History of the Peloponnesian War

Any citizen or stranger who pleases, joins in the procession: and the female relatives are there to wail at the burial.

The dead are laid in the public sepulchre in the most beautiful suburb of the city, in which those who fall in war are always buried; with the exception of those slain at Marathon, who for their singular and extraordinary valor were interred on the spot where they fell.

After the bodies have been laid in the earth, a man chosen by the state, of approved wisdom and eminent reputation, pronounces over them an appropriate panegyric; after which all retire.

Such is the manner of the burying; and throughout the whole of the war, whenever the occasion arose, the established custom was observed.