104 ON THE ORIGIN OF CREMATION, 



life. Others again, he says, understood the one rite as refer- 

 ring to Phaeton, and the other to the flood of Deucalion. 



Sunt quia Phaethonta referri 



Credant, et nimias Deucalionis aquas. 



Ibid. v. 793. 



Pierius, in his Hieroglyphic^ quotes the language of Plau- 

 tus, as affording a proof that the ancient Romans ascribed a 

 purifying virtue to fire. 



Quid impurate, quanquam Volcano studes, 

 Ccenae ne causa, aut mercedis gratia, 

 Nos nostras aedes postulas comburere ? 



Aulular. ap Pier. fol. 343. E. 



Pierius, however, remarks, that they made a distinction be- 

 tween the use of fire and water, viewing the one as the means 

 of purification, the other of expiation. Ignis autem, ut nostri 

 veteres tradidcre, purgat ; aqua expiat, lustratque. 



As both these modes of purification were practised long be- 

 fore the Romans had a national existence, it is not surprising 

 that the ritual poet found himself quite at a loss to account for 

 their origin. Though I do not pretend to determine from 

 whom the Romans received these rites ; yet the analogy, not 

 only in the use, but in the conjunction of these, with that ordi- 

 nance given to the Hebrews, with respect to the spoils taken 

 in war, is too striking to be passed over in silence : " The gold 

 " and the silver, the brass, the iron, the tin and the lead, eve- 

 " ry thing that may abide the fire, ye shall make it go through 

 " the fire, and it shall be clean \ nevertheless, it shall be puri- 

 " fled with the water of separation : and all that abideth not 



" the 



