Death in the Greek World: From Homer to the Classical Age by Maria Serena Mirto (review)

Mirto (with Osborne) has given us a readable book on a topic of perennial interest, full of learning but unencumbered by the development of a comprehensive argument with full scholarly apparatus (there are no footnotes or endnotes). I devoured it on a couple of airplane rides, during which its intelligent presentation thoroughly distracted me from my physical discomfort. The book provided a clear and concise review of important topics which I have not studied intensely for years, and it initiated me into recent trends and made me thirsty to approach its suggestions for further reading—while avoiding the spring by the white cypress, of course.

The volume is an expansion and updating, as well as a translation, of the Italian original, La morte nel mondo greco (Rome 2007). Much scholarship from 2007 and later is cited, especially in discussions of Dionysian and “Orphic” material (chap. 2). Important additions are a useful section on the confusing (to the uninitiated) topic of hero cults and “an appendix outlining fundamental developments in modern studies of death in the Greek world” (x). The latter traces an interesting journey through the history of mentalities from R. Hertz (Durkheim’s student), through E. de Martino and P. Ariès, on to C. Sourvinou-Inwood’s disagreement with I. Morris about change and stability in early Greek attitudes toward death.

Mirto articulates her goal in the preface as “a general synthesis of people’s relationships with death in the Greek world . . . [a] survey of the ways in which archaic and classical Greek culture dealt with the trauma of death” (ix). One does not judge such a book on its original interpretations and scholarly arguments; other criteria apply. For example, how comprehensive (or representative) is the selection of topics, approaches, and examples? How useful (or user-friendly) is the selection, especially for the audience to which it is addressed?

At the level of overall structure, Mirto scores high for comprehensiveness. Any treatment of Greek death must devote major attention to the three topics she announces : (1) “beliefs about the afterlife, on the boundary between literary imagination and religious faith”; (2) “funerary rituals and material evidence of the cult of the dead”; (3) “ideologies . . . that construct an ideal model of death, making it an acceptable, perhaps even desirable, event” (ix). Chapter 1 on traditional views, mostly derived from Homer (also treated in chap. 5.1), commences Mirto’s discussion of the first topic, which is continued in chapter 2 on more optimistic eschatologies, especially those associated with Dionysus and Orpheus. The second topic is treated in chapters 3 (on death, mourning, and last rites) and 4 (on markers, epitaphs, and tomb and hero cult). Chapter 5 is devoted to the third topic, with particular attention to the development of the polis and Athens’ patrios nomos and funerary legislation. R. Garland’s widely used survey (The Greek Way of Death [Ithaca 1985], 2d ed. 2001) covers much the same ground, though that book’s feel is quite different. Garland provides a richness of source and scholarly citations that Mirto eschews; for example, Garland devotes twenty-three pages (chap. 7 and its dense endnotes) to visits to the grave, while Mirto barely touches on the matter.

At the level of specifics, Mirto’s comprehensiveness is uneven. Reflecting her expertise in archaic and classical poetry, as well as her engagement with the history of mentalities, discussions of literature and some sub-literary textual material are excellent, while she is less full but still useful on iconography (especially that of white-ground lekythoi and sculpture) and polis regulations. Perceptions of comprehensiveness, of course, will vary among readers. Because of gaps in my knowledge, I learned most from Mirto’s presentation of Dionysian and “Orphic” material: the gold lamellae, the Olbia bones, the Derveni papyrus (chap. 2, with the...