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back at the family home (Burkert 1985:193). The funeral feast usually involved
animal sacrifices. This sequence of ceremonies had its origins at least as far back as
the Bronze Age, and as far as literary and archaeological evidence admits, the rituals
changed little over the entire course of Greek history (Vermeule 1979:21).
As for where the Greeks buried their dead, that, too, varied, depending on the era
and on the circumstances of death. Soldiers fallen in war were buried or cremated at
the site of battle. In theIliad, for example, the Greek warriors, who were far from
home, cremated their fallen dead on the battlefield. The Greeks who died in the battle
of Marathon in 490 BC were cremated and then interred in a large burial mound at
the site, still visible today. But Greeks who died at home were buried in city cemet-
eries. Today graveyards can be found inside various neighborhoods in most towns
and cities, and from the Bronze Age down to the archaic period burials within Greek
communities, including inside the Athenian agora, were relatively common. But by
the classical period Greek cemeteries were usually placed justoutsidethe city walls, on
the roads leading from the cities; 500 BC is the likely date of a ban on burial inside the
city walls of Athens (Garland 2001:125). Among other things, although the Greeks
did not, in general, understand the concept of contagion, they were nevertheless
rightly wary of rotting bodies and believed corpses should be placed out of the way of
the living so as not to ‘‘pollute’’ them.
Within the cemeteries, Greek families would commonly have their own plots, often
along a little path in the graveyard; many examples of this survive in the Kerameikos.
In the family plot individual graves would be marked by tombstones, or stelae,
inscribed on which would be the name of the deceased. Depending on the wealth
of the family, the stele might be a small, simple rectangular stone or an extremely
elaborate monument, complete with bas-relief carvings of the deceased and their
servants. To honor the dead, or at least their memory, families regularly tended the
tombs of their deceased. This included physical maintenance of the gravesite and
tombstone as well as observing the anniversary of death by bringing offerings to the
gravesite, such as libations of milk and honey. Overall, this ‘‘cult’’ of the dead –
mourning and burial rituals, maintaining the gravesite, and particularly the offerings
at the tomb – suggests a belief that the dead were somehow present and active at their
graves or under the earth in general, and might somehow watch over the living. More
than that, though, visits by relatives to family graves, then as now, would reunite
living and dead – ancestors and descendants – allowing the living to show respect for
and remembrance of the dead, and allowing the survivors to share their grief and
comfort each other.
The ancient Greeks’ very strong belief in the necessity of honoring the dead was
also reflected in religious customs devoted to the continual appeasement of both
those who had already been properly buried and those who had not received the due
rites. Although families regularly brought offerings to the graves of relatives on the
anniversary of their death, various cities also held community festivals to ensure that
the dead would rest in peace and that the living would have peace of mind.
The Athenians, for example, celebrated the Genesia, a general state festival during
which they honored the souls of the dead. The Genesia took place on the fifth day of
the month of Boedromion (toward the end of our September). The name, which
comes from the Greekgen-(‘‘race’’ or ‘‘family’’), suggests the festival may have
originated as way for individual families to reverence deceased ancestors, but the


88 D. Felton

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