FIG. 18. TOMBSTONE, MYCENAE.
FIG. 18. TOMBSTONE, MYCENAE.
FIG. 18. TOMBSTONE, MYCENAE.
a scene still ruder in execution, but similar in design, save that the enemy is still defiant, instead of in flight, though
FIG. 19. TOMBSTONE, MYCENAE.
FIG. 19. TOMBSTONE, MYCENAE.
FIG. 19. TOMBSTONE, MYCENAE.
the lance of the charioteer has already pierced him. A third stele (Fig. 20[57]) represents a mixed scene of war and the chase. In the background a warrior charges in his chariot as before; the enemy has fallen before him, and lies under the horse’s feet, endeavouring vainly to shelter himself under his huge shield. In the foreground a lion pursues a stag. Here it may be doubted whether the lion stands in a closerelation to the charioteer or not. When Rameses II, on the monuments of Egypt, charges his foes, a lion gallops beside him, and shares in the fray. Have we some such scene here in imitation of Egyptian art? Or is the lion merely seeking his own prey? Or is he, as is not impossible, only a dog?
FIG. 20. TOMBSTONE, MYCENAE.
FIG. 20. TOMBSTONE, MYCENAE.
FIG. 20. TOMBSTONE, MYCENAE.
All three of these scenes come from slabs erected over one grave at Mycenae, the fifth. The other slabs with reliefs are in too fragmentary a condition to be studied to much purpose; and in fact it is to be feared that the reader mayaccuse us of somewhat straining evidence in interpreting these more complete scenes, though in reality none of our statements is open to much doubt.
We need but carry our thoughts for a minute to the sculptures which adorned the walls of the palaces of the kings of Assyria, which are full of the triumphs of those powerful monarchs alike over human foes and the beasts of the field, in order fully to recognize the meaning of the Mycenaean reliefs. Here also we doubtless have a court chronicle, though material and style will not bear for a moment any comparison with the magnificent records of Nimroud. Here also we may discern the king, in whose honour the slab was set up, slaying and pursuing his enemies. And although at Mycenae we are in a time of comparative barbarism, yet at least for the choice of subject we may find parallels in the later age of Greece. Dexileos riding down his foe on horseback on the splendid monument of the Cerameicus (Pl. XII) may be considered a parallel to the nameless chief of Mycenae who pursues his enemy in the chariot of an earlier age. But a still closer resemblance of subject is to be found in monuments of Asia Minor, in the paintings of the sarcophagi of Clazomenae, which date from the sixth century[58]. On these we have frequent battle scenes, and chiefs riding in two-horse chariots occur. The graves of Lycia and the sarcophagi of Sidon also preserve in their reliefs extracts from the lives of the chiefs buried in them, of their military expeditions, hunting exploits and domestic enjoyments.
The extraordinary inferiority of the sculpture of Mycenae in comparison either with the architecture of walls and gates, or with the working of the gold and silver cups and ornaments found in the tombs, may at first surprise us. But in spiteof this inferiority, there are touches of similarity between the representations on the stone and those in the metal plates which show them to belong to one age. We may account best for the curious discrepancy by reflecting how very closely art is dependent on material. The artists of Mycenae were evidently used to gold and metal work. They had learned to adapt their devices perfectly to a material which could be engraved and hammered. But to making reliefs in stone they were clearly quite unaccustomed. No mason who thought as a mason would attempt so absurd a task as the working out on stone of these spiral and interlaced patterns. They are taken straight from metal to limestone. And complete ignorance of the art of working in relief is shown also in the way in which the scenes are executed, each figure being quite flat, and the outlines only made clear against the ground of the relief. A distant report of reliefs in stone to be found in the lands of the far east and the south seems to have reached the workmen of Mycenae, and set them to work, when they naturally carried with them into the new branch of art the style of therepoussémetalwork which was familiar to them. Even the Lion Gate of Mycenae, though a work of a character very superior to that of the tombstones, is very weak on the side of technique.
