BURIAL. 



" I will not affirm it to be true, that tliefe never arc inter- 

 red till tome bird or dog has uifcovtred a propenfity to piey 

 on them. This, however, is unquelHonably certain of tlicr 

 Magi, who publicly obferve this ciillom. The Pcrlians (iril 

 evciofe the dead body in wax, and afterwards place it in 

 the ground." The cuilom to which Herodotus litre par- 

 ticularly alludes as the exciufivc privilege of the Magi, was 

 afterwards iniverfally adopted : and, in part, Hill continues. 

 The place of burial of the Gncbres, at the dillance of half 

 a Iea;;ue from Ifpahan, is a round tower made of free ftone : 

 it is 35 feet hic;h, and 90 in diameter, without gate, or any 

 kind of entrance ; they afcend it by a ladder. In the midll 

 of the tower is a kind of trench, into which the bones are 

 thrown. The bodies are ranged alone; the wall in tluir pro- 

 per cloaths, upon a fmall couch, with bottles of wine, and 

 viduals. The ravens which fiil tlie ca-nietery, devour them. 

 (Chardin's Travels.) An csaft model of this curious towtr 

 is preferved in the Britifli Mufeum. 



Among the Egyptians, the body having been embalmed 

 by perfons legally appouUed to the exercife of the profel- 

 fion, was returned to the relations, who enclofcd it in a cafe 

 of wood made to refemble an human ligure, and placed it 

 againft the wall in the repofitory of their dead. (Herod. 

 Euterpe. Ixxxvi.) 



The cuftom of burning the dead, to which we have already 

 alluded, is, however, of higher antiquity than we may at 

 tirft fuppofe. Saul was burnt at Jabelh, and his bones after- 

 wards buried ; and Ala was burnt in the bed whieh he had 

 made for himfelf, filled with fiveet odours, and divers kinds 

 of fpices ; but the practice exifled, we are aflured, neither 

 in Perfia nor Egypt : the Perfians thought it profane to feed 

 a divinity with human carcafcs ; and tlje Egyptians ablior- 

 red it on another account, being fully ptrfuaded that fire 

 was a voracious animal, which devoured whatever it could 

 feize ; and when faturated, finally expired with what it had 

 confumed. The Egyptians alio held it unlawfid to expt^fe 

 the bodies of the dead to animals ; for which reafon they 

 embalmed them, fearing left after interment, they might 

 become the prey of worms. (Herod. Tii.ilia. xvi.) In 

 Perfia, too, at the time Herodotus wrote, the cuftom of 

 burying alive was comm.on : and he was told that Ameftris, 

 the wife of Xerxes, when ftie was of an advanced age, com- 

 manded fourteen Perfian children of illuftrious birth to be 

 interred alive in honour of t!ie deity whom they fuppofed to 

 txift under the earth. (Polymnia, cxiv.) 



Of the ancient Ethiopian praftice we have a more minute 

 defcription, related on the tradition of Cambyfes' fpies. 

 •' After all the moifturc is extracted from the body, by the 

 Egyptian, or fome other procefs, they cover it totally with 

 a kind of plaifter, which they decorate with various colours, 

 and make it convey as near a refemblance as may be of the 

 peifon of the deceafed. They then inclofe it in a hollow 

 pillar of cryftal, which is dug up in great abundance, and 

 of a kind that is eafily w orked. The deceafed is very con- 

 fpicuous through the cryftal, has no difagreeable fmell, nor 

 any thing elfe that is ofFenfive. This coffin the ncarcft rela» 

 tions keep for a twelvemonth in their houles, offering before 

 it different kinds of victims, and the firft-fruits of their 

 lands. Thefe are after.vards removed, and fet up round the 

 city." 



