No Greek custom constituted a larger part of religious cultus than did the offerings to the dead. And no custom is more frequently portrayed on ancient vases. Such offerings did not begin merely with the funeral, but even earlier. According to the beliefs of most barbarous or semi-barbarous races, the dead have needs and desires as imperious as those of the living. Indeed, the life of the next world is regarded as in the main a ghostly continuation of previous existence, a life marked by the same habits and requirements as that which men live on earth. But, as the dead man is less materialist in his needs, his wants may be supplied at smaller cost and in less completeness. In many primitive countries we find the dead man living in his tomb as he had lived in his house, the tomb being often a copy of the house. There he treasures the goods which were buried with him, and there he receives the constant homage and frequent gifts of his descendants. In Greece, as far back as we can trace burial customs, it was usual to deal liberally with chiefs and warriors when they went to their last resting-place. Indeed, the further back we go, the greater seems to have been the liberality. The richest graves yet discovered in Greece are those of the pre-historic rulers of Mycenae, spoiled by Dr. Schliemann in 1877. In these sepulchres were found treasures sufficient to stock a great museum--armour and ornaments of gold, swords and arrows, drinking-cups and sceptres, every kind of object in which the wealth of semi-barbarous chiefs is commonly displayed. In the historic age the profusion is less marked, but we yet find abundant proofs of the survival of the custom of fully equipping the dead for their existence in the world of shades. Mingled with human bones are sometimes those of horses and dogs, slain to accompany their master, sometimes those of flesh and fowl brought to him for food. Vessels for holding food and wine and oil are among the ordinary equipment of the tomb, lamps are very common, and jewelry and coins in which the thickness of the gold is reduced to that of paper shows the gradual growth of the belief that it is safe to cheat the dead. Ladies take with them to their graves their mirrors and the vessels which contained rouge and other necessaries of the toilet.