It was such expenditures as these that led Demetrius Phalereus, about the beginning of the fourth century before Christ, to make another attempt to check funeral extravagance. He tried to set a limit to the new tombs by forbidding any tomb but the kion to be more than four and a half feet high and by putting a special officer in charge of the matter, but all his efforts proved vain[230].
The inscription that was carved on the tomb contained, as is still the custom, the name and a few notices about the life of the departed. In addition to those details, the Greeks, at a later period, sometimes set forth a curse on any one who should presume to desecrate the grave in any way. Although this peculiar protection of the last resting-place is not at present resorted to among us, yet it is but a few centuries since the custom was not uncommon in England. It will be instructive to compare one of the older imprecations of the Hellenes with the famous inscription on the tomb of Shakespeare, composed possibly by the bard himself. The Englishman wrote:
“Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbeare,
To digg the dust enclosed heare;
Bless be he yt spares these stones,
And curst be he yt moves my bones.”
That is somewhat more concise, if not quite as pointed as some Greek inscriptions, one of which reads as follows:
“I summon to the guardianship of this tomb the lower gods, Pluto, Demeter, Persephone and all the others. If any one despoils it, opens it, or in any way disturbs it, by himself or an agent, may his journey on land be obstructed, on the sea, may he be tempest-tossed and thoroughly baffled and driven about in every way. May he suffer every ill, chills and fevers, remittent and intermittent, and the most repulsive skin diseases. Whatever is injurious and destructive in life may it fall on him that dares remove anything from this tomb[231].”
On the other hand, some of the Grecian tombs, like that of the English poet, contain also all manner of blessings and wishes for the absence of evil for him and his posterity who may guard the tomb and perform the sacrifices and other customary rites[232].