underworld, such as was demanded by Homeric theology, was at Hermione. Here, behind the temple of Chthonia lay a sacred precinct of Plouton or Klymenos with a chasm in the ground through which Herakles had once brought up Kerberos to the earth--and an "Acherusian Lake".[25\5] So near did the spirit world seem here, that the people of Hermione did not give their dead the usual coin to pay the fare of Charon, the ferryman of the dead:[26\5] for _them_, in whose own country lay the river Acheron, no tract of water lay between the land of the living and the dead. More important than these cases of contact between the dark underworld and the world of the living--for the localization of the underworld still remained for the most part matter of fancy--is the fact that the creatures of that world are again drawing closer to the senses of men. The thoughts of men turn more frequently to the other world at so many festivals and anniversaries; the gods who rule below desire and repay the veneration of mankind, both of the individual and the city. And in the train of the chthonic gods the souls of the dead, always closely bound to them, receive a cult which in many particulars goes beyond anything customary in the Homeric Age. II FUNERAL CEREMONIES AND WORSHIP OF THE DEAD The first duty that the survivors owe to their dead is to bury the body in the customary manner. This age takes the matter more seriously than the Homeric people had done. Whereas in Homer denial of burial to enemies fallen in war is often mentioned, it is now regarded as a religious duty that is seldom neglected to give back the bodies of the fallen foe for burial. To deny the honour of burial to members of one's own city is an outrage of the most extreme kind; everyone knows what terrible vengeance for such a neglect of duty was taken, by the excited populace at Athens, on the generals after Arginousai. Nothing can release a son from the duty of burying his father and offering him the regular gifts at his {163} grave.[27\5] And if the relations, in spite of everything, neglect their task the law at Athens requires the Demarch to see to the burial of his fellow demesman.[28\5] Religious requirements, however, go beyond the law. At the solemn agricultural festival of Demeter the Bouzyges at Athens invoked a curse on all who should leave a corpse unburied.[29\5] This matter, which the chthonic deities take under their protection, is no mere sanitary police regulation. It is not any such consideration, but solely the "unwritten laws" of religion which are obeyed by Antigone when she covers the dead body of her brother with a little dust: even such symbolical burial is enough to avert the "abomination" (~a/gos~). Motives of pure piety may have played their part, but the really fundamental idea underlying all such practices was the one already met with in the Iliad:[30\5] that the soul of the unburied person can find no rest in the hereafter. The ghost haunts the