Note (return) — THE NATURALIST.

The high-ways do not, however, appear to have been the earliest sites of tombs. According to Fosbroke, "the veneration with which the ancients viewed their places of sepulture, seems to have formed the foundation upon which they raised their boundless mythology; and, as is supposed, with some probability, introduced the belief in national and tutelary gods, as well as the practice of worshipping them through the medium of statues; for the places where their heroes were interred, when ascertained, were held especially sacred, and frequently a temple erected over their body, hallowed the spot. It was thus that the bodies of their fathers, buried at the entrance of the house, consecrated the vestibule to their memory, and gave birth to a host of local deities, who were supposed to hold that part of the dwelling under their peculiar protection. Removed from the dwelling-houses to the highways, the tombs of the departed were still viewed as objects of the highest veneration."14