In archaeological discoveries we find the most convincing proofs that the Iliad, on the whole, is the production of a single age, not the patchwork1 of several changeful centuries. This may seem an audacious statement, as archaeology2 has been interpreted of late in such a manner as to demand precisely3 the opposite verdict. But if we can show, as we think we can, that many recent interpretations4 of the archaeological evidence are not valid6, because they are not consistent, our contention7, though unexpected, will be possible. It is that the combined testimony8 of archaeology and of the Epic9 proves the Iliad to represent, as regards customs, weapons, and armour10, a definite moment of evolution; a period between the age recorded in the art of the Mycenaean shaft11 graves and the age of early iron swords and the “Dipylon” period.
Before the discoveries of the material remains12 of the “Mycenzean” times, the evidence of archaeology was seldom appropriately invoked13 in discussions of the Homeric question. But in the thirty years since Schliemann explored the buried relics14 of the Mycenzean Acropolis, his “Grave of Agamemnon,” a series of excavations16 has laid bare the interments, the works of art, and the weapons and ornaments17 of years long prior to the revolution commonly associated with the “Dorian Invasion” of about 1100–1000 B.C. The objects of all sorts which have been found in many sites of Greece and the isles19, especially of Cyprus and Crete, in some respects tally20 closely with Homeric descriptions, in others vary from them widely. Nothing can be less surprising, if the heroes whose legendary21 feats22 inspired the poet lived centuries before his time, as Charlemagne and his Paladins lived some three centuries before the composition of the earliest extant Chansons de Geste on their adventures. There was, in such a case, time for much change in the details of life, art, weapons and implements23. Taking the relics in the graves of the Mycenaean Acropolis as a starting-point, some things would endure into the age of the poet, some would be modified, some would disappear.
We cannot tell how long previous to his own date the poet supposes the Achaean heroes to have existed. He frequently ascribes to them feats of strength which “no man of such as now are” could perform. This gives no definite period for the interval24; he might be speaking of the great grandfathers of his own generation. But when he regards the heroes as closely connected by descent of one or two generations with the gods, and as in frequent and familiar intercourse25 with gods and goddesses, we must suppose that he did not think their period recent. The singers of the Chansons de Geste knew that angels’ visits were few and far between at the period, say, of the Norman Conquest; but they allowed angels to appear in epics26 dealing27 with the earlier time, almost as freely as gods intervene in Homer. In short, the Homeric poet undeniably treats the age of his heroes as having already, in the phrase of Thucydides, “won its way to the mythical,” and therefore as indefinitely remote.
It is impossible here to discuss in detail the complex problems of Mycenaean chronology. If we place the Mycenaean “bloom-time” from “the seventeenth or sixteenth to the twelfth century B.C.,” 61 it is plain that there is space to spare, between the poet’s age and that of his heroes, for the rise of changes in war, weapons, and costume. Indeed, there are traces enough of change even in the objects and art discovered in the bloom-time, as represented by the Mycenaean acropolis itself and by other “Mycenaean” sites. The art of the fragment of a silver vase in a grave, on which a siege is represented, is not the art, the costumes are not the costumes, of the inlaid bronze dagger28-blade. The men shown on the vase and the lion-hunters on the dagger both have their hair close cropped, but on the vase they are naked, on the dagger they wear short drawers. On the Vaphio cups, found in a tholos chamber29-tomb near Amyclae, the men are “long-haired Achaeans,” with heavy, pendent locks, like the man on a pyxis from Knossos, published by Mr. Evans; they are of another period than the close-cropped men of the vase and dagger. 62 Two of the men on the silver vase are covered either with shields of a shape and size elsewhere unknown in Mycenaean art, or with cloaks of an unexampled form. The masonry30 of the city wall, shown on the vase in the Mycenaean grave, is not the ordinary masonry of Mycenae itself. On the vase the wall is “isodomic,” built of cut stones in regular layers. Most of the Mycenaean walls, on the other hand, are of “Cyclopean” style, in large irregular blocks.
Art, good and very bad, exists in many various stages in Mycenaean relics. The drawing of a god, with a typical Mycenaean shield in the form of a figure 8, on a painted sarcophagus from Milato in Crete, is more crude and savage31 than many productions of the Australian aboriginals32, 63 the thing is on the level of Red Indian work. Meanwhile at Vaphio, Enkomi, Knossos, and elsewhere the art is often excellent.
In one essential point the poet describes a custom without parallel among the discovered relics of the Mycenaean age — namely, the disposal of the bodies of the dead. They are neither buried with their arms, in stately tholos tombs nor in shaft graves, as at Mycenae: whether they be princes or simple oarsmen, they are cremated33. A pyre of wood is built; on this the warrior34’s body is laid, the pyre is lighted, the body is reduced to ashes, the ashes are placed in a vessel35 or box of gold, wrapped round with precious cloths (no arms are buried, as a general rule), and a mound36, howe, barrow, or tumulus is raised over all. Usually a stele37 or pillar crowns the edifice38. This method is almost uniform, and, as far as cremation39 and the cairn go, is universal in the Iliad and Odyssey40 whenever a burial is described. Now this mode of interment must be the mode of a single age in Greek civilisation41. It is confessedly not the method of the Mycenaeans of the shaft grave, or of the latter tholos or stone beehive-shaped grave; again, the Mycenaeans did not burn the dead; they buried. Once more, the Homeric method is not that of the Dipylon period (say 900–750 B.C.) represented by the tombs outside the Dipylon gate of Athens. The people of that age now buried, now burned, their dead, and did not build cairns over them. Thus the Homeric custom comes between the shaft graves and the latter tholos graves, on the one hand, and the Dipylon custom of burning or burying, with sunk or rock-hewn graves, on the other.
