Patrios Nomos : State Burial in Athens and the Public Cemetery in the Kerameikos
1944; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 64; Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/627044
ISSN2041-4099
Autores Tópico(s)Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History
ResumoIn the Classical Quarterly , 1944, I have dealt with the slender evidence for the Genesia, a public festival of the dead in Athens which was mentioned already in Solon's Axones. Whether or not my suggestion is right that it was introduced by Solon himself as a part of his programme of uniting the classes into the new citizen state by abolishing the festivals of the single clans, or whether the public festival reached farther back, the heortological fact is not in dispute: there existed in Athens, and as far as we know only in Athens, a public festival of the dead, called Genesia, and celebrated in late autumn on the fifth of the month Boedromion with a sacrifice for Mother Earth. That is all we know about it, and in going beyond these clear facts we have to be aware that we pass the border-line into the realm not (I hope) of fiction but of hypothesis, and partly even of pure guesswork. It will depend on the inherent probability of these guesses whether it is worth while to risk them. In my opinion it is worth while, because in the course of our investigation we shall get one unexpected result: namely, the time at which the specifically Athenian custom of burying at home the men killed in action was introduced. And this date, which I believe can be established, will throw some light on the perhaps most famous section of the work of Thucydides, and incidentally on his historical principles.
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