BURNING, in antiquity, a way of disposing of the dead, much practised by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and still retained by several nations in the East and West Indies. The antiquity of this custom rises as high as the Theban war, where we are told of the great solemnity accompanying this ceremony at the pyre of Menæcus and Archemorus, who were contemporary with Jair, the eighth judge of Israel. Homer abounds with funeral obsequies of this nature. In the inward regions of Asia, the practice was of very ancient date, and the continuance long: for we are told, that in the reign of Julian, the king of Chonia burnt his son's body, and deposited the ashes in a silver urn. Coeval almost with the first instances of this kind in the east, was the practice in the western parts of the world. The Herulians, the Getes, and the Thracians, had all along observed it; and its antiquity was as great with the Celte, Sarmatians, and other neighbouring nations. The origin of this custom seems to have been out of friendship to the deceased: their ashes were preserved, as we preserve a lock of hair, a ring, or a seal, which had been the property of a deceased friend.
Kings were burnt in cloth made of the asbestos stone, that their ashes might be preserved pure from any mixture with the fuel and other matters thrown on the funeral pile. The same method is still observed with the princes of Tartary. Among the Greeks, the body was placed on the top of a pile, on which were thrown di-
vers animals, and even slaves and captives, besides unguents and perfumes. In the funeral of Patroclus we find a number of sheep and oxen thrown in, then four horses, followed by two dogs, and lastly by 12 Trojan prisoners. The like is mentioned by Virgil in the funerals of his Trojans; where, besides oxen, swine, and all manner of cattle, we find eight youths condemned to the flames. The first thing was the fat of the beasts, wherewith the body was covered, that it might consume the sooner: it being reckoned great felicity to be quickly reduced to ashes. For the like reason, where numbers were to be burnt at the same time, care was taken to mix with the rest some of humid constitutions, and therefore more easily to be inflamed. Thus we are assured by Plutarch and Macrobius, that for every ten men it was customary to put in one woman. Soldiers usually had their arms burnt with them. The garments worn by the living were also thrown on the pile, with other ornaments and presents; a piece of extravagance which the Athenians carried to so great a height, that some of their lawgivers were forced to restrain them, by severe penalties, from defrauding the living by their liberality to the dead.—In some cases, burning was expressly forbidden among the Romans, and even looked upon as the highest impiety. Thus infants, who died before the breeding of teeth, were entombed unburnt in the ground, in a particular place set apart for this purpose, called suggrundarium. The like was practised with regard to those who had been struck dead with lightning, who were never to be burnt again. Some say that burning was denied to suicides.—The manner of burning among the Romans was not unlike that of the Greeks; the corpse, being brought out without the city, was carried directly to the place appointed for burning it; which, if it joined to the sepulchre, was called bustum; if separate from it, ustrina; and there laid on the rogus or pyra, a pile of wood prepared on which to burn it, built in shape of an altar, but of different height, according to the quality of the deceased. The wood used was commonly from such trees as contain most pitch or rosin; and if any other were used, they split it, for the more easy catching fire: round the pile they set cypress trees, probably to hinder the noisome smell of the corpse. The body was not placed on the bare pile, but on the couch or bed whereon it lay. This done, the next of blood performed the ceremony of lighting the pile; which they did with a torch, turning their faces all the while the other way, as if it were done with reluctance. During the ceremony, decursions and games were celebrated; after which came the ossilegium, or gathering of the bones and ashes; also washing and anointing them, and reposing them in urns.