Others were thrown alive into the sea, as we read of Jonas the prophet. Avavμáxi, or such as refused to serve at sea after a lawful summons, were, at Athens, themselves and their posterity, condemned to driμía, ignominy or disfranchisement f; of which punishment I have spoken in one of the former books. Autovara, deserters, were not only bound with cords and whipped, as Demosthenes reports, but had their hands likewise cut off, as we are informed by Suidas. f Suidas. BOOK IV. CHAP. I. Of the Care the Grecians had of Funerals, and of Persons destitute thereof. PLUTO was the first who instructed the Grecians & in the manner of performing their last offices to the deceased; which gave occasion to the inventors of fables to assign him a vast and unbounded empire in the shades below, and constitute him supreme monarch of all the dead. And since there is scarce any useful art, the inventor whereof was not reckoned amongst the gods, and believed to patronize and preside over those artificers he had first instructed, no wonder if he who taught the rude and uncivilized ages what respect, what ceremonies, were due to the dead, had the honour to be numbered amongst the deities of the first quality, since the duties belonging to the dead were thought of far greater importance, aad the neglect of them a crime of a blacker character, than those required by the living for the dead were ever held sacred and inviolable even amongst the most barbarous nations; to defraud them of any due respect, was a greater and more unpardonable sacrilege than to spoil the temples of the gods; their memories were preserved with a religious care and reverence, and all their remains honoured with worship and adoration; hatred and envy themselves were put to silence, for it was thought a sign of a cruel and inhuman disposition to speak evil of the dead, and prosecute revenge beyond the grave: no provocation was thought sufficient to warrant so foul an action; the highest affronts from themselves whilst alive, or afterwards from their children, were esteemed weak pretences for disturbing their peace. Offenders of * Diodorus Siculus, lib. v. cap. 15. this kind were not only disbanded with disgrace and infamy, but by Solon's laws, incurred a severe penalty ". But of all the honours paid to the dead, the care of their funeral rites was the greatest and most necessary; for these were looked upon as a debt so sacred, that such as neglected to discharge it were thought accursed; hence the Romans called them justa, the Grecians δίκαια, νόμιμα, νομιζόμενα, ἔθιμα, ὅσια, &c. all which words imply the inviolable obligations which nature has laid upon the living to take care of the obsequies of the dead. And no wonder if they were thus solicitous about the interment of the dead, since they were strongly possessed with an opinion, that their souls could not be admitted into the Elysian shades, but were forced to wander desolate and without company, till their bodies were committed to the earth; and if they never had the good fortune to obtain human burial, the time of their exclusion from the common receptacle of the ghosts, was no less than an hundred years; whence in most of the poets, we meet with passionate requests of dying men or their ghosts, after death, for this favour. I will only give you one out of Homer'; who introduces the soul of Elpenor earnestly beseeching Ulysses to perform his funeral rites : Νῦν δέ σε τῶν ἔπιθεν γενάζομαι, ὦ παρεόντων, And the possession of a peaceful grave, ΤΟΥΣ. This was the reason why, of all imprecations, the greatest was to wish that a person might rapes ixintuv xlovòs, i. e. die destitute of burial; and of all forms of death the most terrible was that by shipwreck, as wherein the body was swallowed up by the deep: whence Ovid, though willing to resign his miserable life, yet prays against this death: Demite naufragium, mors mihi munus erit. Death would my soul from anxious troubles ease, h Demosthen, Orat. in Leptin. Plutarchus Solone. i Homerus Iliad. . Odyss. x'. v. 66, 72. Wherefore when they were in danger of being cast away, it was customary to fasten to some part of their body the most precious of all their stores, with a direction to the first that found their dead corpses, if the waves chanced to roll them to the shore, entreating of him the favour of an human burial, and proffering what they carried about them as a reward, or desiring him to