From an early period there was a tendency to extravagance in connection with funerals. In Solon’s time it seems to have been excessive demonstrations of grief that needed to be restrained; but before long a law was passed that “no tomb should be built with more elaboration than could be effected by ten men in three days.” In the beginning of the fourth century Demetrius of Phalerum, who was then in power at Athens, forbade the erection of anything more than a mound of earth with a column not exceeding three cubits high, or a simple slab, or a water-vessel. We can judge of the extravagance which occasioned such regulations from the fact that Harpalus, to whose care Alexander the Great confided his treasures before invading India, had recently erected a tomb on the Eleusinian way in memory of his wife Pythionice, who was originally a slave, at an expense of more than £6000, which, Pausanias tells us, was the tomb best worth seeing in Greece. The same man built a still grander memorial to his wife at Babylon, at a cost of about £36,000. Even this was a trifle, however, compared with the two or three millions of pounds expended by Alexander himself on the funeral obsequies of his friend Hephæstion, shortly before his own death--which was brought on by the fierce intemperance in which he sought to drown his grief. A more precious tribute of affection was paid to the remains of the statesman Phocion by his widow. As the Athenians in a frenzy of excitement had found him guilty of treason, he could not be buried in his own country, and his body was therefore carried into the adjoining territory of Megara and burned there. His wife brought back the bones in her bosom by night, and laid them near her own hearth, with the prayer: “Beloved Hestia” (the Goddess of the Hearth), “I confide to thee these relics of a good man. Restore them to his own family vault, as soon as the Athenians shall come to their senses.” Before long the prayer was fulfilled, for the Athenians ordained a public funeral in honour of the condemned man, and erected a statue to his memory.