Thy magnanimity display,
And let thy strength be seen;
But oh! if Fortune fill thy sail
With more than a propitious gale,
Take half thy canvas in.
_Cowper._
TO PYRRHA.
(_By Horace._)
What youth, O Pyrrha! blooming fair,
With rose-twined wreath and perfumed hair,
Woos thee beneath yon grotto's shade,
Urgent in prayer and amorous glance?
For whom dost thou thy tresses braid,
Simple in thine elegance?
Alas! full soon shall he deplore
Thy broken faith, thy altered mien:
Like one astonished at the roar
Of breakers on a leeward shore,
Whom gentle airs and skies serene
Had tempted on the treacherous deep,
So he thy perfidy shall weep
Who now enjoys thee fair and kind,
But dreams not of the shifting wind.
Thrice wretched they, deluded and betrayed,
Who trust thy glittering smile and Siren tongue!
I have escaped the shipwreck, and have hung
In Neptune's fane my dripping vest displayed
With votive tablet on his altar laid,
Thanking the sea-god for his timely aid.
_Lord Ravensworth._
SENECA.
Seneca was born 7 B.C. and died 65 A.D. His writings were of a
philosophical nature. His character was much doubted. His great
misfortune was to have known Nero, who ordered him to be put to death,
to which he merely replied that he who had murdered his brother and
his mother could not be expected to spare his teacher. He had been
absent from Rome some time, and when he returned to visit his mother
in the country, he was spied, and Nero sent a squad of armed men to
the house to ask him to choose the manner of his death. His fame rests
on his numerous writings, which, with all their faults, have great
merits. His principal works, which are of a philosophical character,
are essays "On Anger," "On Consolation," "On Providence," "On
Tranquillity of Mind," "On the Firmness of the Wise Man," "On
Clemency," "On the Brevity of Human Life," "On a Happy Life," etc.,
together with "Epistles of Lucilius," one hundred and twenty-four in
number. Besides these, there are extant ten tragedies attributed to
him, entitled, _Hercules Furens_, _Thyestes_, _Thebais_ or
_Phoenissæ_, _Hippolytus_ or _Phædra_, _Oedipus_, _Troades_ or
_Hecuba_, _Medea_, _Agamemnon_, _Hercules Oetæus_ and _Octavia_. These
were never intended for the stage, but were designed for reading or
recitation, after the Roman fashion. They contain many striking
passages, and have some merits as poems.
HAPPINESS FOUNDED ON WISDOM.
(_By Seneca._)
Taking it for granted that _human happiness_ is founded upon _wisdom_
and _virtue_, we shall treat of these two points in order as they lie,
and _first_ of _wisdom_; not in the latitude of its various
operations, but only as it has a regard to good life and the happiness
of mankind.
Wisdom is a right understanding; a faculty of discerning good from
evil; what is to be chosen, and what rejected; a judgment grounded
upon the value of things, and not the common opinion of them; an
equality of force and strength of resolution. It sets a watch over our
words and deeds, it takes us up with the contemplation of the works of
nature, and makes us invincible by either good or evil fortune. It is
large and spacious, and requires a great deal of room to work in; it
ransacks heaven and earth; it has for its object things past and to
come, transitory and eternal. It examines all the circumstances of
time; "what it is, when it began, and how long it will continue;" and
so for the mind; "whence it came; what it is; when it begins; how long
it lasts; whether or no it passes from one form to another, or serves
only one, and wanders when it leaves us; where it abides in the state
of separation, and what the action of it; what use it makes of its
liberty; whether or no it retains the memory of things past, and comes
to the knowledge of itself." It is the habit of a perfect mind and the
perfection of humanity, raised as high as nature can carry it. It
differs from _philosophy_, as avarice and money; the one desires, and
the other is desired; the one is the effect and the reward of the
other. To be wise is the use of wisdom, as seeing is the use of eyes
and well-speaking the use of eloquence. He that is perfectly wise is
perfectly happy; nay, the very beginning of wisdom makes life easy to
us. Neither is it enough to know this, unless we print it in our
minds by daily meditation, and so bring a _good will_ to a good habit.
And we must practice what we preach, for _philosophy_ is not a subject
for popular ostentation, nor does it rest in words, but in things. It
is not an entertainment taken up for delight, or to give a taste to
leisure, but it fashions the mind, governs our actions, tells us what
we are to do, and what not. It sits at the helm, and guides us through
all hazards; nay, we can not be safe without it, for every hour gives
us occasion to make use of it. It informs us in all the duties of
life, piety to our parents, faith to our friends, charity to the
miserable, judgment in counsel; it gives us _peace_, by _fearing_
nothing, and _riches_, by _coveting nothing_.
There is no condition of life that excludes a wise man from
discharging his duty. If his fortune be good, he _tempers_ it; if bad,
he _masters_ it; if he has an estate, he will exercise his virtue in
plenty, if none, in poverty; if he can not do it in his country, he
will do it in banishment; if he has no command, he will do the office
of a common soldier. Some people have the skill of reclaiming the
fiercest of beasts: they will make a lion embrace his keeper, a tiger
kiss him, and an elephant kneel to him. This is the case of a wise man
in the extremest difficulties; let them be never so terrible in
themselves, when they come to him once, they are perfectly tame. They
that ascribe the invention of tillage, architecture, navigation, etc.,
to wise men, may perchance be in the right, that they were invented by
wise men; but they were not invented by wise men, as _wise men_; for
wisdom does not teach our fingers, but our minds: fiddling and
dancing, arms and fortifications, were the works of luxury and
discord; but wisdom instructs us in the way of nature, and in the arts
of unity and concord; not in the instruments, but in the government of
life; nor to make us live only, but to live happily. She teaches us
what things are good, what evil, and what only appear so; and to
distinguish betwixt true greatness and tumor. She clears our minds of
dross and vanity; she raises up our thoughts to heaven, and carries
them down to hell; she discourses on the nature of the soul, the
powers and faculties of it; the first principles of things; the order
of providence: she exalts us from things corporeal to things
incorporeal; and retrieves the truth of all: she searches nature,
gives laws to life; and tells us, "that it is not enough to know God
unless we obey Him." She looks upon all accidents as acts of
providence; sets a true value upon things; delivers us from false
opinions, and condemns all pleasures that are attended with
repentance. She allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever;
no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he
has within himself; no man to be great or powerful, that is not master
of himself;--and this is the felicity of human life; a felicity that
can neither be corrupted nor extinguished.
AGAINST RASH JUDGMENT.
(_By Seneca._)
It is good for every man to fortify himself on his weak side; and if
he loves his peace, he must not be inquisitive and harken to
tale-bearers; for the man that is over-curious to hear and see
everything, multiplies troubles to himself; for a man does not feel
what he does not know. He that is listening after private discourse,
and what people say of him, shall never be at peace. How many things
that are innocent in themselves, are made injurious yet by
misconstruction? Wherefore some things we are to pause upon, others to
laugh at, and others again to pardon. Or if we can not avoid the sense
of indignities, let us, however, shun the open profession of it; which
may be easily done, as appears by many examples of those who have
suppressed their anger, under the awe of a greater fear. It is a good
caution not to believe anything until you are very certain of it; for
many probable things prove false, and a short time will make evidence
of the undoubted truth. We are prone to believe many things which we
are unwilling to hear, and so we conclude, and take up a prejudice
before we can judge. Never condemn a friend unheard; or without
letting him know his accuser, or his crime. It is a common thing to
say, "Do not tell that you had it from me; for if you do, I will deny
it; and never tell you anything again." By which means friends are set
together by the ears, and the informer slips his neck out of the
collar. Admit no stories, upon these terms; for it is an unjust thing
to believe in private, and be angry openly. He that delivers himself
up to guess and conjecture, runs a great hazard; for there can be no
suspicion without some probable grounds; so that without much candor
and simplicity, and making the best of everything, there is no living
in society with mankind. Some things that offend us we have by report;
others we see or hear. In the first case, let us not be too credulous;
some people frame stories that may deceive us; others only tell us
what they hear, and are deceived themselves; some make it their sport
to do ill offices; others do them only to receive thanks; there are
some that would part the dearest friends in the world; others love to
do mischief, and stand off aloof to see what comes of it. If it be a
small matter, I would have witnesses; but if it be a greater, I would
have it upon oath, and allow time to the accused, and counsel, too,
and hear it over and over again.
[Illustration: EUCLID.]
THE EQUALITY OF MAN.
(_By Seneca._)
It is not well done to be still murmuring against nature and fortune,
as if it were their unkindness that makes you inconsiderable, when it
is only by your own weakness that you make yourself so; for it is
virtue, not pedigree, that renders a man either valuable or happy.
Philosophy does not either reject or choose any man for his quality.
Socrates was no _patrician_, Cleanthes but an _under-gardener_;
neither did Plato dignify philosophy by his birth, but by his
goodness. All these worthy men are our _progenitors_, if we will but
do ourselves the honor to become their _disciples_. The original of
all mankind was the same, and it is only a clear conscience that makes
any man noble, for that derives even from heaven itself. It is the
saying of a great man, that if we could trace our descents we should
find all slaves to come from princes and all princes from slaves. But
fortune has turned all things topsy-turvy, in a long story of
revolutions. It is most certain that our beginning had nothing before
it, and our ancestors were some of them splendid, others sordid, as it
happened. We have lost the memorials of our extraction; and, in truth,
it matters not whence we come, but whither we go. Nor is it any more
to our honor the glory of our predecessors, than it is to their shame
the wickedness of their posterity. We are all of us composed of the
same elements; why should we, then, value ourselves upon our nobility
of blood, as if we were not all of us equal, if we could but recover
our evidence? But when we can carry it no farther, the _herald_
provides us some _hero_ to supply the place of an illustrious
original, and there is the rise of arms and families. For a man to
spend his life in pursuit of a title, that serves only when he dies,
to furnish out an _epitaph_, is below a wise man's business.
ALL THINGS ORDERED BY GOD.
(_By Seneca._)
Every man knows without telling, that this wonderful fabric of the
universe is not without a Governor, and that a constant order can not
be the work of chance, for the parts would then fall foul one upon
another. The motions of the stars, and their influences, are acted by
the command of an eternal decree. It is by the dictate of an Almighty
Power, that the heavy body of the earth hangs in balance. Whence come
the revolutions of the seasons and the flux of the rivers? the
wonderful virtue of the smallest seeds? as an _oak_ to arise from an
_acorn_. To say nothing of those things that seem to be most irregular
and uncertain; as clouds, rain, thunder, the eruptions of fire out of
mountains, earthquakes, and those tumultuary motions in the lower
region of the air, which have their ordinate causes, and so have those
things, too, which appear to us more admirable because less frequent;
as scalding fountains and new islands started out of the sea; or what
shall we say of the ebbing and flowing out of the ocean, the constant
times and measures of the tides, according to the changes of the moon
that influences most bodies; but this needs not, for it is not that we
doubt of providence, but complain of it. And it were a good office to
reconcile mankind to the gods, who are undoubtedly best to the best.
It is against nature that good should hurt good. A good man is not
only the friend of God, but the very image, the disciple, and the
imitator of Him, and a true child of his heavenly Father. He is true
to himself, and acts with constancy and resolution.
PLUTARCH.
Plutarch was born A.D. 90, in Chæronea, a city of Boeotia. To him we
are indebted for so many of the lives of the philosophers, poets,
orators and generals of antiquity. No book has been more generally
sought after or read with greater avidity than "Plutarch's Lives."
