A cry from the tombs: or, facts and observations on the impropriety of burying the dead among the living, in various ages and nations / [James Peggs].

  • James Peggs
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A cry from the tombs: or, facts and observations on the impropriety of burying the dead among the living, in various ages and nations / [James Peggs]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    salutary custom of conveying the dead to a distance from cities, was inviolably preserved. The Thebans,, the people of Sicyon, of Delos, and of Megara, the Macedonians, the inhabitants of the Chersonese, and of almost all Greece, adopted the same custom in this respect. The most celebrated legis¬ lators made it an interesting point in their code. Cecrops, at Athens, wished the dead to be carried beyond the walls. Solon adopted and re-established this wise regulation in ail its vigour; and it was only during the last days of the re¬ public, at Athens, that a small number of persons w~ere in¬ humed in the interior of the city. This honourable dis¬ tinction was only permitted in favour of some heroes. It was thus that they left in the Ceramicus, the tombs of those brave citizens, who sacrificed themselves for the defence of their country. Plato, in his republic, did not even permit inhumation in fields fit for tillage; he reserved for that pur¬ pose, dry and sandy grounds, and those which could be em¬ ployed for no other use. The same laws were in force in Grecia Magna. The Car¬ thaginians found the tombs of the inhabitants of Syracuse outside the city. The same thing occurred at Agrigentum. Religion gave its sanction to this custom. The holiness of tombs, many of which became the temples of certain Di¬ vinities, and were regarded as asylums for the unfortunate and the accused—the respect paid to the ashes and the memory of their ancestors—the punishments with which their holy laws threatened the violators of these customs— the maledictions denounced upon them by the priests :—in one word, the whole religious doctrine and mythology of the Greeks, tended only to support the laws, which directed the bodies of the dead to be removed far from the habitations of the living. The Romans preserved the custom indicated by nature, that of inhuming their dead, although they had the right of erecting tombs in their country residences. Numa was buried upon Mount Janiculum, which was not then within the city. The Kings, who succeeded him, had their sepul¬ chres in the Campus Martius, between the city and the Tiber. The vestal virgins enjoyed the privilege of burial within the city—those who had violated the vow of chastity, to which they had pledged themselves, were buried alive, in a field called Campus Sceleratus. The law of the Twelve Tables expressly forbids the burning or burial of any dead body in the city. By the terms even of the law, “ Hominem mortuum in urbe ne sepelito neve uritof it clearly appears, that from the fourth century of the republic, they adopted, indifferent¬ ly, the custom of burning and inhumation. In the obstinate wars carried on by the Romans against
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