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Pulvis Et Umbra

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

That cremation is unknown in the Mycenaean world, even in its latest phases, and inhumation equally foreign to the Homeric poems is a curious, if familiar, fact, and at once raises the question of the length of the interval which separates the fall of Mycenae from the appearance of cremation in the Aegean area. To fix an absolute date for either event is impossible; but the increasing number of carefully excavated sub-Mycenaean and proto-Geometric tombs makes it possible to note certain features in the rise, spread and, in certain regions, the dominance of the practice, and slightly to narrow the chronological limits.

At Mycenae cremation does not appear at all, not even among those depositions in chamber tombs which were accompanied by pottery of the ‘Granary’ class and therefore belong to the latest period of the city or may even be slightly later than its fall. Similarly, two of its ordinary concomitants are lacking, the arched fibula and iron as a useful metal.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1933

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References

1 Wace, , Chamber Tombs at Mycenae, p. 185Google Scholar.

2 AM. 1910, p. 17.

3 There is, however, a Late Mycenaean specimen from a pithos burial outside the acropolis wall of Mycenae. It is late, but not of the very latest Granary class. See BSA. xxv, p. 407, Pl. LXII, 1b.

4 For a list of published specimens see BSA. xxviii, p. 177 and notes.

5 V. infra, p. 165.

6 V. infra, p. 164.

7 See the account of the excavations AM. 1926, pp. 128 ff., and compare the description of the early cremation tomb AA. 1932, pp. 205 ff.

8 See p. 310.

9 For the excavations conducted by Sig. Maiuri on behalf of the Italian Missione Archeologica see Annuario, vi–vii. The tombs in question are: at Makra Vunara xvii and xix, at Moschu Vunara xv, xxxii and xxxviii.

10 See Kübler, , AM. 1926, pp. 128Google Scholar ff.; Kraiker, , AA. 1932, pp. 205Google Scholar ff. The burnt bones were in each case found in an amphora.

11 Summarily published with some illustrations in the Parartema of Δελτίον, , 1916. For the ring see JHS. xlix, p. 147Google Scholar, fig. 1.

12 Exc. in Cyprus, p. 17. It occurred in the tomb of the ivory draught-box (Pl. I) but is not figured. It is, however, published in Vrokastro, Pl. XXXIV; v. infra, p. 165.

13 Δελτίον, iii, pp. 162 ff. The bones were not collected in an urn nor were there any traces of a pyre within the tomb. The whorl, however, looked as if it had been burnt.

14 Chemical analysis has been resorted to by Karo, (Schachtgräber von Mykenai, p. 339, n. 4Google Scholar; cf. p. 36)and Wace, (Chamber-Tombs at Mycenae, p. 40Google Scholar).

15 As at Halos, (BSA. xviii, p. 10Google Scholar) and Rhitsona (Ure, P. N., Sixth and Fifth Century Pottery from Rhitsona, p. 3Google Scholar).

16 AA. xviii, p. 45. BCH. 1904, pp. 391 ff. Cf. Wace, , Chamber-Tombs at Mycenae, p. 40Google Scholar, and Persson, , The Royal Tombs at Dendra, pp. 6970Google Scholar.

17 AM. iii, p. 277.

18 Apart, of course, from the isolated, pre-Mycenaean outbreak of cremation in Leucas.

19 University of Pennsylvania: The Museum Anthropological Publications, Vol. III, no. 3: Vrokastro. The tombs excavated at Kavousi, Erganos and Kourtes shew a similar state of affairs, but were not observed in equal detail. See AJA. 1901.

20 Vrokastro, p. 143, fig. 85 M and Pl. XX F. Also Blinkenberg, , Fib. Gr. et Or. p. 75Google Scholar, fig. 60. For the single-bulb pins see Vrokastro, p. 141 and fig. 85.

21 As it was customary both in prehistoric and classical Greece to bury infants in pithoi even where the prevailing rite was cremation, I have disregarded infant burials in giving statistics of the two methods.