The funeral cerLmonials attending the Scythian kings 

 were ftill more fingular. They were embalmed, and after- 

 wards tranfported through the different provinces of their 

 kingdom, till they were at laft brought to the Gerlhi, in 

 the remoteft parts of Scythia. Here the corpfe was placed 

 upon a coucli, (round which, at different diltances, were fixed 

 daggers ; and upon the whole, pieces of wood covired with. 



branches of willow) in a trench, nigh the fpot where the 

 Boryftlunes begins to be navigable. In fome ollur parts of 

 tliis trench one of the concubines of the deceafed, who had 

 been previoiidy ftrangled, together with iiis baker, cook, 

 groom, moll confidential firvants, liorfcs, and choictft ef- 

 fects, were buried ; and a mound as high as pofiible raifed 

 above the whole. ( Htrod. Melpomene, Ixxii.) Witii regard, 

 however, to tlic Scythians in general, the praftice was more- 

 finiple. When any one died, the neighbours placed the 

 body on a carriage, and carried it about to the dillVrent ac- 

 quaintance of the deceafed ; thefe prepared fome entertain- 

 ment for tlu/fe who accompanied the corpfe ; placing before 

 the body t!ie fame as before the left. Private perfons, after 

 being tliu."! carried about for the fjjace of forty days, were 

 buried. But the Scythians did not all of them obferve the 

 fame cuftoms with relpcft to tluir funerals : there wert fomt 

 who fulpended the dead bodies from a tree, and in that Hate 

 left them to putrefy. " Of what confequence," fays Plu- 

 tarch, " is it to Theodoras, whether he rots in tlie earth, 

 or upon it .' Such with the Scythians is the moft honour- 

 able funeral." The cuftom is alfo mentioned by Silius Ita- 

 licus : 



" At gente in Scythica fuffixa cadavera trmcis, 

 Lenta dies fepelit, putri liquentia tube." 

 The African Nomades obferved the fame ceremonies with 

 the Greeks, but the Nafamonfs buried their deceafed in a 

 fitting nttiltirle ; and were particularly careful, as any one ap- 

 proached his end, to prevent his expiring in a reclined pof- 

 ture. (Herod. Melpomene, cxc.) 



Erom the anecdotes of burial which have already been 

 detailed, it (hould feem, that both among the Jews and 

 Heathens, the place of interment was ufually without the 

 city. Such, alfo, was the cafe with the Athenians, tlie 

 Smyrnasans, the Sicyonians, the Coiinthians, and the Syra- 

 cufans. The examples of Numa and Scrvius Tulhis prove, 

 thai the Pvomans depofited their dead without the city before 

 the introduction of the twelve tables; and it was a fpecial 

 privilege granted by the fenate to particular perfons, that 

 they ftiould be buried vi'ithin the walls; (Cic.de Leg. ii. 23.) 

 and the Jews, at leaft in the latter days of their exiftence as 

 a nation, as we learn from the inftances of Lazarus, (John 

 xi. 38.) the widow's fon at Nain, (Lukevii. ij.) and the 

 dead that were raifed at the crucifixion, .(Matt, xxvii. ^3.) 

 obferved the lame place of burial. I'he hacedannwmn: , 

 however, buried within it. It had been a notion univerfally 

 prevalent, that the touch of a dead body conveyed pollu- 

 tion ; and Lycurgus, the legiQatorof Sparta, was ambitious 

 to remove the prejudice, tie not only introduced the cuf- 

 tom of burial within the city, but ercfled monuments near 

 the temples, that the youth might be trained from their 

 infancy to the view of luch objects, nor fnudder at the fpec- 

 tacle of death. 



The ancient Greeks and Romans were ftrongly perfuaded 

 that their fouls could not be admitted into the Elyfian 

 fields, till their bodies were committed to the earth: and if 

 it happened that they never obtained the rites of burial, tiiey 

 were fuppofed to remain in a wandering Hate, excluded from 

 the li"Ppy manfions, for the term of 100 years. For this 

 reafon it was confidered as a. duty incumbent upon all tra- 

 vellers who (hould meet with a drad bcdy in their way, to 

 caft dull or mould upon it three times ; and of thefe three 

 handfuls, one, at leall, was caft upon the head. 



Of thofe who were allowed the rites of burial, fome were 

 dillinguiftied by particular circumliances of difgrace attend- 

 ing their interment : [Hrfons killed by lightning were buried- 

 apait by themlclvcs, being thought odious to the gods ; (fee 

 Plin. ii. j4.) thole who walled their patrimony, forfeited the 



right 



