for a long time together, in certain places, is ne- Ver. 1204. This and the two following verfes are a paraphrafe of our tranflator on his author. Ver. 1207. Hence we fee, that the saying of the comic poet has still prevailed: Proximus fum egomet mihi, in fo great diftrefs; and thus the most virtu among them expofed their lives to this dange and chiefly affifted their dying friends. In a manner, Thucydides : "Erk, westiet», duplépork, xl | μάλισα οἱ ἀρετῆς τὸ μεταποιώμενοι, αἰσχύνη γὰρ ἐξε δεν σφῶν αὐτῶν ἐσιόντος περὰ τὰς φίλες, ἐπεὶ καὶ το (πρὸς τὰς schol.) ὀλοφύρσεις τῶν ἀπογιγνομένων το λευτῶντες καὶ οἱ οικένοι ἐξέκαμνον, ὑπὸ τῇ πολλῶ καὶ xv That is to fay, if they forbore not to vi them, then they died themselves. For, out of frame they would not fpare their own persons, but we into their friends; efpecially after it was come t this pafs, that their own domeftics, wearied with the lamentations of them that died, and overcome with the greatness of the calamity, were no kag er moved with it. Ver. 1217. Upon this calamity, the Bishop Rochester thus paraphrases : Here others, poison'd by the scent, here. Plague of Athens, S Ver. 1221. This and the following verk thus in the original : Inque aliis alium populum fepelire fuorum row. That charity begins at home, as our ill-natured proverb expreffes it, and, confequently, that men are more careful of their own health than that of others. To abandon friends in fick nefs, is a piece of cruelty deteftable even in heathens; how much more then is it to be abhorred in Chriftians? Yet Guido Cauliacus tells us, that in the plague that raged in the year 1348, the living, that they might not endanger their lives by the contagion, avoided to come near the infected; infomuch, that whole families died without attendance, and were buried without priests: the father visited not the fon, nor the fon the father: Charity was extinguished, and hope overthrown. "In tantumque," fays he, "gentes moriebantur fine famulis, et fepeliabantur fine facerdotibus: Pater non vifitabat filium, nec filius patrem: caritas erat mortua, et fpes proftrata." Mattheo Villano acknowledges this to be true; and though he endeavours to lay the blame on the Barbarians, after whofe example the Chriftians no lefs inhumanly abandoned their friends; yet he omits not to brand them with infamy, as men guilty of afword, with the disease upon them, fled un barbarity truly deteftable, and till then unheard of among the profeffors of Chriftianity. J Ver. 1225. The poet having laid befe eyes the lamentable and tragical condition of $ city of Athens, he now brings upon the flage herdfimnen, fhepherds, and peasants, who, but visited with this cruel infection, in want da neceffaries, deftitute of friends, and defpareg relief, fhut themselves up, fome of them in the narrow huts, where they died by heaps, deftrees no lefs by famine than the plague; while ot for fear of the enemy, who were laying walle whole country, and deftroying all with fire city; and others, whofe ftrength would not f mit them to reach thither, lay languishing highways, naked, full of ulcers, &c. What Edreadful, what more difmal, can imaginatis. 2 Ver. 1228. This obfervation is the tranlar not his author's. Ver. 1215. In these ten verfes, the poet tells us, that fuch of them, as came to tend the infected, were exposed to a double deftruction. For, ei-gure to itself? ther they caught the contagion of the fick, and underwent the like fare with them, or elfe, worn out with the fatigue of tending them, they at length fell fick of the fame difeafe. But fhame as well as piety excited them to ferve their friends Ver. 1229. The Bishop of Rochefter defrida this circumftance very pathetically in the following verfes Here lies a mother and her child; ey both expir'd, and went away together. aks his fon heir, with an infectious breath: lis father's will, and his own make: serve his master in the other world again; truly now are one, and live one life: Plague of Athens, Stan. 19. & 20. tr. 1231. Thus Thucydides: Επίεσε δι' αὐτὲς ον πρὸς τῷ ὑπάρχοντι πόνῳ καὶ ἡ ξυγκομιδή ἐκ ἐγρῶν ἐς τὸ ἄςυ, καὶ ἐχ ἧσσον τὰς ἐπελθόν]ας, γὰρ ἐν ὑπαρχεσῶν, ἀλλ ̓ ἐν καλύβαις πνιγηραῖς της διαπωμένων, ὁ φθόρος ἐγίγνεῖο ἐδενὶ κόσμῳ, ἀλ. εὶ νεκροὶ ἐπ' ἀλλήλοις ἔκειν]. This is to fay : les the prefent affliction, the reception of the try people, and of their fubftance into the oppreffed both the citizens, and much more eople themselves, that thus came in: For, g no houfes, and dwelling at that time of ear (for it was in the fummer), in