The idea that the dead can be questioned is very ancient, and in Greek culture it finds its first great literary expression in the eleventh book of the Odyssey. The ancients called this episode the Nekyia, "rite of the dead". Alongside this poetic model, the sources recall actual oracles of the dead, places where it was believed possible to summon souls and obtain answers from them.
Circe's instructions
Odysseus, after a year spent with the sorceress Circe, asks to return home. Circe reveals that first he must make another journey: reach the house of Hades to consult the soul of the Theban seer Tiresias, the only one who keeps his mind even after death.
The directions are precise. Odysseus must sail to the edges of Ocean, to the fog-bound land of the Cimmerians, and there perform a rite at an appointed place. The poem describes the gestures with almost liturgical care.
The rite of the pit
The stages of the rite, as Homer tells them, are these:
- dig a pit about a cubit on each side;
- pour into it three libations for all the dead: milk and honey, sweet wine, water;
- sprinkle the pit with barley meal;
- pray to the souls of the dead, promising, on returning to Ithaca, the sacrifice of a barren heifer and a black ram for Tiresias;
- slaughter a ram and a black ewe, letting the blood flow into the pit;
- burn the victims and call upon Hades and Persephone.
The blood is the decisive element. The souls of the dead, in the Homeric conception, are shades without strength or consciousness: only by drinking blood can they regain for a moment the ability to speak and to recognise the living.
The shades around the pit
As soon as the blood flows, the souls crowd in with a terrible cry. Odysseus, afraid, holds his drawn sword over the pit to keep them from approaching before Tiresias has spoken.
The first to appear is the shade of Elpenor, a companion who had recently died and been left unburied, who asks to be buried. Then comes Odysseus' mother, Anticleia, whom the hero did not know was dead. At last Tiresias arrives, drinks the blood and delivers his prophecy about Odysseus' homecoming and fate.
Memorable encounters follow: the great heroines of myth, Agamemnon treacherously slain, Achilles, who declares he would rather be the servant of a poor man on earth than rule over all the dead, and Ajax, who remains silent, still offended.
The oracle on the Acheron
The Homeric rite was not only poetry. Historical sources mention real places where the dead were consulted. The best known was in Thesprotia, in north-western Greece, by the river Acheron, which myth identified with an underworld river.
Herodotus tells a striking story. The tyrant of Corinth Periander sent messengers to the oracle of the dead on the Acheron to question the soul of his late wife, Melissa, about a deposit that a guest had entrusted to him. The soul refused to answer: she said she was cold and naked, because the clothes buried with her had not been burned and were therefore of no use to her.
To prove her identity, she added a sign that only Periander could understand. The tyrant then gathered the women of Corinth in the temple of Hera, had their finest garments taken off and burned them in Melissa's honour. When questioned again, the soul revealed where the deposit was.
The Necromanteion of Ephyra
In the twentieth century the Greek archaeologist Sotirios Dakaris excavated, near the confluence of the Acheron, a complex he identified with the famous Necromanteion of Ephyra. The building had winding corridors, doors arranged to create a labyrinthine route and a vaulted underground hall. Dakaris interpreted it as the place where consultants, after days of preparation, came into contact with the dead.
Later studies have cast doubt on this interpretation. The discovery of parts of war machines and comparison with other buildings of the period have led several scholars to think it was rather a fortified farmhouse of the Hellenistic period, with an underground storeroom. The debate remains open: it is a good example of how archaeology sometimes corrects the wishes of scholars.
Other places of the dead
| Place | Region | Tradition |
|---|---|---|
| Acheron | Thesprotia | Oracle consulted by Periander |
| Cape Taenarum | Laconia | Entrance to Hades in myth |
| Heraclea Pontica | Black Sea | Cave linked to Heracles' descent |
The lesson of the Nekyia
The Nekyia shows a sober and religious necromancy: the living nourish the dead, honour them, listen. It is the opposite of the violence on corpses that Latin literature will attribute to the witches of Thessaly. The relationship with the dead is born here as memory, the duty of burial and the search for wisdom.
In short
- The Nekyia is the episode of the Odyssey in which Odysseus summons the dead to consult Tiresias.
- The rite includes a pit, libations, barley meal and the blood of black victims.
- Only by drinking blood do the shades regain speech and consciousness for a moment.
- Herodotus tells how Periander consulted Melissa's soul at the Acheron.
- The identification of the Necromanteion of Ephyra as an oracle of the dead is now disputed.
