Kommanus tells us, that in Valentia, a city of Spain, there was found the body of Adonizam, the servant of King Solomon, together with his epitaph in Hebrew. It appeared, that he had laid buried above two thousand years, yet was he found uncorrupted: so excellent a way of embalming the dead were those skilled in, who lived in the Eastern Countries.
He also mentions the body of Cleopatra, which had remained undamaged for an hundred and twenty-five Olympiads, viz. five hundred years, as appears by the letter of Heraclius the Emperor to Sophocles the philosopher.
I remember not, continues Kommanus, to have read any thing like this amongst the Romans, unless of the body, as some say of Tulliolæ, the daughter of Cicero, which was found entire and uncorrupted (as some have computed) one thousand and five hundred years, the particulars of which are described as follows from Houghton’s collections, volume the 2nd, page 346.
In the papacy of Paul the Third, in the Appian way, where abundance of the chief Heathens of old were laid, a sepulchre was opened; where was found the entire body of a fair virgin swimming in a wonderful juice which kept it from putrefaction so well, that the face seemed no way damnified, but lively and handsome. Her hairs were yellow, tied up artificially, and kept together with a golden circle or ring. Under her feet burnt lamps, which vanished at the opening of the Sepulchre. By some inscriptions it seems she had lain 1500 years. Who she was is not known, although many thought her to be Tulliolæ, the daughter of Cicero.
Cedrenus makes mention of a lamp, which (together with an image of Christ) was found at Edessa, in the reign of Justinian the Emperor. It was set over a certain gate there, and privily enclosed, as appeared by the date of it, soon after Christ was crucified: it was found burning (as it had done for five hundred years before) by the soldiers of Cosroes, king of Persia, by whom also the oil was taken out and cast into the fire; which occasioned such a plague, as brought death upon almost all the forces of Cosroes.
At the demolition of our monasteries here in England, there was found in the supposed monument of Constantius Chlorus (father to the great Constantine,) a burning lamp which was thought to have continued burning there ever since his burial, which is about three hundred years after Christ. The ancient Romans used in that manner to preserve lights in their Sepulchres a long time, by the oil of gold, resolved by art into a liquid substance.
Baptista porta, in his treatise on Natural Magic, relates, that about the year 1550, in the island Nesis in Naples, a marble sepulchre, of a certain Roman was discovered, upon the opening of which, a phial was found containing a burning lamp. This lamp became extinct on breaking the phial, and exposing the light to the open air. It appeared that this lamp had been concealed before the advent of Christ. Those who saw the lamp reported, that it emitted a most splendid flame.