220 KANSAS UNIVKRSri'V OUARTKRLV. 



The Publi*' li'iiiieral. 



The manner in which the Greeks conducted a pubHc funeral is 

 described by Thucydides (2, 35): "The relics of the dead were 

 exposed in a tent, erected for tlie purpose, for three dax'S, during 

 which the relatives might bring funeral offerings. When the time 

 came for burial, the wagons of each tribe bore a coffin of cypress 

 wood in which the bones of its slain were deposited, and one bier 

 covered with a pall was carried in commemoration of the missing. 

 Any one, citizen or alien, might join the procession, and women 

 who were related to the dead w^ere present to lament them. The 

 remains were placed in a public tomb in the most beautiful suburb 

 of the city — the Ceramicus — and an orator expressly chosen b}' the 

 senate, pronounced the funeral speech." From the epitaphioi of 

 Lysias, Plato and Demosthenes, we learn that sacrifices were 

 offered and games celebrated in honor of the event. 

 The Funeral Orations. 



If Demosthenes is to be believed, the Athenians were the onl\' 

 people who honored those who fell in the service of their country 

 with funeral orations ^Lept. p. 499): 



JI.0V01 Twv 7rdvT0)v avOpwTToyv iirl rots TeXevTyjaaaL SrjfJioa-uL Troteire AoyoD? 

 CTTtTa^ibi's iv oi<? Kotr/xetre ra twv ayj.Ou)v avSpwv e'pya. 



Although this is not true to the letter, yet the delivery of such 

 orations was ciistoinarx only at Athens, wliile elsewhere it was 

 occasional, and doubtless in imitation of the Attic example. The 

 origin of their institution is very ancient and consequently very 

 uncertain. The Scholiast on Thuc. 2, 35, understands Pericles to 

 ascribe the institution to Solon, upon whom the later Greeks were 

 accustomed to father almost any law or usage which could not 

 otherwise be accounted for. (Dionys. Halic. Ant. Rom. 5, 17: 

 Diog. Laert. Sol. i, 2, 8.) Thirwall and Grote believe that they 

 had their origin in the Persian wars. (Thw. Hist. Gr. , vol. 3. p. 

 54; Grote Hist. Gr., vol. 6, p. 41. See also Diod. Sic. 11, 33. who 

 says expressly: roje. izpiiiTov; and Dion3's. Halic. Ant. Rom. 5, 17.) 

 It is not improbable that both views are correct; they clearly do 

 not necessaril}' conflict. They could not have been instituted 

 much later at any rate, since we have an actual example of one 

 within forty years afterwards, and since about nine years later still, 

 at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war (B. C. 431), the practice 

 was so firmly established that a regular course of ceremonies was 

 prescribed for the occasion. 



The specimens of this kind of composition during the classical 

 period, of which any mention has come down to us, are as follows: 



