TREATMENT OF THE DEAD
SECTION ONE
Evidence from burial practices
Burial customs and the cult of the dead provide some of our earliest evidence of
human culture and in Greek and Roman times this evidence comes from
archaeology as much as from written evidence. Burial practices and rituals in
Greece and Rome are described in some detail in Domestic Religion in 5th Century
Athens and in Domestic Religion in Rome in 1st Century BC and 1st Century AD, notes
produced for Higher Classical Studies Religion and Belief (see Appendix). Our
concern here is to determine what these practices and the treatment of the dead can
tell us of the Greek and Roman views of life beyond the grave.
The ancients were highly superstitious and their religion polytheistic with a wide
range of gods and spirits. It would therefore not be surprising if beliefs in an
afterlife and in ghosts of the dead were prevalent and indeed this was certainly so,
with some notable exceptions especially among philosophers and thinkers.
Death commands a feeling of awe by the very mystery which surrounds it and
arouses many emotions in those affected by it. Some of its accompaniments are
found in all periods and serve important functions. A public display of mourning
and a ritual meal enable the heirs to the dead person to mask their feelings, be they
release from a burden, grief or whatever other personal consequences and emotions
follow on the death. Usually the burial rite itself serves to reinforce family identity,
as does the setting up of an inscribed gravestone.
Cremation and inhumation
Chamber tombs had characterised the Mycenaean age although single burial in the
Shaft Graves at Mycenae preceded the Beehive Chamber Tombs. Cremation was
the practice in epic poetry, for example the treatment of the dead Patroclus in
Homer’s Iliad 23 line 161ff, and the cremation of Misenus in Virgil’s Aeneid 6.
Cremation was almost standard in Athens in the earlier burials found in the
Cerameicus, the principal burial place outside Athens. However inhumation
became commoner in the classical period although cremation still remained the
more prevalent. Fashion, as well as considerations of space, materials and costs
would have influenced the chosen method, then as today.
Reasons of space and convenience no doubt determined that cremation was standard
in Rome of the late Republic and in the early Empire but, in Hadrian’s time,
inhumation was again on the increase and Christianity gave inhumation a further
boost.
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TREATMENT OF THE DEAD
The trappings of burial
Gifts appropriate to wealth and status are made to the dead person. Women may be
accompanied in death by their jewellery, clothing, perfume containers and other
items regularly used by them in life. Men will have their weapons, work tools and
other items treasured in their lifetime, while children may have toys. It is
noteworthy that for the Athenians from Solon’s time on (594/593 BC), legislation
specifically restricted expenditure on funerals and the amount of grave goods to be
buried. Thus regulations on stone at Delphi dating to around the Fourth Century
BC state:
Not more than 35 drachmas’ worth of grave goods may be put in the
grave, whether these grave goods are specially bought or taken from the
home. If this regulation is broken, a 50-drachma fine will be enforced.
Such rites as those for Patroclus in Iliad 23 or for Misenus in Aeneid 6 are reserved
for heroes and represent special situations. In the case of Patroclus, sheep and
cattle, four horses, two pet dogs and twelve Trojans were burned on the pyre.
The gravestone or stele to mark the burial was again suited to the wealth and status of
the deceased and became the centre of family ritual. On the third and ninth day
following the death, the Athenian custom was to offer food at the grave while on the
thirtieth day a funerary banquet at the graveside concluded the period of mourning.
I, his adopted son, cared for Menekles while he was alive. When he
died I buried him in a manner appropriate both to him and to me and set
up a fine memorial to him. I carried out at his tomb the ceremonies to
his memory and all the other necessary rituals on the ninth day.
[Isaeus 2.36, On the Estate of Menekles]
Festivals of the dead
The offerings made to the dead, especially the provision of food, wine and oil imply
a belief that the deceased would require further support in the afterlife and that
goodwill had to be secured. This belief is reinforced when we consider Greek and
Roman festivals which related specifically to the dead. The Athenians had certain
days assigned to the dead which were known as the Nekysia and also the Genesia, an
ancient festival commemorating the birthdays of the family’s dead ancestors. On
these days, graves would be decorated with wreaths and ribbons and special offerings
were made at the tomb. Milk, honey, water and wine are all specified. In the Persae,
lines 611-618, Aeschylus lists the offerings being made to the gods below and to the
ghost of the dead Darius as ‘pleasing white milk from a hallowed cow, clear honey,
spring water, refreshing juice from an ancient vine, fragrant olive oil and wreaths of
flowers’. Flowers and other gifts were also possible at the grave. Better known to us
is the three-day festival of the Anthesteria, a flower festival to Dionysus. On the third
day of this festival, mixed vegetables and cereals were offered to Hermes, the guide of
the dead, and it was believed that the dead roamed freely among the living.
2
CLASSICAL STUDIES
TREATMENT OF THE DEAD
Precautions were taken to keep the ghosts at a distance, such as smearing doorways
with pitch. When the day was over, the cry went up calling on the dead to go back
whence they came as the festival was at an end. A full account of this festival appears
in Burkert, pp. 237ff and a shorter account appears in Zaidman, p. 77.
For the Roman Parentalia commemorating dead relatives and the Lemuria when the
spirits of the dead were thought to roam freely, and had to be placated, see Domestic
Religion in Rome in 1st Century BC and 1st Century AD, pp. 15-16 (and reproduced
in the Appendix to this booklet).
