[Sidenote: _The Commission of the_ Gothish _King_ Theodoric _for finding out sepulchrall treasure._ Cassiodor. Var. _l._ 4.] He that lay in a golden Urne[60] eminently above the earth, was not like to finde the quiet of these bones. Many of these Urnes were broke by a vulgar discoverer in hope of inclosed treasure. The ashes of _Marcellus_[61] were lost above ground, upon the like account. Where profit hath prompted, no age hath wanted such miners. For which the most barbarous Expilators found the most civil Rhetorick. Gold once out of the earth is no more due unto it; What was unreasonably committed to the ground is reasonably resumed from it: Let Monuments and rich Fabricks, not Riches adorn mens ashes. The commerce of the living is not to be transferred unto the dead: It is no injustice to take that which none complaines to lose, and no man is wronged where no man is possessor. [60] _Trajanus._ Dion. [61] _Plut._ in vit. Marcelli. What virtue yet sleeps in this _terra damnata_ and aged cinders, were petty magick to experiment; These crumbling reliques and long-fired particles superannate such expectations: Bones, hairs, nails, and teeth of the dead, were the treasures of old Sorcerers. In vain we revive such practices; Present superstition too visibly perpetuates the folly of our fore-fathers, wherein unto old Observation this Island was so compleat, that it might have instructed _Persia_.[62] [62] Britannia hodie eam attonitè celebrat tantis ceremoniis, ut dedisse Persis videri possit. _Plin. l. 29._ _Plato's_ historian of the other world, lies twelve dayes incorrupted, while his soul was viewing the large stations of the dead. How to keep the corps seven dayes from corruption by anointing and washing, without exenteration, were an hazardable peece of art, in our choisest practise. How they made distinct separation of bones and ashes from fiery admixture, hath found no historical solution. Though they seemed to make a distinct collection, and overlooked not _Pyrrhus_ his toe. Some provision they might make by fictile Vessels, Coverings, Tiles, or flat stones, upon and about the body. And in the same Field, not far from these Urnes, many stones were found under ground, as also by careful separation of extraneous matter, composing and raking up the burnt bones with forks, observable in that notable lamp of _Galuanus_. _Martianus_,[63] who had the sight of the _Vas Ustrinum_, or vessel wherein they burnt the dead, found in the Esquiline Field at _Rome_, might have afforded clearer solution. But their insatisfaction herein begat that remarkable invention in the Funeral Pyres of some Princes, by incombustible sheets made with a texture of _Asbestos_, incremable flax, or Salamanders wool, which preserved their bones and ashes[64] incommixed. [63] Topographiæ Roma ex Martiano. Erat et vas ustrinum appellatum quod in eo cadavera comburerenur. _Cap._ de Campo Esquilino.