Afterthe heroic or Achaean age we find in all branches of Greek history a marked break. Some great cataclysm in Greece, in all likelihood the Dorian conquest of Peloponnesus in the eleventh and tenth centuries, separates the age which is called Mycenaean from historic times. The young tree of Hellenic civilization had produced a few flowers, but a long period of comparative barbarism had to pass before it obeyed a second time the call of the season and brought forth mature fruit. This course of events is clearly mirrored in the graves of Greece Proper. The tombs of the later Mycenaean age, which have been discovered in great abundance, especially at Mycenae itself, are far less rich than those of the earlier period. And not only are their contents less plentiful and less interesting, but they present us with no external adornment which should justify us in here dwelling upon them. As our subject is the outsides rather than the insides of sepulchral monuments in Greece, we must pass almost in silence over a long period of time, and begin again, amid quite different surroundings, on the threshold of the Olympiads, and of Greek history as opened to us by Herodotus.
There can be little doubt that if excavations were carried out on a large scale on the coast of Asia Minor, amid the early Aeolic and Ionic settlements, we should be able to bridge the gap now existing between pre-historic and historic Greece.Doubtless by degrees the lacuna in our knowledge will be filled up. But at present it remains a lacuna.
Before however we proceed to an account of the cemeteries of the great cities of Greece Proper, of Sparta and Athens and Thebes, we must glance at the tombs erected in semi-Greek districts of Asia, such as Phrygia and Lycia, in honour of the wealthy kings who there bore sway. Greek history may, in a sense, be said to begin with the Mermnadae of Lydia, and all our histories of Greek art contain a chapter on the archaic monuments of Lycia.
A great part of the interior of Asia Minor is full of rock-sculptures, carved partly in the service of religion, partly as a record of the dead. Much of this sculpture is of great but unknown antiquity, and less closely related to any Hellenic work than to that of the races of Syria and Mesopotamia. The best general account of these remains will be found in the fifth volume of Perrot and Chipiez’Histoire de l’Art dans l’Antiquité. It is only necessary in the present work to mention a few groups of monuments of a later time, which may be advantageously compared with early Greek monuments.
Pausanias, who was well acquainted with the Ionian coast, tells us that he had seen[59]on Mount Sipylus a notable tomb ascribed by tradition to Tantalus, son of Zeus and Pluto (ΠλοÃ�ÄÉ), and father of Pelops, who gave his name to the Peloponnesus. This monument has been identified[60]in a tumulus of which the remains still stand on a spur of Sipylus. It was excavated, and partly destroyed, by M. Texier, whose drawings, which are here repeated, give us a notion of its original form and disposition (Fig. 21).
Save for the fact that it was not covered with earth, but stood free, this tumulus bears a striking resemblance to the tombs at Mycenae and Orchomenus. And the chamber within
FIG. 21. TUMULUS ON SIPYLUS.
FIG. 21. TUMULUS ON SIPYLUS.
FIG. 21. TUMULUS ON SIPYLUS.
FIG. 22. SECTION OF CHAMBER[61].
FIG. 22. SECTION OF CHAMBER[61].
FIG. 22. SECTION OF CHAMBER[61].
(Fig. 22) in many points of construction recalls the chamber of the beehive tombs, though its ground plan is not circular like theirs, but oblong. It is certainly remarkable to find, in the very district whence, according to the legends, Pelops came,a tomb so closely resembling those said to have been erected in Greece by his sons and grandsons. This however leads us to historical questions into which we must not at present enter.
FIG. 23. TOMB OF MIDAS.
FIG. 23. TOMB OF MIDAS.
FIG. 23. TOMB OF MIDAS.
The inner lands of Phrygia also furnish monuments parallel to those of Mycenae. In the neighbourhood of Kumbet, Leake found a large necropolis containing many tombs of ancient Phrygian kings and notables, some of which are remarkable for their architecture, and some for their sculpture. And herewe are not dependent upon mere tradition, for the most notable tomb of the group bears an inscription in Phrygian, stating that it was set up by Atys in honour of Midas the king (Fig. 23). M. Perrot has allowed me to reproduce here a drawing of this tomb, made by M. Tomaszkievicz from a photograph taken by Mr. Blunt[62].
