Note 87 — Chapter V · THE CULT OF SOULS

The Lexicographers, Harp., Phot., etc. (AB. 308, 5, is ambiguous, too), speak of the τριακάς in a way that makes it hard to see whether they mean the traditional sacrifice of the dead taking place regularly on the thirtieth day of the month, or a special offering on the thirtieth day after burial or after the day of death (ἡ τριακοστὴ ἡμέρα διὰ τοῦ θανάτου Harp., Phot. μετὰ θάνατον is the correction of Schömann on Is., p. 219, but διὰ θανάτου is formed, not quite correctly, on the analogy of διὰ χρόνου, διὰ μέσου [even διὰ προγόνων “since the time of our forefathers”, Polyb. 21, 21, 4], and must mean the same thing, viz. “after death”). But in Lys. 1, 14, we have the idea clearly expressed that the period of mourning should last till the thirtieth day (see Becker, Char.2 3, 117 E.T.3, p. 398), and in this case it is natural to suppose that the τριακάδες corresponding with the τρίτα and ἔνατα, took place on the thirtieth day after burial. So, too, the ins. from Keos, SIG. 877, 21, ἐπὶ τῷ θανόντι τριηκόστια μὴ ποιεῖν. For Argos see Plu., Q. Gr. 24, p. 296 F. It is evident that the τριακάδες were not so firmly established in Athens (at least in the fourth century) as the τρίτα and ἔνατα: e.g. Isaeus generally only refers to these last as the indispensable νομιζόμενα: 2, 36–7; 8, 39. It appears also that it is wrong to regard the τριακάδες as otherwise exactly on a footing with the τρ. and ἔνατα, as is generally done. The last-mentioned pair were sacrifices to the dead, the τριακάδες seems to have been a commemorative banquet of the living.—These fixed periods of mourning like so much else in the cult of the dead may have been handed down by tradition from a very early time. The third, ninth (or tenth), and thirtieth days after the funeral marked stages in the gradually diminishing “uncleanness” of the relatives of the dead, and this existed, it appears, already in “Indo-Germanic” times. Until the ninth day the relatives were still in contact with the departed and were consequently “unclean”; the thirtieth day puts an end to this, and is a memorial festival (though often repeated); cf. Kaegi, pp. 5, 10, 12 (of the separate edition); Oldenberg, 578. In Christian usage, sanctioned by the church, the third, ninth, and fortieth days after death or after burial were very early observed as memorial days (sometimes third, seventh, thirtieth; cf. Rochholz, D. Gl. u. Brauch, i, 203), and survive in some cases to the present day: see Ac. Soc. ph. Lips. v, 304 f.