ftifling hs, the mortality was now without all form, dying men lay tumbling, one upon another, ie ftreets. And Tit. Livius defcribes the like t in almoft the fame colours. "Grave temfays he, "et fortè annus peftilens erat urbi, que, nec hominibus magis, quàm pecori: et re vim morbi terrores populationis, pecoribus ftibufque in urbem receptis: Ea colluvio mixm omnis generis animantum, et odore infourbanos, et agreftem confertum in arcta tecta, I, ac vigiliis angebat, minifteriaque invicem, ontagio ipfa vulgabat morbos Lib. iii. et. 1232. It is highly probable, that the great ourfe of country people that flocked into the , for fear of the Lacedemonians, who had then =ded Attica, and were putting all to fire and rd, was the chief caufe of this plague; and what Lucretius related before of the city of mens, was fpoken by a certain way of anticion, which is not unfrequent with poets; as if had confidered with himself, that he should have explained the matter equal to its digniif, fetting lefs by the metropolis than the ole province, he had begun his narration of difeafe by the country. The teftimony of Thucydides, from whom our author has taken this defcription, is alone fufficient to juftify this opinion, which, nevertheless, may be confirmed by other undeniable proofs. For, in the first place, the Athenians would otherwife have been very injurious to their Prince Pericles, whom, as Plutarch tells us in his life, they accused of hav. ing been the caufe of the plague, by admitting into the city, and in the heat of summer, the great multitude of peasants, and other country people; where they, who had been accustomed to labour, and living in the open air, led lazy and idie lives, and were crowded and fhut up together in narrow and ftifling habitations: Of all which he had been the occafion, who, during the war, had received thofe who had fled from the enemy within the walls of the city, where he took care to find them no manner of employment, but fuf fered them, like brute beafts, enclofed in narrow grounds, mutually to infect one another; and allowed them no change of air, or fcarce the liberty of breathing. Thus Plutarch. Now let it be even granted that the Athenians were in the wrong as to the caufe of this plague; yet they had no pretence of reafon to lay the blame on Fericles, if Athens was afflicted with that peftilence before the peasants and other inhabitants of the country fled thither: but they were not mistaken in believing that the plague had invaded the city by the means of this new increafe of dwellers: for fultry heat, and an impure corrupted air may favour and promote a plague, but are altogether incapable of frâ kindling and introducing a peftis lence. Diodorus Siculus, though he adheres too obftinately indeed to the then commonly received opinion of the ambient air, yet favours our affertion concerning the contagion, by means of the country people that flocked into Athens: for, fpeaking of this plague, he fays, that the great multitude of all manner of people, who, out of fear, were fled from the country into the city, where, by reafon of the narrowness of the place, they were promifcuoufly, and without any order, crowded together, not without good caufe, fell fenches, that were occafioned by filth and naftiinto difeafes, for, breathing nothing but noisome nefs, and the air befides being grown fultry, and almoft fuffocated by the heat of the feason, they received within their bowels the contagious venom. Thus we fee what is the chief cause of plagues, and from whence this of Athens took its origin. Even Lucretius himself, whatever he said to the contrary, of the air, in the beginning of this narration, yet in this place he seems to own, that the plague proceeded chiefly from the contagion which the country people brought into the city. His words are as follows: Nec minimum partìm ex agris ægroris in urbem Confluxit, languens quem contulit agricolarum Copia, conveniens ex omni morbida parte. There is, therefore, no reason to dispute, for the future, the most ancient prerogative and efficacy of contagion, in all plagues; but chiefly not in this moft memorable plague of Athens. Ver. 1234. Thus too the Bishop of Rochefter: | The gods to fear ev'n for themselves began: There was no number now of death: Began at once to part whole looms: For now the fick into the temples came, That Heaven, us'd but to the gore Ver. 1235. In like manner Thucydides: Kal ἦν ταῖς ὁδοῖς ἐκαλινδέν]ο, καὶ περὶ τὰς κρήνας ἁπάσας ἡμιθνήτες, τῇ τῷ ὕδαλος ἐπιθυμία. That