However ancient, either Greek or Latin, none has received such a
universal popularity. But the character of Plutarch himself, not less
than his method of writing biography, explains his universal
popularity, and gives its special charm and value to his book. He was
a man of large and generous nature, of strong feeling, of refined
tastes, of quick perceptions. His mind had been cultivated in the
acquisition of the best learning of his times, and was disciplined by
the study of books as well as of men. He deserves the title of
philosopher; but his philosophy was of a practical rather than a
speculative character--though he was versed in the wisest doctrines of
the great masters of ancient thought, and in some of his moral works
shows himself their not unworthy follower. Above all, he was a man of
cheerful and genial temper. A lover of justice and of liberty, his
sympathies are always on the side of what is right, noble and
honorable.
He was educated at Delphi and improved himself by the advantages of
foreign travel. On his return he was employed by his country on an
embassy to Rome, where he opened a school for youth, employing all his
leisure time at that capital of the world and chief seat of erudition
in acquiring those vast stores of learning which he afterwards read
for the delight and instruction of mankind. "It must be borne in
mind," he says, "that my design is not to write histories, but lives.
And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the
clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men; sometimes a matter of
less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their
characters and inclinations than the most famous sieges, the greatest
armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever. Therefore, as
portrait-painters are more exact in the lines and features of the
face, in which the character is seen, than in the other parts of the
body, so I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the
marks and indications of the souls of men; and, while I endeavor by
these to portray their lives, may be free to leave more weighty
matters and great battles to be treated by others."
THE HORRIBLE PROSCRIPTIONS OF SYLLA.
(_By Plutarch._)
Sylla being thus wholly bent upon slaughter, and filling the city with
executions without number or limit, many wholly uninterested persons
falling a sacrifice to private enmity, through his permission and
indulgence to his friends, Caius Metellus, one of the younger men,
made bold in the senate to ask him what end there was of these evils,
and at what point he might be expected to stop? "We do not ask you,"
said he, "to pardon any whom you have resolved to destroy, but to free
from doubt those whom you are pleased to save." Sylla answering, that
he knew not as yet whom to spare, "Why, then," said he, "tell us whom
you will punish." This Sylla said he would do. These last words, some
authors say, were spoken not by Metellus, but by Afidus, one of
Sylla's fawning companions. Immediately upon this, without
communicating with any of the magistrates, Sylla proscribed eighty
persons, and notwithstanding the general indignation, after one day's
respite he posted two hundred and twenty more, and on the third,
again, as many. In an address to the people on this occasion, he told
them he had put up as many names as he could think of; those that had
escaped his memory he would publish at a future time. He issued an
edict likewise, making death the punishment of humanity, proscribing
any who should dare to receive and cherish a proscribed person,
without exception to brother, son, or parents. And to him who should
slay any one proscribed person, he ordained two talents reward, even
were it a slave who had killed his master, or a son his father. And
what was thought most unjust of all, he caused the attainder to pass
upon their sons, and son's sons, and made open sale of all their
property. Nor did the proscription prevail only at Rome, but
throughout all the cities of Italy the effusion of blood was such,
that neither sanctuary of the gods, nor hearth of hospitality, nor
ancestral home escaped. Men were butchered in the embraces of their
wives, children in the arms of their mothers. Those who perished
through public animosity, or private enmity, were nothing in
comparison of the numbers of those who suffered for their riches. Even
the murderers began to say, that "his fine house killed this man, a
garden that, a third, his hot baths." Quintus Aurelius, a quiet,
peaceable man, and one who thought all his part in the common calamity
consisted in condoling with the misfortunes of others, coming into the
forum to read the list, and finding himself among the proscribed,
cried out, "Woe is me, my Alban farm has informed against me." He had
not gone far, before he was dispatched by a ruffian, sent on that
errand.
DEMOSTHENES AND CICERO COMPARED.
(_By Plutarch._)
Omitting an exact comparison of the respective faculties in speaking
of Demosthenes and Cicero, yet this much seems fit to be said; that
Demosthenes, to make himself a master in rhetoric, applied all the
faculties he had, natural or acquired, wholly that way; that he far
surpassed in force and strength of eloquence all his cotemporaries in
political and judicial speaking, in grandeur and majesty all the
panegyrical orators, and in accuracy and science all the logicians and
rhetoricans of his day; that Cicero was highly educated, and by his
diligent study became a most accomplished general scholar in all these
branches, having left behind him numerous philosophical treatises of
his own on Academic principles; as, indeed, even in his written
speeches, both political and judicial, we see him continually trying
to show his learning by the way. And one may discover the different
temper of each of them in their speeches. For Demosthenes' oratory was
without all embellishment and jesting, wholly composed for real effect
and seriousness; not smelling of the lamp, as Pytheas scoffingly said,
but of the temperance, thoughtfulness, austerity, and grave
earnestness of his temper. Whereas Cicero's love for mockery often ran
him into scurrility; and in his love of laughing away serious
arguments in judicial cases by jests and facetious remarks, with a
view to the advantage of his clients, he paid too little regard to
what was decent. Indeed, Cicero was by natural temper very much
disposed to mirth and pleasantry, and always appeared with a smiling
and serene countenance. But Demosthenes had constant care and
thoughtfulness in his look, and a serious anxiety, which he seldom, if
ever, set aside, and, therefore, was accounted by his enemies, as he
himself confessed, morose and ill-mannered.
Also, it is very evident, out of their several writings, that
Demosthenes never touched upon his own praises but decently and
without offense when there was need of it, and for some weightier end;
but, upon other occasions, modestly and sparingly. But Cicero's
immeasurable boasting of himself in his orations argues him guilty of
an uncontrollable appetite for distinction, his cry being evermore
that arms should give place to the gown, and the soldier's laurel to
the tongue. And at last we find him extolling not only his deeds and
actions, but his orations, also, as well those that were only spoken,
as those that were published. * *
[Illustration: ALEXANDER SEVERUS.]
The power of persuading and governing the people did, indeed, equally
belong to both, so that those who had armies and camps at command
stood in need of their assistance. But what are thought and commonly
said most to demonstrate and try the tempers of men, namely, authority
and place, by moving every passion, and discovering every frailty,
these are things which Demosthenes never received; nor was he ever in
a position to give such proof of himself, having never obtained any
eminent office, nor led any of those armies into the field against
Philip which he raised by his eloquence. Cicero, on the other hand,
was sent quæstor into Sicily, and proconsul into Cilicia and
Cappadocia, at a time when avarice was at the height, and the
commanders and governors who were employed abroad, as though they
thought it a mean thing to steal, set themselves to seize by open
force; so that it seemed no heinous matter to take bribes, but he that
did it most moderately was in good esteem. And yet he, at this time,
gave the most abundant proofs alike of his contempt of riches and of
his humanity and good nature. And at Rome, when he was created consul
in name, but indeed received sovereign and dictatorial authority
against Catiline and his conspirators, he attested the truth of
Plato's prediction, that then the miseries of states would be at an
end, when by a happy fortune supreme power, wisdom and justice should
be united in one. * *
Finally, Cicero's death excites our pity; for an old man to be
miserably carried up and down by his servants, flying and hiding
himself from that death which was, in the course of nature, so near at
hand, and yet at last to be murdered. Demosthenes, though he seemed at
first a little to supplicate, yet, by his preparing and keeping the
poison by him, demands our admiration; and still more admirable was
his using it. When the temple of the god no longer afforded him a
sanctuary, he took refuge, as it were, at a mightier altar, freeing
himself from arms and soldiers, and laughing to scorn the cruelty of
Antipater.
[This seems to have been Plutarch's views of suicide, and, in fact,
the spirit of the age in which he lived. From the standpoint of the
philosophy of our day, suicide manifests nothing but a weakness and
very generally insanity.]
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[Illustration: Engraved & Printed by Illman Brothers.
SCHOOL OF THE VESTAL VIRGINS.
(WALL-PAINTING POMPEII)
FOR THE MUSEUM OF ANTIQUITY]
[Page Decoration]
TOMBS AND CATACOMBS.
TOMBS.
Respect for the dead, and a considerate regard for the due performance
of the rites of burial, have been distinctive features in man in all
ages and countries. Among the Greeks and Romans great importance was
attached to the burial of the dead, as, if a corpse remained unburied,
it was believed that the spirit of the departed wandered for a hundred
years on the hither side of the Styx. Hence it became a religious duty
to scatter earth over any unburied body which any one might chance to
meet. This was considered sufficient to appease the infernal gods. The
earliest tomb was the tumulus or mound of earth, heaped over the dead.
It is a form naturally suggested to man in the early stages of his
development. There are two classes of primitive tombs, which are
evidently of the highest antiquity. The _hypergæan_, or raised mounds,
or tumuli, and _hypogæan_, which are subterranean or excavated. The
tumulus may be considered as the most simple and the most ancient form
of sepulture. Its adoption was universal among all primitive nations.
Such was the memorial raised by the Greeks over the bodies of their
heroes. These raised mounds are to be met with in all countries. The
Etruscans improved upon this form by surrounding the base with a
podium, or supporting wall of masonry, as at the Cocumella at Vulci,
and in the Regulini-Galassi tomb. The Lydians adopted a similar
improvement in the tomb of Alyattes, near Sardis. The pyramid, which
is but a further development in stone of this form of sepulture, is
not peculiar to Egypt alone, it has been adopted in several other
countries. Examples of subterranean tombs are to be found in Egypt,
Etruria, Greece. Those of Egypt and Etruria afford instances of
extraordinary labor bestowed in excavating and constructing these
subterranean abodes of the dead. The great reverence paid by the
Egyptians to the bodies of their ancestors, and their careful
preservation of them by embalmment, necessitated a great number and
vast extent of tombs. The Egyptians called their earthly dwellings
inns, because men stay there but a brief while; the tombs of the
departed they called everlasting mansions, because the dead dwelt in
them forever.
The pyramids were tombs. These monuments were the last abode of the
Kings of the early dynasties. They are to be met with in Lower Egypt
alone. The Theban Kings and their subjects erected no pyramids, and
none of their tombs are structural. In Upper Egypt numerous
excavations from the living rock in the mountains of the Thebaid
received their mortal remains. Nothing can exceed the magnificence and
care with which these tombs of the Kings were excavated and decorated.
It appears to have been the custom with their Kings, so soon as they
ascended the throne, to begin preparing their final resting place. The
excavation seems to have gone on uninterruptedly, year by year, the
painting and adornment being finished as it progressed, till the hand
of death ended the King's reign, and simultaneously the works of his
tomb. The tomb thus became an index of the length of a King's reign as
well as of his magnificence. Their entrance, carefully closed, was
frequently indicated by a facade cut on the side of the hill. A number
of passages, sometimes intersected by deep wells and large halls,
finally led, frequently by concealed entrances, to the large chamber
where was the sarcophagus, generally of granite, basalt, or alabaster.
The sides of the entire excavation, as well as the roof, were covered
with paintings, colored sculptures, and hieroglyphic inscriptions in
which the name of the deceased King was frequently repeated. We
generally find represented in them the funeral ceremonies, the
procession, the visit of the soul of the deceased to the principal
divinities, its offerings to each of them, lastly, its presentation by
the god who protected it to the supreme god of the Amenti, the
under-world or Hades. The splendor of these works, and the richness
and variety of their ornamentation, exceed all conception; the
figures, though in great number, are sometimes of colossal size;
frequently scenes of civil life are mingled with funeral
representations; the labors of agriculture, domestic occupations,
musicians, dances, and furniture of wonderful richness and elegance,
are also figured on them; on the ceiling are generally astronomical or
astrological subjects. Several tombs of the Kings of the eighteenth
dynasty and subsequent dynasties have been found in the valley of
Biban-el-Molouk on the western side of the plain of Thebes. One of the
most splendid of these is that opened by Belzoni, and now known as
that of Osirei Menepthah, of the nineteenth dynasty. A sloping passage
leads to a chamber which has been called "The Hall of Beauty."
