figures of peacocks, doves, and cocks; but CHAP. III. Gentile inscriptions precisely delivered the [10] The certainty of death is attended with un- [11] 41 certainties, in time, manner, places. The variety of monuments hath often obscured true graves; and cenotaphs confounded sepulchres. For beside their real tombs, many have found honorary and empty sepulchres. The variety of Homer's monuments made him of various countries. Euripides 1 had his tomb in [Attica], Cenotaph of Euripides. but his sepulture in Macedonia. And Severus 2 found his real sepulchre in Rome, but his empty grave in Gallia. 1 3 He that lay in a golden urn 3 eminently above [12] 1 Pausan. in Atticis [i. 21]. 2 Lamprid. Vit. Alexand. Severi. CHAP. III. the earth, was not like to find the quiet of his bones. Many of these urns were broke by a vulgar discoverer in hope of enclosed treasure. The ashes of Marcellus1 were lost above ground, upon the like account. Where profit hath prompted, no age hath wanted such miners; for which the most barbarous expilators found the most civil rhetorick ::- "Gold once out of the earth is no more due unto it ;-what was unreasonably committed to the ground, is reasonably resumed from it ;-let monuments and rich fabricks, not riches, adorn men's ashes;-the commerce of the living is not to be transferred unto the dead;—it is not injustice to take that 42 which none complains to lose, and no man is wronged where no man is possessor." [13] What virtue yet sleeps in this terra damnata and aged cinders, were petty magic to experiment. These crumbling relicks and long fired particles superannuate such expectations; bones, hairs, nails, and teeth of the dead, were the treasures of old sorcerers. In vain we revive such practices; present superstition too visibly perpetuates the folly of our forefathers, wherein unto old observation2 this island was so complete, that it might have instructed Persia. [14] Plato's historian of the other world lies twelve Preservation days incorrupted, while his soul was viewing the of corpses. large stations of the dead. How to keep the 1 Plut. Vita Marcelli. The commission of the Gothish King Theodoric for finding out sepulchral treasure.-Cassiodor. var. I 4. 2 "Britannia hodieque eam attonite celebrat tantis ceremoniis, ut dedisse Persis videri possit."-Plin. l. xxx. [c. 4]. corpse seven days from corruption by anointing CHAP. III. and washing, without exenteration, were an hazardable piece of art, in our choicest practice. How they made distinct separation of bones and ashes from fiery admixture, hath found no historical solution; though they 43 seemed to make a distinct collection, and overlooked not Pyrrhus his toe1. Some provision they might make by fictile vessels, coverings, tiles, or flat stones, upon and about the body (and in the same field, not far from these urns, many stones were found under ground), as also by careful separation of extraneous matter, composing and raking up the burnt bones with forks, observable in that notable lamp of Galvanus 2. Marlianus, who had the sight of the vas ustrinum3 or vessel wherein they burnt the dead, found in the Esquiline field at Rome, might have afforded clearer solution. But their insatisfaction herein begat that remarkable invention in the funeral pyres of some princes, by incombustible sheets made with a texture of asbestos, incremable flax, or salamander's wool, Salamanwhich preserved their bones and ashes incom- der's wool. mixed. How the bulk of a man should sink into so [15] few pounds of bones and ashes, may seem strange unto any who considers not its consti 1 Which could not be burnt. 2 To be seen in Licet. De Reconditis Veterum Lucernis [p. 599]. Topographia Roma ex Marliano. "Erat et vas ustrinum appellatum, quod in eo cadavera comburerentur." Cap. de Campo Esquilino. L CHAP. III. tution, and how slender a mass will remain upon an open and urging fire of the carnal composition. Even bones themselves, reduced 44 into ashes, do abate a notable proportion. And consisting much of a volatile salt, when that is fired out, make a light kind of cinders. Although their bulk be disproportionable to their weight, when the heavy principle of salt is fired out, and the earth almost only remaineth; observable in sallow, which makes more ashes than oak, and discovers the common fraud of selling ashes by measure, and not by ponderation. [16] Some bones make best skeletons 1, some Effect of fire bodies quick and speediest ashes. Who would bodies. expect a quick flame from hydropical Hera on various Plutarch, [לי] clitus? The poisoned soldier when his belly brake, put out two pyres in Plutarch2. But in the plague of Athens 3, one private pyre served two or three intruders; and the Saracens burnt in large heaps, by the king of Castile, showed how little fuel sufficeth. Though the funeral pyre of Patroclus took up an hundred foot", a piece of an old boat burnt Pompey; and if the burthen of Isaac were sufficient for an holocaust, a man may carry his own pyre. From animals are drawn good burning lights, 45 and good medicines against burning". Though the seminal humour seems of a contrary nature 1 Old bones according to Lyserus. Those of young persons not tall nor fat according to Columbus. 2 Vita Gracc. [c. 13]. 4 Laurent. Valla. Thucydides [ii. 52]. 5 Εκατόμπεδον ἔνθα και ἔνθα.—[Homer, //. xxii. 164.] combustible to fire, yet the body completed proves a com- CHAP.III. To burn the bones of the king of Edom for [18] burial. He that looks for urns and old sepulchral [19] relicks, must not seek them in the ruins of Places of temples, where no religion anciently placed them. These were found in a field, according to ancient custom, in noble or private burial; 1 The brain. Hippocrates [De Carn. § 4. tom. i. p. 427, ed. Kühn]. 2 Amos ii. 1. 3 As Artemisia of her husband Mausolus. |