The Homeric poets describe the method of their own period. They assuredly do not adhere to an older epic tradition of shaft graves or tholos graves, though these must have been described in lays of the period when such methods of disposal of the dead were in vogue43. The altar above the shaft-graves in Mycenae proves the cult44 of ancestors in Mycenae; of this cult in the Iliad there is no trace, or only a dim trace of survival in the slaughter45 of animals at the funeral. The Homeric way of thinking about the state of the dead, weak, shadowy things beyond the river Oceanus, did not permit them to be worshipped as potent46 beings. Only in a passage, possibly interpolated, of the Odyssey, do we hear that Castor and Polydeuces, brothers of Helen, and sons of Tyndareus, through the favour of Zeus have immortality47, and receive divine honours. 64
These facts are so familiar that we are apt to overlook the strangeness of them in the history of religious evolution. The cult of ancestral spirits begins in the lowest barbarism, just above the level of the Australian tribes, who, among the Dieri, show some traces of the practice, at least, of ghost feeding. 65 Sometimes, as in many African tribes, ancestor worship is almost the whole of practical cult. Usually it accompanies polytheism, existing beside it on a lower plane. It was prevalent in the Mycenae of the shaft graves; in Attica it was uninterrupted; it is conspicuous49 in Greece from the ninth century onwards. But it is unknown to or ignored by the Homeric poets, though it can hardly have died out of folk custom. Consequently, the poems are of one age, an age of cremation and of burial in barrows, with no ghost worship. Apparently50 some revolution as regards burial occurred between the age of the graves of the Mycenaean acropolis and the age of Homer. That age, coming with its form of burning and its absence of the cult of the dead, between two epochs of inhumation, ancestor worship, and absence of cairns, is as certainly and definitely an age apart, a peculiar52 period, as any epoch51 can be.
Cremation, with cairn burial of the ashes, is, then, the only form of burial mentioned by Homer, and, as far as the poet tells us, the period was not one in which iron was used for swords and spears. At Assarlik (Asia Minor53) and in Thera early graves, prove the use of cremation, but also, unlike Homer, of iron weapons. 66 In these graves the ashes are inurned. There are examples of the same usage in Salamis, without iron. In Crete, in graves of the period of geometrical ornament18 (“Dipylon”), burning is more common than inhumation. Cremation is attested54 in a tholos or beehive-shaped grave in Argos, where the vases were late Mycenaean. Below this stratum55 was an older shaft grave, as is usual in tholos interments; it had been plundered56? 67
The cause of the marked change from Mycenaean inhumation to Homeric cremation is matter of conjecture57. It has been suggested that burning was introduced during the migrations58 after the Dorian invasion. Men could carry the ashes of their friends to the place where they finally settled. 68 The question may, perhaps, be elucidated59 by excavation15, especially in Asia Minor, on the sites of the earliest Greek colonies. At Colophon are many cairns unexplored by science. Mr. Ridgeway, as is well known, attributes the introduction of cremation to a conquering northern people, the Achaeans, his “Celts.” It is certain that cremation and urn42 burial of the ashes prevailed in Britain during the Age of Bronze, and co-existed with inhumation in the great cemetery60 of Hallstatt, surviving into the Age of Iron. 69 Others suppose a change in Achaean ideas about the soul; it was no longer believed to haunt the grave and grave goods and be capable of haunting the living, but to be wholly set free by burning, and to depart for ever to the House of Hades, powerless and incapable61 of hauntings.
It is never easy to decide as to whether a given mode of burial is the result of a definite opinion about the condition of the dead, or whether the explanation offered by those who practise the method is an afterthought. In Tasmania among the lowest savages62, now extinct, were found monuments over cremated human remains, accompanied with “characters crudely marked, similar to those which the aborigines tattooed63 on their forearms.” In one such grave was a spear, “for the dead man to fight with when he is asleep,” as a native explained. Some Tasmanian tribes burned the dead and carried the ashes about in amulets64; others buried in hollow trees; others simply inhumed. Some placed the dead in a hollow tree, and cremated the body after lapse65 of time. Some tied the dead up tightly (a common practice with inhumation), and then burned him. Some buried the dead in an erect66 ‘posture. The common explanation of burning was that it prevented the dead from returning, thus it has always been usual to burn the bodies of vampires67. Did a race so backward hit on an idea unknown to the Mycenaean Greeks? 70 If the usual explanation be correct — burning prevents the return of the dead — how did the Homeric Greeks come to substitute burning for the worship and feeding of the dead, which had certainly prevailed? How did the ancient method return, overlapping68 and blent with the method of cremation, as in the early Dipylon interments? We can only say that the Homeric custom is definite and isolated69, and that but slight variations occur in the methods of Homeric burial.
