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The After-Life In Ancient Greece

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In ancient Greece, death was not just an ending, but an event. Funerals were multi-day affairs, consisting of, “the prosthesis (laying out of the body (54.11.5)), the ekphora (funeral procession), and the interment of the body…” (Death, Burial, and the Afterlife in Ancient Greece) The prosthesis oftenlasted for up to three days, while the ekphora was traditionally followed by a procession of all of the deceased loved ones, with the women (sometimes hired actresses) crying out and tearing at their hair and clothes to symbolize their sorrow. The body was interred in graves, with larger graves showing more power, and revisited on several occasions throughout the years after death. The ancient Greeks believed that a proper, ceremonial burial was necessary to show respect, or what was called “esubia”. Today, esubia is simply translated as “piety”, but it used to represent, “one's duty to oneself, others and the gods” (Mark, The After-Life In Ancient Greece). A shoddy burial not only shamed the family, but also degraded the gods, the dead, and the longstanding traditions of ancient Greece. The ancient Greeks held a great respect for the …show more content…

“They believed the gods insisted on proper funerals and would be offended by anything less…” (Brown, The Importance of Funeral Rites in Ancient Greece), showing the fear of retribution shared by the ancient Greeks in matters of life and death. They also believed that those given an improper burial would be doomed to a life of wandering the Earth, never able to pass on to the Underworld, “…the souls of the dead were thought to be stranded, unable to reach the underworld without proper burial.” (Mendelsohn, Unburied: TamerlanTsarnaev and the Lessons of Greek Tragedy). The gods and the retributions that they were known to enact were a large part in the burial customs of Ancient Greece, leading to burials as ceremonious as deemed

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