There were various ways of burying the dead. If they were placed in a grave it was customary to make use of a coffin, which was let down into the grave by the bearers. We see this represented on the vase picture, Fig. 110. Two men, who look like barbarian slaves or men of the lower classes, are standing in the grave and holding up their hands in order to receive the coffin, which is carefully let down by two men of similar appearance; on the right and left stand weeping women. The coffins were sometimes made of wood, especially Cyprus wood, which was occasionally decorated with costly carving and painting; sometimes of clay, less often of stone, although stone sarcophagi have been found in Greece, but the custom of decorating their sides with sculptured pictures did not become common until the Roman period. The shapes of the
coffins differed; there were square box-like coffins, and also others of an oval shape, or pointed coffins, made of flat terra-cotta tiles. Poor people were generally buried in some common cemetery, in simple coffins, and in graves made to hold a large number. Richer people had special vaults, which were either constructed by hollowing out the rocky ground below or above the earth, or by the artificial building up of a tumulus. The curious _tholos_ buildings of Mycenae, Orchomenus, Attica, etc., are generally supposed now to be nothing but large vaults of this description; and, indeed, throughout the whole of Greece, Sicily, and Lower Italy, numerous tombs, either vaulted out of the rock or constructed of large blocks of stone, have been discovered, not to speak of the temples and towers which are chiefly found in Asia Minor, and usually appear to be due to non-Greek origin or influence. In these vaults, which often served for whole families, they laid their dead, either in coffins or without them, merely in their grave clothes, generally resting on a flat stone. Thus the Attic vase picture in Fig. 111 represents the dead man in his tomb, the vaulting of which the painter has imitated, wrapped in a white cloth, a cushion under his head; fillets hang down from above. In Attica it was the custom to place the bodies so that their heads turned to the west and their feet to the east, while the opposite position was usual at Megara, where the customs differed in other ways, and three or four corpses were sometimes put in the same coffin. The custom of placing various objects required in daily life in the grave by the side of the dead man was universal, chiefly the things with which he had been occupied in his lifetime, or which belonged to his profession; clothes, money, oil-flasks, and other vases were put in, and besides them, in the case of a child, his toys; in the case of a warrior his arms; a woman's spindle or ornaments and mirror; a young man's strigil and oil-flask; a musician's flute or lyre. We owe nearly all the small art treasures which have come down to us from antiquity, such as vases, terra-cottas, cameos, gold ornaments, caskets, etc., to this custom of adorning the graves of the dead with the objects used in daily life. Many of these, especially vases, lamps, candlesticks, arms, etc., seem to have been specially made with a view to being placed in the grave, since they were often of no use for practical purposes. There were no doubt special places outside the walls devoted to burning the bodies, though it is quite possible that some people were burnt on their own land if that happened to be large enough. Wood, twigs, and other easily-combustible substances were used for erecting a pile; the body was laid on it, along with the cushions destined to be burnt, among which, besides the objects already mentioned, the favourite animals of the dead were often included; and the pile was lighted with a torch. Round about stood the mourners, who called aloud many times on the dead, bidding him farewell. There do not appear to have been any other ceremonies connected with the funeral, nor did it bear a specially religious character, such as would be given it by the presence of priests or the offering of sacrifices; still, we must not forget that the mere act of burying or burning was regarded as a religious one. Funeral orations were only pronounced in the case of soldiers who had fallen in war, or men who had deserved specially well of their country. When the corpse was consumed by the fire and the pile had burned down, the glowing remains were quenched with water or wine. This act is represented on a vase painting (Fig. 112), which gives a scene from the Apotheosis of Hercules. The ashes and pieces of bone which had not been completely consumed were then collected and put in a special vessel.