Chapter XXXI: Book IX: CALLIOPE.--Defeat of the Persians at Platæa--defeat at the (4)

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.

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.

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.

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:

"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:

"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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.