[Illustration: EGYPTIAN TOMB.]
Forcing his way farther on, Belzoni found as a termination to a series
of chambers a large vaulted hall which contained the sarcophagus which
held the body of the monarch, now in Sir John Soane's Museum. The
entire extent of this succession of chambers and passages is hollowed
to a length of 320 feet into the heart of the rock, and they are
profusely covered with the paintings and hieroglyphics usually found
in those sepulchral chambers. The tombs of the other Kings, Remeses
III. and Remeses Miamun, exhibit similar series of passages and
chambers, covered with paintings and sculptures, in endless variety,
some representing the deepest mysteries of the Egyptian religion; but,
as Mr. Fergusson says, like all the tombs, they depend for their
magnificence more on the paintings that adorn the walls than on
anything which can strictly be called architecture. One of the tombs
at _Biban-el Molouk_ is 862 feet in length without reckoning the
lateral chambers; the total area of excavation is 23,809, occupying an
acre and a quarter of space for one chamber.
Private individuals were buried according to their rank and fortune.
Their tombs, also excavated from the living rock, consisted of one or
of several chambers ornamented with paintings and sculptures; the last
contained the sarcophagus and the mummy. According to Sir G.
Wilkinson, the tombs were the property of the priests, and a
sufficient number being always kept ready, the purchase was made at
the shortest notice, nothing being requisite to complete even the
sculptures or inscriptions but the insertion of the deceased's name
and a few statements respecting his family and profession. The
numerous subjects representing agricultural scenes, the trades of the
people, in short, the various occupations of the Egyptians, varying
only in their details and the mode of their execution, were figured in
these tombs, and were intended as a short epitome of human life, which
suited equally every future occupant. The tombs at Beni Hassan are
even of an earlier date than those of Thebes. Among these the tomb of
a monarch or provincial governor is of the age of Osirtasen I. The
walls of this tomb are covered with a series of representations,
setting forth the ordinary occupations and daily avocations of the
deceased, thus illustrating the manners and customs of the Egyptians
of that age. These representations are a sort of epitome of life, or
the career of man, previous to his admission to the mansions of the
dead. They were therefore intended to show that the deceased had
carefully and duly fulfilled and performed all the duties and
avocations which his situation in life and the reverence due to the
gods required. In the cemeteries of Gizeh and Sakkara are tombs of the
time of Nephercheres, sixth King of the second dynasty, probably the
most ancient in Egypt. Around the great pyramid are numerous tombs of
different periods; among them are the tombs of the princes, and other
members of the family or time of Khufu. One of the most interesting is
that known as Campbell's tomb, of the supposed date of about 660 B.C.
It contained a tomb built up in its center, covered by three stones as
struts, over which was a semicircular arch of brick. Near it, also,
are several tombs of private individuals, who were mostly priests of
Memphis. Many of these have false entrances, and several have pits
with their mouths at the top of the tomb. The walls are covered with
the usual paintings representing the ordinary occupations of the
deceased.
_Mummies._--The origin of the process of embalming has been variously
accounted for. The real origin appears to be this: it was a part of
the religious belief of the Egyptians that, as a reward of a
well-spent and virtuous life, their bodies after death should exist
and remain undecayed forever in their tombs, for we find in the "Book
of the Dead" the following inscription placed over the spirits who
have found favor in the eyes of the Great God: "The bodies which they
have forsaken shall _sleep forever_ in their sepulchres, while they
rejoice in the presence of God most high." This inscription evidently
shows a belief in a separate eternity for soul and body; of an eternal
existence of the body in the tomb, and of the soul in the presence of
God. The soul was supposed to exist as long as the body existed. Hence
the necessity of embalming the body as a means to insure its eternal
existence. Some have considered that the want of ground for
cemeteries, and also the excavations made in the mountains for the
extraction of materials employed in the immense buildings of Egypt,
compelled them to have recourse to the expedient of mummification.
Others consider the custom arose rather from a sanitary regulation for
the benefit of the living. According to Mr. Gliddon, mummification
preceded, in all probability, the building of the pyramids and tombs,
because vestiges of mummies have been found in the oldest of these,
and, in fact, the first mummies were buried in the sand before the
Egyptians possessed the necessary tools for excavating sepulchres in
the rock. The earliest mode of mummification was extremely simple; the
bodies were prepared with natron, or dried in ovens, and wrapped in
woolen cloth. At a later period every provincial temple was provided
with an establishment for the purpose of mummification. The bodies
were delivered to the priests to be embalmed, and after seventy days
restored to their friends, to be carried to the place of deposit. The
mode of embalming depended on the rank and position of the deceased.
There were three modes of embalming; the first is said to have cost a
talent of silver (about $1,250); the second, 22 minæ ($300); the third
was extremely cheap. The process is thus described by Herodotus;--"In
Egypt certain persons are appointed by law to exercise this art as
their peculiar business, and when a dead body is brought them they
produce patterns of mummies in wood, imitated in painting. In
preparing the body according to the most expensive mode, they commence
by extracting the brain from the nostrils by a curved hook, partly
cleansing the head by these means, and partly by pouring in certain
drugs; then making an incision in the side with a sharp Ethiopian
stone (black flint), they draw out the intestines through the
aperture. Having cleansed and washed them with palm wine, they cover
them with pounded aromatics, and afterwards filling the cavity with
powder of pure myrrh, cassia, and other fragrant substances,
frankincense excepted, they sew it up again. This being done, they
salt the body, keeping it in natron during seventy days, to which
period they are strictly confined. When the seventy days are over,
they wash the body, and wrap it up entirely in bands of fine linen
smeared on the inner side with gum. The relatives then take away the
body, and have a wooden case made in the form of a man, in which they
deposit it; and when fastened up they keep it in a room in their
house, placing it upright against the wall. (This style of mummy was
supposed to represent the deceased in the form of Osiris.) This is the
most costly mode of embalming.
"For those who choose the middle kind, on account of the expense, they
prepare the body as follows:--They fill syringes with oil of cedar,
and inject this into the abdomen without making any incision or
removing the bowels; and, taking care that the liquid shall not
escape, they keep it in salt during the specified number of days. The
cedar-oil is then taken out, and such is its strength that it brings
with it the bowels and all the inside in a state of dissolution. The
natron also dissolves the flesh, so that nothing remains but the skin
and bones. This process being over, they restore the body without any
further operation.
"The third kind of embalming is only adapted for the poor. In this
they merely cleanse the body by an injection of syrmæa, and salt it
during seventy days, after which it is returned to the friends who
brought it."
Sir G. Wilkinson gives some further information with regard to the
more expensive mode of embalming. The body, having been prepared with
the proper spices and drugs, was enveloped in linen bandages sometimes
1,000 yards in length. It was then enclosed in a cartonage fitting
close to the mummied body, which was richly painted and covered in
front with a network of beads and bugles arranged in a tasteful form,
the face being laid over with a thick gold leaf, and the eyes made of
enamel. The three or four cases which successively covered the
cartonage were ornamented in like manner with painting and gilding,
and the whole was enclosed in a sarcophagus of wood or stone,
profusely charged with painting or sculpture. These cases, as well as
the cartonage, varied in style and richness, according to the expense
incurred by the friends of the deceased. The bodies thus embalmed were
generally of priests of various grades. Sometimes the skin itself was
covered with gold leaf; sometimes the whole body, the face, or
eyelids; sometimes the nails alone. In many instances the body or the
cartonage was beautified in an expensive manner, and the outer cases
were little ornamented; but some preferred the external show of rich
cases and sarcophagi. Some mummies have been found with the face
covered by a mask of cloth fitting closely to it, and overlaid with a
coating of composition, so painted as to resemble the deceased, and to
have the appearance of flesh. These, according to Sir G. Wilkinson,
are probably of a Greek epoch. Greek mummies usually differed from
those of the Egyptians in the manner of disposing the bandages of the
arms and legs. No Egyptian is found with the limbs bandaged
separately, as those of Greek mummies. On the breast was frequently
placed a scarabæus in immediate contact with the flesh. These
scarabæi, when of stone, had their extended wings made of lead or
silver. On the cartonage and case, in a corresponding situation above,
the same emblem was also placed, to indicate the protecting influence
of the Deity. The subjects painted upon the cartonage were the four
genii of Amenti, and various emblems belonging to deities connected
with the dead. A long line of hieroglyphics extending down the front
usually contained the name and quality of the deceased, and the
offerings presented by him to the gods; and transverse bands
frequently repeated the former, with similar donations to other
deities. On the breast was placed the figure of Netpe, with expanded
wings, protecting the deceased; sacred arks, boats, and other things
were arranged in different compartments, and Osiris, Isis, Anubis, and
other deities, were frequently introduced. In some instances Isis was
represented throwing her arms round the feet of the mummy, with this
appropriate legend: "I embrace thy feet." A plaited beard was attached
to the chin when the mummy was that of a man; the absence of this
appendage indicated the mummy of a woman.
[Illustration: SARCOPHAGUS, OR COFFIN. (_With Noah's Ark cut in
relief on the outside._)]
_Mummy Cases and Sarcophagi._--The outer case of the mummy was either
of wood--sycamore or cedar--or of stone. When of wood it had a flat or
circular summit, sometimes with a stout square pillar rising at each
angle. The whole was richly painted, and some of an older age
frequently had a door represented near one of the corners. At one end
was the figure of Isis, at the other Nepthys, and the top was painted
with bands or fancy devices. In others, the lid represented the
curving top of the ordinary Egyptian canopy. The stone coffins,
usually called sarcophagi, were of oblong shape, having flat straight
sides, like a box, with a curved or pointed lid. Sometimes the figure
of the deceased was represented upon the latter in relief, like that
of the Queen of Amasis in the British Museum; and some were in the
form of a King's name or oval. Others were made in the shape of the
mummied body, whether of basalt, granite, slate, or limestone,
specimens of which are met with in the British Museum. These cases
were deposited in the sepulchral chambers. Various offerings were
placed near them, and sometimes the instruments of the profession of
the deceased. Near them were also placed vases and small figures of
the deceased, of wood or vitrified earthenware. In Sir John Soane's
museum is the sarcophagus of Seti I. (Menephtha) B.C. 1322, cut out of
a single block of Oriental alabaster. It is profusely covered with
hieroglyphics, and scenes on it depict the passage of the sun through
the hours of the night. It was found by Belzoni in his tomb in the
Biban-el-molouk. The sarcophagus now in the British Museum was
formerly supposed to have been the identical sarcophagus which
contained the body of Alexander the Great. The hieroglyphic name,
which has been read upon the monument, proves it to be that of
Nectanebo I., of the thirtieth dynasty, who reigned from B.C. 381 to
363. Its material is a breccia from a quarry near Thebes, and is
remarkable for its hardness. A remarkable rectangular-shaped coffin of
whinstone was that of Menkare, the Mycerinus of the Greeks, and the
builder of the third pyramid; this interesting relic was found by
Colonel Vyse in the sepulchral chambers of the third pyramid, but was
unfortunately lost at sea while on its way to England. The remains of
the cedar-coffin of this monarch are in the British Museum. Many
beautiful sarcophagi are in the Vatican at Rome.
