Moartea lui Patroclu. Momente ale unui ceremonial funerar antic
Patroclus’ death. Moments of an antique funerary ceremony

Summary/Abstract: Homer’s Iliad offers a description of the funerary ceremony that took place in the honor of Patroclus, who was killed during the Trojan war. The poem allows us to study the similarities and differences between the customs of period in Greece and the Near East. The funerary ceremony as presented in Book XXIII is uncommon in several respects. It takes place on the battle field, with no women present, even if by tradition they were supposed to perform an important number of rituals. The sacrifice of human lives and the incineration of the fallen hero, a practice relatively rare in Greece at that time, are unusual as well. In this special circumstances Achilles assumed the responsibility to carry out the ceremony. He urges the fighters to drive their horses around his friend’s corpse, build the pyre, sacrifices twelve young prisoners, give an offering of hair, followed by an immolation of animals; he offers the libation that takes place during the incineration and finally he conducts the funerary contest. Some of the antique customs, among them tearing of one’s hair and the animal sacrifice survived up to our time, not only in Greece, but in other cultures as well, including Romanian culture. Though a literary work, the Iliad contains a trove of anthropological information that is precious for modern scholars.

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