The Dialogues Of Plato details from uread

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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: children, and gone to law, is at last gathered to his fathers. The rites which are to be celebrated after death in honour of the Gods above and below shall be determined by the interpreters. Places of sepulture shall be chosen with reference to the convenience of the living; they shall be out of sight and on barren spots. For no one either in life or after death has any right to deprive the living of the sustenance which mother earth provides for them. No sepulchral mound is to be raised higher than the labour of five men in five days can accomplish, and the stone tablet which is placed upon it is not to be larger than will contain an inscription of four heroic verses. The dead are only to be exposed for three days, which is long enough to test the reality of death. The legislator will instruct the people that the body is a mere eidolon, and that the soul, which is our true being, is gone to give an account of herself before the Gods below. When they hear this, the good are full of hope, and the evil are terrified, knowing that there will not be much help for them after death. And therefore in life all men's relatives should help them to live innocently and holily, that they may depart in peace. When a man loses a son or a brother, he should consider that the true man has gone away to fulfil ,his destiny in another life, and not waste money over his lifeless remains. Let the law then order a moderate funeral of five minae for the first class, three for the second, two for the third, one for the fourth. The magistrates, or one of them selected by the relatives, are to assist the relatives in arranging the affairs of the deceased. There would be a want of delicacy in prescribing that there should be or should not be mourning for the dead. But, at any rate, such mourning should be co...