CHAP. XIV. BURIAL OF THE ANIMALS. 99 



The above mentioned ceremony, adds Plutarch, 

 of puttmg those animals to death, " being per- 

 formed in secret, and at no fixed season of the 

 year, but as occasion requires, is wholly unknown 

 to the generality of the people, except at the 

 time they celebrate the funeral of some particular 

 species; when openly, and in sight of all, they throw 

 them into the grave, to be buried alive with those 

 whose obsequies they are performing. They 

 imagine that by this means they shall vex Typho, 

 and cut oif the pleasure they suppose he enjoys 

 from the sad event before them." " But the 

 animals, at whose funeral the above-mentioned rite 

 is practised, are such as are honoured and wor- 

 shipped by the whole nation, as the Ibis, the Hawk, 

 the Cynocephalus, and the Apis;" and the se- 

 lection of the others depended, of course, upon the 

 character of the Gods, and of the peculiar emblems, 

 worshipped in the place where those ceremonies 

 took place. 



Peculiar sepulchres were frequently set apart 

 for certain species, and animals of different kinds 

 were not generally buried in the same place. 

 But in large populous places, the mummies of 

 oxen, sheep, dogs, cats, serpents, and fishes were 

 deposited in the same common repository ; though 

 the more usual custom was to bury one or more 

 of each species in a tomb, exclusively appropriated 

 to them : which was usually a small square cavity 

 hewn in the rock, and sometimes of considerable 

 dimensions. 



The promiscuous admission of different animals 



H ^ 