22 Vrokastro, p. 137, Pl. XX C; Blinkenberg, op. cit. p. 74, fig. 59.

23 Ἐφημ. 1904, p. 37, fig. 8; Vrokastro, p. 138, fig. 82.

24 BSA. viii, p. 248, fig. 16.

25 Tomb no. 37. See Furtw., and Loeschcke, , Myk. Vasen, Text p. 16Google Scholar, fig. 4. A stirrup vase from the tomb, figured in the B.M. catalogue under A 899, has a raised disc on the top of the false neck.

26 Ἐφημ. 1904, p. 1.

27 The Bronze Age and the Celtic World, pp. 87, 96–97, Pl. VI. The classification is based on the gradual development of the heel of the blade, which changes from a convex to a concave curve on either side.

28 There are also fragments of a third.

29 See Ἐφημ. 1904, pl. 3; Hall, , Civilisation of Greece in the Bronze Age, p. 259Google Scholar, fig. 335, and for the shape of the second vase, cf. BSA. xxix, Pl. VI, 11.

30 To which we may add Kourtes; see AJA. 1901, pp. 291–2.

31 JHS. viii, pp. 64 ff.; xvi, pp. 188, 237 ff.

32 V. infra, p. 169.

33 Tiryns, I, p. 134.

34 Bulletin de la Société Royale des Lettres de Lund, 1924–5, pp. 56–7.

35 BSA. xxix, see especially pp. 229–30.

36 Annuario, x–xii.

37 Tomb R; l.c. pp. 202 ff. There were two similar but smaller tholoi (L and M) rich in Geometric and Early Orientalising pottery and metal work.

38 L.c. Pl. VI.

39 Survivals of the latest Minoan type. It will be remembered that at Mouliana in a small corbelled tomb with rectangular ground plan an inhumation and a cremation lie in friendly proximity.

40 Nor does cremation appear in Cyprus at this period, though ‘Granary’ pottery does.

41 BSA. xviii, pp. 1 ff.

42 Another was partly excavated by the Othrys Archaeological Society, and yielded burnt bones, iron weapons and geometric pottery.

43 Wace, and Thompson, , Prehistoric Thessaly, pp. 209Google Scholar ff.

44 Principally, as it happens, of children and adolescents, who afford perhaps not quite such satisfactory evidence as adults of the exclusive practice of inhumation.

45 Vurva can be definitely traced back to the seventh century, or at least some of the depositions can. There is no reason to suppose Velanideza earlier.

46 Assuming that the Arcado-Cypriot dialect represents the speech of the Achaians of the Peloponnese, the inscriptions which establish the point come from Eleutherna and Axos, somewhat westward of the cremation sites of Central Crete.

47 Poulsen, , Dipylongräber, p. 16Google Scholar; Pfuhl, , MuZ. I, pp. 66–7Google Scholar.

48 Ἐφημ. 1898, p. 76.

49 Brückner, and Pernice, , AM. xviii, p. 78Google Scholar.

50 See Karo, report in AJA. 1933, pp. 339Google Scholar ff.

51 Brückner and Pernice, l.c. p. 159.

52 Orsi, , NdS. 1896, pp. 110–11Google Scholar. For the excavation of Megara Hyblaea, see MonAnt. i.

53 MonAnt. xvii, p. 243.

54 Aus ionischen u. italischen Nekropolen, pp. 12–13.

55 L.c. pp. 32–4.

56 The number of sarcophagi of Klazomenian type suggests Egyptian influence.

57 Haussoullier, , Quo modo sepulcra Tanagraei decoraverint, p. 76Google Scholar.

58 Thuc. ii. 52, vi. 71.

59 Vit. Sol. 21.

60 Vit. Lyc. 27.

61 Thuc. I. 134.

62 Xen., Hell. V. 3Google Scholar. 19, Plut., Ages. 40Google Scholar.

63 T 38–9.

64 Schol. A. on A 52, The Scholiast then goes on to ascribe the introduction of cremation to Herakles, on the authority of Andron, who evidently knew that, though old, it was not the oldest practice. Schol. 99,

These notes in the ‘four men's commentary’ can only come from Didymus, and he can only have taken them from his Alexandrian predecessors; there was no need to account for cremation in the Roman world. On the other hand, the Greeks of Egypt would naturally be unacquainted with cremation.