expend some part of it upon their funeral rites, and accept the rest himself. But though the carcase brought no reward along with it, yet was it not therefore lawful to pass it by neglected, and deny it, what was looked on as a debt to all mankind; for not only the Athenian laws forbade so great an act of inhumanity', but in all parts of Greece it was looked upon as a great provocation to the infernal gods, and a crime that would call up certain vengeance from the regions below : nor could the guilty person be freed from the punishment of his offence, or admitted to converse with men, or worship the gods, but was looked upon as profane and polluted, till he had undergone the accustomed purifications, and appeased the incensed deities. Yet it was not always required that all the funeral solemnities should be nicely performed, which the haste of travellers that should light upon the carcase might oftentimes not permit, but it was sufficient to cast dust or soft earth upon it three times together, according to Horace"; m Quanquam festinas, non est mora longa, licebit Injecto ter pulvere, curras. Whate'er thy haste, oh, let my prayer prevail, Thrice strow the sand, then hoist the flying sail. FRANCIS Of these three handfuls, one at least was thrown upon the head. This, in cases of necessity, was looked upon as enough to gain the ghost's admission into Pluto's dominions, and to free such as happened upon their bodies from the fear of being haunted, yet was far from affording them entire satisfaction; wherefore, such as had been interred clandestinely, or in haste, and without the customary solemnities, if afterwards good fortune discovered them to any of their friends, were honoured with a second funeral, as appears from the story of Polydorus in Virgil, who being murdered and interred by Polymnestor, does yet make his complaint to Æneas at his arrival in Thrace, that his soul could not rest till his obsequies were celebrated according to custom; wherefore the pious hero, k Synesius, Epist. Interpres Historiæ Apollonii Tyrii, Meursius in Lycophronis Cassandram, v. 367. 1 Elianus, Var. Hist. v. cap. 14. Sophoclis Scholiastes Antigone. n Lib. i. Od. 28. v. 36. Quinctilianus Declam. v. vi. Cælius Rhodiginus, lib. xvii. cap. 20. Instaurat funus, animamque sepulchro Condito. Attends the rites and gives the soul repose Within a wish'd-for tomb. Nor was it sufficient to be honoured with the solemn perform ance of their funeral rites, except their bodies were prepared for burial by their relations, and interred in the sepulchres of their fathers; the want of which was looked upon by themselves and their surviving friends as a very great misfortune, and not much inferior to death itself, as appears from innumerable testimonies, of which I shall only trouble you with the following; the first taken from the epitaph of Leonidas the Tarentine, which runs thus P: Πολλὸν ἀπ' Ιταλίης κειμαι χθονός, ἔκ τε Τάραντος Πάτρης, τῦτο δέ μοι πικρότερον θανάτε. From my dear native land remote I lie, O worse than death, the thought is misery. The second from Electra in Sophocles, who having preserved Orestes from Clytemnestra, by sending him into a foreign country, and many years after hearing he had ended his days there, wishes he had rather perished at first, than after so many years continuance of life, having died from home, and been destitute of the last offices of his friends. Her words are these: Δόμων δὲ σ ̓, ὦ παῖ, λαμπρὸν ἐξέπεμψ' ἐγώ, Ως ὤφελον πάροιθεν ἐκλιπεῖν βίον, Πρὶν ἐς ξένην σε γαῖαν ἐκπέμψαι χερούν Ὅπως θανὼν ἔκεισο τῇ τίθ' ἡμέρα, Τύμβο πατρών κοινὸν ἀληχὼς μέρος" O hadst thou died ere by these hands preserv'd, Some little portion of thy father's tomb Thou woulds't have shar'd; but thou hast perish'd now A wand'ring exile, from thy sister far. Nor in the cleansing lavers did I bathe With these fond hands thy corse, nor, as became A sister, bear from the consuming flames Closed in a little urn. POTTER. For this reason, such as died in foreign countries had usually their ashes brought home and interred in the sepulchres of their ancestors, or at least in some part of their native country; it being thought that the same mother which gave them life and birth, was only fit to receive their remains, and afford them a peaceful habitation after death. Whence ancient authors afford us innumer• Æn. iii. v. 62 et 67. P Anthol. Epigr. lib. iii, cap. 25. ep. 75. 9 v. 1134. |