MERGE TO GYRENE. 
457 
rate the intensity of affliction by diverting the mind from the loss 
of the deceased to the honours which are paid to their memory. 
The shades of the departed were also supposed to take delight in 
the attention bestowed upon their mortal remains ; and to wander 
with complacency over the gay and costly chambers which piety and 
affection had consecrated to their use. A departure from the esta- 
blished practice of the ancients in the exterior decorations of their 
temples and public buildings, ought not then perhaps to be received, 
in the instances mentioned, as a mark of vitiated taste, or of the 
recent date of the fabric in which such anomaly may be observed : 
and in applying this remark to the excavated tombs at Cyrene 
(scarcely any two of which are alike in their proportions) we have 
the more reason to regret the almost total absence of inscriptions, by 
which the dates of the several fabrics might be clearly ascertained. 
It is probable that many of these might be found on tablets, once 
let into, or placed over, some part of each tomb ; and now buried 
beneath the soil and the wrecks of the exterior facades, which 
incumber the chambers and the approaches to them. In many 
instances busts have been placed over the pediments of the outer 
porticoes, and we often found fragments of statues in the chambers 
and cell® within. So many of the tombs are however filled up to a 
considerable height above the level of their pavement with an accu- 
mulation of soil from without, that it is scarcely possible to say what 
they contain ; while the entrances are usually incumbered with the 
fragments of the fallen porticoes which once formed the ornaments 
of the exteriors. On the day of our arrival at Cyrene we perceived 
