What was it, then, that induced these peoples of early times to bestow such extraordinary labor on the places of their last rest? It certainly was their belief that the graves contained not only the lifeless body, but also the living soul. The funeral ceremonies evidently show, as Fustel de Coulanges says, that when the body was laid in the grave it was thought that something yet alive was placed there at the same time. The soul was born simultaneously with the body; death did not separate them; they were both enclosed together in the grave. In olden times people felt so fully assured that a man lived in the tomb, that they never failed to bury with him the things of which he was thought to be in want. They poured wine on the grave in order to quench his thirst; they brought food to his tomb in order to appease his hunger; they killed horses and slaves, believing that, if enclosed with the dead, these would serve him in his grave as they had served him during his life. It was also in this conviction that the positive duty of burying the deceased originated. In order to bring rest to the soul in the subterranean dwelling that fitted its new existence, it was necessary that the body, to which, in some way or another, it still clung, should be covered with earth. The soul, denied a grave, had no dwelling. Drifting about, it sought in vain the desired rest after life’s fitful struggle. Without shelter, without offerings or food, it was condemned to everlasting wandering. Therefore, because the deceased was unhappy, he became ill-natured. He tormented the living; sent them diseases; destroyed their harvests; haunted them in uncanny visions in order to remind them of their duty to bury the body and thereby secure peace for himself. The old authors give evidence of the degree to which people were vexed by fear that proper ceremonies would not be observed at their burial. It was a constant source of grievous irritation. The fear of death was less prevalent than the fear of being left unburied. Naturally so, for it was a question of eternal happiness. It should therefore not surprise us so much when we see the Athenians execute generals, who, after a naval victory, had neglected to bury the fallen. These generals, disciples of the philosophers of their time, did not believe that the fate of the soul was dependent on that of the body. They had therefore decided not to challenge the tempest for the empty formality of gathering and burying the fallen. But the masses, even in enlightened Athens, still clung to the old conceptions, and accused the generals of godlessness, sentencing them to death. By their victory they had saved Athens, but by their negligence they had brought perdition upon thousands of souls. “These conceptions,” says Fustel de Coulanges, “have governed man and society through many generations, and have been the source from which the larger part of ancient domestic and public institutions were derived.”