Provision for the dead
Belief in a life continuing within the tomb helps to explain the gifts and grave goods
and the occasional supply of food over the years. Large tombs in Roman times
might even include a dining room for the graveside banquet. Petronius in his
Satyricon (71) makes a wealthy freedman Trimalchio go into great and exaggerated
detail as he provides for his own tomb ‘to secure a life after death’. He proceeds
The tomb should have a frontage of 100 feet and a depth of 200 feet;
for I want to have every kind of apple and grapes in profusion growing
around my ashes. It is a serious mistake for someone to have a fine
house while he is alive and yet to have no thought for the home where
we will have a much longer stay.
Trimalchio sets out the details of the inscription for the tomb, asks for a dining table
to be included and below his statue wishes to have displayed his little dog, wreaths
and perfume and a list of the fights of his favourite gladiator!
The common inscription found in Roman tombs after First Century BC as well as in
Imperial times ‘sit terra tibi levis’ (abbreviated to STTL) ‘may the earth lie light upon
you’ has also a significance for the idea of the continuing life of the deceased in his
grave. Many inscriptions reinforce the belief.
Here is my eternal home, here my dwelling place and here I shall be for
all time.
Dead men walking
All this concern over the afterlife of the dead and the existence of festivals for the
dead encouraged a belief in ghosts and sightings of ghosts. So the ghost of Darius
appears on stage in the Persae of Aeschylus (line 681ff), and Plautus’ play Mostellaria
takes its name from a supposedly haunted house.
In the Phaedo, Plato suggests that on death the soul is not immediately freed from its
body parts and remains visible as a ghost.
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TREATMENT OF THE DEAD
We must imagine that the body parts are heavy, earthly and visible and
that, as the soul still has some part of these, it is weighed down and
dragged back to the visible world, flitting around monuments and tombs,
where such shadowy phantoms of souls are seen.
[Phaedo, 81CD]
Horace casts a curse at witches
When my time has come and I die, I shall come on you in the night as a
Fury. My ghost shall attack your face with crooked talons - such is the
power of the ghosts of the dead. I shall sit firmly in your restless heart
and banish sleep through fear.
[Horace, Epodes, 5.91-96]
Pliny tells of a ghost which haunted a house in Athens and drove its tenants to death,
such was their terror. The philosopher Athenodorus eventually met the ghost and
laid it to rest by giving it proper burial.
In the silence of the night, a noise of metal was heard and if you listened
more carefully there came the rattling of chains, first at a distance and
then nearby. Soon there appeared the ghost of an old man in a terrible
state of decay and dirt, with flowing beard and rough hair. On his legs
he had shackles, on his hands chains and these he shook about.
Athenodorus followed the ghost and marked the spot where it had disappeared.
The place was dug next day and bones were found.
The bones were collected and given public burial. From then on the
house was freed of its ghost which had received proper burial.
[Pliny, Letters, 7.27]
In the Twelve Caesars, Suetonius tells a similar tale.
After his murder, the Emperor Gaius Caligula was secretly taken to the
Lamian Gardens and given incomplete burial. From that time the
gardens were haunted by his ghost until his sisters at last exhumed his
body and put it in a tomb.
[Suetonius, Gaius, 59]
Ovid’s Fasti has reports on the discontinuation of the celebration of the Parentalia at
a time of extended warfare.
This act did not go without punishment. It is said that the spirits of the
dead left their tombs and moaned through the silent night. Through city
streets and countryside, insubstantial ghosts flocked, howling and
shrieking. As a result of this, the former rites were resumed at the
tombs of the dead.
4
CLASSICAL STUDIES
THE MYTHOLOGICAL UNDERWORLD
SECTION TWO
Alongside the personal cult of the dead was the mythological world described most
fully in epic poetry. This was the world of Hades and his Queen Persephone, the
site of Tartarus for sinners and Elysium for heroes, where Cerberus the three-headed
dog stood guard and the rivers Styx, Acheron and Phlegethon flowed, with Charon
ferrying the dead souls. Homer’s Odyssey Book 11 and Virgil’s Aeneid Book 6 are the
key passages for study here.
Of course there were many inconsistencies of detail in the various accounts of the
Underworld at different periods - so Elysium is placed by Virgil in the actual
Underworld in Aeneid 6 while in Homer’s Odyssey it is found at the end of the earth.
The gods will send you, Menelaus, to the Elysian plain at the ends of the
earth where man’s life is far the easiest and there is no snow, nor stormy
weather nor rain.
[Homer, Odyssey, 4.563-566]
Again for Homer in Odyssey 11, the ghosts of the dead are mere shadows and can
acquire consciousness and power of speech only through drinking blood. There is
no such requirement set by Virgil in Book 6.
Homer emphasises that the Underworld is altogether a hateful place with no
attraction for man or god. When the gods join in the fighting at Troy in Iliad 20.6265 we are told:
Hades, the King of the Dead, jumped up from his throne and shouted out
in fear lest the earth shaker Poseidon would tear open the earth above
him and the dreadful decaying abode of the dead would be revealed to
man and god alike, a place hated even by the gods.
It was here that the Erinyes or Furies were to be found punishing the dead for
perjury or for other misdeeds on earth. So in Iliad 3.278 where Agamemnon
appeals to ‘the Erinyes who punish in the world below any man who takes a false
oath’.
Sin is certainly punished and there is a moral aspect in the Underworld. So it is in
the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, lines 367-369.
Persephone, Queen in the Underworld, has power to punish evil doers
for all eternity.
It also suggests that the dead have some consciousness despite the picture of
gibbering shadows with no consciousness which Homer presents in Odyssey 11.
CLASSICAL STUDIES
5
THE MYTHOLOGICAL UNDERWORLD
The question to be asked is how far this picture of the Underworld was actually
believed by the ancient Greeks and Romans and there is room here for debate.