is to fay : And Ver. 1244. Thucydides, after having acquaint they lay half-dead in the ways, and about every ed us that the great licentiousness which wa conduit, through defire of water. The greatest practifed in the city proceeded, and began at få relief of an inflamed heart, is, without doubt, to from this disease, adds immediately, that wa breathe in a cool and pure air: but the heart is any man knew to be delightful and conducive a always inflamed in a burning fever, with which pleasure, that was made both profitable and ba the Athenians were then afflicted: fand hence nourable: Neither the fear of the gods, fays proceeded that implacable thirft which made nor laws of men awed any man: not the forme them make what hate they could to the foun- because they concluded it was alike to work tains; but fome of them, through weakness, faint- or not to worship, seeing that they all alike po ed and fell down by the way, while others, who rifhed: not the latter, because no man expedisi had more strength, lay near the fountains, fuffo- that his life would laft till he received puniant cated with the great plenty of water they had of his crimes by judgment: But they the poured down into their burning entrails. Now there was now hanging over their heads i the fountain Callir hoes, that without the walls, far greater judgment decreed against them; = broke out in seven streams, and was conveyed before it fell upon them, they thought to into Athens by as many pipes, fupplied with fome little part of their lives. *0, àà pé water the upper part of the city: in the lower xa, walaxódev rò is avrò xıęduλíov, tuto zeina part of which, towards the Piraeus, there werexai xenaipon nation, Oräv di póßes, ÿ ävű pártun no fountains, but only wells, as has been said already. dès áæãgyi, và kèv xgívovks åu ôpoię miten in a ἐκ τῶ πάντας ὁρᾶν ἐν ἴσω ἀπολλυμένας τῶν δ έρε Ver. 1237. Lucretius omits nothing that may v úders iàxíçwo píxeı rü dianı yaricdula é create horror, and provoke commiferation in the τὴν τιμωρίαν ἀντιδῆναι πολὺ δὲ μάζω την ήδη κάνε minds of the readers. To this end, he now ex- φισμένην σφῶν ἐπικρεμασθῆναι, ἣν πρὶν ἐμπισῖς, καὶ pofes to their eyes the streets of Athens, thick a rü Cíe rì àæodavour Thus Thucydides: Ent ftrowed with dead and dying bodies, half naked, which paffage of that hiftorian the Bifh and half-covered with filthy weeds, and wallow-chefter finely paraphrafes, and concluda da ing, nay, almost buried in their own corruption. Ver. 1242. Here the poet teaches, that neceffity had reduced the Athenians to fuch hard extremities, that the ædiles, whofe office it was to take care of the temples, had permitted thofe that fled into the city to take up their abodes in those holy places, where they built tents for themselves and families, and perhaps too for the cattle they brought with them. This profanation of facred things, and contempt of all religion, proceeded from the highest defperation, if we may give credit to Thucydides, who relates it as follows: Tà σὲ ἱερὰ, ἐν οἷς ἐσκήνην]ο, νεκρῶν πλέα ἦν, αὐτῷ ἐναποθ voxóvTWY, Dziębia Coμive yàe̟ rẽ xaxu, ös ävbeos ἔχονες ὅτι γένωνται ἐς ὁλιτωρίαν ἔράπονο καὶ ἱερῶν καὶ ὁσίων ὁμοίως· 1. c. The temples alfo where they dwelt in tents were all full of the dead that died within them; for, oppreffed with the violence of the calamity, and not knowing what to do, men grew careless of holy and profane things alike. Ver. 1243. For this thought our tranflator is not fo much obliged to his author as to the Bishop of Rochester, who, on this particular, paraphrafes as follows: The gods are call'd upon in vain : poem : But what, great gods! was worst of all, With the thick troops of fouls were thither Such guilt, fuch wickedness, Were angry with the plague for fuff'ring thes More for the living, than the dead, did grieve Though fuch examples of their pow'r appear'. Thought heav'n could have no worse in fiert no more. Ver. 1246. In these twelve last verses the poet, relates, That the Athenians were not content with polluting their holy places with dead bodies, but tranfgreffed likewife all their laws concerning funerals, which they had till then obferved, and buried their dead, as they could, wherever they found room. Thus too Thucydides: Noo πάνες συνεταράχθησαν, οἷς ἐχρῶντο πρότερον περὶ τὰς ταβάς· ἔθαπῖον δὲ ὡς ἕκαςος ἠδύνατο. Now by the unanimous confent of all authors, the Athenians were of all people the most ceremonious in the funerals of their dead, whom they honoured even to the highest fuperftition. If any