[Illustration: COFFIN OF ALABASTER. (_Features of the deceased
Sculptured._)]
The vases, generally named canopi, from their resemblance to certain
vases made by the Romans to imitate the Egyptian taste, but
inadmissible in its application to any Egyptian vase, were four in
number, of different materials, according to the rank of the deceased,
and were placed near his coffin in the tomb. Some were of common
limestone, the most costly were of Oriental alabaster. These four
vases form a complete series; the principal intestines of the mummy
were placed in them, embalmed in spices and various substances, and
rolled up in linen, each containing a separate portion. They were
supposed to belong to the four genii of Amenti, whose heads and names
they bore. The vase with a cover, representing the human head of
Amset, held the stomach and large intestines; that with the
cynocephalus head of Hapi contained the small intestines; in that
belonging to the jackal-headed Tuautmutf were the lungs and heart; and
for the vase of the hawk-headed Kabhsenuf were reserved the
gall-bladder and liver. On the sides of the vases were several columns
of hieroglyphics, which expressed the adoration of the deceased to
each of the four deities whose symbols adorned the covers, and which
gave the name of the deceased.
Small figures, called _shabti_, offered through respect for the dead,
are to be found in great numbers in the tombs. They were images of
Osiris, whose form the deceased was supposed to assume, and who thence
was called the Osirian. They are in several shapes, sometimes in that
of the deceased, standing in the dress of the period, but more
generally in the shape of a mummy, the body swathed in bandages, from
which the hands come out, holding a hoe, _hab_, and pick-ax, and the
cord of a square basket, slung on the left shoulder, or nape of the
neck. The head attire of the deceased is either that of the period or
dignity, and in the case of monarchs accompanied by the uræus, emblem
of royalty. Some figures hold the emblem of life, _ankh_, and of
stability, _tat_, or a whip, _khu_. They are generally of wood, or
vitrified earthenware. The name and quality of the deceased are found
on all those in the same tomb, and thrown on the ground round the
sarcophagus. They usually bear in hieroglyphics the sixth chapter of
the funeral ritual. Some are found with a blank space left for the
name of the deceased, which leads one to think that the relations and
friends procured these figures from dealers; the funeral formula, with
a list of the customary presentations of offerings for his soul to
Osiris were already on them; nothing was wanting but the name of the
deceased; this being added, they were then evidently offered as
testimonies of respect by the relations and friends of the deceased,
perhaps at the funeral, and then collected and placed in the tomb.
Sometimes these small figures were placed in painted cases divided
into compartments. These cases were about two feet long and one foot
high.
Manuscripts on papyrus, of various lengths, have been found on some
mummies. These rolls of papyrus are found in the coffins, or under the
swathings of the mummies, between the legs, on the breast, or under
the arms. Some are enclosed in a cylindrical case. The papyrus of the
Museum of Turin is sixty-six feet long, that at Paris is twenty-two
feet long; others are of different lengths, down to two or three
feet. That of Turin may be considered as complete. On all, the upper
part of the page is occupied by a line of figures of the divinities
which the soul visits in succession; the rest is filled with
perpendicular columns of hieroglyphics, which are prayers which the
soul addresses to each divinity; towards the end of the manuscript is
painted the judgment scene; the great god Osiris is on his throne; at
his feet is an enormous female crocodile, its mouth open; behind is
the divine balance, surmounted by a cynocephalus emblem of universal
justice; the good and bad actions of the soul are weighed in his
presence. Horus examines the plummet, and Thoth records the sentence;
standing close by is the soul of the deceased in its corporeal form,
conducted by the two goddesses, Truth and Justice, before the great
judge of the dead. The name of Ritual of the Dead has been given by
Egyptologists to these papyri, but in reality they bear the title of
"The Book of the Manifestation to Light." A copy of this, more or less
complete, according to the fortune of the deceased, was deposited in
the case of every mummy. The book was revised under the twenty-sixth
dynasty, and then assumed its final definite form. But many parts of
it are of the highest antiquity. The whole series of pilgrimages which
the soul, separated from the body, was believed to accomplish in the
various divisions of the lower regions, are related in this book. It
contained also a collection of prayers for the use of the deceased in
the other world, and of magical formulæ intended to secure the
preservation of the mummy from decay, and to prevent its possession by
an evil spirit, till the ultimate return of the soul of the deceased.
Many of these rituals are also found written, not in hieroglyphics,
but in hieratic characters, which are an abbreviated form of
hieroglyphic signs. Papyri with hieroglyphics are nearly always
divided by ruled lines into narrow vertical columns of an inch or less
in breadth, in which the hieroglyphic signs are arranged one under
the other. Sometimes the papyri are found written in the enchorial
character. Several manuscripts in Greek on papyrus have been also
discovered in Egypt; they are, however, of a late date, and relate to
the sale of lands; many have been discovered referring to lands and
possessions about Thebes, one of which has been given in full on page
245.
[Illustration: DISCOVERED TOMB WITH ITS TREASURES. (_At
Pompeii._)]
_Roman Tombs._--Before commencing our description of the tombs which
line the way as the visitor approaches Pompeii, and seem to prepare
him for that funeral silence which reigns in the long-lost city, the
more remarkable for its contrast with the gay and festive style of
decoration which still characterizes the remains which surround him,
it is our intention, as we have done in other instances, to give some
general information upon the subject which we are about to treat in
detail, for the benefit of those among our readers to whom the forms
of Roman burial and the expressions of Roman sorrow are unfamiliar.
Great, absurdly great among the uneducated, as is the importance
attached to a due performance of the rites of burial in the present
day, it is as nothing compared to the interest which was felt on this
subject by the Romans; and not by them only, but by other nations of
antiquity, with whose manners we have nothing to do here. The Romans
indeed had a good reason for this anxiety, for they believed, in
common with the Greeks, that if the body remained unentombed, the soul
wandered for a hundred years on the hither side of the Styx, alone and
desponding, unable to gain admission to its final resting-place,
whether among the happy or the miserable. If, therefore, any person
perished at sea, or otherwise under such circumstances that his body
could not be found, a _cenotaph_, or empty tomb, was erected by his
surviving friends, which served as well for his passport over the
Stygian ferry as if his body had been burnt or committed to the earth
with due ceremonies. Hence it became a religious duty, not rashly to
be neglected, to scatter earth over any unburied body which men
chanced to see, for even so slight a sepulchre as this was held
sufficient to appease the scruples of the infernal gods. The reader,
if there be any readers of Latin to whom these superstitions are
unfamiliar, may refer to the sixth book of the Æneid, line 325, and to
a remarkable ode of Horace, the 28th of the first book, which turns
entirely upon this subject. Burial, therefore, was a matter of
considerable importance.
When death approached, the nearest relative hung over the dying
person, endeavoring to inhale his last breath, in a fond belief that
the _anima_, the living principle, departed at that moment, and by
that passage from the body. Hence the phrases, _animam in primo ore
tenere, spiritum excipere_, and the like. It is curious to observe how
an established form of expression holds its ground. Here are we, after
the lapse of eighteen hundred years, still talking of receiving a
dying friend's last breath, as if we really meant what we say. After
death the body was washed and anointed by persons called
_pollinctores_; then laid out on a bier, the feet to the door, to
typify its approaching departure, dressed in the best attire which it
had formerly owned. The bier was often decked with leaves and flowers,
a simple and touching tribute of affection, which is of the heart, and
speaks to it, and therefore has maintained its ground in every age and
region, unaffected by the constant changes in customs merely arbitrary
and conventional.
[Illustration]
In the early ages of Rome the rites of burial and burning seem to have
been alike in use. Afterwards the former seems (for the matter is not
very clear) to have prevailed, until towards the close of the seventh
century of the city, after the death of Sylla, who is said to have
been the first of the patrician Cornelii who was burnt. Thenceforward
corpses were almost universally consumed by fire until the
establishment of Christianity, when the old fashion was brought up
again, burning being violently opposed by the fathers of the church,
probably on account of its intimate connection with Pagan associations
and superstitions. Seven days, we are told, elapsed between death and
the funeral; on the eighth the corpse was committed to the flames; on
the ninth the ashes were deposited in the sepulchre. This probably
refers only to the funerals of the great, where much splendor and
extent of preparation was required, and especially those public
funerals (_funera indictiva_) to which the whole people were bidden by
voice of crier, the ceremony being often closed by theatrical and
gladiatorial exhibitions, and a sumptuous banquet. But we have no
intention to narrate the pomp which accompanied the princely nobles of
Rome to the tomb: it is enough for our purpose to explain the usages
of private life, to which the Street of Tombs owes its origin and its
interest.
In the older times funerals were celebrated at night because the rites
of religion were celebrated by day; and it was pollution for the
ministers, or for anything connected with worship of the deities of
the upper world, even to see, much more to touch, anything connected
with death. From this nightly solemnization many of the words
connected with this subject are derived. Those who bore the bier were
called originally _Vesperones_, thence _Vespillones_, from _Vespera_,
evening; and the very term _funus_ is derived by grammarians, _a
funalibus_, from the rope torches coated with wax or tallow which
continued to be used long after the necessity for using them ceased.
This practice, now far more than two thousand years old, is still
retained in the Roman Church, with many other ceremonies borrowed from
heathen rites. St. Chrysostom assures us that it is not of modern
revival, and gives a beautiful reason for its being retained. "Tell
me," he says, "what mean those brilliant lamps? Do we not go forth
with the dead on their way rejoicing, as with men who have fought
their fight?"
The corpse being placed upon a litter or bier, the former being used
by the wealthy, the latter by the poor, was carried out preceded by
instrumental musicians, and female singers, who chanted the dirge.
These hired attendants, whose noisy sorrow was as genuine as the dumb
grief of our mutes, were succeeded, if the deceased were noble, or
distinguished by personal exploits, by numerous couches containing the
family effigies of his ancestors, each by itself, that the length of
his lineage might be the more conspicuous; by the images of such
nations as he had conquered, such cities as he had taken; by the
spoils which he had won; by the ensigns of the magistracies which he
had filled; but if the fasces were among them these were borne
reversed. Then came the slaves whom he had emancipated (and often with
a view to this post-mortem magnificence, a master emancipated great
numbers of them), wearing hats in token of their manumission. Behind
the corpse came the nearest relations, profuse in the display of grief
as far as it can be shown by weeping, howling, beating the breasts and
cheeks, and tearing the hair, which was laid, as a last tribute of
affection, on the breast of the deceased, to be consumed with him. To
shave the head was also a sign of mourning. It is a curious inversion
of the ordinary customs of life, that the sons of the deceased mourned
with the head covered, the daughters with it bare.
With this attendance the body was borne to the place of burial, being
usually carried through the Forum, where, if the deceased had been a
person of any eminence, a funeral oration was spoken from the rostra
in his honor. The place of burial was without the city, in almost
every instance. By the twelve tables it was enacted that no one should
be burned or buried within the city; and as this wholesome law fell
into disuse, it was from time to time revived and enforced. The
reasons for its establishment were twofold, religious and civil. To
the former head belongs the reason, already assigned for a different
observance, that the very sight of things connected with death brought
pollution on things consecrated to the gods of the upper world. So far
was this carried that the priest of Jupiter might not even enter any
place where there was a tomb, or so much as hear the funeral pipes;
nay, his wife, the Flaminica, might not wear shoes made of the hide of
an ox which had died a natural death, because all things which had
died spontaneously were of ill omen. Besides, it was an ill omen to
any one to come upon a tomb unawares. Another reason was that the
public convenience might not be interrupted by private rites, since
no tombs could be removed without sacrilege when once established,
unless by the state, upon sufficient cause. The civil reasons are to
be sought in the unwholesome exhalations of large burying-grounds, and
the danger of fire from burning funeral piles in the neighborhood of
houses. It is not meant, however, that there were no tombs within the
city. Some appear to have been included by the gradual extension of
the walls; others were established in those intervals when the law of
the twelve tables fell, as we have said, into desuetude; nor does it
appear that these were destroyed, nor their contents removed. Thus
both the Claudian and the Cincian clans had sepulchres in Rome, the
former under the Capitol.
