Restless Dead

by Sarah Iles Johnston

  The images with which Aeschylus surrounds his version of the story of Io and Argus confirm that the weapon of the dead par excellence was madness. In her opening lines, Io refers to what drives her into maddened wandering by two names, which she equates: eidolon Argou (ghost of Argos) and oistros.66 In Homer, the latter word refers to what we would call a gadfly, but in the course of the fifth century, especially in tragedy, it came to be used of the sort of terror or frenzy associated with insanity.67 Here, in one of the earliest such uses of the word-indeed, one that we might imagine helped to establish this secondary meaning-Aeschylus makes it quite clear that this is the correct interpretation: lo describes the effects of the oistros as mind-striking madness and fear, visual delusions and verbal babbling. She says that it drives her to wander wildly, without purpose or sense,68 which, in myth, is a stereotypical sign of madness and the exile from normal society that it brings.69 Now, in the traditional version of the myth, Io was driven over the earth by the physical assaults of a real gadfly, not by madness; if Aeschylus wished to make a shift in the story from physical to mental distress, he had to do so by a device that would present no novelty of belief in itself. If Aeschylus was able to transform the physical persecution into a mental one by inventing the ghost of Argus (which had no part in other versions of the myth) 70 and identifying it with the gadfly, then the biaiothanatoi must already have been well known as a source of mental disorder.

  I have gone to some trouble to emphasize that the dead and their agents were primarily imagined to work through mental or psychological means in ancient Greece because it confirms their lack of physical presence.71 This, in turn, indicates that we still are dealing with a culture in which the body and soul are closely linked.72 The ease with which the dead Polydorus in Euripides' Hecuba refers now to his "shadow" (skia) and now to his corpse that lies nearby as "I" or "Polydorus," similarly reflects this failure to completely succeed in distinguishing between two things that, on another level, the Greeks knew very well to be separable.71 However much beliefs in the postmortem survival of the individual soul and its independent fate may have been developing during the archaic age, it seems to have been almost impossible, even in the fifth century, for the Greeks to imagine the returning dead as having any real physical power. The greater fear of the dead that, as I proposed in chapter 3, developed in Greece during the orientalizing period could not completely override the older Greek assumption that death put an end to the individual's ability to affect the world of the living. Nor is this really surprising if one knows anything about ghost beliefs in other cultures. Although there are some cultures that believe in specialized forms of the dead who manifest themselves physically, such as vampires or Polter- geister, in most cultures ghosts simply frighten or derange their victims through fearsome noises or horrible appearances, or at most insinuate illnesses into their victims' bodies. This includes Egypt and Mesopotamia, from which, I surmised in chapter 3, some Greek ghost beliefs were derived. Even the ghosts whom we shall study in the next chapter, who were responsible for the deaths of infants and women, are most often described, when their modus operandi is explained at all, as "frightening" or "disturbing" their victims to death.74

  In expressing their anger through attacks against the interior spaces of their victims, ghosts serve as ideal explanations for madness and other illnesses that have no obvious physical aitiology, as the remarks of Mr. Tregennis, quoted at the beginning of this chapter, demonstrate. Nowadays, the Sherlock Holmeses of the medical world can point to chemical imbalances, viral diseases, physical injury, or deterioration of the brain itself as being the cause of insanity, but it was not always so. Whatever other purposes a belief in angry ghosts may serve, their subtle attacks are excellent causes on which to pin the blame for aberrant behavior among the living. In turn, as Phaedra's nurse observes in the Hippolytus, this means that aberrant behavior often raises suspicions that that afflicted party has "blood on her hands" or is the victim of some ghostly attack sent by an enemy.75

  HONOR AND EXCLUSION

  We need to return to the question of why biaiothanatoi become dangerous. Most obviously, it is because they choose to be-they are seeking vengeance for the violent deaths that they have suffered. But other evidence suggests that, like those who have not received funeral rites (and like the prematurely dead as well), the violently dead are sometimes viewed as dangerous because they are imagined to be out of place-they are no longer in the world of the living and yet are not fully incorporated into the Underworld. Io claims that the ghost of Argus is able to pursue and persecute her because the earth refuses to contain (keuthei) it, for example.76