one neglected to pay the rites of funeral to these who were flain in war, he was punished with death: And the pomp and expence of funerals grew at length to fuch excefs among them, that Solon was forced to put a stop to it by laws; but when this plague was raging at Athens, no funeral rites were observed: For, as the historian, from whom our poet = has taken this paffage, relates, many, for want of things neceffary, after fo many deaths before, were forced to become impudent in the funerals of their friends: For, when one had made a funeral pile, another, getting before him, would throw on his dead, and fet it on fire; and when one was burning, others would come, and, having caft upon it the dead they brought, go their way again. Kai woλhoi is avaioxúries Dúxas irgárov, σπάνει τῶν ἐπιξηδείων, διὰ τὸ συχνὸς ἤδη προεθνάναι σφίσιν, ἐπὶ πυρὰς γὰρ ἀλλοτρίας, φθάσαντες τὰς νοσή σκυλας, οι μὲν ἐπιθέντες τὸν ἑαυτῶν νεκρὸν, ὑφῆσον οι δι καιμένα ἄλλο ἄνωθεν ἐπιβαλόντες εν φέροιεν, ἀπήεσαν Thucyd. But this calamity of the Athenians will more visibly appear, by giving at large the laws and ceremonies, that they thought themfelves religiously bound to obferve in the fepulture of their dead; and which are recorded by Nardius in the following, no lefs learned than accurate, animadverfion on this paffage of our author. tells us, that the Athenians condemned, and put to death, ten of their captains, who returned to Athens after a great victory they had gained at fea over the Lacedemonians, only because they had not paid the left duties to the dead bodies of those that had been killed in the engagement, even though they had this to plead in their defence, that the tempetuous weather had rendered it impoffible : Decem imperatores fuos, et quidem à pulcherrima victoria venientes, capitali judicio exceptos necârunt, quod militum corpora, licet, fævitia maris interpellante, fepulturæ mandare non potuiffent, fed in fluctus, neceflitate adaci, projeciffent." Valer. Max. lib. ix. cap. 8. De terred by this severity, Chabrias, who commanded the Athenian fleet, was more wary: For he, having defeated and put to flight the fleet of the Lacedemonians at the island Naxos, inftead of pursuing the routed enemy, minded only to gather up the dead bodies of the flain; and, fearing the fuperftition of the people, chofe rather, faye Diodorus Siculus, lib. xv. to let the enemies of the republic efcape, than that their dead friends fhould be deprived of the rites of funeral; otherwife he might easily have destroyed the whole naval force of the Lacddemonians. Nicias, the great general of the Athenians, commanded his whole army to halt, only to bury two of his foldiers. Ifocrates in Panegyr, relates. That Adraftus, king of Argos, having been unfuccefful in a war against the Thebans, and not being able to carry off the dead bodies of the flain, befought the Athenians, and their king Thefeus, to commiferate the public calamity of the Argives, and to affift them to compel the Thebans, to allow the ceremonies of fepulture, to thofe who had been killed in the battle: This the Athenians deemed a juft caufe of war, and the fuccefs feemed to juftify their opinion; for, taking up arms against the Thebans on no other pretence but this, they defeated them, and would hearken to peace on no terms whatever, till the Thebans, by way of preliminary, had paid the due rites of fepulture to the flain Argives. Nor may we forget the piety of Cimon, who, that he might bury his father, who was dead in prifon, fubmitted to be a prifoner himself, and redeemed the body at the price of his own liberty. But they extended this piety not only to thofe who had facrificed their blood in defence of the public fafety, but likewife to their kindred, and men of the meanest condition; whofe relations the Demarchus, or chief of the people, could oblige to bury the dead body, by laying a heavy fine on thofe that neglected to do fo within a certain time: that magiftrate had likewife the power to limit and fix the expence of a funeral, as alfo to contract himself for it with the public undertakers. Euftathius, in Com. II. ad calcem, celebrates Pififtratus, for having always two or three fervants attending him, whofe bufinefs it was to carry money for him to beflow on the funerals of the poor. The charity of Simon to the dead poor, who left not enough to bury them, and whom he interred at his own expence, is likewife Et extremus fi quis fuper halitus errat, And Livia in the Epicedium of Albinovanus: extolled by Amilius Probus; and