(1) In Iliad, VI, 4 I 6 ff, Andromache says that Achilles slew70 her father, “yet he despoiled72 him not, for his soul had shame of that; but he burnt him in his inlaid armour, and raised a barrow over him.” We are not told that the armour was interred73 with the ashes of Eetion. This is a peculiar case. We always hear in the that the dead are burned, and the ashes of princes are placed in a vessel of gold within an artificial hillock; but we do not hear, except in this passage, that they are burned in their armour, or that it is burned, or that it is buried with the ashes of the dead. The invariable practice is for the victor, if he can, to despoil71 the body of the fallen foe74; but Achilles for some reason spared that indignity75 in the case of Eetion. 71
(2) Iliad, VII. 85. Hector, in his challenge to a single combat, makes the conditions that the victor shall keep the arms and armour of the vanquished76, but shall restore his body to his friends. The Trojans will burn him, if he falls; if the Achaean falls, the others will do something expressed by the word [Greek: tarchuchosi] probably a word surviving from an age of embalment. 72 It has come to mean, generally, to do the funeral rites78. The hero is to have a barrow or artificial howe or hillock built over him, “beside wide Hellespont,” a memorial of him, and of Hector’s valour.
On the River Helmsdale, near Kildonan, on the left bank, there is such a hillock which has never, it is believed, been excavated79. It preserves the memory of its occupant, an early Celtic saint; whether he was cremated or not it is impossible to say. But his memory is not lost, and the howe, cairn, or hillock, in Homer is desired by the heroes as a memorial.
On the terms proposed by Hector the arms of the dead could not be either burned or buried with him.
(3) Iliad, IX. 546. Phoenix80 says that the Calydonian boar “brought many to the mournful pyre.” All were cremated.
(4) Iliad, XXII 50–55. Andromache in her dirge81 (the regret of the French mediaeval epics) says that Hector lies unburied by the ships and naked, but she will burn raiment of his, “delicate and fair, the work of women . . . to thee no profit, since thou wilt82 never lie therein, yet this shall be honour to thee from the men and women of Troy.” Her meaning is not very clear, but she seems to imply that if Hector’s body were in Troy it would be clad in garments before cremation.
Helbig appears to think that to clothe the dead in garments was an Ionian, not an ancient epic custom. But in Homer the dead always wear at least one garment, the [Greek: pharos], a large mantle83, either white or purple, such as Agamemnon wears in peace (Iliad, II 43), except when, like Eetion and Elpenor in the Odyssey, they are burned in their armour. In Iliad, XXIII. 69 ff., the shadow of the dead unburned Patroclus appears to Achilles in his sleep asking for “his dues of fire.” The whole passage, with the account of the funeral of Patroclus, must be read carefully, and compared with the funeral rites of Hector at the end of Book XXIV. Helbig, in an essay of great erudition, though perhaps rather fantastic in its generalisations, has contrasted the burials of the two heroes. Patroclus is buried, he says, in a true portion of the old Aeolic epic (Sir Richard Jebb thought the whole passage “Ionic”), though even into this the late Ionian bearbeiter (a spectral84 figure), has introduced his Ionian notions. But the Twenty-fourth Book itself is late and Ionian, Helbig says, not genuine early Aeolian epic poetry. 73 The burial of Patroclus, then, save for Ionian late interpolations, easily detected by Helbig, is, he assures us, genuine “kernel85,” 74 while Hector’s burial “is partly Ionian, and describes the destiny of the dead heroes otherwise than as in the old Aeolic epos.”
Here Helbig uses that one of his two alternate theories according to which the late Ionian poets do not cling to old epic tradition, but bring in details of the life of their own date. By Helbig’s other alternate theory, the late poets cling to the model set in old epic tradition in their pictures of details of life.
Disintegrationists differ: far from thinking that the late Ionian poet who buried Hector varied86 from the AEolic minstrel who buried Patroclus (in Book XXIII.), Mr. Leaf says that Hector’s burial is “almost an abstract” of that of Patroclus. 75 He adds that Helbig’s attempts “to distinguish the older AEolic from the newer and more sceptical ‘Ionic’ faith seem to me visionary.” 76 Visionary, indeed, they do seem, but they are examples of the efforts made to prove that the Iliad bears marks of composition continued through several centuries. We must remember that, according to Helbig, the Ionians, colonists87 in a new country, “had no use for ghosts.” A fresh colony does not produce ghosts. “There is hardly an English or Scottish castle without its spook (spuck). On the other hand, you look in vain for such a thing in the United States”— spiritualism apart. 77
This is a hasty generalisation! Helbig will, if he looks, find ghosts enough in the literature of North America while still colonial, and in Australia, a still more newly settled country, sixty years ago Fisher’s ghost gave evidence of Fisher’s murder, evidence which, as in another Australian case, served the ends of justice. 78 More recent Australian ghosts are familiar to psychical88 research.