  These souls are excluded from permanent residence among the living because they are no longer attached to bodies-that much seems obvious. The question of why they are unable to rest within the land of the dead, however, is not so easy to answer. Logic might suggest that they were considered a subset of the category "prematurely dead," as a vio lent death is usually one that takes place before what is assumed to be the individual's "natural" time of death. Those who died before completing life were understood to linger between categories, unable to pass into death because they were not really finished with life.77 And yet, as the Homeric poems already indicate, this is not such a clear-cut matter. First of all, there was the idea that different people had different, and individually appropriate, spans of life.78 One's proper "fated day" might not be in the twilight of old age. Nor was this to be bewailed in all cases. Achilles was offered a choice of fates, each of which included its own, appropriate time of death. The one that he selected brought with it a death that was both early and violent and yet also brought a reward of kleos that made up for this. His was a kalos thanatos, a "beautiful death." 79 Despite the fact that it was violent, we would not consider it to put him in the same category as the murdered Agamemnon, for example. Nor is there any implication, in Homer or later Greek sources, that any other warriors who die nobly on the battlefield fall into the same category as Agamemnon.S°

  This observation provides us with our first hint as to how the "rules" concerning biaiothanatoi were imagined to work. It is not so much the violence of a death that causes a ghost to walk, as it is the reason for or the mode of the death that makes a difference. Most important, dishonorable deaths are problematic. Death in battle, although regrettable, meant that one had died gloriously and thus, by definition, in such a way as to earn time and kleos (honor and glory). To die at the hands of one's treacherous wife-particularly while naked in the bathtub, like Aeschylus's Agamemnon-was a very different matter. Such a soul would desire vengeance for its own sake, of course, but also for the restoration of honor that vengeance would bring. Aeschylus's characters make several comments to this effect. In the Choephoroi, Orestes expresses the wish that his father had died at Troy, at the hand of some Lycian opponent, for under these circumstances, he explains, Agamemnon would not only have left high fame in his house but, as the Chorus adds, have found honor underground amongst others who had died well (kalos); indeed, he would have become a ruler among the dead, holding a place of prestige next to Hades and Persephone.81 The implication is that Agamemnon's dishonorable death was excluding him from such postmortem rewards, at least until that death was avenged. Conversely, Darius, who died honorably and continued to receive funerary cult from his wife, tells us in the Persians that he holds a place of power among the dead, and in Sophocles' Electra, King Amphiaraus is said to hold a place of privilege in Hades as well. The latter reference, which the Chorus uses to cheer up Electra, seems to allude to the fact that Amphiaraus's son avenged his mother's murder of Amphiaraus, as Electra and Orestes later will avenge Clytemnestra's murder of their own father.82 Thus, by analogy, Agamemnon will win his own, proper place of privilege in Hades as soon as Clytemnestra has been killed. In turn, Aeschylus's Clytemnestra makes this idea even more explicit, complaining that she will remain dishonored among the dead, and that they will exclude her from their company, until the Erinyes have completed the
ir punishment of Or- estes.83 The vengeance sought by the biaiothanatoi, then, can be understood not only to satisfy the victim's natural desire for retribution but also to ensure that the victim receives honor, proper respect, and inclusion within the new "community" that he has joined.84 In this, as in so many other things, the society of the dead seems no different from that of the living, for to leave a crime against oneself or one's family unavenged was a cause for dishonor and alienation in the world above, as well as the world below. 15 This idea fits nicely with another one, familiar from tragedy, that loved ones will be reunited in the land of the dead: things go on after death, in other words, more or less as they did before death.86 The funerary rites discussed in chapter z, which provide the dead with food, drink, and other familiar pleasures of life, express the same expectation, too.

