Note 84 — Chapter V · THE CULT OF SOULS

That this was the object of the Novemdialia festival at Rome is shown clearly enough by the evidence; that the same was true of Greece is at least highly probable; cf. K. O. Müller, Aesch. Eum., p. 143 [120 E.T.]. Leist, Graecoitalische Rechts., p. 34.—Nine is evidently a round number, esp. in Homer; i.e. the division of periods of time into groups of nine was in antiquity a very common and familiar practice. Cf. now, Kaegi, Die Neunzahl bei den Ostariern, Phil. Abh. f. Schweitzer-Sidler, 50 ff. Mourning customs were really intended to ward off maleficent action on the part of the dead. They lasted as a rule as long as the return of the soul of the dead was to be feared (esp. so in India: see Oldenberg, Rel. d. Veda, p. 589), and acc. to ancient belief the soul can return once more on the ninth day after death. See below, chap. xiv, ii, n. 154.