65 Laws 947 D.

66 E.g. by Rohde, , Psyche, 2. I, pGoogle Scholar. 225, n. 4.

67 Diog. Laert. V. 70.

68 Cic. de Leg. II. 22 says that Sulla was the first of the patrician Cornelii to be cremated. Servius Sulpicius had the body of his assassinated colleague M. Marcellus cremated in the Academy and a monument erected to him there, possibly only a cenotaph. Cic., ad Fam. iv. 12Google Scholar.

69 21. etc. There is no mention of the Romans, who were probably supposed merely to have imitated the Greeks.

70 As we might expect from their distribution, cremation and inhumation are never appealed to as tests of race within the Hellenic unity. The fluidity of Greek funerary practice is remarkable. Solon (Plut., Vit. Sol. 10Google Scholar) claimed that the inhabitants of Salamis were akin to the Athenians rather than the Megarians because they, like the Athenians, buried their dead facing the west, the Megarians facing the east. The statement is repeated by Aelian, (Var. Hist. V. 14Google Scholar and VII. 19) with the additional detail that Solon proved his point by opening some ancient graves. There is, in fact, no principle of orientation observed either in Attica (Kerameikos, Velanideza, Vurva) or in Megara Hyblaea; for Megara itself we lack evidence. Yet Solon must have been following a tradition; and in fact the graves of Salamis have a uniform orientation, though it does not appear that the position of the skulls in them was recorded. At Gela there was a strong preference for a position facing E., for S.E. in the second degree and N.E. in the third: the number of graves with a different orientation is negligible. Hereas of Megara commenting on Solon's arguments maintains that the Megarians also bury their dead facing the west, and further says that the Athenians make only single depositions in their tombs, a statement borne out by the Kerameikos, Velanideza and Vurva, whereas the Megarians make three or four. This practice can be seen at Megara Hyblaea and in Thera. Hereas had no inkling of the Salamis cemetery with its single interments, which support Solon's contention. The practice of single interments is characteristic of the Middle Helladic period, of which Salamis seems to preserve a tradition.

71 Brückner and Pernice, l.c. pp. 165 and 184.

72 See Schol. A. on A 52, where the introduction of cremation is ascribed on the authority of Andron to Heracles.

73 Herod. 1. 68; Plut., Thes. 36Google Scholar.

74 Apollod., Epit. XXI. 2Google Scholar, p. 67, Wagner. Cf. the similar statement derived from the Little Iliad (Kinkel, , Ep. Gr. Frag., Ilias Parva 3Google Scholar). The tradition is followed by Sophocles, , Aj. 1164Google Scholar ff.

75 Wilamowitz, , Pindar, pp. 34–5Google Scholar; also Schol. A. on P. Ol. VI. 23, there cited.

76 H. 433 ff.

77 Paus.v. 13.4–5, and Apollod., Epit. XXI. 8Google Scholar, which shows that Pausanias did not merely pick up a local legend. Probably the journeying shoulder-blade was the one substituted by the gods for the mortal member.

78 Paus. vi. 22. 1.

79 Paus. ii. 23. 8.

80 Peake, , The Bronze Age and the Celtic World, pp. 8691Google Scholar.

81 BSA. xviii, pp. 282 ff.

82 Peake, l.c. p. 96.

83 Mycenae, pp. 143–4.

84 Ἐφημ. 1897, Pl. VIII. 3, p. 111; cf. do. 1891, p. 25. Along with Tsountas' swords was found one with Τ hilt and hooked guard like that of the Woodhouse sword in the Brit. Mus., probably from Ithaka. (Benton, S., BSA. xxix. pp. 113Google Scholar ff.)

85 (a) πυρὸς λελαχεῖν; this causative reduplicated second aorist is used only with πυρὸς and in this sense: see Η 80, Ο 350, Χ 343, Ψ 76.

