relations cut their hair off, for the custom of shaving the hair in case of death is a very old one, and even in Homer we read that the hair cut off was sometimes placed in the dead man’s hand. During the procession laments were again sung, and accompanied by the wailing tones of a flute; but here customs differed somewhat, and at Ceos, for instance, where the ordinances concerning burial, differing in many respects from the Attic customs, have been preserved to us, there were especial directions that the body should be carried out in silence. The dead man wore the clothes in which he had been laid out, but extravagance and excessive luxury necessitated some limitations by the law, so that Solon expressly ordained that the number of garments should not exceed three, and the above-mentioned ordinance allowed only one under garment, one cloak, and one pall or covering, the whole value not to exceed 300 drachmae, and also ordained that the couch on which the dead man was carried to the grave, and the other hangings or cushions, should not be burnt or buried, but brought back again. [Illustration: FIG. 110.] There were various ways of burying the dead. If they were placed in a grave it was customary to make use of a coffin, which was let down into the grave by the bearers. We see this represented on the vase picture, Fig. 110. Two men, who look like barbarian slaves or men of the lower classes, are standing in the grave and holding up their hands in order to receive the coffin, which is carefully let down by two men of similar appearance; on the right and left stand weeping women. The coffins were sometimes made of wood, especially Cyprus wood, which was occasionally decorated with costly carving and painting; sometimes of clay, less often of stone, although stone sarcophagi have been found in Greece, but the custom of decorating their sides with sculptured pictures did not become common until the Roman period. The shapes of the [Illustration: FIG. 111.]