Note 6 — Chapter XIV · PART II POPULAR BELIEF

This seems to have been particularly common in Amorgos; cf. CIG. 2264b: four inss. from Amorgos. BCH. 1891, p. 574 (153-4 B.C.), 577, 586 (242 B.C.), 588 f. The Council of the Areopagos and the people of Athens decree the erection of a statue in honour of a young man of rank (T. Statilius Lamprias) who has died πρὸ ὥρας in Epidauros, and also the dispatch of envoys to παραμυθήσασθαι ἀπὸ τοῦ τῆς πόλεως ὀνόματος his parents and his grandfather Lamprias. In the same way the citizens of Sparta send an embassy of sympathy and consolation to other relatives of the same youth (first century A.D.), Fouil. d’Epidaur. i, 205–9, pp. 67–70. Honorific decree of council and people of Corinth for the same person, Ἐφ. Ἀρχ., 1894, p. 15. ψηφίσματα παραμυθητικά of two Lydian cities at the death of a man of rank (first century A.D.), Anz. Wien. Ak., Phil. Hist. Cl., 16th Nov., 1893 (n. 24) = Ath. Mitt. 1894, p. 102 f.; cf. Paros, CIG. 2383 (the council and people decree the erection of a statue to a dead boy ἐπὶ μέρους παραμυθησόμενοι τὸν πατέρα); Aphrodisias in Karia, CIG. 277b, 2775b–d; Neapolis, CIG. 5836 = IG. Sic. It. 758.—The grounds of consolation, so far as they are alluded to, are regularly independent of any theological teaching: φέρειν συμμέτρως τὰ τῆς λύπης εἰδότας ὅτι ἀπαραίτητός ἐστιν ἡ ἐπὶ πάντων ἀνθρώπων μοῖρα and the like (φέρειν τὸ συμβεβηκὸς ἀνθρωπίνως, F. d’Epid. i, 209). We are reminded of the παραμυθητικοὶ λόγοι of the philosophers which are literary expressions of these consolations—the philosophers in fact were expected ex officio to offer such consolations to the mourners, cf. Plu., Superst. 186 C; D. Chr. 27, § 9 (ii, 285 Arn.).