IN ANCIENT HISTORY. 87 



tumuli in Greece were old even in the time of Homer, and 

 were considered by him to be the burial places of the heroes. 

 Pausanias mentions that stones were collected together, and 

 heaped up over the tomb of Laius, the father of (Edipus. 

 In the time of the Trojan war, Tydeus and Lycus are men- 

 tioned as having been buried Tinder two earthen barrows. 

 " Hector's barrow was of stones and earth. Achilles erected 

 a tumulus upwards of an hundred feet in diameter, over the 

 remains of his friend Patroclus. The mound supposed by 

 Xenophon to contain the remains of Alyattes, father of 

 Croesus, king of Lydia, was of stone and earth, and more 

 than a quarter of a league in circumference.. In later times, 

 Alexander the Great caused a tumulus to be heaped over his 

 friend Hephaestion, at the cost of 1200 talents,., no mean sum, 

 even for a conqueror like Alexander, it being 232,500 ster- 

 ling."* Virgil tells us that Dercennus, king of Latium, 

 was buried under an earthen mound ; and, according to the 

 earliest historians,, whose statements are confirmed by the 

 researches of archaeologists, mound-burial was practised in 

 ancient times by the Scythians, Greeks, Etruscans, Ger- 

 mans, and many other nations. The size of the tumulus 

 may be taken as a rude indication of the estimation in 

 which the deceased was held; the Scotch Highlanders f 

 have still a complimentary proverb, "Curri mi clach er do 

 cuirn," i.e. I will add a stone to your cairn. 



What Schoolcraft says of the North American Indians is 

 applicable to many savage tribes. " Nothing that the dead 

 possessed was deemed too valuable to be interred with the 

 body. The most costly dress, arms, ornaments, and imple- 

 ments, are deposited in the grave ;" which is " always placed 

 in the choicest scenic situations on some crowning hill or 

 gentle eminence in a secluded valley." And the North 



* Ten Years' Diggings in the Celtic and Saxon Gravehills, p. v. 



t Wilson, Pre-historic Annals of Scotland, vol. i., p. 86, second edition. . 



