e authority. Their sepulchres are not to be in places which
are fit for cultivation, and there shall be no monuments in such spots,
either large or small, but they shall occupy that part of the country
which is naturally adapted for receiving and concealing the bodies of
the dead with as little hurt as possible to the living. No man, living
or dead, shall deprive the living of the sustenance which the earth,
their foster-parent, is naturally inclined to provide for them. And
let not the mound be piled higher than would be the work of five men
completed in five days; nor shall the stone which is placed over the
spot be larger than would be sufficient to receive the praises of the
dead included in four heroic lines. Nor shall the laying out of the
dead in the house continue for a longer time than is sufficient to
distinguish between him who is in a trance only and him who is really
dead, and speaking generally, the third day after death will be a fair
time for carrying out the body to the sepulchre. Now we must believe the
legislator when he tells us that the soul is in all respects superior to
the body, and that even in life what makes each one of us to be what we
are is only the soul; and that the body follows us about in the likeness
of each of us, and therefore, when we are dead, the bodies of the dead
are quite rightly said to be our shades or images; for the true and
immortal being of each one of us which is called the soul goes on her
way to other Gods, before them to give an account--which is an inspiring
hope to the good, but very terrible to the bad, as the laws of our
fathers tell us; and they also say that not much can be done in the way
of helping a man after he is dead. But the living--he should be helped
by all his kindred, that while in life he may be the holiest and justest
of men, and after death may have no great sins to be punished in the
world below. If this be true, a man ought not to waste his substance
under the idea that all this lifeless mass of flesh which is in process
of burial is connected with him; he should consider that the son, or
brother, or the beloved one, whoever he may be, whom he thinks he
is laying in the earth, has gone away to complete and fulfil his own
destiny, and that his duty is rightly to order the present, and to spend
moderately on the lifeless altar of the Gods below. But the legislator
does not intend moderation to be taken in the sense of meanness. Let the
law, then, be