FIG. 24. GEOMETRICAL FAÇADE OF TOMB.
FIG. 24. GEOMETRICAL FAÇADE OF TOMB.
FIG. 24. GEOMETRICAL FAÇADE OF TOMB.
Several other façades adorned with patterns of a similar character have been found in the same district by recent travellers, especially Mr. W. M. Ramsay. These also in most cases adorned tombs, though perhaps in some cases the tombs were but cenotaphs and did not contain actual remains. We repeat an engraving (Fig. 24) of a carved front, which seems of a somewhat later date than the Midas Tomb[63].
FIG. 25. TOMB FLANKED BY LIONS.
FIG. 25. TOMB FLANKED BY LIONS.
FIG. 25. TOMB FLANKED BY LIONS.
If the geometric decorations of these early Phrygian monuments remind us of the carving of pillar and lintel at Mycenae, a still closer parallel to the Gate of the Lions is furnished by
FIG. 26. HEAD OF LION.
FIG. 26. HEAD OF LION.
FIG. 26. HEAD OF LION.
other Phrygian tombs of which Mr. Ramsay was the fortunate discoverer. At Ayazinn he found a tomb entrance surmounted by a tall column on either side of which ramped a colossal lion (Fig. 25), rudely executed it is true, but by no means wanting in vigour. Under each of the lions is a small cub. We reproduce the drawing of this monument made by M. St. Elme Gautier[64]. Fragments also of colossal lions of a far nobler type, which had in like heraldic pose served to decorate a tomb, werefound in the same district: an engraving of a fragment of one of these (Fig. 26)[65]will give us, so to speak, the high-water mark of Phrygian art, and we must confess that it is a level which the Greeks themselves scarcely reached before the end of the sixth century.
For the sake of completeness I have reproduced some of the most clearly marked types of Phrygian tombs. But it is impossible here to enter into the historic questions which they suggest, and which have given rise to much discussion[66]. Almost the only fact which we know as to the history of Phrygia is that recorded by Strabo[67], who tells of a Phrygian king Midas, who, when his kingdom was devastated aboutB.C.680 by an invasion of the Cimmerians, committed suicide by drinking bull’s blood. After the Cimmerians had retired, the kingdom of the Lydians arose to a great height of power and splendour, but that of the Phrygians did not fully recover, remaining a dependency of Lydia.
The Midas of the Midas Tomb can scarcely be the monarch who fell in the darkest hour of his country’s history. Are we to suppose that the king Midas of the tomb was a predecessor of Strabo’s monarch, or a successor? Or are we to suppose with M. Perrot that he was no historic monarch, but a deity, and that the supposed tomb is really rather a shrine? That the monument was really a tomb Mr. Ramsay argues with great force. But its date is more problematic, and we cannot venture in this matter to express an opinion.
According to Mr. Ramsay the tombs guarded by lions are more ancient than those with geometric façades, and go back to quite a remote antiquity. But the opposite opinion, that the geometrical tombs are the older, has found advocates.Between them, the two classes of monuments seem to occupy the period between the eighth century, or earlier, and the age of Croesus and Cyrus.
That there was some not distant relation between the sepulchral art of Phrygia and that of Mycenae cannot be denied. It would however be a mistake hence to leap to the conclusion that the art of Mycenae was of Phrygian origin. It appears that the remains which come to us from Mycenae are earlier by several centuries than those which we find in Phrygia. It might even be suggested that the stream of art flowed rather in the opposite direction, from Mycenae to Phrygia. A more reasonable view, however, is that the art of Phrygia and that of Mycenae were not mother and daughter, but rather cousins, derived alike from some stem of Asiatic art which has yet to be traced out.
