In one of the many memorable scenes of battlefield desolation in the Iliad, the magnificent horses of Achilles, given by the gods to his father, stand weeping following the death of their chariot driver, Patroclus. Despite Automedon's efforts to drive them either into or away from the battle, the horses refuse to disturb their mourning: ‘as a grave-stone stands unmoving, set on the mound of a man or a woman who has died, so they stood there holding the beautiful chariot motionless, hanging their heads to the ground’. Looking on, Zeus feels pity for the animals: ‘Poor wretches, why did we give you to lord Peleus, a mortal man, when you are ageless and immortal? Was it for you to share the pain of unhappy mankind? Since there is nothing more miserable than man among all the creatures that breathe and move on earth’ (Iliad: 17.426– 66).

All creatures that inhabit the earth are perishable, but none are ‘more miserable’ than human beings because it is they who possess full consciousness of their mortality. Here we find, in an epic poem composed nearly 3,000 years ago, one of the first indications of humans’ troubled apprehension of death. In this chapter, and the one that follows, I am going to explore how misery in the face of mortality was given cultural meaning and creative form in the arts, rituals and beliefs of classical Greece.