Tomb II and the hunting scene.My view.

[agesilaos]

It would be unusual had Meda committed suicide for it not to be mentioned in the sources the murder of Kleopatra/Eurydice and her baby, Europa are noted and that of the possibly non-existant Kalanos. We cannot even be sure she even resided at court she is but a diplomatic bride and enters history at the same time she exits it; with her marriage. It is possible no-one would bother to notice her but since she is meant to have committed Scythian sutee, which practice greatly interested the Greeks who reached India,and then been interred with the greatest man of the age about whose funeral we are informed - not least in papyrus POxy 1798 which Hammond himself interprets as relating to the funeral of Philip II - I think it unlikely we would not have heard of it.

In 'The Macedonian State' pp26-9 Hammond reckons Tomb I to be that of Amyntas III on the most putative (if not optative) of architectural grounds. There the remains of a man, a woman and a baby were found but these cannot be Philip II, Eurydice and Europa since Philip is with Meda in TombII on his reasoning but that combination gives one pause.

My knowledge of ancient funerary practices is by no means exhaustive but the remains of the Varian legions were cremated by Germanicus 26yrs post-eventum and I think Alexander did the same for the fallen at the River Polytimetus according to Curtius, though we cannot say how long they had lain unburied, the whole Sogdian narrative being in a state of confusion.

As far as I know the Macedonians used simple wooden pyres rather than charcoal...mmh, toss another Temenid on the Barby, Sheila...don't mention the Ashes, I mentioned them once but I think I've got away with it!

Chaire

[Efstathios]

In 'The Macedonian State' pp26-9 Hammond reckons Tomb I to be that of Amyntas III on the most putative (if not optative) of architectural grounds. There the remains of a man, a woman and a baby were found but these cannot be Philip II, Eurydice and Europa since Philip is with Meda in TombII on his reasoning but that combination gives one pause.

As far as i know there were no remains found in tomb I, as it was looted when Gonatas build the tumulus.

[Taphoi]

My knowledge of ancient funerary practices is by no means exhaustive but the remains of the Varian legions were cremated by Germanicus 26yrs post-eventum and I think Alexander did the same for the fallen at the River Polytimetus according to Curtius, though we cannot say how long they had lain unburied, the whole Sogdian narrative being in a state of confusion.

Actually Curtius 7.9.21, Arrian 4.6.5 and the Metz Epitome 13 say only that Alexander ordered the bones of Menedemus and the other dead to be covered with a mound. It is evidence that bare bones were not normally cremated rather than the opposite.

Best wishes,

Andrew

PS. Found this from Tacitus - who is your source for cremation?

Cornelius Tacitus - The Annals
(Book 1, 61)

Germanicus Discovers the Battle Site

Lucius Stertinius was despatched by Germanicus with a flying column and routed the Bructeri as they were burning their possessions, and amid the carnage and plunder, found the eagle of the nineteenth legion which had been lost with Varus. The troops were then marched to the furthest frontier of the Bructeri, and all the country between the rivers Amisia and Luppia was ravaged, not far from the forest of Teutoburgium where the remains of Varus and his legions were said to lie unburied.
Germanicus upon this was seized with an eager longing to pay the last honour to those soldiers and their general, while the whole army present was moved to compassion by the thought of their kinsfolk and friends, and, indeed, of the calamities of wars and the lot of mankind. Having sent on Caecina in advance to reconnoitre the obscure forest-passes, and to raise bridges and causeways over watery swamps and treacherous plains, they visited the mournful scenes, with their horrible sights and associations. Varus's first camp with its wide circumference and the measurements of its central space clearly indicated the handiwork of three legions. Further on, the partially fallen rampart and the shallow fosse suggested the inference that it was a shattered remnant of the army which had there taken up a position. In the centre of the field were the whitening bones of men, as they had fled, or stood their ground, strewn everywhere or piled in heaps. Near, lay fragments of weapons and limbs of horses, and also human heads, prominently nailed to trunks of trees. In the adjacent groves were the barbarous altars, on which they had immolated tribunes and first-rank centurions. Some survivors of the disaster who had escaped from the battle or from captivity, described how this was the spot where the officers fell, how yonder the eagles were captured, where Varus was pierced by his first wound, where too by the stroke of his own ill-starred hand he found for himself death. They pointed out too the raised ground from which Arminius had harangued his army, the number of gibbets for the captives, the pits for the living, and how in his exultation he insulted the standards and eagles.

And so the Roman army now on the spot, six years after the disaster, in grief and anger, began to bury the bones of the three legions, not a soldier knowing whether he was interring the relics of a relative or a stranger, but looking on all as kinsfolk and of their own blood, while their wrath rose higher than ever against the foe. In raising the barrow Caesar laid the first sod, rendering thus a most welcome honour to the dead, and sharing also in the sorrow of those present. This Tiberius did not approve, either interpreting unfavourably every act of Germanicus, or because he thought that the spectacle of the slain and unburied made the army slow to fight and more afraid of the enemy, and that a general invested with the augurate and its very ancient ceremonies ought not to have polluted himself with funeral rites.

[amyntoros]

Actually Curtius 7.9.21, Arrian 4.6.5 and the Metz Epitome 13 say only that Alexander ordered the bones of Menedemus and the other dead to be covered with a mound. It is evidence that bare bones were not normally cremated rather than the opposite.

