ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the process of dying in ancient Greece, as laid out in the historical and archaeological record. This includes discussions of what happens to corpses, and – perhaps more importantly – to the relatives and friends who are tasked with caring for the corpse in a way that will allow that person to enter the Underworld safely. This includes a discussion of miasma (‘pollution’) and what kinds of miasma are attached to the deceased. The chapter looks at the connection between miasma and grief using the literary example of Achilleus’s assimilation into a state of death and pollution to mark his grief over Patroklos’s death.
