Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/393

 TOWNS AND THEIR DEFENCES. 377 made exposed them to be easily burnt down ; so that the advantage of using stone in their construction must ere long have been recognized. The idea of having a lofty and stout burial- place may first have occurred to a local magnate, who would thus continue to look down upon the familiar streets and squares of his native city, in which he had played a conspicuous part. We will not pursue farther the history of funereal architecture, inasmuch as it forms no part of our scope to study monuments which, whilst preserving features borrowed from primitive and local types, are thoroughly permeated with the spirit of Greece. To sum up, the tomb is by a long way the most characteristic monument of Lycia. Nowhere else do we find so large a number of sepulchres executed with greater care ; and, in especial, nowhere else do we find such minute precautions taken, as are here revealed, to place the mortal remains under the tutelary wing of the gods, and the better to secure them against profanation under that of the future generations inhabiting the city. Care is taken to interest them in the repose of the human ashes, by settling upon them the pecuniary fines to which desecrators rendered themselves liable. Laws enacted against the disturbers of the dead appear sooner in Lycia than in any other place, whence the practice spread to the rest of Asiatic Greece. Such, at least, is the conclusion that may be deduced from the comparative study of funerary inscriptions. 1 It is, then, probable that from the earliest time the cult of the dead had a considerable importance in Lycia ; and, perhaps, when we are able to read fluently Lycian texts, they will tell us the par- ticular form the religion of the tomb, common to all the other peoples of antiquity, had assumed with this nation. TOWNS AND THEIR DEFENCES. Every traveller who has visited Xanthus has noticed that the principal tombs, instead of being put outside the city walls like those of Greece, stand amidst the ruins of the upper town, a practice that seems to be peculiar to Lycia. Such would be the monument of the Harpies (Fig. 268) and other funereal towers, along with huge sarcophagi figured above. The habit, though remarkable, might have been surmised by a single glance 1 HIRSCHFELD, " Ucber die griechischen Grabschriften welche Geldstrafen anordnen," in Koenigsberger Stint ten, 1887, 8vo.