other practices relating to burial, by the Romans; and prevailed also among the Northern Tribes of Europe, as appears from the accounts of Cæsar and Tacitus. Pliny denies the early prevalence of Cremation (Combustio). But in this he stands in opposition to Plato, Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid, all of whom recognise it as a very ancient rite. He also stands in opposition to himself, since he afterwards says (Lib. 14, Cap. 12), that Numa forbade that the funeral pile should be sprinkled with wine; a prohibition certainly useless, if the pile was not known. nor used. But what determines this question in reference to the Romans is the law of the Twelve Tables, which prohibited both the burying and burning of dead bodies within the limits of the city. It was, however, not used by the Egyptians and Persians on account of objections derived from their peculiar mythology, the former regarding fire as a raging monster which devoured everything with which it came into contact, and died itself with what it last devoured; and the latter considering fire as a god, who would be contaminated by the touch of a dead body. It is not known certainly when cremation fell into disuse. It was not practised in the time of Theodosius the younger, since Macrobius who lived in his time expressly says it was not. It is supposed to have fallen into desuetude through the influence of the Christian fathers, and to have ceased with the Antonini.* "Perhaps," says Sir Thomas Brown, "Christianity fully established, gave the final extinction to these sepulchral bonfires." The practice is supposed to have had its origin in different causes. Some,† thought that This viz. satisfied, that the conclusion to which he arrives is the true one. is, that the Hebrews burnt frankincense and other odorous substances, and the couches or biers of the dead only, while the Greeks and Romans burned these and the body also. And that even this was confined to persons of the highest distinction. In three of the above texts 2 Chron. xxi. 19, which refers to Jehoram; 2 Chron. xvi. 14, which refers to Asa; and Jeremiah xxxiv. 5, which refers to Zedekiah, it is not said, that they were burned, but only "that burnings were made for them," probably alluding to the custom above stated. In the two remaining texts the burying of the bones, after the burning, is so stated that it seems necessary to infer, that the burning of the body, if it took place at all, was only a partial one, and therefore wholly unlike that of the Heathens. * We do not know Mr. Blanchard's authority for saying that "Burial was almost uniformly the Roman usage."-"Address," p. 11. † See an eloquent passage in Quinctilian Decla. 10. the action of fire was necessary to purify the soul from its earthliness, so that it might return to its primal source. Others resorted to it, for the purposes of securing the remains of the dead from insult and outrage. "To be gnawed out of our graves," says the author just quoted, " to have our skulls made into drinking-bowls, and our bones turned into pipes, to delight and sport our enemies, are tragical abominations escaped in burning burials."***" Again, he that hath the ashes of a friend, hath an everlasting treasure; where fire taketh leave, corruption slowly enters.' As we shall have occasion to refer again to this subject, in describing the mode of Cremation, we only add here, that some were excluded from this rite. Thus the bodies of infants, as Pliny tells us, (Lib. 7, Cap. 6,) before the appearance of their first tooth, must be buried, not burned.* The place was called Suggrundarium, in contradistinction to Bustum, or funeral pile, and to Sepulchrum, or grave; there being no bones of a consistency to be burned, and no perceptible bulk to be inhumed. Those stricken with lightning were in like manner prohibited from Cremation, but were buried, if possible, where they fell. We have stated that Inhumation, or burying the bodies of the dead in the earth, and Cremation, or burning these bodies, were the principal methods of disposing of them in ancient times. There have prevailed, however, other practices, to which, in the hope of giving some completeness to his account of modes of burial, we shall briefly refer. The people who lived near the Riphean mountains, according to Pliny, buried the remains of their dead in water. The Ichthyophagi, or fish-eating people about Egypt, did the same. "And water certainly," according to Sir Thomas Browne, “ has proved the smartest grave, which in forty days swallowed almost * Juvenal also, in his 15th Satire, refers to the same fact, though Mr. Gifford in his translation seems not to have been aware of it; "Some babe-by fate's inexorable doom, Just shown on earth, and hurried to the tomb " in which the peculiar force of "et minor igne rogi" appears to be wholly overlooked. VOL. XXXI. 3D. S. VOL. XIII. NO. II. 21 all mankind." Some tribes of people heap up stones on the corpses of the dead. The Persian magi exposed them to dogs and wild beasts. The Ballarians crowded them into urns without burning, and heaped wood upon them. The Scythians affixed them to trunks of trees, and kept them in snow and ice. Some of the Ethiopians, removing the fleshy integuments of the dead bodies, supplied their place with plaster, and laid on this a kind of fresco, which was made to imitate the natural body. This being kept in a glazed coffin, during the space of a year, was afterwards buried without the environs of the city. The Colchians and Tartars exposed their dead to the air, tying the bodies to branches of trees, where they remained till they were dried, and then buried them. The Persians, Syrians, and ancient Arabians preserved the remains of the dead by a covering of aspheltum, wax, and honey. According to Statius and others, the body of Alexander the Great was preserved in