This colonial theory is one of Helbig’s too venturous generalisations. He studies the ghost, or rather dream-apparition, of Patroclus after examining the funeral of Hector; but we shall begin with Patroclus. Achilles (XXIII. 4–16) first hails his friend “even in the House of Hades” (so he believes that spirits are in Hades), and says that he has brought Hector “raw for dogs to devour,” and twelve Trojans of good family “to slaughter before thy pyre.” That night, when Achilles is asleep (XXIII. 65) the spirit ([Greek: psyche]) of Patroclus appears to him, says that he is forgotten, and begs to be burned at once, that he may pass the gates of Hades, for the other spirits drive him off and will not let him associate with them “beyond the River,” and he wanders vaguely89 along the wide-gated dwelling90 of Hades. “Give me thy hand, for never more again shall I come back from Hades, when ye have given me my due of fire.” Patroclus, being newly discarnate, does not yet know that a spirit cannot take a living man’s hand, though, in fact, tactile91 hallucinations are not uncommon92 in the presence of phantasms of the dead. “Lay not my bones apart from thine . . . let one coffer” ([Greek: soros]) “hide our bones.”
[Greek: Soros], like larnax, is a coffin93 (Sarg), or what the Americans call a “casket,” in the opinion of Helbig: 79 it is an oblong receptacle of the bones and dust. Hector was buried in a larnax; so will Achilles and Patroclus be when Achilles falls, but the dust of Patroclus is kept, meanwhile, in a golden covered cup (phialae) in the quarters of Achilles; it is not laid in howe after his cremation (XXIII. 243).
Achilles tries to embrace Patroclus, but fails, like Odysseus with the shade of his mother in Hades, in the Odyssey. He exclaims that “there remaineth then even in the House of Hades a spirit and phantom94 of the dead, albeit95 the life” (or the wits) “be not anywise therein, for all night hath the spirit of hapless Patroclus stood over me. . . . ”
In this speech Helbig detects the hand of the late Ionian poet. What goes before is part of the genuine old Epic, the kernel, done at a time when men believed that spooks could take part in the affairs of the upper world. Achilles therefore (in his dream), thought that he could embrace his friend. It was the sceptical Ionian, in a fresh and spookless colony, who knew that he could not; he thinks the ghost a mere96 dream, and introduces his scepticism in XXIII. 99–107. He brought in “the ruling ideas of his own period.” The ghost, says the Ionian bearbeiter, is intangible, though in the genuine old epic the ghost himself thought otherwise — he being new to the situation and without experience. This is the first sample of the critical Ionian spirit, later so remarkable97 in philosophy and natural science, says Helbig. 80
We need not discuss this acute critical theory. The natural interpretation5 of the words of Achilles is obvious; as Mr. Leaf remarks, the words are “the cry of sudden personal conviction in a matter which has hitherto been lazily accepted as an orthodox dogma.” 81 Already, as we have seen, Achilles has made promises to Patroclus in the House of Hades, now he exclaims “there really is something in the doctrine98 of a feeble future life.”
It is vain to try to discriminate99 between an old epic belief in able-bodied ghosts and an Ionian belief in mere futile100 shades, in the Homeric poems. Everywhere the dead are too feeble to be worth worshipping after they are burned; but, as Mr. Leaf says with obvious truth, and with modern instances, “men are never so inconsistent as in their beliefs about the other world.” We ourselves hold various beliefs simultaneously101. The natives of Australia and of Tasmania practise, or did practise, every conceivable way of disposing of the dead — burying, burning, exposure in trees, carrying about the bodies or parts of them, eating the bodies, and so forth102. If each such practice corresponded, as archaeologists believe, to a different opinion about the soul, then all beliefs were held together at once, and this, in fact, is the case. There is not now one and now another hard and fast orthodoxy of belief about the dead, though now we find ancestor worship prominent and now in the shade.
After gifts of hair and the setting up of jars full of oil and honey, Achilles has the body laid on the top of the pyre in the centre. Bodies of sheep and oxen, two dogs and four horses, are strewed103 around: why, we know not, for the dead is not supposed to need food: the rite77 may be a survival, for there were sacrifices at the burials of the Mycenaean shaft graves. Achilles slays105 also the twelve Trojans, “because of mine anger at thy slaying106,” he says (XXIII. 23). This was his reason, as far as he consciously had any reason, not that his friend might have twelve thralls107 in Hades. After the pyre is alit Achilles drenches108 it all night with wine, and, when the flame dies down, the dead hero’s bones are collected and placed in the covered cup of gold. The circle of the barrow is then marked out, stones are set up round it (we see them round Highland109 tumuli), and earth is heaped up; no more is done; the tomb is empty; the covered cup holding the ashes is in the hut of Achilles.
