To the Greeks, you do not feed a god of darkness as you feast an Olympian. To the celestial gods goes the thysia: the fragrant smoke of a sacrificed beast, whose flesh the living later eat. To the chthonic powers and the dead go the enagismata: libations poured with averted face into a pit dug into the ground (bothros), boiled grains, honey cakes left whole, never tasted by the offerers. The meal proceeds from below upward, toward the earth and not the sky — honey soothes, black wine descends, seeds nourish those who no longer have mouths.

Golden thread between the living and the dead: honey (from Mount Hymettus near Athens, the most renowned) sweetens the anger of the powers below, preserves offerings, and sugars funeral cakes. It is poured pure into pits, drizzled over melitoutta, and binds sesame seeds. Without it, no Greek offering to the dead is complete.