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[584] χεῦα … τύμβον. Schol. E. remarks, “ἐποίησε κενοτάφιον τῷ Ἀγαμέμνονι γράψας ἐκεῖ ἐν λίθῳ τὸ αὐτοῦ ὄνομα καὶ τὴν αἰτίαν τοῦ θανάτου καὶ τὸ ποῦ ἦν καὶ ὅπως πέπονθε”. But this was not the age for monumental inscriptions, as Löwe rightly says, ‘sufficiebat tamen simplicis tumuli aedificatio,’ cp. Il.23. 255.Such a practice recorded here illustrates the ancient custom of erecting cairns and barrows, which served to keep up a constant tradition when there was no written record of a nation's history. Cp. Josh. 3. 3-9, where the Israelites set up twelve stones at the passage of the Jordan, ‘to be a memorial for ever,’ because the children would ‘ask their fathers in time to come, saying, “What mean ye by these stones?”’ so that the story would be kept up from generation to generation.

Homer's Odyssey. W. Walter Merry. James Riddell. D. B. Monro. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1886-1901.

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