_Lachrymatories._--There is absolutely _no_ authority in any ancient author
for this name, and the best scholars speak of these vessels as _the bottles
usually called lachrymatories_, &c. It would be curious to discover when
the name was first used, and by whom first this absurd use was imagined. It
_[illegible]_ that their _proper_ use was to contain perfumes, scents, and
unguents, as sweet odours to rest with the departed. Becker says:
"Bottles, filled with perfumes, were placed inside the tomb, which was
besprinkled _odoribus_. These are the tear-flasks, or _lachrymatories_,
so often mentioned formerly."--_Gallus_, p. 413. Eng. Tr.
A wasteful use of perfumes at funerals (_sumptuosa respersio_, Cicero de
Legibus, ii. 23.) was forbidden by the Twelve Tables. The eighth verse of
the fifty-sixth Psalm,
"My flight thou numberest: put my tears in thy bottle: stand they not
in thy book?"--_Hengstenberg_, Clarke's Tr. Edinb.
is, I believe, the only evidence that can be brought in favour of the old
opinion; but we surely cannot take the highly figurative language of
Eastern poetry to establish a Roman custom of which we have no hint
elsewhere. This verse admits of a much simpler interpretation; see Arndt,
quoted by Hengstenberg _ad locum_. From a review of _Museum Disneianum_,
which appeared in No. XXIII. of the _Classical Museum_, it seems that Mr.
Disney has devoted to this subject some pages of the introduction to Part
II. of the above work, of which a summary is given by the reviewer.