MUTILATION OF THE DEAD AND THE HOMERIC GODS

Abstract

Mutilation, along with all forms of maltreatment of the dead, was widely condemned by Greek authors of the Classical period. In a culture where the obligation to bury and respect the dead was seen as one of the strongest moral compulsions universal to all men, mistreating the dead was considered to be the most outrageous and unholy of actions, more suitable, as Herodotus states, for barbarians than for Greeks, ‘and even in them we find it loathsome’. The importance of the theme of mutilating the dead in theIliad, where one can find numerous and surprisingly detailed descriptions of warriors maltreating the corpses of their enemies, is therefore puzzling, to say the least.