=307.= The Stoics did not shrink from insisting upon the abstract principle of the community of women even in an extreme case in which their doctrine encountered a violent prejudice. No natural law, they maintained, prohibits marriage relationship between near relatives[32]. The tale of Oedipus and Jocasta, which is so prominent a theme in the great Athenian tragedies, appears to Zeno to be a matter about which too much ado has been made[33]. For suppose the case that all the world were destroyed by flood except one man and his daughter; would it not be better that he should beget children by her, and that the whole human race should not perish[34]? In this reference to the traditional flood we may readily trace one reason why the Stoics insisted on their principle. For at the beginning of human history we are compelled to postulate an Adam and an Eve, a human pair related in their birth and at the same time united as parents of the race[35]. Go back to the beginnings of the universe; there too we must postulate the same combination of relationships, and so only can we understand the poets when they speak of Hera as ‘wife and sister of Zeus[36].’ [Sidenote: Burial a convention.] =308.= Perhaps even more shocking to Hellenic feeling was Zeno’s indifference to the treatment of the dead, Burial was to him no sacred duty to the departed one; it was equally right to throw the body to the fire, as the Indians, or to the vultures, as the Persians[37]. Nor is there any need to condemn those nations amongst which the dead are eaten by their own relatives[38], for all these things are matters not of principle but of convenience, and to eat human flesh may still be desirable if circumstances require it[39], as for instance in shipwreck, or if a limb is amputated[40]. The problem of the disposal of the dead became a favourite subject of discussion in Stoic circles. Chrysippus wrote at length on the subject, comparing the customs of various nations as well as the habits of animals, in order to ascertain the law of nature. He reaches the conclusion that dead bodies should be disposed of in the simplest possible way, not being regarded as of more importance than the hair or nail-parings from which we part in life[41]. Cicero shortly sums up this discussion in the _Tusculan disputations_, and draws the conclusion that whilst the living must consider what it is fitting for them to do, to the dead man it is a matter totally indifferent[42]. In the imperial period this consideration is of importance as showing that the tyrant has no power after death[43]. [Sidenote: Slavery.]