fifty women in one town hanged themselves on account of their husbands’
deaths.^160
For Germanic peoples the oldest testimony is that of Procopius (Bell. Goth.
- about the Heruli, that a woman was expected to hang herself beside her
husband’s tomb without much delay. In Eddic myth Brynhild joins Sigurd on
his pyre. Saxo tells of the self-immolations of Asmund’s wife Gunnilda (1. 8. 4
p. 27) and of Hagbarth’s lover Sygne with all her maids (7. 7. 14 f. p. 197).^161
Movses Xorenac‘i relates in his Armenian history (2. 60) that when Artasˇes
died his wives and concubines committed suicide by his grave, and many
servants and slaves also followed him to the other world. The Armenian oral
epic also recognizes the motif of the widow’s suicide (Sassountsy David 336).
- about the Heruli, that a woman was expected to hang herself beside her
Funeral gamesMuch of the account of Patroclus’ funeral in the Iliad is taken up with the
chariot-race and other contests that the Achaeans held in his honour, Achilles
providing the prizes. Similar games followed Achilles’ own funeral in the
Aethiopis, and there are several mentions in the epics of other such occasions
(Il. 22. 162–4, 23. 630–42, 679 f.; Od. 24. 97–9). The games for Pelias were a
famous event celebrated in poetry. But funeral games were not reserved for
mythical heroes. Hesiod attended funeral games for a warrior king of Chalcis
of his own time (Op. 654–6), and many more great men were to be so
honoured in historical times both in Greece and at Rome.^162
A similar custom is documented for various other peoples.^163 Not all of
them are Indo-European, but several are, and there seems no reason why it
should not have been an ancestral tradition.^164 The wealthier Thracians’
funerals, Herodotus tells us (5. 8), followed a pattern that is now familiar to
us. The body was laid out for three days, there was lamentation, and many
animals were sacrificed. Then it was cremated or buried and a tumulus was
raised, after which there were contests of every kind, with the largest prizes
being for single combat. Many Irish narratives refer to funeral games (óenach
ngubae) as the sequel to burying a hero and marking his grave with a stele
(^160) Heinricus, Chronicon Livoniae 9. 5 (MGH Scriptores, xxiii. 250. 34) = Mannhardt (1936),
30 = Clemen (1936), 93. 30; cf. Gimbutas (1963), 184–7.
(^161) For Germanic peoples cf. H. M. Chadwick, The Cult of Othin (London 1899), 41–6; Ger-
ing–Sijmons (1927–31), ii. 276; de Vries (1956), i. 98, 138, 155.
(^162) J. G. Frazer, Pausanias’s Description of Greece, ii (London 1913), 549, amplified in Frazer
(1911–36), iv. 92–6; L. Malten, RE xii. 1859–61; L. H. Jeffery, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece
(Oxford 1961), 91.
(^163) Frazer (as n. 162, 1913), 549 f.; (1911–36), iv. 96–103.
(^164) Cf. Sergent (1995), 236.
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