The living harming the dead: Exposure, mutilation and exclusion

This chapter examines the living exposing, mutilating (including maschalismos) and/or denying funeral rites to the dead and argues that these acts should be understood as harmful interaction between the worlds of the living and the dead. It presents a framework for understanding the umbrella terms “burial” and “exposure” and questions the impact of these on the deceased in the tragic Underworld, considering both physical and metaphysical outcomes. It concludes that acts of desecration resulted in dishonour for the deceased that manifested in a dual-world combination of social exclusion in the world of the dead and eventual disappearance from societal memory in the world of the living.

Introduction

The introduction outlines current scholarship in the field of eschatology in ancient Greece, and it highlights the importance of this book in offering a unique and concentrated study on the dead in fifth-century Greek tragedy. This study extends far beyond the manifest stage-dead by considering, for example, the possible physical and metaphysical effects of exposure and mutilation on the dead in the Underworld, and the different roles the dead play in enacting revenge in the world of the living. The introduction presents the parameters within which the dead are examined in this book, whereby the arguments and conclusions relate specifically to the dead in tragedy and should not and cannot be taken as contemporary fifth-century “beliefs”, although there is inevitable overlap.

Conclusion: The Alcestis effect

The conclusion reframes the nature of the dead in Greek tragedy by examining their characteristics as presented individually by the three tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Through this reframing, it emerges that, while each of the tragedians privileges certain characteristics of the dead, there is sufficient overlap to answer the question at the heart of the book: Can the living and dead harm each other in tragedy? As concluded, the living harm the dead by denying honour and observance through degradative and mutilative acts that result in a cross-world punishment of dishonour/social exclusion or demotion in the Underworld and rejection from living societal memory. The dead, in turn, can and do harm the living, primarily through the use of agents, which is effective but inevitably dilutes their responsibility.

A framework: The Homeric and contemporary dead

This chapter presents a short summary of the evidence for interaction between the living and the dead in Homer and fifth-century society, concentrating on pertinent topics such as the exposure of the dead, the possibility of post-mortem rewards and punishments (e.g. the Mystery Religions) and interaction between the living and the dead. The tragic dead do not replicate exactly the Homeric or the contemporary fifth-century dead, but they do owe them a large debt, and, from the opposite direction, the depiction of the dead on stage allowed the tragedians and, by extension, the audience to address certain issues in society. As such, this chapter presents the background against which the audience would have understood the dead on stage.

The how and the why of interaction: The manifest evidence

This chapter examines the means through which the manifest tragic dead (i.e. those who appear on stage or whose appearance is described at length) interact with the living, considering the impetus, methods and outcomes of such interaction and what it can tell us about the abilities and limitations of the dead in relation to the world of the living. The case studies examined concentrate on necromancy (Aeschylus’ Persians, Psychagōgoi and Choephori), dreams (Aeschylus’ Eumenides and Euripides’ Hecuba) and spontaneous appearances (Euripides’ Hecuba). The chapter examines the complex and problematic nature of much of this interaction, which, it emerges, is rarely without ambiguity.

The dead harming the living: Autonomy and agents

This chapter considers the extent to which the tragic dead are capable of harming the living by examining both the autonomous actions of the dead and the agentive relationships they form with the gods, the Erinyes and the living in pursuit of revenge in the world of the living. This chapter is constructed around case studies, the two most important being the agentive relationships between dead Agamemnon and his son Orestes in Aeschylus’ Choephori, and between dead Achilles and the Greek army in Euripides’ Hecuba. This chapter emphasises the active role of the dead in the pursuit of revenge and their ultimate inability to enact such revenge autonomously or to retain control over its unfolding in cases of agentive action.

The tragic dead: The witless and/or the aware

This chapter examines the complex presentation of the tragic dead as both witless and aware in order to establish that the tragic dead have sufficient awareness (or the potential to gain this awareness) for interaction with the world of the living to be possible, and thus to make viable harmful interaction between the living and the dead. The chapter presents a sliding scale of awareness for the dead, beginning in total oblivion and extending to the physical manifestation of the dead on stage, passing through egocentric awareness, family reunion, social stratification, rewards and punishment, and access to prophetic knowledge. It is argued that the tragic dead are not static in the extent of their awareness; rather, depending on their role and importance within the tragedy, and the emotions and viewpoint of the living, they can move up and down the scale of awareness.