III. Upon the principles advanced above, it is agreed by all that public enemies are entitled to burial. Appian calls it the common right of war, with which, Tacitus says, no enemy will refuse to comply. And the rules, respecting this, are, according to Dio Chrysostom, observed, even while the utmost rage of war still continues. "For the hand of death, _as the writer just quoted observes_, has destroyed all enmity towards the fallen, and protected their bodies from all insult." Examples to this purpose may be found in various parts of history. Alexander ordered those of the enemy, that were killed at the battle of Issus to be honoured with the rites of burial, and Hannibal did the same to Caius Flaminius, Publius Aemilius, Tiberius Gracchus, and Marcellus, the Roman Generals. So that you would suppose, says Silius Italicus, he had been paying these honours to a Carthaginian General. The Romans treated Hanno, and Pompey Mithridates in the same manner. If it were necessary to quote more instances, the conduct of Demetrius on many occasions, and that of Antony to king Archelaus might be named. When the Greeks were at war with the Persians, in one part of their military oath they swore to bury all the dead belonging to the ALLIES, and when they were victorious, to bury even the BARBARIANS. After a battle, it was usual for both sides to obtain leave to bury the dead. Pausanias, in his account of the Athenian affairs, mentions the practice of the Athenians who buried the Medes, regarding it as an act of piety due to all men. We find from the Jewish writers, that for the same reason, their high priests, who were forbidden to come near a dead body, if they found one, were obliged to bury it. But Christians deemed BURIAL an act of such importance, that they would allow their church-plate to be melted down, and sold to defray the expences as they would have done to maintain the poor, or to redeem captives. There are some few instances to the contrary, but they are reprobated by the universal feelings of mankind, and such cruelty deprecated in the most solemn terms. Claudian calls it a bloody deed to plunder the dead, and still more so to refuse them the covering of a little sand. IV. Respecting those, who have been guilty of atrocious crimes, there is reason to entertain some doubt, whether the right of burial is due to them. The divine law indeed, that was given to the Hebrews, and which is fraught with every precept of virtue and humanity, ordered those, who were crucified, which was the most ignominious kind of punishment that could be inflicted, to be buried on the same day. Owing to this law, as Josephus observes, the Jews paid such regard to burial, that the bodies of those, who were executed publicly as criminals, were taken away before sun-set, and committed to the ground. And other Jewish writers are of opinion that this was intended as a degree of reverence to the divine image, after which man was formed.