The motive of these states in requiring burial outside the walls, was without doubt, to avoid the ceremonial contamination supposed to arise from the proximity of corpses. Possibly, as was the case in ancient Rome, the effect on the sanitary condition of the city made it desirable to remove the burying ground[261]. The very existence of such laws indicates that the citizens must, at some time, have experienced the ill effects of burials within the city. There were states, however, which, for various reasons, preferred that the interments should be within the walls. That was the case at Sparta, where we should naturally expect to find laws directly the contrary. Lycurgus even permitted the Spartans to raise tombs near the temples. This he did that he might insure the graves against the violence of the enemy[262], and that, at the same time, he might accustom the youths to the sight from infancy, so that they might have no horror of death[263]. Again, the Tarentines, in compliance with an oracle, buried all their dead within the walls in a part of the city toward the east[264]. The Megareans also had within their city, the sepulchres of those who had fallen in the war against the Medes, and likewise a heroic monument called the Aesymnium. The origin of this custom was as follows: Aesymnus, having been sent to Delphi to ask the oracle what the Megareans should do to be happy, returned with the response that this might be if a number of them were “congregated together.” This they interpreted to mean the burial of their dead in one place, and accordingly, they instituted a new cemetery in the city[265]. X. THE FUNERAL FEAST. During the days of preparation for burial and that on which the departed was entombed, his relatives either overcome by sorrow or bound down by the usages of the time, had been fasting. This abstinence had the usual effect, and, by the time the remains of the dear one had been laid under ground, his immediate family were almost ready to faint with hunger. That they might no longer thus afflict themselves and that their friends might offer them suitable comfort, the Greeks instituted the _perideipnon_, or funeral feast[266]. At this feast, the dead man was considered the host and it was regarded as his expression of thanks to his comrades for their courtesy in burying him[267]. Since it was the duty of the nearest surviving relative to provide for all the customary obsequies[268], properly this entertainment was provided at his house[269]. When the question of a funeral feast in honor of Patroclus was considered, Achilles, being his nearest friend then present, prepares for it in his own tent. The _perideipnon_ for all those who had lost their lives in behalf of Greece at the disastrous battle of Chaeronea was held at the house of the orator Demosthenes. That was for the reason, as he himself states, that although each was nearer to his own kin than the orator, yet no other man was so near to them collectively[270].