Note 21 — Chapter XIV · PART II POPULAR BELIEF

This χαῖρε repeats the last farewell which accompanied the removal of the body from the house (Eur., Alc. 626 f.). Cf. χαῖρέ μοι ὦ Πάτροκλε καὶ εἰν Ἀΐδαο δόμοισιν, the words with which Achilles (Ψ 179) addresses his dead friend lying upon the funeral pyre. So too on tombstones χαῖρε must be intended to suggest the continued sympathy of the survivors and the appreciation by the dead of that sympathy. Does it also imply veneration of the departed as κρείττων? Gods and Heroes were also addressed with this word: cf. χαῖρ’ ἄναξ Ἡράκλεες, etc.—The passer-by calls out χαῖρε: χαίρετε ἥρωες. ὁ παράγων σε ἀσπάζεται, Ath. Mitt. ix, 263; and cf. Epigr. Gr. 218, 17–18; 237, 7–8; cf. Loch, op. cit., 278 f.