UPON THE SERIES OF PREHISTORIC CRANIA. 685 



us a tradition of its existence amongst the Greeks themselves ; and 

 from Virgil's allusions (^Eueid, x. 518-520, xi. 81, 82) and Ter- 

 tullian's suggestion (De Spectaculis, xii) as to the origination of 

 gladiatorial shows from the sacrificing of men at funerals, we know 

 that the Italian races were at one time guilty of the same cruelty. 

 ' Necdum ea setate/ says Heyne, Virg. I.e. } ' metuendum fuit 

 Maroni ne displiceret immane facinus lectoribus/ such sacrifices 

 having been abolished, as Pliny (H. N. xxx. 3. 4) tells us, by the 

 Romans, only in the year 97 B.C. Still, in spite of these familiar 

 and a cloud of other testimonies 1 of the literary kind in favour 



1 As regards the literature of immolation at funerals, the following references may 

 be given in addition to those given in the text : 



Herod, iv. 71, the words in which, eireira pii//l fcaraffrfya^ovffi- \v 8e rr} \onry evpv- 

 Xwpiy T '7 S Qr}Kr]s, ru>v ira\\aKe(uv re (Aiav aTroirvigavrfs OairTovffi, K.r.\., find a detailed 

 illustration in Mr. Joseph Anderson's translation of Professor Holmboe's Danish version 

 of the Arabic account by Ahmed Fozlan of the cremation of a Norse chief, Proc. Soc. 

 Ant. Scot., May 13, 1872, especially p. 525. Dr. Joseph Anderson, 1. c. p. 522, refers 

 to the Volsunga Saga as giving an account of the erection of a tent by Brynhild 

 Gunnar over the pile on which she was to be burnt with Sigurd's corpse. J. C. P. 

 Baehr, vol. iv. p. 560 of his 1832 edition of Herodotus, supplies the following refer- 

 ences from Clarke's Travels in illustration of the account given by Herodotus of the 

 funeral of a Scythian chief : i. pp. 32, 38, 199, 316, 338 coll., 354, 399, 432 seqq. 

 I have not been able to verify these references, and they are omitted in Baehr's later 

 edition, I. c. I owe to him however many of the following references bearing prin- 

 cipally upon the practice of widow-immolation : 



Hdt. v. 5. 



Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 27. 



Diodorus Siculus, xvii. 91, and xix. 33, 34. 



Strabo, xv. 1. 30. 699; xv. 1. 62. 714. 



Propertius, iv. 12-15. 



Nicolaus Damascenus, fragm. 143, 155-161; 3. 463. 



Valerius Maximus, ii. 6. 



Plutarch, ii. 499. 



Mela, ii. 2 ; iii. 2. 



Pausanias, iv. 2. 5. 



.Elian, V. H. vii. 18. 



Servius, fl. A.D. 390, ad Verg. ^En. vi. 228. 



Theodoret, Or. ad Grsecos, ix. p. 129. 



Stephanus Byzantinus, s. v. Terta. 



With reference to this last-cited author it may be remarked that he makes no 

 mention of any competition existing between the widows for the right of immolation 

 on the occasion of the husband's death. To the fact, however, of such a competition 

 existing we have the evidence, whatever it may be worth, of Herodotus v. 5, Cicero, 

 Propertius, Diodorus, Strabo, Valerius Maximus, Nicolaus Damascenus, and Mela, 

 loco. citt. 



Grimm, Das Verbrennen der Leichen, Kleinere Schriften, p. 300, agrees with Strabo, 

 xv. 1. 30, in considering as inadequate the reason reported or assigned by both 

 Strabo and Diodorus, xvii. 91, for the origin of widow-burning, an institution for the 

 establishment of which, as we know from Professor Max Mtiller, 'Chips from a 

 German Workshop,' ii. 34, ibique citatis, it was necessary to falsify the Vedas. He 

 does not say why he repudiates the reason mentioned by those two writers, on tpwaai 

 irore raiv vtcav at yvvaTKes d^foratj/To rwv dvSpwv 77 <papfianfvoiv avrovs, which how- 

 ever does not appear a wholly improbable one ; nor, though he refers, p. 296 note, 