this way; and it is said by Strabo* to be a custom common among the Babylonians. Certain people of Guinea disinter their dead, when they are supposed to have become skeletons, and then decorate these ghastly remains with feathers and ornaments, and hang them up in their houses. The Chinese often preserve the bodies of parents, carefully guarded from the air, for three or four years in their houses, or in small habitations built for the purpose outside of the city, where one of the family, commonly the eldest son, presents offerings of rice, wine, and tea, and takes especial care, that the sticks of incense, called jos sticks, are kept constantly burning. The Ethiopians, according to Herodotus, dry the bodies of their dead, and then, making them to look as much like life as possible, by means of plaster and paint, enclose them within columns of glass or amber, or in a species of transparent fossil salt. But we need not dwell longer on these various methods of disposing of the relics of the dead. Among semi-barbarous people they vary with almost every tribe; while nations of a higher culture have almost without exception confined themselves to Inhumation or Interment in some of its various forms, or to Cremation and Urn-burial, In connexion with these modes of burial we refer, as briefly as possible, to some of the more remarkable Rites and Forms * Quoted by Frederic Müller, Lib. de Sepulchris Hebræorum veterum, p. 11. in which these last offices have been performed. The earliest as well as fullest account, we have of these, is that of Homer.* But they did not differ materially from that observed by the Romans, who, indeed, copied them from the former, and which, as they will be described at length elsewhere, we pass by here, and begin our account with the Funeral Rites of the Egyptians These were very remarkable, and in some respects different from all others. Among them the following may be briefly referred to.t When any one died, the females of the family, covering their heads and faces with mud, and leaving the body in the house, ran through the streets, striking themselves, and uttering loud lamentations. Hired mourners were employed to increase these manifestations of grief. The body was then conveyed to the embalmers. The mourning family, during seventy-two days, continued their lamentations at home, singing the funeral dirge, abstaining from all amusements, suffering their hair and beard to grow, neglecting their personal comfort and appearance, in token of their grief. The body having been embalmed was restored to the family, either already placed in the mummy case, or merely wrapped in bandages. It was then "carried forth" and deposited in the hearse, and drawn upon a sledge to the sacred lake of the Nome, or department to which it belonged. Before the body could be finally buried, the deceased must be adjudged worthy of the last funeral rites by a tribunal, consisting of forty-two judges appointed for the purpose, who were placed in a semicircle near the bank of the sacred lake, and who examined the details of his life and character. If after due hearing the judges condemned him, his body was not permitted to cross the sacred lake, and his memory was indelibly disgraced. If, on the other hand, no charges were brought against him, or being brought, were proved to be groundless, his relatives took off the badges of mourning, and pronounced an eulogium on his virtues, but without speaking of his birth or rank, as was done in Greece, since the Egyptians thought that all their countrymen were equally noble. No one was exempted by his rank from this ordeal. Kings as well as subjects, * The funeral of Patroclus is elaborately described in the 23d book of the Iliad. + Diodorus Siculus, Lib. 1, 92. See also Pettigrew above cited, p. 291, also, Wilkinson, vol. 2, ch. 16. From these authorities the accounts in the text have been compiled. the high and the low, those whom, while living, none dared to approach, and the humblest individual, were, after death, liable to be subjected to the most rigorous examination. The body was then taken across the lake, carried to the catacombs which were previously prepared, and placed in its final resting place. Other circumstances are added to this account by other writers.* It is said, there was a common burial place, called Acherusia ; that there was a pit called Tartar, into which the bodies of the wicked were thrown; that a small sum was paid to the ferryman who carried the body across the lake in his boat; and that the cemetery on the further side, to which the remains of the good were consigned, was called Elisont, a word meaning a place of rest. The whole ceremony of interment is supposed to have consisted in simply depositing the prepared mummy in the appointed place, with the throwing upon it three handfuls of sand, and the utterance of three loud adieus. It is very obvious, that in these circumstances, as well as in the whole arrangement of the Grecian Pantheon, which was probably derived from the Egyptians, we find the elements of the classical Myths concerning Acheron, Tartarus, Charon, with his boat and ferriage money, and the fields of Elysium. This subject will be continued and concluded in our next number. J. B. THE generation of men, now upon the stage of active life, have sometimes been charged with a want of proper respect for existing institutions, customs, and opinions. Whether there is much reason for this imputation, we shall not pretend to decide. Certainly, the fact, that a thing is, has not, of late, been commonly regarded as evidence conclusive that it ought to be. There has been manifested a disposition to reexamine practices and opinions, and to explore thoroughly and nicely the grounds on which they profess to rest. In the progress of * See Lectures on Hieroglyphics, by the Marquis Spineto. London. 1829. |