[Illustration: ARTICLES FOUND IN A TOMB.]
If the family were of sufficient consequence to have a patrimonial
tomb the deceased was laid in it; if he had none such, and was
wealthy, he usually constructed a tomb upon his property during life,
or bought a piece of ground for the purpose. If possible the tomb was
always placed near a road. Hence the usual form of inscription,
_Siste, Viator_ (Stay, Traveler), continually used in churches by
those small wits who thought that nothing could be good English which
was not half Latin, and forgot that in our country the traveler must
have stayed already to visit the sexton before he can possibly do so
in compliance with the advice of the monument. For the poor there were
public burial-grounds, called _puticuli, a puteis_, from the trenches
ready dug to receive bodies. Such was the ground at the Esquiline
gate, which Augustus gave Mæcenas for his gardens. Public tombs were
also granted by the state to eminent men, an honor in early times
conferred on few. These grants were usually made in the Campus
Martius, where no one could legally be buried without a decree of the
senate in his favor. It appears from the inscriptions found in the
Street of Tombs, at Pompeii, that much, if not the whole of the ground
on which those tombs are built, was public property, the property of
the corporation, as we should now say; and that the sites of many,
perhaps of all, were either purchased or granted by the decurions, or
municipal senate, in gratitude for obligations received.
Sometimes the body was burned at the place where it was to be
entombed, which, when the pile and sepulchre were thus joined, was
called _bustum_; sometimes the sepulchre was at a distance from the
place of burning, which was then called _ustrina_. The words _bustum_
and _sepulchrum_, therefore, though often loosely used as synonymous,
are not in fact so, the latter being involved in, but by no means
comprehending the former. The pile was ordered to be built of rough
wood, unpolished by the ax. Pitch was added to quicken the flames, and
cypress, the aromatic scent of which was useful to overpower the
stench of the burning body. The funeral piles of great men were of
immense size and splendidly adorned; and all classes appear to have
indulged their vanity in this respect to the utmost of their means, so
that a small and unattended pyre is mentioned as the mark of an
insignificant or friendless person. The body was placed on it in the
litter or bier; the nearest relation present then opened the eyes,
which it had been the duty of the same person to close immediately
after death, and set fire to the wood with averted face, in testimony
that he performed that office not of good will, but of necessity. As
the combustion proceeded, various offerings were cast into the flames.
The manes were believed to love blood; animals, therefore, especially
those which they had loved while alive, were killed and thrown upon
the pile, as horses, dogs and doves, besides the beasts commonly used
in sacrifice, as sheep and oxen. Human beings, especially prisoners of
war, were sometimes put to death, though not in the later times of the
republic. The most costly robes and arms of the deceased, especially
trophies taken in warfare, were also devoted in his honor, and the
blaze was fed by the costly oils and gums of the East. The body being
reduced to ashes, these were then quenched with wine, and collected by
the nearest relation; after which, if the grief were real, they were
again bedewed with tears; if not, wine or unguents answered the
purpose equally well. The whole ceremony is described in a few lines
by Tibullus:
There, while the fire lies smouldering on the ground,
My bones, the all of me, can then be found.
Arrayed in mourning robes, the sorrowing pair
Shall gather all around with pious care;
With ruddy wine the relics sprinkle o'er,
And snowy milk on them collected pour.
Then with fair linen cloths the moisture dry,
Inurned in some cold marble tomb to lie.
With them enclose the spices, sweets and gums,
And all that from the rich Arabia comes,
And what Assyria's wealthy confines send,
And tears, sad offering, to my memory lend.
_Eleg. iii._ 2-17.
The ashes thus collected were then finally deposited in the urn, which
was made of different materials, according to the quality of the dead;
usually of clay or glass, but sometimes of marble, bronze, and even
the precious metals. The ceremony thus over, the præfica gave the
word, _Ilicet_ (the contracted form of _Ire licet_, It is lawful to
go), and the bystanders departed, having been thrice sprinkled with a
branch of olive or laurel dipped in water, to purify them from the
pollution which they had contracted, and repeating thrice the words,
_Vale_, or _Salve_, words of frequent occurrence in monumental
inscriptions, as in one of beautiful simplicity which we quote:
"Farewell, most happy soul of Caia Oppia. We shall follow thee in such
order as may be appointed by nature. Farewell, sweetest mother."
The distinction between cenotaphs and tombs has been already
explained. Cenotaphs, however, were of two sorts: those erected to
persons already duly buried, which were merely honorary, and those
erected to the unburied dead, which had a religious end and efficacy.
This evasion of the penal laws against lying unburied was chiefly
serviceable to persons shipwrecked or slain in war; but all came in
for the benefit of it whose bodies could not be found or identified.
When a cenotaph of the latter class was erected sacrifices were
offered, the names of the deceased were thrice invoked with a loud
voice, as if to summon them to their new abode, and the cenotaph was
hallowed with the same privileges as if the ashes of the deceased
reposed within it.
The heir, however, had not discharged his last duty when he had laid
the body of his predecessor in the tomb; there were still due solemn
rites, and those of an expensive character. The Romans loved to keep
alive the memory of their dead, showing therein a constancy of
affection which does them honor; and not only immediately after the
funeral, but at stated periods from time to time, they celebrated
feasts and offered sacrifices and libations to them. The month of
February was especially set apart for doing honor to the manes, having
obtained that distinction in virtue of being, in old times, the last
month of the year. Private funeral feasts were also celebrated on the
ninth day after death, and indeed at any time, except on those days
which were marked as unlucky, because some great public calamity had
befallen upon them. Besides these feasts, the dead were honored with
sacrifices, which were offered to the manes, and with games; but the
latter belong more to those splendid public funerals which we have
professed not to describe. The inferiæ consisted principally of
libations, for which were used water, milk, wine, but especially
blood, the smell of which was thought peculiarly palatable to the
ghosts. Perfumes and flowers were also thrown upon the tomb; and the
inexpediency of wasting rich wines and precious oils on a cold stone
and dead body, when they might be employed in comforting the living,
was a favorite subject with the _bons vivans_ of the age. It was with
the same design to crown it with garlands, and to honor it with
libations, that Electra and Orestes met and recognized each other at
their father's tomb. Roses were in especial request for this service,
and lilies also:
Full canisters of fragrant lilies bring,
Mixed with the purple roses of the Spring;
Let me with funeral flowers his body strow,
This gift which parents to their children owe,
This unavailing gift at least I may bestow.
_Dryden, Æn, vi. 883._
_Inscriptions._--Before entering upon a description of the catacombs,
we will speak of the inscriptions of the ancients. Most of the tombs
are really Egyptian, and no nation has left so many inscriptions as
the Egyptian. All its monuments are covered with them. Its temples,
palaces, tombs, isolated monuments, present an infinite number of
inscriptions in hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic characters. The
Egyptians rarely executed a statue, or figured representation, without
inscribing by its side its name or subject. This name is invariably
found by the side of each divinity, personage, or individual. In each
painted scene, on each sculptured figure, an inscription, more or less
extensive, explains its subject.
The characters used by the Egyptians were of three
kinds--hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic. The latter has been also
termed _enchorial_, or popular. The first was doubtless a system of
representational signs, or picture writing--the earliest form of
writing, in the first stage of its development; the hieratic is an
abbreviated form of the hieroglyphic; the demotic, a simplified form
of the hieratic, and a near approach towards the alphabetic system.
[Illustration: HIEROGLYPHICS.]
Hieroglyphics (styled by the Egyptians _skhai en neter tur_--writing
of sacred words) are composed of signs representing objects of the
physical world, as animals, plants, stars, man and his different
members, and various objects. They are pure or linear, the latter
being a reduction of the former. The pure were always sculptured or
painted. The linear were generally used in the earlier papyri,
containing funeral rituals.
They have been divided into four classes:--1, Representational or
ikonographic; 2, Symbolic or tropical; 3, Enigmatic; 4, Phonetic. From
the examination of hieroglyphic inscriptions of different ages, it is
evident that these four classes of symbols were used promiscuously,
according to the pleasure and convenience of the artist.
1. Ikonographic, representational, or imitative hieroglyphics, are
those that present the images of the things expressed, as the sun's
disk to signify the sun, the crescent to signify the moon. These may
be styled pure hieroglyphics.
2. The symbolical, or tropical (by Bunsen termed ideographic),
substituted one object for another, to which it bore an analogy, as
heaven and a star expressed night; a leg in a trap, deceit; two arms
stretched towards heaven expressed the word offering; a censer with
some grains of incense, adoration; a bee was made to signify Lower
Egypt; the fore-quarters of a lion, strength; a crocodile, darkness.
The following hieroglyphics were on the triumph Hall Thothmes III.,
and mean, after translating:
[Illustration]
"I went: I order that you reduce and crush all the high officers of
Tsahi. I cast them together with all their possessions at thy feet."
This kind of character appears to have been particularly invented for
the expression of abstract ideas, especially belonging to religion or
the royal power. These are the characters generally alluded to by the
ancients when they speak of hieroglyphics, and are the most difficult
of interpretation.
3. Enigmatic are those in which an emblematic figure is put in lieu of
the one intended to be represented, as a hawk for the sun; a seated
figure with a curved beard, for a god. These three kinds were either
used _alone_, or _in company_ with the phonetically written word they
represented. Thus: 1. The word Ra, sun, might be written in letters
only, or be also followed by the ikonograph, the _solar disk_ (which
if alone would still have the same meaning--Ra, the sun). So, too, the
word "moon," Aah, was followed by the crescent. In these cases the
sign so following the phonetic word has been called a _terminative_,
from its serving to determine the meaning of what preceded it. We give
here a few words translated:
[Illustration]
"In your transformation as golden sperbe you have accomplished it."
2. In the same manner, the _tropical_ hieroglyphics might be alone or
in company with the word written phonetically; and the expression "to
write," _skhai_, might be followed or not by its tropical
hieroglyphic, the "pen and inkstand," as its determinative sign. 3.
The emblematic figure, a _hawk-headed_ god, bearing the disk,
signifying the "sun," might also be alone, or after the name "Ra"
written phonetically, as a determinative sign; and as a general rule
the determinative followed, instead of preceding the names.
Determinatives are of two kinds--ideograms, and generic
determinatives: the first were the pictures of the object spoken of;
the second, conventional symbols of the class of notions expressed by
the word.
[Illustration]
4. Phonetic. Phonetic characters or signs were those expressive of
sounds. They are either purely _alphabetic_ or _syllabic_. All the
other Egyptian phonetic signs have _syllabic_ values, which are
resolvable into combinations of the letters of the alphabet. This
phonetic principle being admitted, the numbers of figures used to
represent a sound might have been increased almost without limit, and
any hieroglyphic might stand for the first letter of its name. So
copious an alphabet would have been a continual source of error. The
characters, therefore, thus applied, were soon fixed, and the
Egyptians practically confined themselves to particular hieroglyphics
in writing certain words.
[Illustration]
"Out of bad comes good."
