inscribed in the Ogam script. An Ossetic story relates that the Boratas sent an
announcement round to all the villages saying that in three years they would
celebrate a festival in honour of their ancestors, and that whoever wanted to
honour their dead should start training for the horse races (Sikojev (1985),
301).
The emphasis on horse races, and in Greece on chariot races, which occupy
thefirst and major place in the games for Patroclus and enjoyed the highest
prestige in the great national games of historical times, harmonizes with an
easy conjecture about the origin of the institution among the early horse-
riding pastoralists of the Eurasian steppe. When the news went out that a
notable man had died, men would ride from far and near to attend the
funeral. What more natural at such a gathering than that they should then
challenge one another to race their steeds and compete in other equestrian
feats? At a later period, when chariots came into use, the racing urge would
have been extended to these.
After the games are over, Achilles takes to tying Hector’s body behind his
chariot again and driving three times round Patroclus’ tomb (Il. 24. 14–17).
Some ancient writers explained that Achilles was a Thessalian and that it was
a Thessalian custom to drag the killer of someone dear to one round his
victim’s tomb (Arist. fr. 166; Call. fr. 588). But elsewhere we find references to
a ritual of honouring a dead king or hero by circling his tomb or bier, with no
dragging of an enemy’s body. Before the games the lamenting Myrmidons
had driven their chariots three times round Patroclus’ body (Il. 23. 13), and
something similar seems to have been done when Achilles was about to be
cremated (Od. 24. 68–70). In Apollonius Rhodius (1. 1057–62) the Argonauts
and Doliones lament Kyzikos for three days, and then they parade three times
round him in full armour, perform the funeral, and hold funeral games; his
tomb remains a landmark. Mopsos too is honoured with the threefold circuit
in armour (id. 4. 1535). Similar rites are performed for Pallas in Virgil
(Aen. 11. 188 f.) and Archemorus in Statius (Theb. 6. 215–26), and indeed for
Augustus (Dio Cass. 56. 42. 2).^165 Diodorus (19. 34. 6) describes how an
Indian army processed in armour three times round the pyre of their
commander Keteus before it was lit.^166 Jordanes records that after Attila was
laid out and before he was interred, a troop of élite horsemen drawn from the
(^165) For Rome cf. also Suet. Claud. 1. 4 (annual decursio round the tomb of Drusus); Luc. 8.
734 f. (Pompey).
(^166) Ancient Indian funerary ritual was in fact acquainted with the practice by which
Brahmans or women mourners circled the site of the pyre or the remains of the deceased three
times. Cf. Willem Caland, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche (Amsterdam
1896), 24, 171; Oldenberg (1917), 582. Buddha’s pyre is said to have burst into flame
spontaneously when five hundred of his disciples passed three times round it.
502 12. Arms and the Man