6
CLASSICAL STUDIES
THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHERS TO THE UNDERWORLD
AND THE AFTERLIFE
SECTION THREE
As early as the Sixth Century BC, philosophical thinkers were questioning
established beliefs. If Homeric gods were not evident and visible, why should they
be accepted? Anaximander of Miletus in Ionia explained the universe with no
reference at all to Zeus or Apollo. Xenophanes of Colophon, again in Ionia,
attacked polytheism and a belief in anthropomorphic gods. He further deplored the
immortality attributed by Homer to the gods. There were many other great thinkers
but their influence on general thought appears to have been slight.
Next to attack traditional religious belief came the Sophists in Athens. Most
prominent here was the statement of Protagoras of Abdera who commented when
writing On Gods.
As for the gods, I cannot say that they are or that they are not... for there
is much which stops us from knowing, such as lack of clarity about the
subject and the shortness of human life.
This certainly caught public attention and Protagoras was put on trial and made to
flee from Athens. His book was publicly burned. When Democritus of Abdera
propounded his atomic theory in the Fifth Century BC, he provided Epicurus of
Samos with a means to attack superstitious belief and fear of the gods and death.
Alongside this, philosophers recognised an eternal element in the universe and with
this the human soul or psyche came to be identified and this in turn led to the belief
in the immortality of the soul. This brings us on to Plato, the first philosopher
whose works survive in their entirety and whose teachings on the nature of the soul
have been so influential. Plato regards the soul as immortal and sees its goal as
complete understanding gained by viewing the form of truth and beauty:
Mind guides the soul to a view of true reality which nourishes and
benefits the soul.
[Plato, Phaedrus, 247CD]
Stoic philosophers saw the soul as a particle of divine fire to which it returned after
death and so retained its immortality.
Yet despite all these philosophical teachings, we can be sure that the majority of
ordinary Greeks and Romans were too superstitious to dismiss the idea of the
Underworld and took seriously the possibility of life beyond the grave. Some of the
Greek thinkers mentioned above questioned belief in the gods and the whole fabric
of the Underworld; most offered some alternative suggestion. Roman writers on the
other hand tend to be critical but less likely to offer an alternative philosophy. The
writer Lucretius tried to free Romans from their fears by expounding the beliefs of
Epicurus when he wrote his De Rerum Natura and declared that the atomic
CLASSICAL STUDIES
7
THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHERS TO THE UNDERWORLD
AND THE AFTERLIFE
composition of the universe denied any place for the gods and the bogeys imagined
in the Underworld. But Lucretius’ writing fell largely on deaf ears, so that educated
Romans continued to speak dismissively of fears of the Underworld, clearly implying
a continuing belief at all levels of society.
The fear of Acheron must be driven out headlong, a fear which disturbs
human life from its very depths and covers everything with the blackness
of death.
[Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 3.37-40]
In his Tusculan Disputations, Cicero also dismisses the terrors of death and the
mythological Underworld and goes on to attack philosophers like Lucretius and his
tutor Epicurus.
I often wonder at the extremes of some philosophers who marvel at
natural science and in their excitement offer thanks to its proponent and
discoverer, worshipping him like a god; for they say that he has freed
them from grim masters, perpetual terror and fear by day and night.
What terror? What fear?
[Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, 1.21.48]
Juvenal also attacks the myth.
Not even a child believes that there are ghosts and realms below the
earth and a punt pole plying among black frogs in the Stygian river and
so many thousands crossing in a single boat.
[Juvenal, Satires, 2 149-152]
Lucretius also denies the soul any immortality.
As mist and smoke disperse into the air, you can be certain that the soul
also is dispersed and perishes much more quickly, breaking up into its
original atoms.
[Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 3 436-438]
As we move on from the mythological picture of the Underworld, it is perhaps
appropriate to note how far the Christian picture of Hell draws on pagan belief.
The whole question of how the good and the bad are given different treatment
continues from ancient times until today.
8
CLASSICAL STUDIES
ALTERNATIVE BELIEFS OR LACK OF THEM
SECTION FOUR
Superstition ensured that most Greeks and Romans gave credence to the stories
about the Underworld and its gods and little impact was made on the public at large
by the teaching of the philosophers. Yet there were many Greeks and Romans who
feared that there was nothing beyond the tomb and this could certainly lead to an
appearance of hopelessness. Thus:
Suns can set and rise again: but once our brief light dies, everlasting
sleep awaits us.
[Catullus, 5.2]
A First-Century BC tombstone inscription from Spain reads:
Hail! Herennia Crocine, beloved of her own family, is shut in this tomb.
My life is spent; other girls too have lived out their lives and died before
me. So enough now. May the reader say as he goes ‘Crocine, may
the earth rest lightly on you’. Farewell to all of you on the earth above.
Cicero shows a swing in his mood in a letter to his friend Atticus.
I am more troubled by that long time when I shall not exist than by this
life which, brief though it may be, yet seems to me to be too long.
[Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 12.18.1]
Horace says:
Once we die and go where good Aeneas, wealthy Tullus and Ancus have
gone, we are but dust and shadow.
[Horace, Odes, 4.7.15-17]
Seneca is recovering from a bad bout of asthma and says:
Does death often test me? Let it do so. I experienced it long ago.
When? Before I was born. Death is merely non existence, not being
alive. I already know what that feels like.
[Seneca, Letters, 54.4]
However, many educated Romans still harboured hope of immortality through fame.
Indeed, even the philosopher Epicurus while denying immortality to the soul,
requested in his will that his own birthday be celebrated monthly!
