462 
MERGE TO GYRENE. 
sant, would in all probability be broken in pieces the moment it 
became an object of particular notice. The style of architecture in 
which the monumental tombs have been constructed varies according 
to the dates of the building, and apparently, also, to the consequence 
of the persons interred in them ; the order employed is almost always 
Doric, particularly in the earlier examples. It seems probable that 
the custom of burying the entire body obtained very generally in 
Gyrene and other cities of the Pentapolis ; and this is one of the few 
instances in which we perceive any analogy between the customs of 
the Cyreneans and those of the Egyptians. It is certain, however, 
that the practice of burning the bodies, and of preserving the ashes 
in urns, prevailed also among the inhabitants of the Cyrenaica as it 
did in other Grecian states At the present day there are no 
remains either of bodies or of cinereal urns in any of the tombs with 
which we are acquainted, one of them only excepted : in which a leg 
and foot, which appeared to have been rather dried than embalmed, 
was found in a very perfect state. There are places formed in the 
* Each of these customs (as practised by the Greeks) had well-founded claims to 
great antiquity; for interment appears to have been in use in the time of Cecrops, and 
burning must at any x’ate be allowed to have been practised by the Grecians, as far back 
as the Ti’ojan war, if we rely upon the testimony of Homer. The custom of burning was 
perhaps the most peculiar to the Greeks, of the two modes in question ; for Lucian, 
in enumerating the various methods resorted to by different nations in the disposal of 
their dead, expressly assigns burning to the Greeks, and interment to the Persians 
5iEXojU.svoi Kxra sSrvn rats' raitpas', o /aev "ExXnv exannrev, o Ss Ilegims' ESat-vJ/Ev TTEvS'ot/s', ^ 21 .) 
Some, however, considered the former as an inhuman custom, and philosophers were 
divided in their opinions on the subject ; each sect esteeming that method the most rea- 
sonable by which bodies would, according to their tenets, be soonest reduced to their 
first principles. — See Potter’s Archseologia, vol. ii. p. 207-8, &c. 
