[61\5: Coffinless burial was usual in the graves of the "Mycenaean" period, and also in the oldest times in Attica. The Spartans were merely keeping up this ancient custom when they ~en phoiniki/di kai\ phu/llois elai/as the/ntes to\ sô=ma perie/stellon~ (buried), Plu., _Lyc._ 27. Here everything points to the retention of primitive usage. The bodies were buried in the ancient fashion, not burnt; they were wrapped in a crimson robe. Crimson is otherwise the special colour for war and festival dress (cf. Müller, _Dorians_, ii, 264); here it is used in connexion with chthonic cult: ~e/chei ga/r tina to\ porphurou=n chrô=ma sumpa/theian pro\s to\n tha/naton~ says rightly Artemid. 1, 77, p. 70, 11 H. This can hardly be because of the red colour of blood; any more than that is why ~tha/natos~ is called ~porphu/reos~. But even Homer ~Ô~ 796 makes Hektor's bones wrapped ~_purphure/ois_ pe/ploisi~--the bones only in this case instead of the whole body: clearly a vestige of an older custom which survived unchanged in Sparta. Similarly ~Ps~ 254. So, too, e.g. in the Dipylon graves at Athens burnt bones were found wrapped in a cloth, _Ath. Mitt._ 18, 160-1, 185. The head of the murdered brother ~_phoiniki/di_ ekalupsa/tên kai\ ethapsa/tên~ the two other Kabeiroi in the religious myth related by Clem. Al., _Protr._ ii, p. 16 P. Crimson frequently occurs as a colour used in chthonic cult: e.g. at the ceremonial ~a/rai~ implying consecration to the infernal deities in [Lys.] 6, 51; at sacrifices to the Plataean Heroes: Plu., _Arist._ 21; at the transfer of the bones of Rhesos: see above, chap. iv, n. 36; Polyaen. vi, 53; at sacrifices to the Eumenides, Aesch., _Eum._ 1028.--The custom of burial upon leaves was also retained by the Pythagoreans: they buried their dead (without burning them, Iamb., _VP._ 154) in myrti et oleae et populi nigrae foliis (in fact, the trees regularly sacred to the ~chtho/nioi~), Plin. 35, 160. Fauvel (ap. Ross, _Arch. Aufs._ i, 31) found in graves by the Melitean gate at Athens le squelette couché sur un lit épais de feuilles d'olivier encore en état de brûler. (Olive stones in Mycenaean Graves, Tsundas, ~Eph. Arch.~, '88, p. 136; '89, p. 152.)] [62\5: Thus in the letter of Hipparchos, in Phlegon, 1; similarly Xen. Eph. 3, 7, 4 (see my _Griech. Roman_, p. 391 n. 2). Plato wished his Euthynoi to be buried like this on stone ~kli=nai~ (_Lg._ xii, 947 D); and this is probably how the bodies were placed in the rock burial-chambers provided with separate couches, such as occur at e.g. Rhodos and Kos {193} (see Ross, _Arch. Aufs._ ii, 384 ff., 392): cf. esp. the description given by Heusey, _Mission arch. de Macédoine_ (_Texte_), p. 257 ff., '76. It is the regular mode of burial in Etruria (following Greek models?): several skeletons have been found there lying on couches of masonry in the grave-chambers.]