Plutarch, in his thy mouth to mine. After whofe example, pur life, records of him, that, having with great care ❘haps, Anna in Virgil, Æn. iv. ver. 684. and trouble, got together the bones of Thefeus, he brought them to Athens. Nor may we forget a fignal office of piety, mentioned by Demofthenes, adverf. Macartat, and enjoined by an Attic law, which commanded every paffenger, who happened to fee upon the road a dead body, though of a perfon unknown to him, to throw at leaft three handfuls of earth on the face of the defunct for his fepulture, fince at that time he could not have the means of burying him otherwife. This is attefted likewife by Elian. Var. Hift. lib 5. and by Phocylidas, Mofchus, Sophocles, and Acron. And this cuftom was fo generally received, and deemed fo indifpenfibly neceffary, that it was expected even of those who were going on business that required the greatest hafte, as Quintilian fays, lib. 1. Decad. 5. and Horace, Carm. lib. 1. Od. 28. alludes to it in these express words of Archytas the philofopher, to the fea men: At tu, nauta, vaga ne parce malignus arena, Particulam dare. Quanquam feftinas, non eft mora longa, licebit Which Creech thus interprets, But feamen, pray be juft; put near the land; First, then, to begin my intended difcourfe with what was practifed in the laft agonies of the dy. ing perfon; I find in Diodorus Siculus and Valerius Maximus, that when the fick perfon perceived his end draw nigh, he took a ring off his finger, and gave it to the flander by, who was deareft to him; hiftorians report this to have been done by Alexander. Then pronouncing thefe laft words, " Vive ac vale," (vide Servium in Æneid. 5.) he breathed out his foul, embracing and kifling his best-beloved. For they believed the mouth to be the paffage through which the foul went out of the body, and therefore endeavoured to catch it as it fled, by holding their mouth open close to that of the perfon expiring. Thus Antigone in Euripides, in Phoeniff. fays, O my deareft, and my best beloved, I will put Lumina, & excipias hanc animam ore pio. Hence, at Rome, as we learn from Seneca, a Epift. 30. and from the Tragedian of that came in Herc. Fur. it was proverbially faid of the c who were worn out with age, that their foul wa in their mouth: thus the Romans derived t credulity from the Greeks; and Ariftotle, in Treatife de Infp. et Refp. fays, That infpiration is the protafis, and expiration the catastrophe life. But the wishes of the abovementioned Liv suggest to us another office that was applied dying perfons, and which the Greeks, in ther language, called xataigāv rès öftahpès, the Law "condere," or 66 tegere oculos;" to clofe the eyes. This was the duty of the nearest rela or of the dearest friend, who immediately de the eyelids of his departed relation or friend as Pliny teaches, lib. xi. cap. 37. they held crime against the gods to fee the eyes of perfon. And that the custom, of which w fpeaking was religiously observed, as a pin fice, that ought not to be neglected, we birt teftimony of many of the ancients; particular d Euripides in Hecuba, and in Phoeniffa, of H Odyff. x. and Iliad. I. and of Plato in While thefe things were doing, all who wat fent called with a loud voice, and by hu on name, the perfon, who was dead, and imm with wailings and tears ran to embrace the this we learn from Servius on the 4t and from Propertius, lib. iv. eleg. 6. Fa cinous, de doct Plat cap. 12. fays he, who wh dry eyes, can behold the death of his relation friends, has a mind infenfible and void of all e fection. Hired women attended to take m the body, and these shut the mouth of the perfon, while the body was yet warm: yet C performed the laft offices to the condemned crates, that women, by their unavailing lam might not shake the conftancy of his undian foul. Then they laid out the other members, washed the corple with warm water : because, b Cicero, lib. 1. de Leg. they believed the vital p rit to be shut out, and often to deceive them; ' which reafon, they were wont to wash the be of their dead with warm water; in the next pla they anointed the body with oil, if the per were free, and not of a fervile condition: unction was forbid to flaves by the laws of Ser lon who likewife prescribed bounds to tears a mourning; but to public indeed, rather than private. Even he himfelf, as Stobæus, Ser 276. witneffes, wept for the lofs of his fon; when it was told him. That weeping would av him nothing, I know it well, faid he, and * that very reason I weep. And indeed, |