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

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Such
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INHUMATION, CREMATION, AND THE SOUL. 545
the indigenous people, and continually tried to force it
upon
the Persian conquerors. Indo-Persian respect for the Firegod
supplied them with a lever, and the Magi did not find
it difficult to put an end to cremation. But with inhumation
it was different, and it seems very doubtful if they ever succeeded
in constraining the mass of the Persians to abandon
this
practice.
It is quite possible that even when cremation was generally
followed, the kings were buried and not burned. The Persians,
like the Swedes, may have held that it was very important
for the weal of the land that the king's spirit should remain
among his people and not depart to another region,
as it
fire. From
certainly would, if the body were consumed by
the furniture in the tomb of Cyrus, and the monthly sacrifice
there offered, it is clear that the soul of the great conqueror was
supposed to dwell therein. The king thus continued to watch
over his people. The practice of burying chiefs and heroes
within the precincts of a city
or fortress is too well known to
need much illustration. We have seen it at work in the case
of Adrastus at Sicyon, of Theseus and of Orestes. At Mycenae
the royal graves stood within the acropf)lis.
and at Cyrene
the tomb of the first founder and those of his successors lay
in the agora. So too did the people of Amphipolis bury
Brasidas as their ])atron hero in their market-place. Thus,
Queen Xitocris, the; builder of the walls, wharves and biidge
of Babylon, had her tomb constructt'd in the upper pai't of
one of the prirudpal gateways of the city.
It was broken open
by Darius Hystaspes^
Still not unfretjuently may be seen close to the entrance of
an Irish liss (fort) the barrow of the chief-.
'
Hcioil. I. 187.
ii liss iiii 1
('niiliKUous biuiow iiiii.v
1m> seen iit Cuociiii lU'iir Miillow,
Co. Cork. Thouj^h it stuiids far t'roiu any luodmi liabitations, an annual fair
with races was hold at tlii' harrow until far into the ninctccntli century, when
the fair was traiisf.ireil to l!allycloU(.'li, four miles distant. The harrow was
utilizecl for road-makint,' some yeais a|,'o, when a fine cromlecli was hrouf^'ht to
li^'ht which contained a skeh-ton, a hroiize sword, and other articles. l''or these
facts I am indebted tD iriv late friend, the Ih v. T. Olden, the well-known
ecclesiastical
historian.
546 INHUMATION, CKEMATION, AND THE SOUL.
The spirits of the dead heroes ever kept watch and ward
over the dwelling-places of their people.
It is not improbable that a like feeling may have hindered
the cremation of the Burmese kings, whose bodies, as we saw,
were buried, after the forms of cremation had been gone through.
The same feeling offers a ready explanation of the fact that
according to Greek tradition neither Orestes nor his son Tisamenus,
though Acheans, was burned. The great mass of their
subjects were of the old race, who had always buried their
dead, and who continued to do so almost exclusively down
through classical times. Such people would have an especially
strong objection to burning the king's body.
Did cremation come from Asia, or did it
go
Europe, or did it arise independently
in each ?
there from
It is very unlikely that the Hindus developed the practice
of cremation independently.
That the ancient Hindus and ancient Persians were the
kinsfolk of the Celto-Teutonic stock is a fact generally
admitted. They spoke a language differing entirely from that
of the Turko- Tartaric races of upper Asia, and that of the
Dravidian races of Hindustan, but which is closely
related to
the chief languages of Europe.
More than forty years ago, R. G. Latham, Fellow of King's
College, Cambridge, in the introduction to his edition of the
Germania argued that Europe, and not the Hindu Kush, was
the original seat of the Aryans. But Latham was only an
Englishman, and no one in this country (not even in his own
University) would listen to him. However, later on, Benfey in
Germany and Whitney in America adopted Latham's view, but
it was only when his doctrines came to England from Germany
in the works of Peiika and Schrader that his countrymen always
incunosi suornin gave Latham's prinei])l('s a liearing, but that
eminent man was then Hearing the close of a disappointed
lit\'.
Truly saitli Solomon, " 'J'he
eyes of a fool are in the
ends of tin; earth.
Lathams argunu'nt was briefly this : Lithuainan is closely
cognate to Sanskrit and is just as old. Lither then Lithuanian
came from Asia, oi' Sanski'it from Lui"o])e.
u. 35