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Charon was the ferryman in the underworld. In the epic poem The Iliad, the Greeks buried the dead people and put coins on their eyes or under their tongues, usually an obolus or danake, so they could pay the boatman Charon to carry them to cross in the River Styx into the underworld once they left the realm of the living in order to ensure safe passage and they would not be left behind. Moreover, they believe that the people who could not pay the fee, or those whose bodies were left unburied, had to wander the shores for one hundred years.

When King Priam goes to Achilles to claim the body of Hector, he asks to have the body in order to perform the funeral rites and specifically mentions "let me place the coins over his eyes for the boatman". - based on the movie Troy.

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12y ago

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