Hieroglyphic writing was employed on monuments of all kinds, on
temples as well as on the smallest figures, and on bricks used for
building purposes. On the most ancient monuments this writing is
absolutely the same as on the most recent Egyptian work. Out of Egypt
there is scarcely a single example of a graphic system identically the
same during a period of over two thousand years. The hieroglyphic
characters were either engraved in relief, or sunk below the surface
on the public monuments, and objects of hard materials suited for the
glyptic art. The hieroglyphics on the monuments are either sculptured
and plain, or decorated with colors. The colored are divided into two
distinct classes, the monochromatic of one simple tone, and the
polychromatic, or those which rendered with more or less fidelity the
color of the object they were intended to depict. The hieroglyphic
figures were arranged in vertical columns or horizontal lines, and
grouped together as circumstances required, so as to leave no spaces
unnecessarily vacant. They were written from right to left, or from
left to right. The order in which the characters were to be read, was
shown by the direction in which the figures are placed, as their heads
are invariably turned towards the reader. A single line of
hieroglyphics--the dedication of a temple or of any other monument,
for example--proceeds sometimes one half from left to right, and the
other half from right to left; but in this case a sign, such as the
sacred tau, or an obelisk, which has no particular direction, is
placed in the middle of the inscription, and it is from that sign that
the two halves of the inscription take each an opposite direction.
The period when hieroglyphics--the oldest Egyptian characters--were
first used, is uncertain. They are found in the Great Pyramid of the
time of the fourth dynasty, and had evidently been invented long
before, having already assumed a cursive style.[23] This shows them to
be far older than any other known writing; and the written documents
of the ancient languages of Asia, the Sanskrit and the Zend, are of a
recent time compared with those of Egypt, even if the date of the
Rig-Veda in the fifteenth century B.C. be proved. Manetho shows that
the invention of writing was known in the reign of Athoth (the son
and successor of Menes), the second King of Egypt, when he ascribes to
him the writing of the anatomical books, and tradition assigned to it
a still earlier origin. At all events, hieroglyphics, and the use of
the papyrus, with the usual reed pen, are shown to have been common
when the pyramids were built, and their style in the sculptures proves
that they were then a very old invention. In hieroglyphics of the
earliest periods there were fewer phonetic characters than in after
ages, these periods being nearer to the original picture-writing. The
number of signs also varied at different times; but they may be
reckoned at from 900 to 1,000. Various new characters were added at
subsequent periods, and a still greater number were introduced under
the Ptolemies and Cæsars, which are not found in the early monuments;
some, again, of the older times, fell into disuse.
Hieratic is an abbreviated form of the hieroglyphic; thus each
hieroglyphic sign--ikonographic, symbolic, or phonetic--has its
abridged hieratic form, and this abridged form has the same import as
the sign itself of which it is a reduced copy. It was written from
right to left, and was the character used by the priests and sacred
scribes, whence its name. It was invented at least as early as the
ninth dynasty (4,240 years ago), and fell into disuse when the demotic
had been introduced. The hieratic writing was generally used for
manuscripts, and is also found on the cases of mummies, and on
isolated stones and tablets. Long inscriptions have been written on
them with a brush. Inscriptions of this kind are also found on
buildings, written or engraved by ancient travelers. But its most
important use was in the historical papyri, and the registers of the
temples. Most valuable information respecting the chronology and
numeric systems of the Egyptians has been derived from them.
Demotic, or enchorial, is composed of signs derived from the hieratic,
and is a simplified form of it, but from which figurative or
ikonographic signs are generally excluded, and but few symbolical
signs, relative to religion alone, are retained; signs nearly
approaching the alphabetic are chiefly met with in this third kind of
writing. It was invariably written, like the hieratic, from right to
left. It is thus evident that the Egyptians, strictly speaking, had
but one system of writing, composed of three kinds of signs, the
second and third being regularly deduced from the first, and all three
governed by the same fundamental principles. The demotic was reserved
for general use among the Egyptians: decrees and other public acts,
contracts, some funeral stelæ, and private transactions, were written
in demotic. The intermediate text of the Rosetta inscription is of
this kind. It is not quite certain when the demotic first came into
use, but it was at least as early as the reign of Psammetichus II., of
the twenty-sixth dynasty (B.C. 604); and it had therefore long been
employed when Herodotus visited Egypt. Soon after its invention it was
adopted for all ordinary purposes.
The chief objects of interest in the study of an Egyptian inscription
are its historical indications. These are found in the names of Kings
or of chief officers, and in the dates they contain. The names of
Kings are always enclosed in an oval called _cartouche_. An oval
contains either the royal title or prænomen, or the proper name or
nomen of the King.
[Illustration: EGYPTIAN PILLAR.]
The dates which are found with these royal legends are also of great
importance in an historical point of view, and monuments which bear
any numerical indications are exceedingly rare. These numerical
indications are either the age of the deceased on a funeral tablet, or
the number of different consecrated objects which he has offered to
the gods, or the date of an event mentioned in the inscription.
Dates, properly so called, are the most interesting to collect; they
are expressed in hieroglyphic cyphers, single lines expressing the
number of units up to nine, when an arbitrary sign represents 10,
another 100, and another 10,000.
The most celebrated Egyptian inscriptions are those of the Rosetta
stone. This stone, a tablet of black basalt, contains three
inscriptions, one in hieroglyphics, another in demotic or enchorial,
and a third in the Greek language. The inscriptions are to the same
purport in each, and are a decree of the priesthood of Memphis, in
honor of Ptolemy Epiphanes, about the year B.C. 196. "Ptolemy is there
styled King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Son of the gods Philopatores,
approved by Pthah, to whom Ra has given victory, a living image of
Amun, son of Ra, Ptolemy Immortal, beloved by Pthah, God Epiphanes,
most gracious. In the date of the decree we are told the names of the
priests of Alexander, of the gods Soteres, of the gods Adelphi, of the
gods Euergetæ, of the gods Philopatores, of the god Epiphanes himself,
of Berenice Euergetis, of Arsinoe Philadelphus, and of Arsinoe
Philopator. The preamble mentions with gratitude the services of the
King, or rather of his wise minister, Aristomenes, and the enactment
orders that the statue of the King shall be worshipped in every temple
of Egypt, and be carried out in the processions with those of the gods
of the country, and lastly that the decree is to be carved at the foot
of every statue of the King in sacred, in common and in Greek writing"
(Sharpe). It is now in the British Museum. This stone is remarkable
for having led to the discovery of the system pursued by the Egyptians
in their monumental writing, and for having furnished a key to its
interpretation, Dr. Young giving the first hints by establishing the
phonetic value of the hieroglyphic signs, which were followed up and
carried out by Champollion.
Another important and much more ancient inscription is the tablet of
Abydos in the British Museum. It was discovered by Mr. Banks in a
chamber of the temple of Abydos, in 1818. It is now greatly
disfigured, but when perfect it represented an offering made by
Remeses II., of the nineteenth dynasty, to his predecessors on the
throne of Egypt. The tablet is of fine limestone, and originally
contained the names of fifty-two Kings disposed in the two upper
lines, twenty-six in each line, and a third or lower line with the
name and prænomen of Remeses II. or III. repeated twenty-six times. On
the upper line, beginning from the right hand, are the names of
monarchs anterior to the twelfth dynasty. The names in the second line
are those of monarchs of the twelfth and the eighteenth or nineteenth
dynasties. The King Remeses II. probably stood on the right hand of
the tablet, and on the other is the lower part of a figure of Osiris.
The lateral inscription is the speech of the deceased King to "their
son" Remeses II.
The tablet of Karnac, now in one of the halls of the Bibliotheque at
Paris, was discovered by Burton in a chamber situated in the southeast
angle of the temple-palace of Thebes, and was published by its
discoverer in his "Excerpta Hieroglyphica." The chamber itself was
fully described by Rosellini in his "Monumenti Storici." The Kings are
in two rows, overlooked each of them by a large figure of Thothmes
III., the fifth King of the eighteenth dynasty. In the row to the left
of the entrance are thirty-one names, and in that to the right are
thirty, all of them predecessors of Thothmes. The Theban Kings who
ruled in Upper Egypt during the usurpation of the Hyksos invaders are
also exhibited among the lists. Over the head of each King is his
oval, containing his royal titles.
A most valuable tablet of Kings has been lately discovered by M.
Mariette in a tomb near Memphis, that of a priest who lived under
Remeses II., and was called Tunar-i. It contains two rows of Kings'
names, each twenty-nine in number. Six have been wholly obliterated
out of the upper row, and five out of the lower row. The upper row
contains the names of Remeses II. and his predecessors, who seem all
meant for Kings of Upper Egypt, or Kings of Memphis who ruled over
Upper Egypt, while the names in the lower row seem meant for
contemporaneous High Priests of Memphis, some or all of whom may have
called themselves Kings of Lower Egypt. The result of the comparison
of this tablet with other authorities, namely, Manetho, Eratosthenes,
and the tablet of Abydos, is supposed by some to contradict the longer
views of chronology held by Bunsen, Lepsius and others. Thus, reading
the list of names backwards from Remeses II. to Amosis, the first of
the eighteenth dynasty, this tablet, like the tablet of Abydos,
immediately jumps to the Kings of Manetho's twelfth dynasty; thus
arguing that the intermediate five dynasties mentioned by Manetho must
have been reigning contemporaneously with the others, and add no
length of time to a table of chronology. There is also a further
omission in this tablet of four more dynasties. This tablet would thus
seem to confirm the views of the opponents of the longer chronology of
Bunsen and others, by striking out from the long chronology two
periods amounting together to 1,536 years. But a complete counterpart
of the tablet of Memphis has been recently found at Abydos by M.
Mariette, fully confirming the chronology of Manetho, and bearing out
the views of Bunsen and Lepsius. The _Moniteur_ publishes a letter
from M. Mariette, containing the following statement:--"At Abydos I
have discovered a magnificent counterpart of the tablet of Sakharah.
Seti I., accompanied by his son, subsequently Remeses II. (Sesostris),
presents an offering to seventy-six Kings drawn up in line before him.
Menes (the first King of the first dynasty on Manetho's list) is at
their head. From Menes to Seti I., this formidable list passes through
nearly all the dynasties. The first six are represented therein. We
are next introduced to sovereigns still unknown to us, belonging to
the obscure period which extends from the end of the sixth to the
beginning of the eleventh. From the eleventh to the eighteenth the new
table follows the beaten track, which it does not quit again during
the reign of Thothmes, Amenophis, and the first Remeses. If in this
new list everything is not absolutely new, we at least find in it a
valuable confirmation of Manetho's list, and in the present state of
science we can hardly expect more. Whatever confirms Manetho gives us
confidence in our own efforts, even as whatever contradicts it weakens
the results we obtain. The new tablet of Abydos is, moreover, the
completest and best preserved monument we possess in this respect. Its
style is splendid, and there is not a single cartouche or oval
wanting. It has been found engraved on one of the walls of a small
chamber in the large temple of Abydos."
An important stone bearing a Greek inscription with equivalent
Egyptian hieroglyphics has been discovered by Professor Lepsius, at
San, the former Tanis, the chief scene of the grand architectural
undertakings of Remeses II. The Greek inscription consists of
seventy-six lines, in the most perfect preservation, dating from the
time of Ptolemy Euergetes I. (B.C. 238). The hieroglyphical
inscription has thirty-seven lines. It was also found that a demotic
inscription was ordered to be added by the priests, on a stone or
brass stele, in the sacred writing of the Egyptians and in Greek
characters; this is unfortunately wanting. The contents of the
inscription are of great interest. It is dated the ninth year the
seventh Apellæus--seventeen Tybi, of the reign of Euergetes I. The
priests of Egypt came together in Canopus to celebrate the birthday of
Euergetes, on the fifth Dios, and his assumption of the royal honor on
the twenty-eighth of the same month, when they passed the decree here
published. They enumerate all the good deeds of the King, amongst them
the merit of having recovered in a military expedition the sacred
images carried off in former times by the Persians, and order great
honors to be paid in reward for his services. This tablet of
calcareous stone with a rounded top, is about seven feet high, and is
completely covered by the inscription. The discovery of this stone is
of the greatest importance for hieroglyphical studies.
