CHAP. XVI. THE JEWS PUNISHED THE DEAD. 437 



whether in their anger they would offer any other 

 injury to it. By this means, and by a promise 

 that nothing should be done without them in the 

 affairs of the kingdom, it was hoped that a more 

 honourable funeral might be obtained than any 

 she could give him, and that his body might be 

 saved from abuse by this appeal to their gene- 

 rosity."* They had also the custom of instituting 

 a general mourning for a deceased monarch t, whose 

 memory they wished to honour. 



But the Egyptians allowed not the same ex- 

 tremes of degradation to be offered to the dead as 

 the Jewst sometimes did to those who had incurred 

 their hatred ; and the body of a malefactor, though 

 excluded from the precincts of the necropolis, was 

 not refused to his friends, that they might perform 

 the last duties to their unfortunate relative. The 

 loss of life and the future vengeance of the Gods 

 was deemed a sufficient punishment, without the 

 addition of insult to his senseless corpse ; and hence 

 the unusual treatment of the body of the robber 

 taken in Rhampsinitus' treasury appeared to his 

 mother a greater affliction than the death of her 

 son. 



It was not, however, a general custom among the 

 Jews to expose the bodies of malefactors, or those 

 who had incurred their hatred : it was thought suf- 

 ficient to deprive them of funeral obsequies ; and 

 the relations were permitted to inter the body in 

 their own house, or in that of the deceased. Thus 



* Joseph. Antiq. xiii. 13. 3. f 1 Kings, xiv. 18. &c. 



J As Jezebel was eaten by doga. 2 Kings, ix. 33. 



T ¥ 3 