More interesting, because more full of human meaning, are the sculptural adornments of the early tombs of the district of Lycia in southern Asia Minor. Early Greek tradition shows a close relation subsisting between Lycia and Peloponnesus. There is a well-known Homeric story which tells how Bellerophon, the descendant of Aeolus, was sent to Lycia by Proetus, who desired that he should there be slain at the hands of the Lycian king, his father-in-law; and how nevertheless Bellerophon prospered in Lycia in all that he undertook, slaying the Chimaera, and overcoming the hosts of Solymi and Amazons. Glaucus, the grandson of Bellerophon, and Diomedes of Argos meet under the walls of Ilium as cousins. And tradition connected the name of the Lycian Cyclopes with the mighty walls of Tiryns and of Mycenae. The genealogies of the legends are no doubt quite untrustworthy, yet they are often confirmed as indications of race by other evidence. And there is, as we shall see, so near an analogy between the monuments of Lycia and those of Peloponnesus that we are obliged to assume between the two countries also some connexion.
When we consider the series of Lycian tombs, which may be studied better in the British Museum than in any other museum of Europe, we find a most interesting blending of Oriental and Greek elements[68]. Their architecture is local; the main feature of it being that it renders directly, in stone and in rock, forms which are clearly in origin wooden. Everywhere we see the square beam as it were petrified. In the roof of the ordinary Greek temple we see that the forms were thought out while the building material was still wood, and only modified when stone took the place of beams. In the Lycian tombs this feature is still more notable, because the Lycian architects lacked the nimbleness of the Greek intellect, and were more conservative of settled forms. The sculptures which adorn these curious constructions have also local elements, but in this field the art of Ionia comes in as a controlling force in the sixth century, rendering the native customs and beliefs in forms to which the student of Greek art is accustomed. It may be that our familiarity with the forms and style of the sculpture in some degree misleads us. When we know the words of a language we sometimes too hastily think that we are masters of its thought. The religion and the customs of Lycia may resemble those of Greece less closely than the monuments would lead us to think. But in ancient times art influenced custom as well as custom art. In the present state of our knowledge we cannot regard the early monuments of Lycia as outside the pale of Greek art.
There are indeed, as M. Perrot has well shown, among Lycian archaic monuments a few which seem to precede the Ionic influence. Such is the square chest of the British Museum[69], on one side of which is a lion strangling an ox, on another side a lioness with her cubs, on the third a manslaying a lion, and on the fourth a group of horsemen and warriors on foot. The lion-slayer in particular takes our thoughts not to Greece but to Egypt and Assyria. Many of the tombs which do show Ionic influence are not suggestive in the present connexion. Their sculptural adornment is such as we might expect to find as soon on a temple as on a tomb; satyrs, animals, sphinxes and the like. We will here consider only a few monuments, the sculpture of which seems to be really sepulchral in character.
Incomparably the most interesting of the archaic grave-monuments of the Xanthus valley is the beautiful tomb called the Harpy Monument, the reliefs of which now adorn the British Museum, having been brought thither by Sir Charles Fellows. When complete the tomb was in the form of a square tower of masonry about twenty feet high, which was surmounted by a small chamber, wherein doubtless in ancient times lay the bodies of those to whose honour the whole was erected, together with the riches heaped around their biers. This chamber reminds us of the tomb of Cyrus, as described by Arrian[70]. ‘Below,’ writes Arrian, ‘it was built of squared masonry in the form of a four-sided tower, on which was a chamber roofed with stone, having a narrow door to it, through which a man of no great stature could with pain and difficulty pass. In the chamber stood a golden coffin wherein was buried the body of Cyrus, and beside the coffin a couch with feet of beaten gold, whereon was laid a coverlet of Babylonian carpets, and below purple rugs. On these was placed a candys and other garments of Babylonian workmanship: also Median trousers and robes of hyacinth dye, some of purple, some of other colours; and torques and swords, and gold earrings set with stones.’