CLASSICAL STUDIES
9
ALTERNATIVE BELIEFS OR LACK OF THEM
Thus Cicero says:
Yet if the soul had no hint of a future existence and was confined within
life’s bounds, it would not break itself with such toil and effort and put its
very existence at risk. But deep in every good man there resides a
quality which demands that the memory of our name should not end with
our life but be extended across eternity.
[Cicero, Pro Archia, 11.29]
Again Horace has this to say on the impact of his poetry.
I have set up a monument more lasting than bronze and mightier than
the pyramids which neither wind nor rain can destroy nor the passage of
endless time. I shall not altogether die - a great part of me will avoid
the goddess of death.
[Horace, Odes, 3.30.1-7]
The multitude of dedications and inscriptions, be it on tomb or public building, is
another effort to ensure some memory of the dead remaining after he/she goes.
10
CLASSICAL STUDIES
THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS
SECTION FIVE
For many, a much more hopeful alternative belief was to be found in initiation into
one of several mystery religions which were accessible to all and indeed did not
debar the initiate from participating in traditional state religion.
The Mysteries originated in Greece and mostly were of Eastern origin. Their
common features were a ritual of purification which the initiate must undergo,
communion with the god or goddess, and the promise of happiness beyond the
grave. The actual rite of initiation was secret.
Eleusinian mysteries
These began in the Sixth Century BC and most adult Athenians, including slaves
and women, participated as they took place so near to the city. Initiation extended
over a six-month period. Sacrifice and ritual bathing were followed by a procession
to Eleusis where the initiate underwent an experience in a dark torch-lit area and
objects associated with the Mysteries were revealed in a brilliantly lit setting. The
ear of wheat and fertility symbols would be among these objects as appropriate for an
agrarian cult connected with Demeter and the rape of her daughter Proserpina by
Hades. Indeed, perhaps this was enacted by a drama. Such a drama might well
have depicted Hades’ seizure of Proserpina to become his queen in the Underworld;
the extended search by Demeter, with torches to assist her in the night and the death
of the crops owing to her lack of attention; the discovery of Proserpina in the
Underworld; their agreement that she should share her time with Demeter on earth
and with Hades in the Underworld; the impact of this on the rebirth and growth of
crops when Proserpina was with Demeter and their corresponding death during the
time that she spent below the earth - so was the celebration of summer and winter,
sowing and reaping, birth and death combined in story and as a visible reality.
Growth, cutting back and future growth again from the cut corn ears was part of the
symbolic message. Death results in renewal and there is a better fate assured in an
afterlife. The Emperor Augustus patronised Eleusis and the Mysteries had a long
life at that particular centre.
This is written of the Eleusinian Mysteries:
Happy among mortals is the man who has seen these things: but he that
is uninitiated in the sacred rites and has not participated has no such
happy fate when he is gripped by gloomy death.
[Homeric, Hymn to Demeter, 480-482]
CLASSICAL STUDIES
11
THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS
Again Pindar says of the Eleusinian Mysteries:
Blessed is the man who sees these mysteries before going down into the
hollow earth. He knows how life ends and knows too the beginning
granted by the gods.
[Pindar, Fragments]
The Apostle John may have the Eleusinian rite in mind at 12.24:
Unless an ear of corn falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone;
but if it dies it brings forth fruit.
For a fuller description see Zaidman, page 132ff and Burkert, page 276-8 and also
page 285ff.
Bacchic mysteries
The Mysteries of the god Dionysus or Bacchus differ in that they were not tied to any
one sanctuary but could be celebrated wherever worshippers came together. Bacchic
Mysteries were open to male or female adults and involved frenzied possession by
the god. Wine was drunk and sexual acts performed in the course of this surrender
to the power of the god. The eating of raw flesh too was associated with the frenzy
of the Bacchants, as the worshippers were known. Euripides’ Bacchae is an
important source of evidence for this cult and its activities when King Pentheus tried
to spy on his wife and her frenzied company and was torn to pieces for his efforts.
As with the Eleusinian Mysteries, initiation brought blessings in the afterlife:
Blessed is he who knows the initiation of the gods and lives a pure life
and introduces his soul into Bacchic revels.
[Euripides, Bacchae, 72-77]
Plato in his Phaedrus comments: ‘The greatest of blessings come to us through godinspired madness’ (244A). Later Plato identified the mystic madness of Dionysus as
one such blessing (Phaedrus, 265B).
The Bacchic celebrations later became identified with orgies in Rome so that in 186
BC the Romans suppressed the Bacchanalia and banned them as being both political
and pernicious. Livy 39.8-19 describes the incident at some length. (See Shelton,
page 396.)
Some of the rites of Bacchic initiation are depicted in the striking wall paintings
which appear in the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii, which shows incidentally that
the rites survived into the First Century AD (for a description, see Ferguson pp 102104). Bacchic Mysteries became associated with the mysteries of the Pythagoreans
and some aspects of Orphism. Herodotus (2.81) suggests a ritual, ascribed to the
Orphic or Bacchic cult, is in fact Egyptian or Pythagorean. The confusion and
12
CLASSICAL STUDIES
THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS
inter-relation among these three Greek Mystery cults is thus intensified and it is
difficult to separate them.