We must note another trait. After the body of Patroclus was recovered, it was washed, anointed, laid on a bier, and covered from head to foot [Greek: heano liti], translated by Helbig, “with a linen110 sheet” (cf. XXIII. 254). The golden cup with the ashes is next wrapped [Greek: heano liti]; here Mr. Myers renders the words “with a linen veil.” Scottish cremation burials of the Bronze Age retain traces of linen wrappings of the urn. 82 Over all a white [Greek: pharos] (mantle) was spread. In Iliad, XXIV. 231, twelve [Greek: pharea] with chitons, single cloaks, and other articles of dress, are taken to Achilles by Priam as part of the ransom111 of Hector’s body. Such is the death-garb of Patroclus; but Helbig, looking for Ionian innovations in Book XXIV., finds that the death-garb of Hector is not the same as that of Patroclus in Book XXIII. One difference is that when the squires112 of Achilles took the ransom of Hector from the waggon113 of Priam, they left in it two [Greek: pharea] and a well-spun chiton. The women washed and anointed Hector’s body; they clad him in the chiton, and threw one [Greek: pharos] over it; we are not told what they did with the other. Perhaps, as Mr. Leaf says, it was used as a cover for the bier, perhaps it was not, but was laid under the body (Helbig). All we know is that Hector’s body was restored to Priam in a chiton and a [Greek: pharos], which do not seem to have been removed before he was burned; while Patroclus had no chiton in death, but a [Greek: pharos] and, apparently, a linen sheet.
To the ordinary reader this does not seem, in the circumstances, a strong mark of different ages and different burial customs. Priam did not bring any linen sheet — or whatever [Greek: heanos lis] may be — in the waggon as part of Hector’s ransom; and it neither became Achilles to give nor Priam to receive any of Achilles’s stuff as death-garb for Hector. The squires, therefore, gave back to Priam, to clothe his dead son, part of what he had brought; nothing can be more natural, and there, we may say, is an end on’t. They did what they could in the circumstances. But Helbig has observed that, in a Cean inscription114 of the fifth century B.C., there is a sumptuary law, forbidding a corpse115 to wear more than three white garments, a sheet under him, a chiton, and a mantle cast over him. 83 He supposes that Hector wore the chiton, and had one [Greek: pharos] over him and the other under him, though Homer does not say that. The Laws of Solon also confined the dead man to three articles of dress. 84 In doing so Solon sanctioned an old custom, and that Ionian custom, described by the author of Book XXIV., bewrays him, says Helbig, for a late Ionian bearbeiter, deserting true epic usages and inserting those of his own day. But in some Attic48 Dipylon vases, in the pictures of funerals, we see no garments or sheets over the corpses116.
Penelope also wove a [Greek: charos] against the burial of old Laertes, but surely she ought to have woven for him; on Helbig’s showing Hector had two, Patroclus had only one; Patroclus is in the old epic, Hector and Laertes are in the Ionian epics; therefore, Laertes should have had two [Greek: charea] but we only hear of one. Penelope had to finish the [Greek: charos] and show it; 85 now if she wanted to delay her marriage, she should have begun the second [Greek: charos] just as necessary as the first, if Hector, with a pair of [Greek: charea] represents Ionian usage. But Penelope never thought of what, had she read Helbig, she would have seen to be so obvious. She thought of no funeral garments for the old man but one shroud117 [Greek: speiron] (Odyssey, II. 102; XIX. 147); yet, being, by the theory, a character of late Ionian, not of genuine old AEolic epic, she should have known better. It is manifest that if even the acuteness and vast erudition of Helbig can only find such invisible differences as these between the manners of the genuine old epic and the late Ionian innovations, there is really no difference, beyond such trifles as diversify118 custom in any age.
Hector, when burned and when his ashes have been placed in the casket, is laid in a [Greek: kapetos], a ditch or trench119 (Iliad, XV. 356; XVIII. 564); but here (XXIV. 797) [Greek: kapetos] is a chamber covered with great stones, within the howe, the casket being swathed with purple robes, and this was the end. The ghost of Hector would not revisit the sun, as ghosts do freely in the Cyclic poems, a proof that the Cyclics are later than the Homeric poems. 86
If the burning of the weapons of Eetion and Elpenor are traces of another than the old AEolic epic faith, 87 they are also traces of another than the late Ionic epic faith, for no weapons are burned with Hector. In the Odyssey the weapons of Achilles are not burned; in the Iliad the armour of Patroclus is not burned. No victims of any kind are burned with Hector: possibly the poet was not anxious to repeat what he had just described (his last book is already a very long book); possibly the Trojans did not slay104 victims at the burning.
The howes or barrows built over the Homeric dead were hillocks high enough to be good points of outlook for scouts120, as in the case of the barrow of AEsyetes (Iliad, II. 793) and “the steep mound,” the howe of lithe121 Myrine (II. 814). We do not know that women were usually buried in howe, but Myrine was a warrior maiden122 of the Amazons. We know, then, minutely what the Homeric mode of burial was, with such variations as have been noted123. We have burning and howe even in the case of an obscure oarsman like Elpenor. It is not probable, however, that every peaceful mechanic had a howe all to himself; he may have had a small family cairn; he may not have had an expensive cremation.