Similar, though no doubt less splendid, may have beenthe contents of the Harpy Tomb; and it is noteworthy that in it also there is a small opening at the side, intended not for the entrance of men, but either for admission of dues of food and drink, or more probably to give free ingress and egress to the ghosts of the dead. The Persians and the Lycians must have been of kindred stocks; and we may well suppose that their burial customs would be similar.
The reliefs which decorate the outer faces of the Harpy Tomb are among the most charming memorials of antiquity. In spite of a certain crudity and poverty in design, which is discovered on a close inspection, the style in its elegant and graceful conventionality is very attractive. And the difficulty which exists in the identification of the figures of the reliefs, and the determination of their meaning, adds an intellectual fascination to that which is aesthetic. (SeeFig. 27.)
On the side which faces the west we find the door already mentioned, over which is a figure of a cow suckling her calf. At the two ends sit, face to face, two dignified female figures. They are clad alike in the Ionian dress with long sleeves, but in attributes they differ. The figure to the left holds a vessel of offerings; a sphinx supports the arm of her chair; she is severe in type and solitary. The figure to the right holds in her two hands flower and fruit; the bar of her chair ends in a ram’s head. Three votaries approach her, whereof the first is busy with her drapery, the second carries flower and fruit, the third bears an egg. It is clear that the lady on the right is more approachable; her flower and fruit, and the ram’s head, all symbolize the genial abundance of life in nature. The libation-vessel of the lady to the left, and her sphinx, seem to belong to the grave rather than to life.
Let us pass to the other three sides of the tomb. The central group of each of them represents a seated male figure receiving offerings from a votary, also male. But the motive of the groups and the age of the votaries varies. On the east,a young boy brings an egg and a cock to an elderly man who holds a flower and a sceptre: a Triton supports the arm of his chair. On the south, a youth carries a dove to a clumsy figure who holds fruits. On the north, a warrior brings armour to a bearded personage, beneath whose throne is a bear. The flanking figures on the east side are merely more votaries with offerings. But on the north and south sides we find the remarkable beings from whom the tomb takes its name, strange monsters having the head, arms, and breasts of women, but the tails and feet of birds, who carry each in her arms a young girl clad in long drapery. In the corner of the north side is a woman, who sits in an attitude of grief.
FIG. 27. NORTH AND WEST SIDES OF HARPY TOMB.
FIG. 27. NORTH AND WEST SIDES OF HARPY TOMB.
FIG. 27. NORTH AND WEST SIDES OF HARPY TOMB.
Such are the details of reliefs, the precise import of whichwill probably never be recovered, unless a new light dawns on Lycian customs and religion. Earlier explanations saw in the winged figures the Harpies or storm-winds bearing away the daughters of Pandareus, according to a well-known tale of theOdyssey[71]. But an objection to this interpretation at once arises from the fact that the girls who are being borne away cling lovingly to their captors, and show neither dread nor anger. Hence it has appeared more reasonable to find in them souls of women gently carried by guardian spirits to the land of the future. In the seated male and female figures, it has been proposed to find the deities of the Lycian race, though who these were is not clear. If the seated ladies be goddesses, it seems clear that they must preside respectively over life and death. Yet it would be very bold so far to Hellenize them as to call them Demeter, the impersonation of the fruitful earth, and Persephone, queen of the shades below.
The most recent explanation of the reliefs, first propounded by Milchhoefer, regards them as memorials of the worship, not of the gods, but of the heroized dead. Certainly they in some points nearly resemble the Spartan reliefs, of which we shall treat in the next chapter, and which do beyond doubt belong to the hero-worship of Lacedaemonian families. The offerings, too, in the hands of the votaries, the flower, the fruit, the egg, and the cock, are such as were brought in Greece to the tomb, and such as are figured in the Spartan monuments. No offering could be more appropriately offered to a deceased ancestor, in an artistic representation, than the armour which was sometimes in early days placed, in Greek and Asiatic graves, on the head and the breast of him who had worn it during his life; and in later days was sometimes attached to his tomb. And however we interpret the winged figures, we can hardly make them other than the ministers of death, a fact which seemsto strike a keynote with which all the rest of the explanation must harmonize.