Orphism
Orpheus was a legendary figure dating to the story of the Argonauts, who attempted
to recover his wife Eurydice from the clutches of Hades. The story is told in Virgil’s
Georgics 4.453ff. Orpheus died when torn to pieces by frenzied female Bacchants an obvious link here with Dionysus. Orphism developed its own cosmogony and
had its own story of how the young Dionysus was torn apart by the Titans before
being boiled, roasted and eaten by them. Only his heart was saved and this enabled
his re-creation. Here again there is a reference to the eating of flesh and a link with
Bacchic Mysteries. Significantly however Orphism banned the killing of animals,
the roasting of anything which had been boiled and the eating of flesh. Plato was
influenced by Orphic thinking but attacked wandering priests who read from
Orphic books and offered purification through initiation (Plato, Republic, 2.364B 365A).
Morality and good conduct
Initiation into the Mysteries was not in itself sufficient to secure the future welfare of
the soul - good conduct was also a requirement. In epic poetry there was different
treatment meted out to the good in Elysium and to the wicked in Tartarus and we
have seen the role of the Erinyes in punishing the wicked.
Pindar in various fragmentary texts tells of the soul’s survival and its link with the
divine. Elsewhere he adds that if it has committed sin, it must first undergo
purification. Similarly:
If a man who has means knows the future, he knows that the lawless
spirits are punished when they die... but the good have an untroubled
life... among the honoured gods....
[Pindar, Olympian Ode, 2.55-72]
From Pindar on, the link of the soul with the divine, and its immortality, and the
impediments on its progress towards true blessedness, all become a major concern
for philosophers.
So Orphism adopted the idea of punishment for the wicked and recognised that
initiation into the Mysteries and goodness would secure eternal blessedness.
Plato developed these beliefs in the Phaedrus at some length. Note particularly:
In all these states [of the soul in its passage towards blessedness] the man
who lives justly enjoys a better fate and the man who lives unjustly suffers
a worse one.
[Plato, Phaedrus, 248E]
CLASSICAL STUDIES
13
THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS
Again in the Phaedo, Socrates embarks on a marvellous story of the immortal soul’s
fate after death, incorporating many features of the mythological Underworld and
concludes:
Because of this, a man should be confident about his soul if he has kept
clear of pleasures and ornaments of the body as being likely to do him
harm and rather has pursued learning and equipped his soul with
wisdom, justice, courage, freedom and truth.
[Plato, Phaedo, 63E]
Cicero follows much of Plato’s teaching in his Tusculan Disputations and
Christianity also continues to emphasise that morality matters and wickedness is
punished.
The areas of overlap between the Bacchic Mysteries and Orphism led to conflict
between the two cults. Orphism later became misused and fell from favour despite
the high points of some aspects of its doctrine which made their mark on Plato’s
thinking.
Pythagoreanism
The Pythagorean School originated with the Sixth-Century philosopher and
scientist Pythagoras who lived in South Italy. Ovid provides a lengthy account of
his life and teachings in his Metamorphoses 15.60ff. Here again, as with Orphism,
we find the Pythagoreans debarred from eating flesh and a strong belief in the
transmigration of the soul after death (also known as Metempsychosis). This belief
was central to Pythagorean thinking and reinforced the belief in the soul’s
immortality. Herodotus knew of this doctrine of transmigration:
The Egyptians were first to declare that the human soul was immortal and
passed at the death of the body into another living creature which was
being born. After passing through all the creatures in land, sea and air,
over a three-thousand-year period, it again enters a human body at
birth.
[(Herodotus, 2.123]
Transmigration was taken up by Orphism and from one of the two, either
Pythagoreans or Orphism, Plato took up the theme. He describes a view of it in the
long story of Er in Republic 10.614B ff.
Virgil alludes to transmigration in Aeneid 6.713. When Aeneas asks about the
identity of spirits crowding the river bank he is told:
These are spirits to whom a second body is owed to Fate. At the river
Lethe they drink water which removes all care and brings long
forgetfulness.
14
CLASSICAL STUDIES
THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS
In his Letters 108.19, Seneca says:
Pythagoras says that all things were inter-related and that there was a
constant flow of souls passing over into different forms. If you believe
him, no soul ceases to exist and there is only the shortest pause while it is
transferring into another body.
Pythagoreanism was less of a cult than the Mysteries of Eleusis, Bacchus or Orpheus
and was rather a religious way of life. It shared some of the teaching of the Mysteries
and certainly influenced Plato’s thinking, but it made less general impact.
Cybele
Other Mystery religions existed and came to have significant influence in Rome.
Both Isis and Cybele, the Eastern goddesses, were prominent and Apuleius tells
much of the rituals of Isis in his Golden Ass. (See Shelton, p. 403.)
Cybele, the great mother goddess from Anatolia, was a goddess of fertility. She was
associated in her worship with Attis, her young lover who castrated himself and bled
to death, only to be reborn. Her priests were eunuchs. Worship of Cybele came to
Rome in 204 BC, in obedience to a prophecy, and games known as the Megalesia
were instituted. The historian Livy provides a full account in his History Book
29.10-14. (See Shelton, pp. 401-3.) The Romans disapproved of the castration
involved in her rituals and the worship of the goddess was firmly controlled.
Roman citizens were expressly forbidden to participate. However in Claudius’
reign in the First Century AD, her priesthood was opened up to Roman citizens and
the restrictions removed. Her cult involved fasting and purification, ritual
purification by bathing in the blood of a bull or ram and a belief in immortality.
Isis
Isis was the other great mother goddess from the East but her main origins lay in
Egypt. She was sister and wife of the divine Osiris who was murdered and
dismembered by his brother. Like Demeter, Isis roamed the world in search of
Osiris and ultimately, with the help of Anubis, the dog-headed god of the dead,
Osiris was resurrected to become king of the dead. Isis was associated with the land
and Osiris with the corn and its fertilisation by the River Nile. The Greeks, not
surprisingly, associated this cult of Isis with their own Mysteries at Eleusis.