  Understanding that the biaiothanatoi desired the restoration of honor that would come through revenge, as well as the revenge itself, helps us to see all of the restless dead as a more coherent group. Funerary rites, which the ataphoi lack, not only remove the remains of the former person from the world of the living, thus bringing closure to life and facilitating transition into death, but also bestow honor on the deceased. This is one of the points that Patroclus's ghost makes when he explains to Achilles that it is because he lacks funeral rites that the other dead are preventing him from entering Hades. Without the prestige the rites would bring, Patroclus does not have the stature necessary to join their group.87

  Although any rite was better than none, as Antigone knew, great people demanded great rites that would befit their lofty stature. It was the inadequacy of his funeral rites that drove the ghost of Achilles to appear to the Greeks and prevent their departure from Troy until the omission was corrected by the sacrifice of Polyxena at his tomb. In Euripides' Hecuba, the ghost itself describes this sacrifice as a "gift of honor" (geras); Odysseus elaborates on this at length later in the play when he justifies the sacrifice to Hecuba: "What could be more shameful than to treat a man well while he is alive and not treat him so when he is dead? ... While I am alive, give me only what little I require each day, but I hope that my tomb will be wonderful to look at, since that lasts a very long time." 88 In a similar vein, Periander's dead wife Melissa refuses to cooperate with him until she has received what she considers adequate funerary gifts, proper to her stature as a former queen.89 Even further down on the same scale, the mistreatment or mutilation of a corpse-which deprives the dead of his kalos thanatos-forces the ghost to enter the Underworld completely dishonored.90 The gods so loved Patroclus and Hector that they would not permit this to happen, ensuring through divine intervention that their bodies remained beautiful until they were buried with due ceremony.91

  All of these observations might seem simply to confirm what we already have observed, that the Greeks clung to the idea that the body and soul were inextricably linked, even after death-what affected one automatically affected the other-but that honor rather than physical state alone was the salient point is demonstrated by the fact that funerary cult could be paid to the dead even in the absence of their bodies. A good model of this is provided by Euripides' Helen, where care is taken to provide lavish sacrifices and offerings of honor to the "dead" Mene- laus.92 It was not so much the swift removal of the rotting corpse from the world of the living that effected a smooth transition for the soul of the dead as the ceremony accompanying removal. Indeed, so thoroughly were these ceremonies thought to incorporate the dead into the other world and its society that the "later-fated"-those assumed dead who later turned out not to be dead after all-had to be reincorporated into the society of the living by special rites mimicking the birth process. Merely to show up, however much alive, could not reverse the transition that had taken place; one's citizenship had been changed and now had to be changed back again. Some such idea lies behind what Heracles tells Admetus at the end of the Alcestis, too; Alcestis may not speak with the living until three days have passed and she has been deconsecrated (aphagnisetai) from the gods of the Underworld, that is, until she has formally and completely left their custody.13

  The cause of the aoroi's restlessness can be understood, similarly, not merely as a failure to achieve what signified completion of a "normal" life but a failure to win the honor that followed upon such completion. The group most commonly called aoroi are women who die without marrying and bearing and nurturing children. Given that these were precisely the achievements through which a woman's success in life was defined, to die before attaining them meant that a woman departed for Hades without any marks of honor. There are extraordinary exceptions to this rule, but they only help to prove it, indirectly. Euripides' Alcestis dies before she has finished raising her children-she herself expresses regret about this at some length and prays that her children will not die aoros as we1194-but as the Chorus emphasizes, Alcestis's death will nonetheless be lauded as honorable, because she is dying in order to save the life of her husband. Indeed, like Darius and Amphiaraus, she is expected to win a place of privilege in the Underworld, for as she dies, the Chorus cries out: "0 noblest and best of women, farewell! May Hermes and Hades welcome you below. And if, even there, the good [agathoi ] fare best, you will have a portion of the rewards and be an honored companion [paredreuois] to the bride of Hades." 95 The prematurity of Alcestis's death will not condemn her to dwell amongst the aoroi after all, but this is because she has managed to win honor and postmortem privilege through the only other means available-the bravery and selfsacrifice normally associated with the warrior.96

