EPICEDION (formed of ἐπὶ υπὸν, and ξυδὸς funeral), in the Greek and Latin poetry, a poem, or poetical composition, on the death of a person.—At the obsequies of any man of figure, there were three kinds of discourses usually made; that rehearsed at his bustum or funeral pile, was called nenia; that engraven on his tomb, epitaph; and that spoken in the ceremony of his funeral, epicedion. We have two beautiful epicedions in Virgil, that of Euryalus and that of Pallas.
EPICEDION
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