Yet when we try to explain the sculptures as memorials of Lycian ancestor-worship we soon come to difficulties. On the stelae of Sparta we find a pair, ancestor and ancestress, or the ancestor alone. On Attic tombs we do not find more than a family group. But here, on the monument of Xanthus, there are five detached seated figures, three men and two women. What kind of a group of ancestors will these form, and why are they separate? In the little seated lady of the north side one is tempted, on the analogy of mediaeval paintings, to see the dedicator of the whole tomb. But this again is uncertain. In the whole matter we walk like the Mystae at Eleusis in the dark, seeing only vague forms and hearing words which we cannot interpret.
To the winged figures with their prey we may certainly find an analogy in the Sirens of the Athenian monuments (see below, Chap. VIII). The Siren was with the Greeks a sepulchral figure, and signified a death gentle rather than violent. The small beings in their arms on the Xanthian monument are almost certainly souls, which Greek art often represents as of very small size.
The Siren, in her ordinary Greek form, is found on another Lycian monument, which has not hitherto been engraved. In the British Museum[72]only the gable end of this tomb is preserved. In the midst of it is a column of Ionic type, though not of the ordinary form, on which stands the Siren of whom we speak. She is clad in a short chiton, girt at the waist, with loose sleeves. Though the wings and legs are those of a bird, she has human arms, outstretched. On either side of the column sits a figure: on the left a beardless elderly man, on the right a bearded man; each holds a staff, and extends theunoccupied hand. These two dignified men appear to be the heroes to whom the tomb belongs; and the Siren represents the mourning of the survivors. Here, even more than in the Harpy Tomb, we seem within the range of Greek conceptions and Ionic art.
FIG. 28. GABLE OF LYCIAN TOMB.
FIG. 28. GABLE OF LYCIAN TOMB.
FIG. 28. GABLE OF LYCIAN TOMB.
Another monument[73], probably not much later than 500B.C., was adorned with what appears to be a funeral procession—old men in chariots, young horsemen, and armed men marching. One of the venerable figures in the chariots holds in one hand a flower, in the other apparently a cup, symbols which we shall presently see to have a decidedly sepulchral signification.Another fragment of archaic Lycian work in the British Museum[74]represents a woman standing at the foot of a couch, whereon it appears that a man reclined, for one of his feet is visible; but whether alive or dead we cannot be sure. But we must not linger over these fragments, though they might repay a more careful and detailed study. The threads which we are now obliged to drop, we shall regather when we treat of the tombs of Athens, and of the monuments erected by Attic artists on the coast of Asia Minor.
Thegroup of grave reliefs which constitutes our record of the customs and beliefs of the Lacedaemonians in regard to the tomb, a group which is inferior to few sets of ancient monuments in historical interest, has not very long been known to the world. Attention was first called to it in 1877 by Drs. Dressel and Milchhoefer, and it has since then found a place in all the histories of sculpture.
Of these reliefs the most important and the best preserved is now in the Museum of Berlin. It was found at Chrysapha near Sparta. It is represented in one of our plates (II), from which representation it is possible to gain some notion of the fashion of its carving, which is remarkable, and has been generally considered to indicate a hand or a school more versed in the carving of wood than in the sculpturing of marble. As in the carving of an onyx, we find several distinct planes one behind the other, on which are respectively projected the different parts of the relief, the outlines of each part being slightly rounded, and the inner markings graven in shallow lines with a tool. The face and arm of the nearest figure project most from the background; next, his body; and so on, layer beyond layer, to the ground of the relief. The style is rude, hard, and vigorous; though the capacity of the artist is narrowly limited, he moves within his limits with
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firm steps. The date of the work is probably the latter part of the sixth century.