(b) ἐπιβῆναι, πυρῆς, ἐπιβῆσαι; Δ 99, I 546.Google Scholar

86 464, 114. The second passage refers to Tydeus, who according to later tradition was burned; Pind., Ol. vi. 15Google Scholar.

87 For that of Gordium see Myres, , Who were the Greeks? p. 422Google Scholar.

88 Γ 243, Φ 63, λ 301. It would seem that Ruskin was right (pace Matthew Arnold) in discerning, though perhaps not quite accurately, a special point in the epithet. The idea, of course, is natural and persistent; cf. Eur., Supp. 532–6Google Scholar; Meleager, , Anth. Pal. VII. 476Google Scholar.

89 Schol. T. ad loc.

90

91

92 The early tradition of the inhumation of Ajax may be based on some incident in the history of the Aeolic settlement. Either by accident or perhaps in compliance with instructions from Delphi, the colonists may have unearthed some Bronze Age interment and taken the skeleton within it for that of the Greek hero. At what date the tumulus of Rhoiteion was identified with the tomb of Ajax we do not know, any more than the date, not necessarily early, of the tumulus itself.

93 Apollonius Rhodius, who admits inhumation only, could at least have given a good rhetorical description, but he treats his burials with a jejuneness which accords with the lack of epic precedent. (Arg. II, 835 ff. and 855 ff.; IV, 1500 and 1535–6, and cf. the curious passage III, 200–9, where the tumulus is associated with interment and contrasted with cremation. The exclusion of the latter rite in spite of Homeric tradition suggests that Apollonius thought that it properly belonged only to the generations of Thebes and Troy.)

94 Schol. T. on 75–6 suggests that Patroklos declares that he will never return

95 The dramatic date of the Republic is earlier, but Plato is probably recording his impression of his own contemporaries.

96 Phaedo 115 E.

97 Laws 959 C. Cf. Schol. BT on H. 79,

98 Octavius XXXIV, 6–13; cf. the statement of the Pagan position in X–XI.

99 Custodia P; corr. Wowerus.

100 Euseb., Praep. Ev. XIII, 15Google Scholar. My attention was called to this passage by my brother, W. L. Lorimer. Heresy on the point soon arose within the fold: see Jerome, St., Ep. 84, 5Google Scholar (Migne, , PL. XXII, p. 747Google Scholar). Origen, contr. Cels. v. 45Google Scholar (Migne, , PG. XI. p. 1201Google Scholar).

101 Cf. Acts xvii. 18 and 32.

102 Macrob, . Sat. VII, 7Google Scholar. 5.

103 We have an isolated phrase from Herakleitos, (Diels, , Vorsokratiker 4, Herakl. B 96Google Scholar), quoted by both Plutarch and Origen, but without its context. Lucian, indeed, puts a sermon, appropriately enough, into the mouth of that professional outrager of public opinion, Diogenes the Cynic, (νϵκρ. διάλ. 24.2Google Scholar); but, Syrian though he is, he is Hellenic enough to observe a certain discretion in his language.

104 It is sometimes presented in the form of a death-bed dialogue of mutual recrimination between soul and body. See Old English Miscellany, pp. 169 ff. As a specimen, Nu pe schulle wurmes | wunyen wipinne | ne may me heom ut dryven | mid nones kunnesgynne.

The secular poets use the same idea, less sensationally:—

‘Now with his love, now in his colde grave,

Allone, withouten any compaignye.’

Chaucer, , Knight's Tale, 2778–9Google Scholar.

105 Lord Herbert of Cherbury draws the complete logical conclusion, as becomes a metaphysical poet:—

These eyes again then eyes shall see

And hands again these hands enfold,

And all chast pleasures can be told

Shall with us everlasting be.

For if no use of sense remain

When bodies once this life forsake,

Or they could no delight partake,

Why should they ever rise again?

106 Anth. Pal. vii, 378.

107 That of Egypt was extremely pervasive, though perhaps specially strong at Rome. Cf. Trimalchio jingling his silver skeleton at the feast (Sat. 34).

108 Anth. Pal. vii, 480.

109 de resurr, carnis, 1.