  One special category of biaiothanatoi requires some further comment: the heroes.97 Myth portrays many (although not all) heroes as having died violently and ignobly; Theseus, for example, was murdered while visiting the island of Scyros, and the children of Medea, who received cult in Corinth, were also murdered.91 Like other biaiothanatoi, these angry souls were dangerous and might have to be appeased. But, having led extraordinary lives, they lead extraordinary deaths as well, possessing powers either to aid or injure the living beyond those of the normal biaiothanatoi, and with a wider range of effects. An Aristophanic fragment, in which a group of heroes boast that they can punish those who cheat and steal, provides a list of ailments: "We are the guardians of good things and bad things; we watch out for the unjust, for thieves and robbers, and send diseases against them-spleen and cough and dropsy and runny nose and mange and gout and madness and fungus and glands and colds and fevers. That's what we do to thieves." 99 The effect is humorous, but the message is that the heroic dead might be blamed for any sort of sickness at all, including, but not limited to, insanity. Elsewhere, we hear of heroes imposing wholesale plague, famine, or sterility on a city (or curing it), intervening in battles, impregnating women, ravaging the land, and doing all sorts of other things, both beneficial and destructive.100 Sometimes the hero might work through his statue: the Olympic victor Theagenes, worshipped by the Thasians as a healing hero, killed an enemy who was flogging his statue by causing it to topple over upon him. The statue was brought to trial by the survivors and "exiled" by being thrown into the sea, but another one later was erected at the advice of the Delphic Oracle after the Thasians suffered a plague. A similar tale was told about the Argive hero Mitys or Bitys.101 Notably, as deadly as the attacks of Theagenes and Mitys/Bitys were, the necessity of working through statues-artificial physical representations-suggests that the dead hero himself sometimes was imagined to have little more physical substance than the ordinary dead. And indeed the most popular ploy, even for heroes, was to frighten people or drive them insane, just as the ordinary biaiothanatoi did. As mentioned already, the author of the Hippocratic treatise On the Sacred Disease tells us that common opinion traced terrors, unreasonable fears, and madnesses (deimata, phoboi, paranoiac) to attacks by the heroes or Hecate. The ghost of the Spartan traitor Pausanias terrified people who tried to enter the temple where he died; the dead charioteer Myrtilus frightened horses as they rounded the goal at Olympia.102

 
If the hero had died outside of his native land, special measures had to be taken to ensure the safe return of his remains and to keep his soul happy, lest he be bent into the service of the land of his hosts insteadeven a murder victim might be persuaded into beneficence by those who possessed his bones.103 The two requirements are elided in an interesting way in Pindar's fourth Pythian, where the wrathful ghost of Phrixus appears to Pelias in a dream and explains that his soul can be brought home to Iolcus, and thus he can be made happy, by the retrieval of the Golden Fleece. The idea seems to be that by the transfer of some numinous object closely associated with the hero, the hero can be transferred as well; simultaneously, the object of transfer acts as an honorific gift for the dead. Analogous are the erection of "empty tombs" (mnemata kena) and performance of rites for heroes whose bones could not be recovered. By paying them cult even at these symbolic resting places, the living might reap the benefits the heroes had to bestow.104 Something similar might be happening in Odyssey 9.65-66, where Odysseus "cries out" three times to his companions who had died in battle and whose bodies could not be recovered. Eustathius, in fact, explains this passage with reference to the retrieval of Phrixus's soul in Pythian 4, and the scholiast on Pythian 4, in turn, refers us back to Odyssey 9, confirming that in later antiquity at least, Odysseus's cry and Jason's retrieval of the Fleece were viewed as two ways of accomplishing the same thing. Eustathius goes on to explain that the cry was intended to "lead [the souls] to their friends" (katagein autous pros tous oikeious)-if so, then Odysseus performs an act bordering on what would later be called goeteia. An even clearer attestation that the souls of dead might be called away to another place is found in the story of Messenia's fourth-century refoundation: the settlers called upon all of their old heroes, beseeching them to arrive and to dwell there forever after.105 The paying of funeral honors to even the ordinary dead in absentia bespeaks a similar concern and means of addressing it.