116 ON THE ORIGIN OF CREMATION, 
should exercise all possible diligence that they might regularly 
provide venison for the table of the god. The Emperor Ju- 
LIAN affirms, that “ while Hercunzs was a child, his divine bo- 
“ dy made gradual increase *.” The fire, then, was believed 
to consume the mortal part only ; that the soul, with that por- 
tion of the corporeal frame which was deemed originally im- 
mortal, might be received into the celestial regions. Such was 
the virtue of the flames, that, like those of the phoenix, they 
removed the infirmities of age, and communicated eternal 
youth. Hence Turocritus, who gives the same honour to 
ALEXANDER the Great, and to Protzmy [Lagus, as to Hercu- 
LES, Says : 
“Orrs oar Keovidas meréwy elerrero yeas: 
Idyll. xvii. ver. 24, 
Or, as it is rendered by our English translator ; 
On each, great Jove reprieve from age bestow’d, 
And call’d immortal, rais’d into a god. 
Hercutes is, by the tragic poet Seneca, made to give the 
same account of his apotheosis to his mother AtcMENa, in a 
passage which exhibits the heathen creed on this point more- 
distinctly perhaps than any other now extant, 
Quicquid in nobis tui 
Mortale fuerit, ignis evectus tulit ; 
Paterna ceelo pars data est, flammis tua. 
Hercul. @é. ver. 1966. 
This wonderful virtue of the funeral pile, was not, however, 
entirely confined to demigods. For Scytia, who had been’ 
slain by Hercutes, was raised from the dead, and rendered -im- 
mortal 
* ‘Heaxngs 22 Abyeras maiDlov ryeviobees, noi nad mingiy dura rd oie +o Deroy ETIOEymn 
Juxtay. Imp. Orat. vii. p. 408, ap. Spannem. Obsery.:in Catiimacn. p. 240. 
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