Note 6 — Chapter I · INTRODUCTION.

The popular story of the “Lapis Assius,” with its supposed power of destroying the flesh of bodies buried in it (whence the name sarkophagus, or “flesh-consuming,”) is noticed by Dioskorides and Pliny. But this Greek word is rarely used for a tomb, the more usual word being σορός (soros). By the Romans, however, it was used, as in Juv. x. 170. Colonel Leake observes of the ruins of Assos, “The whole gives, perhaps, the most perfect idea of a Greek city that anywhere exists” (Asia Minor, p. 128). See also R. P. Pullan, “Ruins of Asia Minor,” p. 19.