[39\5: Serv., _A._ iii, 680: apud Atticos funestae domus huius (cupressi) frondo velantur. The object may have been to warn the superstitious against approaching the "unclean" house: it is a characteristic of the ~deisidai/môn, ou/te epibê=nai mnê/mati, ou/te epi\ nekro\n ou/t' epi\ lechô\ elthei=n ethelê=sai~, Thphr., _Ch._ 16. This at least was the reason given at Rome for a similar custom: Serv., _A._ 3, 64; 4, 507.] [40\5: Crowning of the dead with garlands, afterwards a general custom, is first mentioned in the ~Alkmaiôni/s~ (epical, but hard to date precisely: _fr._ ii, p. 76 Kink.). On the "Archemoros" vase a woman is about to place a myrtle-wreath on the head of Archemoros. The myrtle is sacred to the ~chtho/nioi~, and hence the myrtle-crown belongs to the Mystai of Demeter as well as to the dead: see Apollod. ap. Sch. Ar., _Ran._ 330; Ister ap. Sch. Soph., _OC._ 681. Grave-monuments too were crowned and planted especially with myrtles; Eur., _El._ 324, 512; cf. Thphr., _HP._ 5, 8, 3; Vg., _A._ iii, 23. Not only the dead but graves too were frequently crowned with ~se/linon~, parsley: Plu., _Timol._ 26; _Smp._ 5, 3, 2, p. 676 D; Diogen. viii, 57, and others; cf. above, chap. iv, n. 21. The crowning invariably implies some form of consecration to a god. Acc. to Tertul., _Cor. Mil._ 10, the dead were crowned quoniam et ipsi idola statim fiunt habitu et cultu consecrationis; which at least gets nearer the real sense of the practice than the view of Sch. Ar., _Lys._ 601: ~ste/phanos edi/doto toi=s nekroi=s hôs to\n bi/on diêgônisme/nois~.] [41\5: Pl., _Lg._ 959 A. Poll. iii, 65. A still stranger reason added ap. Phot. ~pro/thesis~.] [42\5: Permission to attend either the ~pro/thesis~ of the corpse (and the funeral lamentation) or the funeral procession (the ~ekphora/~) given only to women of kinship ~mechri\ anepsio/têtos~: Law ap. Dem. 43, 62-3: i.e. within the ~agchistei/a~, to which alone the duty of the cult of the dead belonged in principle. Only these women of the immediate kin are ~miaino/menai~ in the case of death: cf. Hdt. vi, 58; this is the reason for the restrictions laid down by the funeral regulation from Keos (_SIG._ 877, 25 ff.), which makes an even narrower selection within the ranks of the ~agchistei/a~. (From l. 22 ~mê\ hupotithe/nai~, etc., the law speaks of the ~pro/thesis~, even though at the beginning only the ~ekphora/~ is in question.)] [43\5: ~amucha\s koptome/nôn aphei=len~. Plu., _Sol._ 21. The democratizing of life in Attica after Solon's time may have contributed to the carrying out there of provisions restricting the elaborate funeral rites of the old aristocratic period. The practice of ~ko/ptesthai epi\ tethnêko/ti~ appears, however, to have remained in use: beating of the head at funeral lamentations is a favourite motif in Attic vase-paintings (the so-called "Prothesis" vases); cf. _Monum. dell' Instit._ viii, 4, 5; iii, 60, etc. See Benndorf, _Griech. Sicil. Vasenb._ 1.]