The interesting fact is that no barrow burial precisely of the Homeric kind has ever been discovered in Greek sites. The old Mycenaeans buried either in shaft graves or in a stately tholos; and in rock chambers124, later, in the town cemetery: they did not burn the bodies. The people of the Dipylon period sometimes cremated, sometimes inhumed, but they built no barrow over the dead. 88 The Dipylon was a period of early iron swords, made on the lines of not the best type of bronze sword. Now, in Mr. Leaf’s opinion, our Homeric accounts of burial “are all late; the oldest parts of the poems tell us nothing.” 89 We shall show, however, that Mr. Leaf’s “kernel” alludes125 to cremation. What is “late”? In this case it is not the Dipylon period, say 900–750 B.C. It is not any later period; one or two late barrow burials do not answer to the Homeric descriptions. The “late” parts of the poems, therefore, dealing with burials, in Books VI., VII., XIX., XXIII., XXIV., and the Odyssey, are of an age not in “the Mycenaean prime,” not in the Dipylon period, not in any later period, say the seventh or sixth centuries B.C., and, necessarily, not of any subsequent period. Yet nobody dreams of saying that the poets describe a purely126 fanciful form of interment. They speak of what they know in daily life. If it be argued that the late poets preserve, by sheer force of epic tradition, a form of burial unknown in their own age, we ask, “Why did epic tradition not preserve the burial methods of the Mycenaean prime, the shaft grave, or the tholos, without cremation?”
Mr. Leaf’s own conclusion is that the people of Mycenae were “spirit worshippers, practising inhumation, and partial mummification;” the second fact is dubious127. “In the post-Mycenaean ‘Dipylon’ period, we find cremation and sepulture practised side by side. In the interval, therefore, two beliefs have come into conflict. 90 It seems that the Homeric poems mark this intermediate point. . . . ” 91 In that case the Homeric poems are of one age, or, at least, all of them save “the original kernel” are of one age, namely, a period subsequent to the Mycenaean prime, but considerably128 prior to the Dipylon period, which exhibits a mixture of custom; cremation and inhumation coexisting, without barrows or howes.
We welcome this conclusion, and note that (whatever may be the case with the oldest parts of the poems which say nothing about funerals) the latest expansions must be of about 1100–1000 B.C. (?). The poem is so early that it is prior to hero worship and ancestor worship; or it might be more judicious129 to say that the poem is of an age that did not, officially, practise ancestor worship, whatever may have occurred in folk-custom. The Homeric age is one which had outgrown130 ancestor and hero worship, and had not, like the age of the Cyclics, relapsed into it. Enfin, unless we agree with Helbig as to essential variations of custom, the poems are the work of one age, and that a brief age, and an age of peculiar customs, cremation and barrow burial; and of a religion that stood, without spirit worship, between the Mycenzean period and the ninth century. That seems as certain as anything in prehistoric131 times can be, unless we are to say, that after the age of shaft graves and spirit worship came an age of cremation and of no spirit worship; and that late poets consciously and conscientiously132 preserved the tradition of this period into their own ages of hero worship and inhumation, though they did not preserve the tradition of the shaft-grave period. We cannot accept this theory of adherence133 to stereotyped134 poetical135 descriptions, nor can any one consistently adopt it in this case.
The reason is obvious. Mr. Leaf, with many other critics, distinguishes several successive periods of “expansion.” In the first stratum we have the remains of “the original kernel.” Among these remains is The Slaying of Hector (XXII. 1–404), “with but slight additions.” 92 In the Slaying of Hector that hero indicates cremation as the mode of burial. “Give them my body back again, that the Trojans and Trojans’ wives grant me my due of fire after my death.” Perhaps this allusion136 to cremation, in the “original kernel” in the Slaying of Hector, may be dismissed as a late borrowing from Book VII. 79, 80, where Hector makes conditions that the fallen hero shall be restored to his friends when he challenges the Achaeans to a duel137. But whoever knows the curious economy by way of repetition that marks early national epics has a right to regard the allusion to cremation (XXII, 342,343) as an example of this practice. Compare La Chancun de Williame, lines 1041–1058 with lines 1140–1134. In both the dinner of a knight138 who has been long deprived of food is described in passages containing many identical lines. The poet, having found his formula, uses it whenever occasion serves. There are several other examples in the same epic. 93 Repetitions in Homer need not indicate late additions; the artifice139 is part of the epic as it is of the ballad140 manner. If we are right, cremation is the mode of burial even in “the original kernel.” Hector, moreover, in the kernel (XXII. 256–259) makes, before his final fight with Achilles, the same proposal as he makes in his challenge to a duel (VII. 85 et seqq.). The victor shall give back the body of the vanquished to his friends, but how the friends are to bury it Hector does not say — in this place. When dying, he does say (XXII. 342, 343).
In the kernel and all periods of expansion, funeral rites are described, and in all the method is cremation, with a howe or a barrow. Thus the method of cremation had come in as early as the “kernel,” The Slaying of Hector, and as early as the first expansions, and it lasted till the period of the latest expansions, such as Books XXIII., XXIV.