We may mention here another inscribed tablet, the celebrated Isiac
table in the Museum at Turin. It is a tablet in bronze, covered with
Egyptian figures or hieroglyphics engraved or sunk, the outlines being
filled with silvering, forming a kind of niello. It was one of the
first objects that excited an interest in the interpretation of
hieroglyphics, and elicited learned solutions from Kircher and others.
It is now considered to be one of those pseudo-Egyptian productions so
extensively fabricated during the reign of Hadrian.
[Illustration: EGYPTIAN COLUMN.]
The Egyptian obelisks also present important inscriptions. Of these
the most ancient is that of Heliopolis.
We have selected these few examples of Egyptian inscriptions for their
celebrity. Almost every Egyptian monument, of whatever period,
temples, statues, tablets, small statues, were inscribed with
hieroglyphic inscriptions, all generally executed with great care and
finish. The Egyptian edifices were also covered with religious or
historical tableaux, sculptured and painted on all the walls; it has
been estimated that in one single temple there existed no less than
30,000 square feet of sculpture, and at the sides of these tableaux
were innumerable inscriptions, equally composed of ingeniously grouped
figurative signs, in explanation of the subjects, and combining with
them far more happily than if they had been the finest alphabetical
characters in the world.
Their study would require more than a lifetime, and we have only space
to give a few general hints.
We have a much more accurate knowledge of Greek inscriptions than we
have of Egyptian palæography. The Greek alphabet, and all its
variations, as well as the language, customs, and history of that
illustrious people, are better known to us. Greek inscriptions lead us
back to those glorious periods of the Greek people when their heroes
and writers made themselves immortal by their illustrious deeds and
writings. What emotions must arise in the breast of the archæologist
who finds in a marble worn by time the funereal monument placed by
Athens, twenty-three centuries ago, over the grave of its warriors who
died before Potidæa.
"Their souls high heaven received; their bodies gained,
In Potidæa's plains, this hallowed tomb.
Their foes unnumbered fell: a few remained
Saved by their ramparts from the general doom.
The victor city mourns her heroes slain,
Foremost in fight, they for her glory died."
The most important monumental inscription which presents Greek
records, illustrating and establishing the chronology of Greek
history, is the Parian chronicle, now preserved among the Arundelian
marbles at Oxford. It was so called from the supposition of its having
been made in the Island of Paros, B.C. 263. In its perfect state it
was a square tablet, of coarse marble, five inches thick; and when
Selden first inspected it it measured three feet seven inches by two
feet seven inches. On this stone were engraved some of the principal
events in the history of ancient Greece, forming a compendium of
chronology during a series of 1,318 years, which commenced with the
reign of Cecrops, the first King of Athens, B.C. 1582, and ended with
the archonship of Diognetus. It was deciphered and published by the
learned Selden in 1628. It makes no mention of Olympiads, and reckons
backwards from the time then present by years.
Particular attention should be paid, in the interpretation of Greek
inscriptions, to distinguish the numerous titles of magistrates of
every order, of public officers of different ranks, the names of gods
and of nations, those of towns, and the tribes of a city; the
prescribed formulas for different kinds of monuments; the text of
decrees, letters, etc., which are given or cited in analogous texts;
the names of monuments, such as stelæ, tablets, cippi, etc., the
indication of places, or parts belonging to those places, where they
ought to be set up or deposited, such as a temple or vestibule, a
court or peristyle, public square, etc.; those at whose cost it was
set up, the entire city or a curia, the public treasure, or a private
fund, the names and surnames of public or private individuals;
prerogatives or favors granted, such as the right of asylum, of
hospitality, of citizenship; the punishments pronounced against those
who should destroy or mutilate the monument; the conditions of
treaties and alliances; the indications of weights, moneys and
measures.
Another early example of a commemorative inscription of which the date
can also be positively fixed is that lately discovered by Dr. Frick on
the bronze serpent with the three heads, now at Constantinople, which
supported the golden tripod which was dedicated, as Herodotus states,
to Apollo by the allied Greeks as a tenth of the Persian spoils at
Platæa, and which was placed near the altar at Delphi. On this
monument, as we learn from Thucydides, Pausanias, regent of Sparta,
inscribed an arrogant distich, in which he commemorates the victory in
his own name as general in chief, hardly mentioning the allied forces
who gained it. This epigram was subsequently erased by the
Lacedæmonians, who substituted it for an inscription enumerating the
various Hellenic states who had taken a part in repulsing the Persian
invaders. The inscription contains exactly what the statements of
Thucydides and Herodotus would lead us to expect; the names of those
Greek states which took an active part in the defeat of the Persians.
Thirty-one names have been deciphered, and there seem to be traces of
three more. The first three names in the list are the Lacedæmonians,
Athenians, Corinthians. The remainder are nearly identical with those
inscribed on the statue of Zeus at Olympia, as they are given by
Pausanias. The names of the several states seem to be arranged on the
serpent generally according to their relative importance, and also
with some regard to their geographical distribution. The states of
continental Greece are enumerated first; then the islanders and
outlying colonies in the north and west. It is supposed the present
inscription was placed on the serpent B.C. 476.
The dedicatory inscriptions on the statues at Branchidæ probably range
from B.C. 580-520. The famous Sigean inscription, brought from the
Troad to England in the last century, is now admitted to be not a
pseudo-archaic imitation, as Bockh maintained, but a genuine specimen
of Greek writing in Asia Minor, contemporary, or nearly so, with the
Branchidæ inscriptions. Kirchhoff considers it not later than Olympiad
69 (B.C. 504-500).
A most interesting inscription of the archaic period is the celebrated
bronze tablet, which Sir William Gell obtained from Olympia, and on
which is engraved a treaty between the Eleans and Heræans. The terms
of this specimen of ancient diplomacy are singularly concise.
Kirchhoff places this inscription before Olympiad 75 (B.C. 480); Bockh
assigns it to a much earlier date. In any case, we may regard this as
the oldest extant treaty in the Greek language. It must have been
originally fixed on the wall of some temple at Olympia.
A series of Athenian records on marble has been found inscribed on the
wall of the Parthenon, while others have been put together out of many
fragments extracted from the ruins on the Acropolis and from
excavations at Athens. Of the public records preserved in these
inscriptions, the following are the most important classes: the
tribute lists, the treasure lists, and the public accounts.
An interesting inscription has been lately brought to light in the
diggings on the Athenian Acropolis. It is the treaty-stone between
Athens and Chalcis. The inscription is of the days of Pericles, and
records the terms on which Chalcis in Euboea was again received as an
Athenian dependency or subject ally after its revolt and recovery in
B.C. 445. The event is recorded in Thucydides. The inscription is in
Attic Greek, but the spelling is archaic.
Funeral monuments usually bear an inscription which gives the names
and titles of the deceased, his country, his age, the names of his
father and of his mother, his titles and his services, his
distinguished qualities and his virtues. Frequently a funereal
inscription contains only the names of the deceased, that of his
country, and acclamations and votive formulæ generally terminate it.
The Sigean marble is one of the most celebrated palæographical
monuments in existence. It is written in the most ancient Greek
characters, and in the Boustrophedon manner. The purport of the
inscription, which in sense is twice repeated, on the upper and lower
part of the stone, is to record the presentation of three vessels for
the use of the Prytaneum, or Town Hall of the Sigeans. The upper and
lower inscriptions, in common letters, read thus:
The first inscription is thus translated: "I am the gift of
Phanodicus, the son of Hermocrates, of Proconnesus; he gave a vase (a
crater), a stand or support for it, and a strainer, to the Sigeans for
the Prytaneum." The second, which says, "I also am the gift of
Phanodicus," repeating the substance of the former inscription, adds,
"if any mischance happens to me, the Sigeans are to mend me. Æsop and
his brethren made me." The lower inscription is the more ancient. It
is now nearly obliterated. Kirchhoff considers it to be not later than
Olympiad 69 B.C. (504-500).
_The Athenian People erects this Statue of Socrates, the Son of
Socrates of Thoricus._
"The Sons of Athens, Socrates, from thee
Imbibed the lessons of the Muse divine;
Hence this thy meed of wisdom: prompt are we
To render grace for grace, our love for thine."
_Wordsworth's Athens._
To Perpenna the Roman,
of Consular dignity, the Senate and People of Syracuse.
A man by whose wise counsels this city of Syracuse hath breathed from
its labors, and seen the hour of repose. For these services the best
of its citizens have erected to him an image of marble, but they
preserve that of his wisdom in their breasts.
_Museum of Syracuse._
_On a Gateway at Nicæa_ (_Translation_):
"The very splendid, and large, and good city of the Nicæans [erects]
this wall for the autocrat Cæsar Marcus Aurelius Claudius, the pious,
the fortunate, august, of Tribunitial authority, second time
Proconsul, father of his country, and for the Sacred Senate, and the
people of the Romans, in the time of the illustrious Consular Velleius
Macrinus, Legate and Lieutenant of the august Cæsar Antoninus, the
splendid orator." A.D. 269.
[Page Decoration]
THE CATACOMBS.
The catacombs, or under-ground cemeteries, are among the most
stupendous wonders of antiquity, and have ever since their discovery
excited the keenest interest of archæologists.
The cut on page 875 is a plan of the catacombs of Rome. These alone
were years ago computed to be 590 miles in length, while Mr. Marchi,
in the light of more recent investigations and new discoveries has
calculated their length to be between 800 and 900 miles, and, that in
the sepulchral enclosures of their vast hollows between 6,000,000 and
7,000,000 of the human race have been entombed. Most of the catacombs
are situated from fifty to seventy-five feet below the surface of the
earth, not a ray of natural light can penetrate the dense blackness of
night which everywhere abounds. Woe to the man whose boldness leads
him to venture alone into these dark depths! So extensive and so
intricate are the corridors and passages that he must be irrevocably
lost and miserably perish in this endless labyrinth. Even the most
experienced guides, with burning torches in hand, would rather follow
only thoroughly explored passages, and care not to leave well-beaten
tracks.
The passages are from six to twelve feet high and have an average
width of from three to six feet. In the tufa rock of which their walls
are composed niches are hollowed out, one above the other, in which
the dead were laid, from three to six persons having been placed on
each side. All the passages and galleries have these ghastly linings,
and most of them end their long and dreary course in a chamber, as the
reader may observe on examining the cuts below.
These chambers are often of large dimensions, and were originally
adorned with great splendor and high art. They were the tombs of
wealthy and noble families, who spared neither labor nor money in
beautifying their final habitations. The walls and ceilings were
exquisitely sculptured and painted by the most gifted artists of the
age. Sarcophagi or coffins of bronze, of porphyry and other rare
marbles contained the bodies of the dead. On their massive lids and
sides were carved the forms and features of those lying within, so
that even to-day we are in possession of fine and accurate portraits
of ancient people. Around the sarcophagi were placed rich vases of
gold, drinking cups of silver, and many other valuable treasures dear
to the departed when alive. Statues of bronze and marble were ranged
about in lavish array and gleamed under the soft light which fell from
quaint lamps of precious metals, curious in shape and wrought with
elaborate skill.
