anointed, laid on a bier, and covered from head to foot
[Greek: heano liti], translated by Helbig, "with a linen sheet" (cf.
XXIII. 254). The golden cup with the ashes is next wrapped [Greek: heano
liti]; here Mr. Myers renders the words "with a linen veil." Scottish
cremation burials of the Bronze Age retain traces of linen wrappings
of the urn. [Footnote: _Proceedings of the Scottish society of
Antiquaries_, 1905, p. 552. For other cases, _cf._ Leaf, _Iliad_, XXIV.
796. Note.] Over all a white [Greek: pharos] (mantle) was spread. In
_Iliad_, XXIV. 231, twelve [Greek: pharea] with chitons, single cloaks,
and other articles of dress, are taken to Achilles by Priam as part of
the ransom of Hector's body. Such is the death-garb of Patroclus; but
Helbig, looking for Ionian innovations in Book XXIV., finds that the
death-garb of Hector is not the same as that of Patroclus in Book XXIII.
One difference is that when the squires of Achilles took the ransom of
Hector from the waggon of Priam, they left in it two [Greek: pharea] and
a well-spun chiton. The women washed and anointed Hector's body; they
clad him in the chiton, and threw one [Greek: pharos] over it; we are
not told what they did with the other. Perhaps, as Mr. Leaf says, it was
used as a cover for the bier, perhaps it was not, but was laid under the
body (Helbig). All we know is that Hector's body was restored to Priam
in a chiton and a [Greek: pharos], which do not seem to have been
removed before he was burned; while Patroclus had no chiton in death,
but a [Greek: pharos] and, apparently, a linen sheet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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