Because of the variables, this one event isn’t sufficient evidence one way or the other, IMO. Arrian 4.65 says Alexander buried the bones “as best he could” and continued on after the fugitives. This could suggest that there was no time for a cremation. Curtius says that he “ordered” the bones to be covered with a mound, an act which could have been done after Alexander left. However, there’s also the possibility that a cremation was performed and simply not mentioned in the sources. Diodorus XVII.14.1 tells how Philip “gave burial” to the Macedonian dead at Thebes without any mention of cremation. This doesn’t mean that cremation wasn’t performed - after all, only the bones of the Athenian dead were sent back to Athens - only that Curtius felt no need to record it.

On the other hand, you could be right. Perhaps cremation’s true purpose was to strip the flesh from the bones rather than it having religious connotations. If so, the bodies at the River Polytimetus may already have been reduced to bones, depending upon how long they had lain there. This, however, doesn’t explain the dry cremation in the tombs at Vergina, unless we propose that the bones were deliberately cremated as a ceremonial, “public relations” event.

Best regards,

[Taphoi]

Perhaps cremation’s true purpose was to strip the flesh from the bones rather than it having religious connotations.

I suspect there was also religious significance, but something along the lines of freeing the soul from the flesh. Hence cremation would potentially be both a religiously and practically pointless act in the case of bare bones.

Some interesting insights are available from Book 23 of the Iliad - the funeral of Patroclus:

"...to bring wood and to make ready all that is right for a dead man to have when he goes beneath the murky darkness, so that unwearied fire may burn him quickly from our eyes..." (quickly releasing the soul?)

"...and many noble sheep and many sleek cattle of shambling gait they flayed and dressed before the pyre; and from them all the great-hearted Achilles gathered the fat, and enfolded the dead in it from head to foot..." (that might explain quite a lot!)

"...first quench with ruddy wine the burning pyre, as far as the might of the fire has spread..." (shock cooling will fracture hot bones every which way!)

"...weeping they gathered up the white bones of their gentle comrade into a golden urn..." (Now where have we seen something like that before?)

Cordially,

Andrew

[amyntoros]

I suspect there was also religious significance, but something along the lines of freeing the soul from the flesh. Hence cremation would potentially be both a religiously and practically pointless act in the case of bare bones.

I always used to think there was relgious significance, but I'm not so sure now (see below).

Some interesting insights are available from Book 23 of the Iliad - the funeral of Patroclus:

Yes, everything points to the Macedonians having been strongly influenced by Homer, but the problem is that we don’t know if they followed Homeric practice exclusively. It wasn’t so in other parts of Greece. Walter Burkert on page 191 of his Greek Religion says:

The burning of the corpse is the most spectacular change from the Mycenaean Age. In Bronze Age Greece this custom is practically unknown, though certainly it was practiced by the Hittite kings and also in Troy VI/VII A. It appears in the twelfth century in Attica in the Perati cemetery. In Homeric epic, this is the only burial form acknowledged. But in fact nowhere did it establish itself exclusively. The cemetery most thoroughly investigated is the principal cemetery for Athens, the Kerameikos outside the Diplyon Gate. Here, in the proto-Geometric period, cremation greatly preponderates and in the ninth century it is the only form; but from the eighth century onwards, inhumations increase again and come to constitute some thirty percent of all burials …

…The move to cremation has been interpreted, in particular by Erwin Rhode, as a spiritual revolution in which the power of the dead was broken, with the souls being banished from the realm of the living. Ethnologists and archaeologists have become increasingly sceptical of this theory. Inhumation and cremation are found side by side in the same place – in Crete they even appear together in the same grave; in the accompanying ritual and in the grave goods no difference can be detected; nor is the purpose to destroy the corpse, for the bones are collected all the more piously and preserved in an urn. To explain the varying usage, we find ourselves thrown back on possible external factors – such as wood shortage – or simply unpredictable fashion; a change in religious belief can no more be invoked than a difference in tribe.

So … it could be that Alexander sometimes buried his men without cremation and sometimes with – depending on external circumstances. However, a “dry” cremation, if that is what happened to the body in Tomb II, remains controversial.

Best regards,

[agesilaos]

Curtius VII 9 xxi 'Horum ossa tumulo contegi iussit et inferias more patrio dedit.' He ordered a mound to be constructed over their bones and buried them in the manner of their country.

So they may have been cremated, quite right about the Tacitus though, a clear case of mis-remembrance, unless I gleaned it from 'The Battle that Stopped Rome' which goes into the modern excavations at the Teutoburg site, doh!

[Taphoi]

Burial according to the customs of their nation (i.e. Macedonia) cannot be taken to imply cremation. Pausanias 1.6.3 states that Ptolemy buried Alexander at Memphis "with Macedonian rites" in about 321BC, but we know that Alexander's mummy was still intact centuries later.

Cordially,

Andrew

[agesilaos]

Yes, such terms really hold little force either way - what are the ratio of inhumations to cremations at Vergina, or indeed throughout Macedonia I wonder.Alexander was a particularly special case and Ptolemy was clearly mixing the Macedonian with the Egyptian practice, I think he himself was cremated much to the consternation of the Egyptian priesthood.