TO THESSALONICA. 437 
but this practice was so general in remote ages, chap. 
that owing to the laws against violating the v, ^ ' 
sanctity of a tomb*, and the universal regard 
shewn to its preservation ^ many of the mon- 
archs of antiquity, as a measure of policy, 
made the tombs of their ancestors answer the 
purpose of places for hoarding their wealth ' ; 
perhaps corresponding with those deposits 
alluded to in inscriptions under the denomination 
of " THE MOST SACRED TREASUllY^" It is 
(5) By the Salic law it wa-s enacted, that whoever violated a tomb 
should be banished as a monster from the society of men ; and that 
none should give him refuge, not even the members of his own family, 
under the severest penalties. 
(6) So great respect has ever been shewn to sepulchres, that th« 
most zealous Christian princes have extended it even to those of the 
Heathens. For besides the Emperor Constans, who of all monarch* 
most abhorred Paganism, the Canons of the fourth Council of Toledo 
(Concil. Tolet. 4. Canon. 45.), together with those of that of Meaux 
(Canon. 72.), or Paris, make the violation of a grave a capital crime. 
The Moslem Emperors, particularly Selim, after the conquest of 
Egypt, returning to the Holy Land, and seeing the tomhs of Chr%$ 
tian princes m Jerusalem, \i ho, under Godfrey of Bouillon, recovered 
that country from the Moslans, prohibited their violation. 
(7) Hyrcanus, high-priest o^ Jerusalem, seeing the city besieged by 
jSntiochus, took out of David's sepulchre three thousand talents. 
(8) See Vol. III. of the Octavo Edition of these Travels, Chap. Vi. 
p. 201. The opinion therefore entertained by the Turks of con- 
cealed wealth among the ruins of Greece and Syria may possibly 
have originated in the occasional discovery of treasures in the tombs. 
Dr. //b//aMrf says, {Travels, p. l,'2Q, Lond.\^\h.) that he could not 
convince even ^li Pasha of " the improbability that there should 
be concealed treasures among the ruins :" pojsiblv the Pashn had 
good 
