Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/16

 2 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY which even yet, in races that have remained in the lowest stages of development, appears to be about the only general form of faith extending beyond mere physical sensations. 2. Although the Greeks and Romans in historic times had long since passed beyond the earlier stages of de- velopment, yet all their ideas with regard to sickness, death, and the continued existence of the soul, were based entirely upon the views of that early period. Naturally, in process of time, a later series of conceptions, based upon quite different hypotheses, was intermingled with the more primitive ones; but at all events those seem to be among the most ancient which grew out of the principal characteristics which the dead had possessed in life. As with most of the other Indo-European nations, burial was their earliest form of laying away the dead; and the grave itself was regarded as the dwelling place of the departed one, who still enjoyed an existence in bodily form. It was customary to bury food and drink, implements and weapons, with the dead ; and originally a man's favorite wife and those slaves that during his life he had considered essential to his welfare were compelled to share death and the grave with him. Thus, as late as the Iliad, Achilles at the funeral of Patroclus is represented as killing twelve Trojan youths, probably with the idea that he shall in that way make their souls the slaves of his friend in the next world. After a while the offering of animals was substituted for that of human beings ; yet the gladiatorial combats also, which were a customary feature of funeral games at Rome, were evidently a kind of substitution for the sacrifice of slaves or prisoners. There was a belief also that the dead as well as the living could enjoy such prize contests.