Worship of Isis spread across the Mediterranean to Pompeii and then Rome where
she was very popular with the poorer classes. Temples were built to her, particularly
in the time of the Empire.
Her Mysteries were of great significance in Rome. Her priests shaved their heads
and her processions through Rome’s streets were noisy and striking occasions.
Initiation rites were, as always, secret but involved a ritual death and a vision
followed by Epiphany or revelation to the people. In The Golden Ass, Apuleius
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THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS
describes her rites, the procession and initiation at considerable length.
Juvenal comments:
Highest honour goes to [the priest impersonating] Anubis who, with his
linen-clad, shaven-headed followers, mocks the people as they weep.
[Juvenal, 6.532]
Pausanias also comments:
The Egyptians have a festival of Isis at the time they say she is lamenting
Osiris; at that time, the River Nile begins to rise and many say that the
tears of Isis are causing the river to rise and to water the ploughed land.
[Pausanias, 10.32.10]
Mithras
Also of great importance to the Romans was the worship of Mithras. He originated
in India and was associated with the sun and light. He became connected with the
Persian god Ahuramazda. His Mysteries came to the fore in the First Century AD
and he was particularly worshipped by soldiers.
Mithras was said to have had a miraculous birth from a rock and was revered by
shepherds. His date of birth was celebrated on 25 December. He had two great
exploits, a trial of strength with the sun god which resulted in their alliance, and the
capture and killing of a bull. The chapels of his worship which have been
discovered throughout the Empire were darkened and cave-like and contained a
relief of Mithras killing the bull. Only men were permitted to participate and
initiates had to pass through seven grades or tests of endurance. There was a
communion feast at the conclusion, with the drinking of wine. Mithraism related to
the passage of the soul through life and its trial in the fight between light and
darkness, good and evil, life and death. Despite its great popularity with the army,
Mithraism made little impact on the civilian population of Rome.
Christianity
Christianity made headway with the poorer classes in Rome. Those in authority
viewed its practices with suspicion, and its intolerance of other religions was a
serious problem. Christianity was probably never expressly forbidden but was
certainly viewed as a threat to public order - obstinate refusal to comply with public
sacrifice expected of Roman citizens inevitably brought punishment. This is well
shown in a correspondence between Pliny and the Emperor Trajan in Pliny’s Letters
10.96 and 97. Pliny discusses the treatment of Christians and considers their
worship. (See Shelton, p. 414.)
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THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS
The Mystery Religions prepared the way for Christianity. Despite its own
intolerance of other religions, Christianity absorbed various practices from the rival
mysteries, and pagan festivals and gods were taken over as Christian festivals and
saints. Belief in a life hereafter was central to Christian doctrine. The debt of
Christianity to religions which preceded it provides a fascinating study in itself, as
we review the wider issue of man’s attitude to life after death.
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APPENDIX
The following texts are quoted by permission from Higher Classical Studies Religion and Belief - Domestic Religion in Fifth-Century Athens and Domestic Religion
in Rome in First Century BC and AD, both by Maureen Cooke (Central Regional
Council, 1995).
Death and burial in Athens
There were many traditional observances connected with death and burial. When
someone died, a three-day period of fasting began and a cypress branch or lock of
hair was hung on the door of the house to tell people that a death had taken place. A
bowl of water brought from outside the house was placed outside the door. This
water was for visitors to purify themselves as they left the house.
The eyes and mouth of the dead person were closed by the nearest relative. Then the
body was washed in water brought from outside and clothed by the women of the
house. The body was usually dressed in a white shroud or ankle-length robe. It was
common to put a crown on the head, sometimes of gold, sometimes of parsley. A
dead woman wore her jewellery and her hair was arranged as it had been in life.
Young people who died unmarried and the recently married were buried in
wedding clothes.
We know that by the late Fifth Century BC it had become the custom to provide the
dead with a small coin, usually an obol, in the belief that it was necessary to pay
Charon, the ferryman of the dead to take the soul across the river Styx into the
underworld. Aristophanes gives evidence of this custom in a comedy performed at
Athens in 405 BC.
In the play, Charon has just taken the god Dionysus across the river Styx and now
demands the fare.
Charon:
Stop, stop, take the oar and push the boat in. Now pay your
fare and go.
Dionysus:
Here, take it - two obols.
[Aristophanes, Frogs, 269-270]
However no coins have been discovered at Athens in graves earlier than the Fourth
Century BC which perhaps suggests that the custom was not widespread at Athens
during the Fifth Century but became more common during the next century.
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APPENDIX
The body, with the feet towards the door, was placed on a bier covered with a cloth,
usually in a checked pattern if the evidence of the vase paintings is correct. A
cushion was placed under the head. Around the bier they placed branches and
lekythoi, the characteristically shaped jars for oil which were used in the funeral
ritual; they also decorated the walls with wide ribbons.
Now on the couch scatter bitter herbs, break off four vine-branches and
place them beneath; beside the couch set oil jars, fasten the ribbons and
place the water pot at the door.
[Aristophanes, The Assembly Women, 1030-1033 (Fifth Century BC)]
Mourners stood around the bier or sat on low stools. The mourners sang laments
and sometimes professional mourners were employed to do this. The relations of
the deceased made extravagant gestures of grief, tearing their cheeks and hair and
beating their breasts.
... cries of grief, wailing of women, tears and beating of breasts, torn
hair and blood-stained cheeks. Perhaps too, dust sprinkled in the hair
and clothes are rent.
