If Chariton, who was a very late writer, is to be trusted, it would seem also to have been the custom, when the body could not be found, to carry along in the procession, upon a bier, an image in lieu of the actual corpse[28]. Reiske, in his commentary, does not appear to consider this evidence as conclusive, but thinks that Chariton is, in this case, confounding Grecian with Roman ceremonies. The commentator alludes to the custom at Rome, in the apotheosis of the emperor, and even in other funerals, of bearing along an effigy[29]. Were Chariton the only authority on the subject, his statement might be disregarded as of little value, but Herodotus[30] mentions this same custom of the effigy as having been observed on the death of a Spartan king, who had died abroad. Yet that fact establishes nothing more than a mere possibility. It is a well-attested fact, however, that the Athenians were wont to carry one sumptuous empty bier as representative of those who had been slain in battle, but whose bodies had not been recovered[31]. The sentiment of honoring those whose mortal remains eluded search was, in itself, very beautiful, but woe betide the man who came back after his friends had supposed him dead and had performed his funeral rites. His superstitious brethren would not allow him to take part in their sacrifices, nor even to approach those solemnities. They avoided his company as carefully as if he had been a spectre from the nether world[32]. III. PREPARATION FOR BURIAL. With the exception, possibly, of one or two features, survivals of their ancient religion, a description of the burial customs of the representative Greeks during the historic period, would, to-day, in no way, seem barbarous nor even extraordinary. In the Homeric times, the blood of men and animals was regarded as the nourishment most agreeable to the dead. Achilles, on the tomb of Patroclus, slew twelve young Trojans, four horses, two dogs and a herd of cattle and of sheep[33]. Ulysses, sacrificing the sheep on the side of the pit he had dug, called on the shades of the dead heroes, and the shades, gathering about him in swarms, drank eagerly this bloody libation[34]. Human sacrifices are referred to as occurring in the prehistoric period. But these barbarous customs no longer existed when veritable history commenced. The law of Solon forbade the sacrifice of an ox in the funeral ceremonies[35]. In the sixth century, B. C., the law of Ceos still permitted the sacrifice of victims according to the ancient rite[36], but, in the fifth century, those sacrifices appear to have become the privilege of the gods and of the dead heroes[37].