Thousands of unburied corpses filled the streets, and in all 40,000 to 60,000 persons were carried off.
Especially feared among many peoples are the souls of those who have committed suicide or died a violent death; the woman who dies in childbed is held to become a demon of the most dangerous kind; even the unburied, as restless, dissatisfied spirits, are more feared than ordinary ghosts.
Their bodies lay for nine days unburied, for Zeus had changed the people to stone; on the tenth day they were buried by the gods.
He went back to Sicily, warred with Carthage on his own account, and brought back the bones of the unburied Syracusans from Himera, but was still so dreaded that the people banished Diodes without restoring him.
For the lemures were, like our unlaid ghosts, unburied, mischievous or inimical spirits, and these three days were nefasti or unlucky, because their malign influence was abroad..