Note 61 — Chapter V · THE CULT OF SOULS

Coffinless burial was usual in the graves of the “Mycenaean” period, and also in the oldest times in Attica. The Spartans were merely keeping up this ancient custom when they ἐν φοινικίδι καὶ φύλλοις ἐλαίας θέντες τὸ σῶμα περιέστελλον (buried), Plu., Lyc. 27. Here everything points to the retention of primitive usage. The bodies were buried in the ancient fashion, not burnt; they were wrapped in a crimson robe. Crimson is otherwise the special colour for war and festival dress (cf. Müller, Dorians, ii, 264); here it is used in connexion with chthonic cult: ἔχει γάρ τινα τὸ πορφυροῦν χρῶμα συμπάθειαν πρὸς τὸν θάνατον says rightly Artemid. 1, 77, p. 70, 11 H. This can hardly be because of the red colour of blood; any more than that is why θάνατος is called πορφύρεος. But even Homer Ω 796 makes Hektor’s bones wrapped πυρφυρέοις πέπλοισι—the bones only in this case instead of the whole body: clearly a vestige of an older custom which survived unchanged in Sparta. Similarly Ψ 254. So, too, e.g. in the Dipylon graves at Athens burnt bones were found wrapped in a cloth, Ath. Mitt. 18, 160–1, 185. The head of the murdered brother φοινικίδι ἐκαλυψάτην καὶ ἐθαψάτην the two other Kabeiroi in the religious myth related by Clem. Al., Protr. ii, p. 16 P. Crimson frequently occurs as a colour used in chthonic cult: e.g. at the ceremonial ἄραι implying consecration to the infernal deities in [Lys.] 6, 51; at sacrifices to the Plataean Heroes: Plu., Arist. 21; at the transfer of the bones of Rhesos: see above, chap. iv, n. 36; Polyaen. vi, 53; at sacrifices to the Eumenides, Aesch., Eum. 1028.—The custom of burial upon leaves was also retained by the Pythagoreans: they buried their dead (without burning them, Iamb., VP. 154) in myrti et oleae et populi nigrae foliis (in fact, the trees regularly sacred to the χθόνιοι), Plin. 35, 160. Fauvel (ap. Ross, Arch. Aufs. i, 31) found in graves by the Melitean gate at Athens le squelette couché sur un lit épais de feuilles d’olivier encore en état de brûler. (Olive stones in Mycenaean Graves, Tsundas, Ἐφ. Ἀρχ., ’88, p. 136; ’89, p. 152.)