But what is the approximate date of the various expansions of the original poem? On that point Mr. Leaf gives his opinion. The Making of the Arms of Achilles (Books XVIII., XIX. 1–39) is, with the Funeral of Patroclus (XXIII. 1–256), in the second set of expansions, and is thus two removes later than the original “kernel.” 94 Now this is the period — the Making of the Shield for Achilles is, at least, in touch with the period — of “the eminently141 free and naturalistic treatment which we find in the best Mycenaean work, in the dagger blades, in the siege fragment, and notably142 in the Vaphio cups,” (which show long-haired men, not men close-cropped, as in the daggers143 and siege fragment). 95 The poet of the age of the second expansions, then,’ is at least in touch with the work of the shaft grave and ages. He need not be contemporary with that epoch, but “may well have had in his mind the work of artists older than himself.” It is vaguely possible that he may have seen an ancient shield of the Mycenaean prime, and may be inspired by that. 96
Moreover, and still more remarkable, the ordinary Homeric form of cremation and howe-burial is even older than the period which, if not contemporary with, is clearly reminiscent of, the art of the shaft graves. For, in the period of the first expansions (VII. 1–3 I 2), the form of burial is cremation, with a barrow or tumulus. 97 Thus Mr. Leaf’s opinion might lead us to the conclusion that the usual Homeric form of burial occurs in a period prior to an age in which the poet is apparently reminiscent of the work of two early epochs — the epoch of shaft graves and that of tholos graves. If this be so, cremation and urn burial in cairns may be nearly as old as the Mycenaean shaft graves, or as old as the tholos graves, and they endure into the age of the latest expansions.
We must not press, however, opinions founded on the apparent technical resemblance of the free style and coloured metal work on the shield of Achilles, to the coloured metal work and free design on the daggers of the Mycenaean shaft graves. It is enough for us to note that the passages concerning burial, from the “kernel” itself, and also from the earliest to the latest expansions, are all perfectly144 harmonious145, and of a single age — unless we are convinced by Helbig’s objections. That age must have been brief, indeed, for, before it arrives, the period of tholos graves, as at Vaphio, must expire, on one hand, while the blending of cremation with inhumation, in the Dipylon age, must have been evolved after the cremation age passed, on the other. That brief intervening age, however, was the age of the Iliad and Odyssey. This conclusion can only be avoided by alleging146 that late poets, however recent and revolutionary, carefully copied the oldest epic model of burial, while they innovated147 in almost every other point, so we are told. We can go no further till we find an unrifled cairn burial answering to Homeric descriptions. We have, indeed, in Thessaly, “a large tumulus which contained a silver urn with burned remains.” But the accompanying pottery148 dated it in the second century B.C. 98 It is possible enough that all tumuli of the Homeric period have been robbed by grave plunderers in the course of the ages, as the Vikings are said to have robbed the cairns of Sutherlandshire, in which they were not likely to find a rich reward for their labours. A conspicuous howe invites robbery — the heroes of the Saga149, like Grettir, occasionally rob a howe — and the fact is unlucky for the Homeric archaeologist.
We have now tried to show that, as regards (1) to the absence from Homer of new religious and ritual ideas, or of very old ideas revived in Ionia, (2) as concerns the clear conception of a loose form of feudalism, with an Over–Lord, and (3) in the matter of burial, the Iliad and Odyssey are self-consistent, and bear the impress of a single and peculiar moment of culture.
The fact, if accepted, is incompatible150 with the theory that the poets both introduced the peculiar conditions of their own later ages and also, on other occasions, consciously and consistently “archaised.” Not only is such archaising inconsistent with the art of an uncritical age, but a careful archaiser, with all the resources of Alexandrian criticism at his command, could not archaise successfully. We refer to Quintus Smyrnaeus, author of the Post Homerica, in fourteen books. Quintus does his best; but we never observe in him that na?f delight in describing weapons and works of art, and details of law and custom which are so conspicuous in Homer and in other early poets. He does give us Penthesilea’s great sword, with a hilt of ivory and silver; but of what metal was the blade? We are not told, and the reader of Quintus will observe that, though he knows [Greek: chalkos], bronze, as a synonym151 for weapons, he scarcely ever, if ever, says that a sword or spear or arrow-head was of bronze — a point on which Homer constantly insists. When he names the military metal Quintus usually speaks of iron. He has no interest in the constitutional and legal sides of heroic life, so attractive to Homer.
Yet Quintus consciously archaises, in a critical age, with Homer as his model. Any one who believes that in an uncritical age rhapsodists archaised, with such success as the presumed late poets of the Iliad must have done, may try his hand in our critical age, at a ballad in the style of the Border ballads152. If he succeeds in producing nothing that will at once mark his work as modern, he will be more successful than any poet who has made the experiment, and more successful than the most ingenious modern forgers of gems153, jewels, and terra-cottas. They seldom deceive experts, and, when they do, other experts detect the deceit.