[Illustration: SECTIONS OF CATACOMBS WITH CHAMBERS.]
In the Roman Campagna there were forty-three catacombs, whose names
are recorded in inscriptions, in martyrologies, and in the Pontifical
Registers used by Anastasius, since republished, with additions, in
various forms, and repeated in substance by Baronius in his Annals,
and Panvinius in his treatise on the Cemeteries. Aringhi reckons on
the number at fifty-six, and from the account of Signor de Rossi it
appears that the number is now reckoned at about sixty. The number of
_general_ cemeteries is not so large.
[Illustration: PLAN OF CATACOMBS AT ROME. (_Estimated to be
between 800 and 900 miles in length._)]
The original entrances to the catacombs were in many instances by
subterranean roads or corridors, sometimes called streets. These
corridors, which served as entrances to and passages in the
burial-places, were originally old sand-pit roads, from which the
Pozzolana sand had been extracted; when this bed of sand is extracted,
the entrance is usually closed. The soft bed of Pozzolana sand was,
however, not generally used for interments, but the harder bed under
it, called "tufa granulare." The different horizontal layers or beds
of tufa vary very much in hardness and also in thickness.
Although these catacombs may not be the finest cemeteries, yet the use
of these would be infinitely preferable to the recent Roman practice
of throwing the bodies of all persons, whose families can not afford
to buy a piece of land in perpetuity, into a pit, in the same manner
as the ancient Romans did the bodies of their slaves.
There are three hundred and eighty pits provided in the burial ground
of S. Lorenzo, one of which was opened every night. All the bodies
brought for interment that day or night were thrown into it, after
being first stripped to the skin by the officials; and then hot lime
was thrown upon them, that they might be thoroughly decayed before the
year came round. The mouth of the pit was closed with lime grouting,
so that no effluvium could escape, and this covering was not broken
until the pit was wanted to be used again.
These corridors or passages of the sand-pits from which the Pozzolana
sand had been excavated are large enough to admit a horse and cart;
these were frequently the entrances to the catacombs, the corridors of
which are usually by the side of or under those of the _arenariæ_, or
sand-pits, and are only just large enough for a man, or two men with
a body, to pass along; the height varies from five to seven or eight
feet, or more, according to the thickness of the bed of tufa. In the
catacomb of S. Hermes, part of the wide sand-pit road has been reduced
to one-third of its width, by building up brick walls on each side
with _loculi_ in them.
There is in general, at present, no communication between one catacomb
and another; each occupies a separate hill or rising ground in the
Campagna, and is separated from the others by the intervening valleys.
When the first tier of tombs extended to the edges of the hill, a
second was made under it, and then sometimes a third, or more. The
manner in which the rock is excavated in a number of corridors
twisting in all directions, in order to make room for the largest
possible number of bodies, is thus accounted for. The plan of the
catacomb of S. Priscilla is a good illustration of this. It would have
been hardly safe to have excavated the rock to any greater extent. The
lowest corridors are frequently below the level of the valleys, and
there may have been originally passages from one to the other, so that
one entrance to S. Calixtus may have been through S. Sebastian's. The
peculiarly dry and drying nature of the sandstone, or tufa rock, in
which these tombs are excavated, made them admirably calculated for
the purpose. These catacombs were the public cemeteries of Christian
Rome for several centuries, and it would have been well for the health
of the city if they could always have continued so. Unfortunately
after the siege of Rome by the Goths, in the time of Justinian, when
some of the catacombs were rifled of their contents, the use of these
excellent burying places was discontinued.
That the _arenaria_ were considered as burying places in the time of
Nero is evident from his exclamations of horror at the idea of being
taken there alive for the purpose of concealment. The sand-pits are
also mentioned by Cicero in his Oration for Cluentius, where he says
that the young Asinius, a citizen of noble family, was inveigled into
one of them and murdered.
[Illustration: STONE COFFIN.]
This shows they were in use before the Christian era, and there is
every reason to believe that they have been in use ever since
lime-mortar came into use, which is believed to have been many
centuries before that period. The celebrated Pozzolana sand makes the
best mortar in the world, from its gritty nature. This valuable sand
is found to any extent nearly all over the Campagna of Rome, in
horizontal beds or layers between the beds of tufa; some of the tufa
itself, which is sandstone, may be scraped into this sand, but it is
easier to take it as ready provided by nature. People once accustomed
to the use of this sand can not do without it, and hundreds of carts
filled with it may be seen daily traversing the Campagna, conveying it
either to Rome, or to Ostia, or to Porto, for exportation. The
horizontal layers or beds of this sand are not usually more than six
feet thick, although they extend at a certain level over the whole
surface of the country. It is therefore excavated in horizontal
corridors, with various branches, extending for many miles,
undermining the whole surface of the soil, but not in large or deep
pits, so that the name of sand-pit is rather deceitful to American
people, who commonly imagine it to be always a large and deep pit to
which these roads lead only; this is not always the case, the roads
themselves being excavated in the layer of sand, and frequently
themselves the sand-pits. Sometimes there are different layers of sand
at different levels, and in some cases there may be two sand-pit roads
one over the other, with the bed of hard tufa between them.
We are told in the _Acta Sanctorum_ that one of the punishments
inflicted on the Christians by the Emperor Maximinus in the sixth
persecution, A.D. 35, was digging sand and stone. The martyrs,
Ciriacus and Sisinnus are especially mentioned as ordered to be
strictly guarded, and compelled to dig sand and to carry it on their
own shoulders.
Some of the catacombs were evidently made under tombs by the side of
the road, and in that of S. Calixtus there are remains of the tomb on
the surface of the ground. The burial-chapels of the fourth century
commonly found over a catacomb probably replace earlier tombs. The
church of S. Urban is now considered to have been a family tomb of the
first century, made into a church long afterwards.
[Illustration: STONE COFFIN WITH OPEN SIDE.]
Many inscriptions are preserved relating to the preservation of a tomb
with the land belonging to it in perpetuity, and they frequently
mention the number of feet along the road and in the field. Their size
varies enormously. Horace mentions one that was 1,000 feet by 300
feet. The inscription of one dug up in the Via Labicana gives 1,800
feet by 500 feet; another was only twenty-four feet by fifteen feet,
and another sixteen feet square. In the case of one of the larger
tombs belonging to a family that became Christian, it was easy for
them to make a catacomb under it and allow their fellow-Christians to
be buried there, or to sell portions of the large space for separate
vaults. Many vaults of sixteen feet square might be made in the space
of 1,800 feet long by 500 feet wide, as the one on the Via Labicana.
If the adjoining field belonged to the same family, the catacomb might
be extended as far as the family property itself extended. This is the
most probable explanation of the _prædium_ of the Lady Lucina and
other Christian martyrs. They were heiresses to whom such a tomb and
meadow belonged. When the space was limited, three or four stories
were excavated in succession, one under the other, as we see in many
instances.
The measurements of Michele de Rossi coincide with this in a
remarkable manner. He finds the _area_ of each separate catacomb to be
respectively 100, 125, 150, 180 and 250 feet. None of these spaces are
at all too large for the area commonly left round a tomb of
importance, and the family property of this area would extend to any
depth. Each cemetery was complete in itself, but sometimes connected
with others by subterranean roads.
These tombs were protected by special laws, and the _area_ in which
the tomb stood was included with it. The area was often of
considerable extent, and was intended for the burial-place of
succeeding generations of the family to whom it belonged. The tombs of
the period of the early empire were by no means exclusively for the
_columbaria_ for cinerary urns. The instances in which there are both
places for bodies and urns are perhaps more numerous than those for
urns only. The fine sarcophagi now found in museums, or applied to all
sorts of uses, as water-troughs, vases for flowers, and various other
purposes, were all originally in tombs, and generally in tombs in
which there were also _columbaria_ for cinerary urns. Some Pagan tombs
on the Via Latina have catacombs for the interment of bodies under
them, and often bodies were put in them.
The custom of burning the bodies was never universal, and lasted only
for a certain period; the custom of burying bodies came in again soon
after the Christian era, and probably was influenced by the strong
feeling which sprung up among the Christians on this subject. The
sumptuous painted chambers in the upper part of the tombs of the first
and second centuries on the Via Latina were evidently imitated by the
poor in the catacombs in the fourth and fifth centuries and later;
but there is no evidence of any Scriptural or religious subjects for
paintings before the time of Constantine. The character of the
paintings is almost universally later, and the few that are early are
not Christian nor Scriptural.
[Illustration: INSIDE VIEW OF CATACOMBS.]
It might very well happen that some members of the family were
Christians and others were not, and this would account for the mixture
of Pagan tombs with Christian ones in the same catacombs. The
subterranean sand-pit roads frequently run parallel to the high roads
at a little distance from them, and such a road passing at the back of
the subterranean cemetery or catacomb would be very convenient to
Christians in time of persecution. The part of these roads which came
within the limits of the cemetery would naturally be used for burial
places, also, as we see that they were distinctly in the case of S.
Hermes, and nearly with equal certainty in other cases. In ordinary
times, there was no necessity for secrecy. The bodies of Christian
martyrs were given up for the purpose of burial to those who applied
for them.
The catacombs of SS. Saturnius and Thraso, the entrance to which is in
the gardens of the Villa Gangalani, about a mile from Rome, on the Via
Salaria, are stated to have formed part of the great catacomb of S.
Priscilla, the entrance to which is about a quarter of a mile farther
from Rome, on the same road. On descending into that of S. Saturninus
by a steep flight of steps of modern appearance, but perhaps restored
only, we soon pass under the road and hear carriages passing overhead;
we then continue to descend to the depth of about fifty feet, divided
into five corridors, only four of which can at present be seen; but we
pass the entrance to the fifth on one of the stair-cases, and see the
opening to it. The two lower corridors of this catacomb have tombs or
_cubicula_ on the sides; a few of these are painted, and the vault of
the corridor in front of them, also.
The sandstone in which this catacomb is made is more than usually
hard, for which reason apparently there are only three of the side
chapels for family burying places, and few of the arched tombs; most
of the recesses for graves are merely parallelograms just large enough
to contain the body, or two bodies side by side, one behind the other,
the recess being excavated to a sufficient depth for that purpose, and
some of these have the slabs covering the openings left in their
places. The skeletons are allowed to remain in several of the tombs
where the slab has been removed and left open. One of the chapels has
remains of paintings of the fourth century in a very decayed state.
The other two chapels are connected by a short passage; they have
evidently been family burying places, a second added when the first
was full. The passage is made through the principal tomb of the first
chapel, the body previously interred there was probably removed to the
inner chapel when that was made. The painted chapel is in the upper
corridor, the double one in the lowest.
In descending from the garden, the two upper corridors have tombs on
the sides, and are regular catacombs; the third is an _arenarium_, or
sand-pit, without tombs, and large enough for a horse and cart to pass
along, as in the ordinary sand-pits. There must have been another
entrance to this, and it is said to have been half a mile off, which
is not improbable, judging by other sand-pits, both those now in use
and others that are closed, some of which are known to be more than a
mile long, and with the different branch galleries, the corridors
altogether often extend several miles. These galleries are large and
wide enough for a horse and cart, but not for two to pass, sidings
being made at intervals for that purpose. The passages in the
catacombs vary much both in height and in width, but are seldom more
than three feet wide. The chapels also vary in size, but none of them
would hold more than fifty people; those in the present catacomb are
small.
[Illustration: LAMPS FOUND IN THE CATACOMBS.]