CENTURY VIII. 45 



to be preserved be not of that gross that it may cor 

 rupt within itself, although no part of it issue into the 

 body adjacent : and therefore it must be rather thin 

 and small, than of bulk. There is a fourth remedy 

 also ; which is, that if the body to be preserved be of 

 bulk, as a corpse is, then the body that incloseth it 

 must have a virtue to draw forth and dry the moisture 

 of the inward body ; for else the putrefaction will play 

 within, though nothing issue forth. I remember Livy 

 doth relate, that there were found at a time two coffins 

 of lead in a tomb ; whereof the one contained the body 

 of King Numa ; it being some four hundred years after 

 his death ; and the other, his books of sacred rites and 

 ceremonies, and the discipline of the pontiffs ; and that 

 in the coffin that had the body, there was nothing at all 

 to be seen, but a little light cinders about the sides; 

 but in the coffin that had the books, they were found as 

 fresh as if they had been but newly written, being writ 

 ten in parchment, and covered over with watch-candles 

 of wax three or four fold. By this it seemeth that the 

 Romans in Numa s time were not so good embalmers 

 as the Egyptians were ; which was the cause that the 

 body was utterly consumed. But I find in Plutarch 

 and others, that when Augustus Caesar visited the 

 sepulchre of Alexander the Great in Alexandria, he 

 found the body to keep his dimension ; but withal, 

 that notwithstanding all the embalming, (which no 

 doubt was of the best,) the body was so tender, as 

 Caasar, touching but the nose of it, defaced it. 1 Which 



1 This story is not mentioned by Plutarch, nor, so far as I am aware, by 

 any authorities except Suetonius and Dio Cassius. The latter mentions 

 that Augustus broke off a piece of the nose. See Suet, in Aug. ii. 18., and 

 Dio Cassius, li. 16. The opening of Numa s coffin is described by Livy, 

 fl. 29., who, however, does not say that any cinders were found in it. 