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patchwork
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| n.混杂物；拼缝物 | |
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archaeology
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| n.考古学 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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interpretations
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| n.解释( interpretation的名词复数 )；表演；演绎；理解 | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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valid
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| adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的 | |
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contention
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| n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张 | |
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testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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invoked
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| v.援引( invoke的过去式和过去分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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excavation
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| n.挖掘，发掘；被挖掘之地 | |
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excavations
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| n.挖掘( excavation的名词复数 )；开凿；开凿的洞穴（或山路等）；（发掘出来的）古迹 | |
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ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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tally
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| n.计数器，记分，一致，测量；vt.计算，记录，使一致；vi.计算，记分，一致 | |
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legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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feats
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| 功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 ) | |
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implements
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| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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epics
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| n.叙事诗( epic的名词复数 )；壮举；惊人之举；史诗般的电影（或书籍） | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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aboriginals
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| （某国的）公民( aboriginal的名词复数 )； 土著人特征； 土生动物（或植物） | |
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cremated
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| v.火葬，火化（尸体）( cremate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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warrior
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| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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stele
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| n.石碑，石柱 | |
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edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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cremation
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| n.火葬，火化 | |
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odyssey
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| n.长途冒险旅行；一连串的冒险 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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urn
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| n.（有座脚的）瓮；坟墓；骨灰瓮 | |
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Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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cult
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| n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜 | |
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slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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attested
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| adj.经检验证明无病的，经检验证明无菌的v.证明( attest的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；声称…属实；使宣誓 | |
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stratum
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| n.地层，社会阶层 | |
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plundered
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| 掠夺，抢劫( plunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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migrations
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| n.迁移，移居( migration的名词复数 ) | |
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elucidated
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| v.阐明，解释( elucidate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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tattooed
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| v.刺青，文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
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amulets
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| n.护身符( amulet的名词复数 ) | |
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lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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vampires
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| n.吸血鬼( vampire的名词复数 )；吸血蝠；高利贷者；（舞台上的）活板门 | |
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overlapping
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| adj./n.交迭（的） | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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slew
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| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
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despoil
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| v.夺取，抢夺 | |
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despoiled
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| v.掠夺，抢劫( despoil的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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interred
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| v.埋，葬( inter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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indignity
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| n.侮辱，伤害尊严，轻蔑 | |
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vanquished
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| v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 )；战胜；克服；抑制 | |
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rite
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| n.典礼，惯例，习俗 | |
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rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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excavated
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| v.挖掘( excavate的过去式和过去分词 )；开凿；挖出；发掘 | |
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80
phoenix
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| n.凤凰，长生(不死)鸟；引申为重生 | |
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dirge
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| n.哀乐，挽歌，庄重悲哀的乐曲 | |
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82
wilt
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| v.(使)植物凋谢或枯萎；(指人)疲倦，衰弱 | |
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83
mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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spectral
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| adj.幽灵的，鬼魂的 | |
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kernel
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| n.(果实的)核，仁；(问题)的中心，核心 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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colonists
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| n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
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psychical
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| adj.有关特异功能现象的；有关特异功能官能的；灵魂的；心灵的 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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tactile
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| adj.触觉的，有触觉的，能触知的 | |
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92
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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albeit
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| conj.即使；纵使；虽然 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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98
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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99
discriminate
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| v.区别，辨别，区分；有区别地对待 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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101
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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102
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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103
strewed
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| v.撒在…上( strew的过去式和过去分词 )；散落于；点缀；撒满 | |
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104
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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105
slays
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的第三人称单数 ) | |
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106
slaying
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| 杀戮。 | |
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107
thralls
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| n.奴隶( thrall的名词复数 )；奴役；奴隶制；奴隶般受支配的人 | |
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108
drenches
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| v.使湿透( drench的第三人称单数 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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109
highland
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| n.(pl.)高地，山地 | |
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110
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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ransom
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| n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救 | |
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squires
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| n.地主，乡绅( squire的名词复数 ) | |
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113
waggon
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| n.运货马车，运货车；敞篷车箱 | |
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inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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shroud
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| n.裹尸布，寿衣；罩，幕；vt.覆盖，隐藏 | |
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118
diversify
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| v.（使）不同，（使）变得多样化 | |
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119
trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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120
scouts
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| 侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员 | |
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121
lithe
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| adj.(指人、身体)柔软的，易弯的 | |
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122
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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alludes
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| 提及，暗指( allude的第三人称单数 ) | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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129
judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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130
outgrown
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| 长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去分词 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过 | |
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prehistoric
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| adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的 | |
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conscientiously
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| adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实 | |
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adherence
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| n.信奉，依附，坚持，固着 | |
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134
stereotyped
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| adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的 | |
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135
poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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136
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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137
duel
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| n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争 | |
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138
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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139
artifice
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| n.妙计，高明的手段；狡诈，诡计 | |
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140
ballad
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| n.歌谣，民谣，流行爱情歌曲 | |
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141
eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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142
notably
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| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
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143
daggers
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| 匕首，短剑( dagger的名词复数 ) | |
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144
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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145
harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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146
alleging
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| 断言，宣称，辩解( allege的现在分词 ) | |
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147
innovated
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| v.改革，创新( innovate的过去式和过去分词 )；引入（新事物、思想或方法）， | |
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148
pottery
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| n.陶器，陶器场 | |
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149
saga
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| n.(尤指中世纪北欧海盗的)故事，英雄传奇 | |
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150
incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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151
synonym
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| n.同义词，换喻词 | |
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152
ballads
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| 民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴 | |
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153
gems
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| growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长 | |
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