[Lucian, On Funerals, 12 (Second Century AD)]
The singing of set dirges and extravagant gestures of mourning had been forbidden
by law during the Sixth Century BC (Plutarch, Life of Solon, 21, 4). However
evidence suggests that the law did not entirely succeed in preventing these practices.
Men made a farewell gesture with hands outstretched and called three times upon
the dead. (Scholiast on Euripides, Alcestis, 98-100)
This part of the funeral ritual lasted for twenty-four hours.
The burial
Before sunrise on the following day the funeral procession took place. Sometimes
the body was carried to the burial ground in a hearse pulled by mules or horses but
more often by hired pall-bearers.
A man walked in front of the body and women followed behind. Only women who
were closely related or over 60 years of age could attend. The procession was
accompanied by flute players.
When they reached the burial ground, the coffin was sealed and an offering of wine
was made to the dead.
The body might be buried or cremated, burial being the more common during the
Fifth Century. If the body was cremated, the fire was put out with wine. The nearest
male relative gathered the ashes and placed them in an urn.
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APPENDIX
The funeral meal
After the burial, the relatives returned to the house where they shared a meal. This
ended the three-day period of fasting. Speeches were made in praise of the person
who had died.
Visits to the tomb
Visits to the tomb were an important part of the funeral ceremonies and were made
on the third, ninth and thirtieth days after death.
Very little is known about these visits but we do know that various offerings were
made, lekythoi containing olive oil, honey, cakes, eggs, pomegranates and drink
offerings. Drink offerings consisted of honey, milk, water, wine and oil, either one of
these or two or more mixed together. The person making the offering first prayed to
the dead person and then poured the offering at the foot of the stele. While he did
this, the other members of the family sang dirges. Afterwards they often smashed the
jugs which had contained the offering.
Visits were also made to the tomb throughout the year, particularly at the festival of
Genesia, an annual state festival of mourning.
Lekythoi show tombs decorated with wide ribbons, blue, green, purple, black and
red, women bringing offerings in flat baskets and making libation at the grave. One
shows a lyre and discus, perhaps denoting the particular skills of the dead person;
another shows a sword, possibly indicating that it was the tomb of a man who had
died in battle.
Greenery and flowers were also used.
... we are accustomed to decorate the tombs of the dead with parsley.
[Plutarch, Life of Timoleon, 26, 2 (Second Century AD)]
Graves might be marked by a column or a stele, an upright stone tablet. Tombstones
laid flat on the ground were also found. Stepping on a tombstone was regarded as a
cause of pollution.
He will not step on a tombstone or go near a dead body or a woman who
has just given birth, saying that he must avoid defilement.
[Theophrastus, Characters, 16, 20-22 (Fourth Century BC)]
Sometimes an inscription warned against any interference or defilement of a grave.
If anyone shall rob this grave of its ornaments, or open it, or disturb it in
any way, may he never walk the earth nor sail the sea but be destroyed
with all his race.
[Boeckh, Greek Inscriptions, 916]
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APPENDIX
Many of the Athenian beliefs and customs surrounding death were shared by other
Greek states. A number of these customs have survived with little change into
modern or relatively modern times, particularly in rural areas.
It is still customary in many places for the body to be prepared for burial by the
women of the family. The body is washed with water brought from outside the
house and dressed in new clothes. As was the custom in Fifth Century Athens, the
young or newly married may be dressed in wedding clothes. The body is often still
placed with feet towards the door.
The ancient Athenian custom of decorating the bier with herbs such as marjoram
and basil to ward off evil influences and evergreen as a symbol of some sort of
survival after death still persists.
The practice of providing the deceased with a coin has not entirely died out. The
coin is placed on the forehead or mouth as a charm against evil influences although
one folk song describes it as ‘Charos’ fee to take the soul across the river of death’ - a
reminder of the ancient belief.
The singing of both set and improvised laments for the dead is still very important.
The laments are sung by the kinswomen and others who have known the deceased
and by professional mourners just as happened in Athens before Solon’s legislation
banned the singing of set dirges, legislation which seems frequently to have been
disregarded.
In some areas the ancient gestures of grief can still be seen, women beating their
breasts, rending their cheeks and tearing at their loosened hair or black head-scarves.
In Epirus the nearest male relative of the deceased still holds out his right hand as a
gesture of farewell, the ancient gesture having become part of the Christian burial
service.
Visits to the grave take place on the third, ninth and fortieth days after death and on
each anniversary, an obvious survival of Athenian custom. Offerings of wine and
water are placed at the grave and improvised laments are sung.
In many places it is still customary to purify the house after a death, cleaning it
thoroughly, white-washing the walls and throwing away any water standing in
containers.
Death in Rome
When a death took place, the household was in a state of taboo and observed a period
of mourning, which lasted until eight days after burial.
The deceased person was washed, anointed and dressed in his best clothes. Burial
took place almost immediately, the essential thing being that the body should be put
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APPENDIX
under earth. The form which the funeral took depended on the status of the family;
from Horace we hear of bodies being disposed of unceremoniously. (Horace, Satires,
1.8.8-16).
Before being taken from the house the body was purified by the offer of a sacrifice to
the Lares.
A funeral possession was accompanied by torches, fire and light both being thought
to provide protection against bad luck and evil influences. The relatives, including
the children, followed the bier.
A pig was sometimes sacrificed to Ceres as the goddess of the earth to whom the
dead returned.
Cremation was common but not universal. If the body was to be cremated, the next
of kin lit the fire, his face turned away - a common precaution in religious rites
where evil influences might be present.
