fenced round, out of a fancy, that Jupiter having taken some offence, fixed upon them that mark of his displeasure. 7. Those who wasted their patrimony, forfeited their right of being buried in the sepulchres of their fathers; whence we find Democritus to have been in danger of wanting a burial-place, for spending his paternal inheritance in travel to foreign countries, and searching after the mysteries of nature'. 8. To these we may subjoin such as died in debt, whose bodies belonged at Athens to their creditors, and could not claim any right to human burial, till satisfaction was made. Whence it is reported, that Cimon had no other method to redeem his father Miltiades's body, but by taking his debt and fetters upon himself. 9. Some offenders who suffered capital punishment, were likewise deprived of burial; those especially who died upon the cross, or were impaled, whom they frequently permitted to be devoured by beasts and birds of prey. To which custom there is an allusion in Horace $: Non hominem occidi; non pasces in cruce corvos. Juvenal also mentioneth the same custom": Vultur jumento, et canibus, crucibusque relictis, And to their craving young the fetid carcase bear. The interpreters of fables will have Prometheus's punishment to The putrid flesh soon dropt and shrunk away, Nor was this inhuman custom practised in that barbarous nation only, but by those who made greater pretensions to civility and good manners, as may appear from the dream of Polycrates's daughter, who fancied she saw her father's face washed by Jupiter, and anointed by the sun; which was accomplished not long after, when he was hung upon the cross, and exposed to the rain Diogenes Laërtius Democrito. s Lib. i. epist. 16. t Sat. xvi. v. 77. u Lib. xiii and sun-beams ▾. Hither also may be referred the answer of Theodorus the philosopher, who being threatened with crucifixion by king Lysimachus, replied, that it was all one to him to be above beneath the ground ". 10. In some places it was customary to inter the bodies of infants who had no teeth, without consuming them to ashes*; to which custom Juvenal hath this allusion: Naturæ imperio geminus, cum funus adultæ The tears drop from our eyes when in the street, DRYDEN. If persons who had incurred public hatred, had the good fortune to obtain human burial, it was customary to leap upon their tombs, and cast stones at them, in token of detestation and abhorrence; which practice is mentioned by Euripides 2; ἐκθρώσκει τάφῳ, Πέτροις τε λεύει μνῆμα λάϊνον πατρός. -He leaps upon his parent's tomb, Nor was it unfrequent to punish notorious offenders, by dragging their remains out of their retirement, and depriving them of the graves to which they had no just pretension, as may appear from several instances. Sacrilegious persons were commonly thus treated. A remarkable instance whereof we find at Athens, where Cylo, an ambitious nobleman, having seized the citadel, and being there straitly besieged, found means to escape with his brother, leaving his accomplices to the mercy of the besiegers; they fled therefore, for protection to the altars, whence there was no method to draw them, but by promising them pardon: but no sooner had they left their sanctuaries, when the magistrates, contrary to their covenant, put them to death; upon which facts, themselves were afterwards arraigned and banished, the deities so commanding: nor was this alone satisfactory to divine vengeance, till their graves were rifled, and their remains, which had been conveyed into Attica, cast out of the country". Traitors were condemned to the same punishment; which appears, as from several instances, so from Phrynichus the Athenian, ▾ Herodot. Thalia. w Cicero Tusc. Quæst. lib. i. x Plinius Nat. Hist. lib. vii. y Satir. xv. v. 139. z Electra. a Plutarch, de serâ Numinis vindictâ. who being arraigned and condemned for treason, some time after his funeral, his tomb was opened, and his reliques thrown out of Attica b. The same was sometimes practised upon enemies, when their malice and fury were extended beyond the ordinary bounds of martial law, and hurried them on to despoil the sacred temples, and commit unsufferable villanies; otherwise, thus to treat a lawful and honourable enemy, was always censured as barbarous and inhuman. But, above all, it seems to have been the fate of tyrants, who were esteemed of all other savage beasts the most hurtful and pernicious to mankind: wherefore we are told by Plutarch, that Dion was extremely censured for hindering the Syracusans from breaking