Yet it might be a hasty inference to conclude that the dress of the mourners was absolutely and unqualifiedly black. In some of the paintings, on the vases, which have been discovered, the colors are remarkably well preserved. On the lecyths, only one woman has been found wearing a dead black robe[69]. It will be noticed that the expression employed by the ancient authors, does not apply strictly to the color _black_, as we generally understand it. In this connection, a black robe need not imply anything more than a dark shade of garment in contrast with the whiteness of the material in which the dead body is robed. Homer says “black wine,” “black sea,” and “black blood[70].” The color black is very rare in the vase paintings, and particularly in funeral scenes. On one lecyth, the ornamental bands which lie over and hang down from the funeral bed, and the covering of the bed, are painted in violet[71], on another lecyth, the shroud is dark green; the undergarment of one of the women is dark green, and her outer garment is brown; on another lecyth, a man is represented wearing an outer garment of dark lilac, and a woman has a mantle of brown[72]. These white lecyths, by the way, were small vases, the body of which is generally of a white or gray color. They varied in height from four inches to twenty inches and more[73]. They were simply filled with perfumes and placed near the funeral bed, that they might envelop it in their fragrant emanations[74]. They held the myrrh, of which Plutarch also speaks, in his description of the funeral rites in honor of those who died at Plataea, and which filled the urns borne by the young people in the processions[75]. Some beautiful specimens of the white lecyths are to be found in the museums at Athens, in the Louvre, at Vienna, London, Berlin, at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and in some private collections. On the body of the vase, are painted scenes connected with the funeral ceremonies. Their authority is final as to the burial customs which they portray, and, on many of them, the colors are brilliant, clear and unaffected by time. IV. THE LYING IN STATE.