The rites described above were the rites of the early Romans but important and
wealthy families adopted some of the elaborate practices of the Etruscans. We hear
of elaborate processions with musicians, professional mourners, and actors wearing
funeral masks to impersonate the ancestors of the dead. At a suitable place, for
example, the Roman Forum, the funeral procession would stop and a speech would
be made in praise of the deceased.
The principal religious element in the ceremonies connected with death was the
purification of the living from any contamination which they might have suffered.
This comprised a sacrifice to the Lares, the sweeping of the house and the rite of
suffitio where the members of the family were sprinkled with water and had to step
over fire.
The ninth day after the death marked the end of the normal period of mourning.
Sacrifice was offered followed by a solemn meal.
In February each year a festival was organised by the State during which each family
mourned the family dead. This was known as the Parentalia - the Festival of All
Souls.
Appease the souls of your ancestors and bring little gifts to the
extinguished pyres. Their ghosts seek little; piety is more pleasing than
costly offering. A tile wreathed with garlands, some sprinkled corn, a
little salt, bread soaked in wine and a few loose violets are offerings
enough. Place these on a potsherd left in the middle of the road. Not
that I forbid greater offerings, but the shades are pleased with these.
Add prayers and the appropriate words at the hearths set up for these
rites.
[Ovid, Fasti, 2. 533-542 (early First Century AD)]
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APPENDIX
The Lemuria
The Lemuria took place on 2, 11 and 13 May. The origin of the Lemuria was a belief
that the spirits of the dead who had not received proper burial might return to their
former homes at this time. It bears a striking resemblance to the third day of the
Anthesteria at Athens.
... at which times in the sacred rites they throw a bean by night and say
that they cast out the ghostly folk (lemures) from their homes.
[Varro quoted by Nonnus Marcellinus (Third Century AD)]
The only other useful source is Ovid who, fortunately for our purpose, describes the
rite in some detail.
At midnight when the night lends silence to sleep, when dogs and brightly
coloured birds are hushed, he who is mindful of the ancient rite and
fearful of the gods arises; no sandals on his feet, he makes a sign with
thumb in the middle of his closed fingers lest an insubstantial shade
should meet him in the silence. When he has washed his hands,
purifying them in running water, he receives black beans and throws
them from him with face averted. But as he throws them he says, ‘These
beans I cast; with these beans I redeem me and mine.’ This he says nine
times without looking behind him; it is supposed that the shade picks up
the beans and follows behind unseen. Once more he touches water and
clashes Temesan* bronze and bids the shade to leave his house. When
he has said nine times, ‘Ghosts of my fathers, depart!’ he looks back and
considers that he has duly performed the sacred rites.
[Ovid, Fasti, 5. 429-444 (early First Century AD)]
*Temesa in Bruttium was well known for its copper mines.
Ovid begins with a reference to the antiquity of the rite; it is thought that it was a
survival from the original inhabitants of the area.
The ceremony was performed at midnight when the householder went through the
house barefoot. Several reasons are suggested for this. It was a common feature of
religious ritual that the person performing the ritual should not be constricted in
any way; for example, the Flamen Dialis was not permitted to wear an unbroken ring
at any time nor, according to Plutarch, to walk under a vine or touch ivy. Leather
was taboo in some rituals so footwear may have been banned for this reason. There is
also the very old belief that someone performing a religious ritual should remain in
direct contact with the earth.
He made a magic sign, clenching his fist and pushing his thumb between the first
and second finger. This sign was commonly used to avert the evil eye; this appears
to be the only description of this in literature but it is often depicted on charms.
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APPENDIX
He then took nine beans in his mouth. He spat these out, dropping them behind
him and said, ‘With these words, I ransom me and mine.’
The spirits were then supposed to follow him, picking up and eating the beans. The
householder had to keep his head averted, a precaution taken regularly by someone
performing a religious ceremony which brought him into contact with superior and
potentially dangerous powers.
Finally, washing his hands, he clashes bronze objects to make a metallic sound the
spirits would dislike and tells them to go with the words, ‘Ghosts of my fathers,
depart!’
Bronze was traditionally used in religious ceremonies; a bronze knife was used to
cut the hair of the Flamen Dialis, magic herbs were gathered with a bronze sickle and
the brooches which fastened the garments of the flamines when sacrificing had to be
of bronze.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Essential reading
Homer, Odyssey Book 11
Virgil, Aeneid Book 6
Higher Classical Studies - Religion and Belief - Starter Materials (Scottish CCC,
1993). See especially Unit 3 (Mystery Religions) and Unit 4 (The Afterlife).
Invaluable as a guide to further study and for demonstrating source-based
questioning techniques. Contains useful additional bibliographies.
Sources to consult
Shelton, J. A. - As the Romans Did, Oxford. See Chapter XV - convenient reference
point for several sources referred to in text:
Bacchanalia
(pages 396-401)
Livy
Cybele
(pages 401-403)
Livy
Isis
(pages 403-408)
Apuleius
Christians
(pages 414-417)
Pliny
Epicureanism (pages 426-431)
Lucretius
Stoicism
(pages 431-437)
Seneca
Plato
Euripides
Virgil
Ovid
Republic 10 614 B Story of Er
Phaedrus, Phaedo
Bacchae
Georgics 4.453ff Orpheus
Metamorphoses 15.60ff Pythagoras
Books referred to for text
Oxford Classical Dictionary - all relevant entries including After Life; Dead,
Disposal of
Burkert, W., Greek Religion, Blackwell
Ferguson, J., The Religions of the Roman Empire, Thames & Hudson
Ogilvie, R., The Romans and their Gods, Chatto & Windus
Zaidman L. and Pantel, P., Religion in the Ancient Greek City, Cambridge
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