up the tomb of the elder Dionysius, and scattering his bones: Periander the Corinthian tyrant (by some reckoned amongst the seven wise men), to prevent his incensed subjects from venting their fury upon his reliques, contrived this method: he commanded two young men to walk in the depth of the night in a certain path, and killing the first man they met, to bury him privately; to dispatch and inter these, he commissioned four, after whom he sent others; and after these a greater force, to treat the former in the same manner; whereby it came to pass, that the tyrant himself, meeting the first pair, was interred in a place nnknown to any mand. Other methods were likewise used to secure peace to their ashes, the disturbance whereof was looked on as the highest affront, and the greatest misfortune in the world: to instance, we find Medea in Euripides resolving to bury her sons in Juno Acræa's temple, hoping that the holiness of the place would protect them from the malice of her enemies *: ἐπὶ σφὰς τῇδ' ἐγὼ θάψω χερὶ, On the height where Juno's shrine b Lycurgus Orat, in Leocratem. c Dione. POTTER. d Diogenes Laërtius Periandro. CHAP. II. Of the Ceremonies in Sickness, and Death. WHEN HEN any person was seized with a dangerous distemper, it was usual to fix over his door a branch of rhamn and laurel trees: which custom is mentioned by Laërtius, in his life of Bion the Boristhenite: Ράμνος τε, καὶ κλάδον δάφνης Ὑπὲρ θύρην ἔθηκεν The door of Bion's house is seen With rhamnus and with laurel green; That should death come to break his rest, C. S The former of these plants seems designed to keep off evil spirits: against which it was reputed a sovereign amulet; and on that account sometimes joined with the epithet xlxaxes, as in this fragment of Euphorio: Αλεξίκακον φύε ράμνον. Produced the rhamn, against mischievous ills An antidote. The laurel was joined to it, to render the god of physic propitious, who, they thought, could design no harm to any place where he found the monument of his beloved Daphne. These boughs they termed ἀντήνας Ε. It may not be improper to observe in this place, that all sudden deaths of men were imputed to Apollo; whence Hector, having lain unburied twelve days, and being, by the special favour of heaven, preserved fresh and free from corruption, Hecuba resembles him to one dead, not of a lingering and wearing distemper, but by a sudden death; the former being thin and consumed away, the latter fat and fleshy & : Νῦν δέ μοι ἐρσήεις και πρόσφατος ἐν μεγάροισι Yet glow'st thou fresh with every living grace, No mark of pain, or violence of face, Rosy and fair as Phoebus' silver bow Dismiss'd thee gently to the shades below. POPE. The sudden death of women was attributed to Diana; whence Glaucus, in the same poet, speaking of Hippodamia" : Τὴν δὲ χολασαμένη χρυσήνιος "Αρτεμις ἔκτα. Incens'd Diana her depriv'd of life. f Etymologici Auctor. Iliad. . v. 757. Iliad. '. v. 205. Again, Achilles wishes that Briseis had been snatched away by a sudden death, rather than have been the occasion of dissention between him and Agamemnon!: Τὴν ὄφελ ̓ ἂν νήεσσι κατακτάμεν Αρτεμις ἰῷ, COWPER. The poet has explained his own meaning in another place), where Eumenes reports, that in the isle of Syria, the inhabitants never die of lingering distempers, but, being arrived at a good old age, drop into their graves without any previous torment; Πένη δ ̓ οὔποτε δῆμον ἰσέρχεται, ἐδέ τις ἄλλη POPE. Again, Ulysses inquires of his mother in the regions below, whether she resigned her life under a tedious disease, or Diana's hand : Αλλ' ἄγε, μοὶ τόδε ἐπὶ, ἢ ἀτρεκέως κατάλεξον, Τις νύ σε κὴρ ἐδάμασσε τανηλεγέος θανάτοιο, Η δολιχὴ νῆσος ; ἢ Αρτεμις ιοχέαιρα Οἷς ἀγανοῖς βελέεσσιν ἐποιχομένη κατέπεφνεν. But speak, my mother, and the truth alone; What stroke of fate slew thee? Fell'st thou a prey To some slow malady? or by the shafts COWPER. Other instances may be produced to the same purpose: the ground of this opinion was Apollo's being usually taken for the sun, and Diana for the moon: which planets were believed to have a great influence on human life 1. All dead persons were thought to be under the jurisdiction of the infernal deities; and therefore no man could resign his life till some of his hairs were cut, to consecrate him to them: hence Euripides introduces death with a sword, going to cut off some of i Iliad, . v. 59. j Odyss. . v. 406. Ibid. x. v. 169. VOL. II. ! Heraclides (vel potius Heraclitus) Ponticus de Allegor. Homer. Eustathius, Iliad. v. 205. et Iliad. . 59. &c. M |