462 MERGE TO GYRENE.

sant, would in all probability be broken in pieces the moment it became an object of particular notice. The style of architecture in which the monumental tombs have been constructed varies according to the dates of the building, and apparently, also, to the consequence of the persons interred in them ; the order employed is almost always Doric, particularly in the earlier examples. It seems probable that the custom of burying the entire body obtained very generally in Gyrene and other cities of the Pentapolis ; and this is one of the few instances in which we perceive any analogy between the customs of the Cyreneans and those of the Egyptians. It is certain, however, that the practice of burning the bodies, and of preserving the ashes in urns, prevailed also among the inhabitants of the Cyrenaica as it did in other Grecian states At the present day there are no remains either of bodies or of cinereal urns in any of the tombs with which we are acquainted, one of them only excepted : in which a leg and foot, which appeared to have been rather dried than embalmed, was found in a very perfect state. There are places formed in the * Each of these customs (as practised by the Greeks) had well-founded claims to great antiquity; for interment appears to have been in use in the time of Cecrops, and burning must at any x’ate be allowed to have been practised by the Grecians, as far back as the Ti’ojan war, if we rely upon the testimony of Homer. The custom of burning was perhaps the most peculiar to the Greeks, of the two modes in question ; for Lucian, in enumerating the various methods resorted to by different nations in the disposal of their dead, expressly assigns burning to the Greeks, and interment to the Persians 5iEXojU.svoi Kxra sSrvn rats' raitpas', o /aev "ExXnv exannrev, o Ss Ilegims' ESat-vJ/Ev TTEvS'ot/s', 21 .) Some, however, considered the former as an inhuman custom, and philosophers were divided in their opinions on the subject ; each sect esteeming that method the most reasonable by which bodies would, according to their tenets, be soonest reduced to their first principles. — See Potter’s Archseologia, vol. ii. p. 207-8, &c.