VI The Procession
By the third day125, it was thought that time enough had elapsed to show whether life was really extinct126. A procession was then formed to accompany the body to the tomb. After a time, this delay of three days may have been less rigidly observed for the interment was permitted on the day immediately following the decease. Callimachus sings of a youth “whose friends saw him alive one day, and the next day they wept at his grave127.” Again, Pherecydes, the philosopher, eaten up by disease, invites his physicians to attend his funeral on the morrow128. But, when a distinguished and worthy man, such as Timoleon, died, and it was necessary to make extensive preparations for the funeral, and to send notice to the neighboring inhabitants and strangers, the time intervening between the death and the burial was probably extended129.
The hour set for the ekphora, or funeral procession, was in the early morning, before sunrise130. Bos131 cites the cases of Patroclus132 and Achilles133 as proof that it was only those who died in the flower of youth that were buried before sunrise. Yet there are other passages134 sufficient to convince us that the time for all funerals was usually the hour before dawn.
We know that the body was carried to the grave on a kline or bier135, presumably that on which the prothesis had been accomplished, but who conveyed it thither is in doubt. It would naturally be expected that it was borne by relatives or friends of the deceased, yet no authority has been found to support the surmise. There is, on the contrary, a passage in Pollux136 which might be construed to indicate that there was a class of men who were called, professionally, “corpse-bearers” or “buriers,” and whose sole business was pall-bearing. Pollux is rather late authority, but, on turning back to the tragedies, Electra appears, telling her brother to let the crows and dogs act as “buriers” of Ægisthus137. Furthermore, it is a number of trained slaves that carry Alcestis to the tomb138.
When a man of prominence died, he was borne to the grave by youths chosen by the people139. There is a reported instance of the burial of a priest, where one hundred youths140, trained in the gymnasium, were selected by the relatives of the deceased. It was the custom for members of a fraternity to act as pall-bearers for one of their fellows. Demonax141, when he died, was borne along by his brother philosophers. That custom survives to our time in the funeral processions of the free-masons and odd-fellows.
In the van of the procession, just before the corpse142, or immediately behind, came the hired dirge-singers, pouring forth their doleful lays143. Plato, perhaps through carelessness, speaks of these hired singers in the masculine gender144; but Hesychius is undoubtedly correct in stating that women145 habitually took that part. They were first brought over from Caria145, and hence the significance of the allusion to a dirge as a “Carian melody144.”
The late authors, Pollux146 and Sextius Empiricus147, confounded the dirge-singers with the Roman praeficae and thought that they were flute-players. The flutes of ivory which have been discovered in some of the Grecian graves, would seem to support that view148. Schreiber has a picture of a funeral procession, in which a flute-player is seen behind the rude wagon that bears the body of the deceased149.
Any man might join in the dismal march to the grave, but every woman was debarred the melancholy privilege, unless she had passed her sixtieth year150, or was connected with the deceased by blood and was over sixteen years of age. There are two instances mentioned in literature when this law was violated. Lysias151 refers to a daughter who followed her stepmother to the grave; while Terence, whose plays are adaptations and almost translations of the Greek comedies, makes poor Glycerium attend the funeral of her adopted sister, the beautiful Andrian152. Even in those cases, the exception is rather apparent than real; for, in each instance, affection has transmuted a nominal into an actual kinship.
There are some intimations of military funerals on the monuments, amphoras and vases that have been found in Grecian soil, as well as references to such pageants in the Greek authors. On a stamped plaque of terra cotta, in the collection of M. Rayet153, appears a procession with two young men in military dress, possibly sons of the deceased, who march behind the women that surround the funeral car. The black figures on an amphora154, represent the cortege as composed of women and some armed men mounted on chariots. A beautiful amphora from Cape Colias155, is painted with some red figures. There, beside the scene of prothesis, are some knights preparing to follow the funeral convoy. They have lowered the points of their lances, in sign of mourning. It is not improbable that these soldiers escort a companion-in-arms to his last resting place. A passage from Plato156, prescribing the order of the cortege for the interment of the first citizens of the state, directs that there shall march, at the head of the procession, young unmarried men, clothed in military costume, then that the boys go before the bier and sing the national hymn, with the girls following behind, and such of the women as happen to be beyond the age of child-bearing. Plutarch157 writes, that armed soldiers escorted the urn which contained the ashes of Philopoemen.