Attitudes toward Death in Archaic Greece

Abstract

W AS THERE A SIGNIFICANT SHIFT in toward in Archaic Greece? In this paper, I argue both yes and no, according to how attitudes toward death is defined. My thesis is a reply to two important articles by Christiane Sourvinou Inwood. Dr. Sourvinou-Inwood claims that the rise of the polis affected mentali ties within the intellectual elite, and that began to be feared more after 700 B.C. She further suggests that the changes identified by Philippe Aries in eleventh to twelfth-century-A.D. France provide a useful analogy for Archaic Greece.' Her case has far-reaching consequences: if the Greeks had to any extent anticipated Western developments by two millennia, much thinking about the history of would be challenged, and the theoretical basis for the archaeology of burials would crumble. The argument also raises serious questions about the possibility of intellectualist interpretations of archaeological evidence.2 The question, then, is of interest even beyond the field of Greek religious history.