[208] Works, Vol. I. p. 765. Epistola ad Amunem, monachum. (Letter to Amunis, a monk).
[209] Euripides, Alcestis 98.,
πυλῶν πάροιθεν δ’οὐχ ὁρῶ
πηγαῖον ὡς νομίζεται
χέρνιβ’ἐπὶ φθιτῶν πύλαις,
χαίτα τ’οὔτις ἐπὶ προθύροις
τομαῖος, ἃ δὴ νεκύων
πένθει πιτνεῖ.
(Before the doors I see no lustral water from the fountain, as is wont at the doors of the departed, and in the forecourt is no shorn hair, which is ever cut in mourning for the dead.) Comp. Kirchmann, De funeribus Rom. (On Roman Funerals) bk. I. last ch., bk. II, ch. 15. Lomeier, De veterum gentil. lustrationibus (On Public Purifications among the Ancients), ch. 16. Casaubon, On the “Characters” of Theophrastus, ch. 16.
[210] It may be mentioned by way of supplement that Leprosy among the Ancients was pretty nearly universally regarded as a punishment from the gods. Even the Greeks held this view, as comes out clearly from Aeschylus, Choeph. II. 2. This fact points to various conclusions as to liability to infection in Leprosy and the obscurity in which the causes of the disease are involved.