The Greek Way of Death"Surveying funerary rites and attitudes toward death from the time of Homer to the fourth century B.C., Robert Garland seeks to show what the ordinary Greek felt about death and the dead. Death, Garland says, was viewed by the ancient Greeks not as an event in time but rather as a process that required strenuous efforts on the part of the living to ensure the dead's successful passage to the next world. With what kinds of feelings did the Greek citizen anticipate his own death? What was the nature of the bond between the living and the dead? What can be learned about Greek society from knowledge of Greek burial practices? Addressing such questions as these, Garland applies anthropological methods to the literary and archaeological evidence, concentrating on Attika in the Classical period. He reconstructs the details of burial, post-burial, and commemorative rites and describes the attitudes that they produced on the part of the living. He also discusses the rites for those he calls the "special dead," such as the unburied, murderers and their victims, children, and suicides. Enriching our understanding of Greek life, The Greek Way of Death will be valuable reading for students and scholars of ancient history and Greek religion, as well as anthropologists, psychologists, and anyone interested in attitudes toward death." -- |
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Achilles Aeschylus afterlife Ahlberg Ajax Alkestis Anthesteria Archaic period Aristophanes Athenian Athens Athens NM Attic Attika AWL pl behalf belief bier black-figure Boardman body burial buried cemetery century B.C. ceremony Charon choai Clairmont 1970 Classical period commemorative corpse cremation cult dated death deceased deceased's described discussion earliest earth ekphora Eleusinian Eleusinian Mysteries epitaphs erected Euripides evidence Farnell fifth century fourth century funeral funerary plaques Genesia Geometric vases gods grave Greece Greek dead Hades Hektor Hellenistic Herakles Hermes heroes Hesiod Homer honour Hsch Hypnos inhumation inscription Johansen KB pl Kerameikos Kerberos Klytaimnestra lament lêkythoi living loutrophoros Nekyia Odysseus Oedipus offering Patroklos performed perhaps persons Plato Plutarch pollution practice prothesis Ps.-Dem psychê Psychopompos reference refs representations rites ritual Rohde sacrifice scenes seems Sokrates Solon Sophokles soul stêlai stêlê suggests suicide Thanatos tomb tragedy underworld Vermeule women Zeus Zschietzschmann 1928