From time immemorial, medical men have strongly pointed out to municipal authorities the dangers that arise from burying the dead within the precincts of cities or populous towns. Impressed with the same conviction, ancient legislators only allowed to the most illustrious citizens a sepulchre in the temple of the gods. Euclides was interred in the temple of Diana Euclis, as a reward for his pious journey to Delphi in search of the sacred fire; the Magnesians erected a monument to Themistocles in their forum; Euphron received the same honour in Corinth; and Medea buried her two sons, Mermerus and Pheres, under the protection of Juno Acraea's altars, to guard their ashes from their persecutors. Lycurgus was perhaps the only Grecian legislator who recommended inhumation in temples and in cities, to accustom youth to the daily spectacle of death. The primitive Grecians, it appears, buried their dead in or about their dwellings; and we find a law amongst the Thebans, ordaining that every person who built a house should provide a repository for the dead upon his premises. In latter days, both Grecians and Romans erected their tombs outside of their cities, and chiefly by the road-side. It appears also, that, among the Romans, the bodies of the lower orders were promiscuously cast into wells, called _fruticuli_. Horace seems to allude to this practice. _Hoc miserae plebi stabat commune sepulchrum._ The funerals of the wealthy patricians appear to have been most sumptuous and costly, the pall formed of valuable materials and decorated with splendid ornaments. Thus Statius: _Ditantur flammae: non unquam opulentioan ille ante cinis: crepitant gemmae: atque immane litescit argentum, et pietis exsudat vestibus aurum._ The laws of the twelve tables prohibited the practice of this waste of gold.