ABSTRACT
THE ACCESSION (336 BC) Among the most pressing of Alexander’s state obligations was the arranging of his father’s funeral. If the tombs at Vergina are a reflection of his efforts, then Alexander attended to this duty with dispatch and consideration. The bones from Tomb II suggest that the deceased may have been given a Homeric burial similar to that of Hector as described in the closing verses of the Iliad:
But when all were gathered to one place and assembled together, first with gleaming wine they put out the pyre that was burning, all where the fury of the fire still was in force, and thereafter the brothers and companions of Hektor gathered the white bones up, mourning, as the tears swelled and ran down their cheeks. Then they laid what they had gathered up in a golden casket and wrapped this about with soft robes of purple, and presently put it away in the hollow of the grave.
