 Thucydides describes in detail the funeral rituals and points out that "the dead are laid in the public sepulchre in the most beautiful suburb of the city, in which those who fall in war are always buried".This suburb was Kerameikos, where there was a monument for all the Athenians fell in battle, except such of them as fought at Marathon.Historians now believe that the "demosion sema" (a collective burial site for the war dead) and the "epitaphios logos" were first established around 470 BC, customs that continued during the Periclean period.