"For seventeen days unbroken, days and nights
we mourned you – immortal gods and mortal men.
At the eighteenth dawn we gave you to the flames
and slaughtered around your body droves of fat sheep
and shambling longhorn cattle, and you were burned
in the garments of the gods and laved with soothing oils
and honey running sweet, and a long cortege of Argive heroes
paraded in review, in battle armor round your blazing pyre,
men in chariots, men on foot – a resounding roar went up."
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 68-76. In this passage the ghost of King Agamemnon is recounting to Achilles in the underworld how the great hero was honored in death. Achilles’ funeral was a very big deal, as gods and humans mourned him for seventeen days. For his cremation on the eighteenth, large number of cattle and sheep were slaughtered. The Greek hero was burned in garments from the gods while a cortege of Argive heroes paraded in full armor to honor him.