CHAP. III. tasted, they have far exceeded the palates of antiquity. Liquors not to be computed by years of annual magistrates, but by great conjunctions and the fatal periods of kingdoms1. The 34 draughts of consulary date were but crude unto these, and Opimian wine 2 but in the must unto them. Twelve [4] In sundry graves and sepulchres we meet Laws of the with rings, coins, and chalices. Ancient frugality was so severe, that they allowed no gold to attend the corpse, but only that which served to fasten their teeth s. Whether the Opaline stone in this were burnt upon the finger of the dead, or cast into the fire by some affectionate friend, it will consist with either custom. But other incinerable substances were found so fresh, that they could feel no singe from fire. These, upon view, were judged to be wood; but, sinking in water, and tried by the fire, we found them to be bone or ivory. In their hardness and yellow colour they most resembled box, which, in old expressions, found the epithet of eternal, and perhaps in such conservatories might have passed uncorrupted. [5] That bay leaves were found green in the Legend of S. tomb of S. Humbert", after an hundred and Humbert. 1 About five hundred years.-Plato. 2 "Vinum Opimianum annorum centum."-Petron. [Satyr. c. 34]. XII. Tabul. 1. xi. De Jure Sacro. "Neve aurum addito quoi auro dentes vincti escunt, ast im cum illo sepelire urereve, se fraude esto." Plin. 1. xvi. [c. 78?] "Inter έúλa àσany numerat Theophrastus." 5 Surius. fifty years, was looked upon as miraculous. CHAP. III. 35 Remarkable it was unto old spectators, that the cypress of the temple of Diana lasted so many hundred years. The wood of the ark, and olive-rod of Aaron, were older at the captivity; but the cypress of the ark of Noah was the greatest vegetable of antiquity, if Josephus were not deceived by some fragments of it in his days to omit the moor logs and fir trees found under-ground in many parts of England; the undated ruins of winds, floods, or earthquakes, and which in Flanders still show from what quarter they fell, as generally lying in a northeast position 1. : But though we found not these pieces to be [6] wood, according to first apprehensions, yet we missed not altogether of some woody substance; for the bones were not so clearly picked but some coals were found amongst them; a way to make wood perpetual, and a fit associate for metal, whereon was laid the foundation of the great Ephesian temple, and which were made the lasting tests of old boundaries and land36 marks. Whilst we look on these, we admire not observations of coals found fresh after four hundred years 2. In a long-deserted habitation 3 even egg-shells have been found fresh, not tending to corruption. 3 In the monument of King Childerick the iron [7] relicks were found all rusty and crumbling into Tomb of pieces; but our little iron pins, which fastened derick. 1 Gorop. Becanus in Niloscopio. 2 Of Beringuccio nella pyrotechnia. At Elmham. King Chil CHAP. III. the ivory works, held well together, and lost not toms as to mementos tions. their magnetical quality, though wanting a tenacious moisture for the firmer union of parts; although it be hardly drawn into fusion, yet that metal soon submitteth unto rust and dissolution. In the brazen pieces we admired not the duration, but the freedom from rust, and ill savour, upon the hardest attrition; but now exposed unto the piercing atoms of air, in the space of a few months, they begin to spot and betray their green entrails. We conceive not these urns to have descended thus naked as they appear, or to have entered their graves The urn of The Ancient cus without the old habit of flowers. Philopomen was so laden with flowers and and inscrip ribbons, that it afforded no sight of itself. rigid Lycurgus allowed olive and myrtle. The 37 Athenians might fairly except against the practice of Democritus, to be buried up in honey, as fearing to embezzle a great commodity of their country, and the best of that kind in Europe. But Plato seemed too frugally politick, who allowed no larger monument than would contain four heroick verses, and designed the most barren ground for sepulture: though we cannot commend the goodness of that sepulchral (St. Matt. ground which was set at no higher rate than xxviii. 3-10.) the mean salary of Judas. Though the earth had confounded the ashes of these ossuaries, yet the bones were so smartly burnt, that some thin plates of brass were found half melted among them. Whereby we apprehend they were not of the meanest carcases, perfunctorily fired, as sometimes in military, and commonly CHAP. III. in pestilence, burnings; or after the manner of abject corpses, huddled forth and carelessly burnt, without the Esquiline Port at Rome; which was an affront continued upon Tiberius, 38 while they but half burnt his body 1, and in the amphitheatre, according to the custom in notable malefactors; whereas Nero seemed not so much to fear his death as that his head should be cut off and his body not burnt entire. 1 distinct. Some, finding many fragments of skulls in [8] these urns, suspected a mixture of bones; in As to keepnone we searched was there cause of such con- ing ashes jecture, though sometimes they declined not that practice. The ashes of Domitian 2 were mingled with those of Julia; of Achilles with those of Patroclus. All urns contained not single ashes; without confused burnings they affectionately compounded their bones; passionately endeavouring to continue their living unions. And when distance of death denied such conjunctions, unsatisfied affections conceived some satisfaction to be neighbours in the grave, to lie urn by urn, and touch but in their names. And many were so curious to continue their living relations, that they contrived large and family urns, wherein the ashes of their nearest friends and kindred might successively be received 3, at least some parcels 1 Sueton. Vita Tib. [c. lxxv]. "Et in amphitheatro semiustulandum," not. Casaub. 2 Sueton. Vita Domitian. [c. xvii]. 3 See the most learned and worthy Mr. M. Casaubon upon Antoninus. CHAP. III. thereof, while their collateral memorials lay in minor vessels about them. [9] human life among the ancients. Antiquity held too light thoughts from objects 39 Disregard of of mortality, while some drew provocatives of mirth from anatomies, and jugglers showed tricks with skeletons; when fiddlers made not so pleasant mirth as fencers, and men could sit with quiet stomachs, while hanging was played before them 2. Old considerations made few mementos by skulls and bones upon their monuments. In the Egyptian obelisks and hieroglyphical figures it is not easy to meet with bones. The sepulchral lamps speak nothing less than sepulture, and in their literal draughts prove often obscene and antick pieces. Where we find D. M. it is obvious to meet with sacrificing pateras and vessels of libation Jewish Hypo- upon old sepulchral monuments. In the Jewish hypogæum and subterranean cell at Rome, was little observable beside the variety of lamps and frequent draughts of the holy candlestick. In authentick draughts of Anthony and Jerome we meet with thigh bones and death's-heads; but the cemeterial cells of ancient Christians 40 and martyrs were filled with draughts of Scripture stories; not declining the flourishes of cypress, palms, and olive, and the mystical gæum at Rome. 1 "Sic erimus cuncti," &c. "Ergo dum vivimus vivamus." 2 ̓Αγχόνην παίζειν. A barbarous pastime at feasts among the Thracians] when men stood upon a rolling globe, with their necks in a rope, and a knife in their hands, ready to cut it when the stone was rolled away; wherein if they failed, they lost their lives, to the laughter of their spectators.-Athenæus [iv. 42, p. 155]. 3Diis manibus," 1 Bosio. |