THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

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INHUMATION, CREMATION, AND THE SOUL. 487
them up in untaniied ox-hides and suspending them in trees.
"But Earth had obtained a share equal to that of the Air, as they
bury their women in the earth. For custom has so ordained,"
Modifications of the practice of giving the dead to the
beasts existed among peoples to
of the Caspian.
In Hyrcania dogs
the north of Persia and east
of a noble breed maintained at the
public expense served as sepulchres for the common people,
whilst the upper classes kept private hounds to perform the
same function for themselves.
The Massagetae who dwelt to the east of the Caspian in
tht' most southern portion of the steppe region now known
as the deserts of Kharesm-Kizilkoum, the region from which
they had dispossessed the Scythians \ had another way of
disposing of their dead. 'Human life,' says Herodotus, 'does
not come to its natural close with this people ; but when a
man grows vevy old, all his kinsfolk collect together and offer
him u}t in sacrifice, offeiing at the same time some cattle
als(j. After the sacrifice they boil the flesh and feast on it,
and those who thus end their days are reckoned the
happiest.
If a mau dies of disease they do not eat him, but bury him in
the ground, bewailing his ill-fortune that he did not come to
be sacrificed".""
This was probably a modification of a still more revolting
custom followed by the Issedones, who dwelt next
the Ariiiiasj)ians.
The Isscdoiics certainly did not cii'niatc their dead, for
wluMi a niMii s father dies, all the near re!ati\('s bring sheep
to tlie house, which ai'e sacrific'd and their Hesli cut in
|ieces, while at the same lime ihe dead bodv undei'goes the
like treatment. The two sorts of flesh ai'e af'terwai-