Perhaps even more striking than the style of the relief is its subject. Seated side by side, no doubt on two chairs, though one only can be made out, are a pair, a bearded man who faces outwards and who holds in his right hand a winecup, and a woman, who bears a pomegranate in her right hand, while with the left she draws forward her veil. Both figures are fully clad. Behind the pair is erect a bearded snake; before their knees we see advancing two smaller figures, male and female, bringing as offerings a cock and an egg, a flower, and a fruit.
In the same volume of the AthenianMittheilungen(ii), in which this relief was originally published, may be found photographs of other reliefs which closely resemble it in character, but show small differences in period and detail. On Plate 24 is a relief wherein the snake is wholly wanting: on Plate 23 the snake is transposed, being erect in front of the wine-cup, and the style of the work is decidedly more advanced: on Plate 22 a dog appears beside the seated pair.
These four reliefs then make up a strongly defined group; and before we turn to other reliefs of the Spartan class, it may be well to determine what meaning may be assigned to the representations which they exhibit.
We may begin by rejecting without hesitation some of the theories on the subject which might naturally be suggested by a first impression. The wine-cup in the hands of the male figure might dispose one to think of Dionysus and his consort Ariadne; but this explanation would leave the serpent and other features unexplained, nor have we reason to think that the cultus of Dionysus had struck deep roots at Sparta in early times. Again, the serpent might suggest Asklepius with his daughter Hygieia, since the healing deity commonly carries a staff round which a serpent twines. But to this explanationthe winecup offers difficulties; and, again, the evidence for a local cult at Sparta is insufficient.
Far nearer to the mark is the view which Dr. Milchhoefer accepted, that in the dignified seated pair we have embodied the deities of the world of shades. The wine-cup would in that case refer to the frequent offerings of wine made to the shades below; and the serpent is the well-known companion and friend of the dead. We are not well informed as to the names borne at Sparta by the king and queen of the world of the dead. At Argos they were not so well known by the Homeric names of Hades and Persephone, which they commonly bore in Greece, as by the names of Klymenos and Chthonia. But in fact the pair were known by many names in various places.
An interesting terra-cotta (Fig. 29) from Locri in Italy[75]presents a group at first sight nearly resembling the seated pair of Sparta. We find on it Hades and his Queen seated side by side: he is wreathed and holds flowers; she carries a cock and ears of corn. This is valuable evidence, and shows that in southern Italy monuments of the class we are considering might well belong to the worship of the recognized deities of the nether world. But a closer consideration shows that at Sparta the worship took another and a less generalized form, natural to a race among whom ancestors were held in special and unusual honour.
Though Hades and his Queen are frequently mentioned in sepulchral inscriptions, they are but rarely figured together in sculpture. A comparison of two or three other stelae of Sparta will suggest at all events a modification of the view that the seated pair of the reliefs already mentioned are merely the rulers of the world below. In the fourth volume of the AthenianMittheilungenare published two reliefs which beat
FIG. 29. HADES AND PERSEPHONE.
FIG. 29. HADES AND PERSEPHONE.
FIG. 29. HADES AND PERSEPHONE.
important inscriptions. On one is represented a man wrapped in a cloak seated: in his left hand is a pomegranate; in his right a wine-cup, out of which a coiled serpent drinks. The stone bears the name ΤΙΜΟΚΛΗù. If this inscription were of the same date as the relief it would of course at once prove that the stone is a memorial of an individual, and not a dedication to Hades. But in the opinion at least of Prof. Furtwängler the inscription is decidedly the later; it cannot therefore be regarded as conclusive evidence. But such evidence is afforded us by the next monument. Here we have a bearded man seated, in a decidedly later and more finished style of art, holding in his right hand a wine-cup, from which a serpent feeds. The inscription here is ΑΡΙΣΤΟΚΛΗù Ο ΚΑΙ ΖΗΘΟù;and it seems not merely to show that the memorial belongs to a man, Aristocles, but also that this Aristocles received a second name after his death in the quality of hero or demi-god. We learn from other sources of several such heroic names bestowed on distinguished men after their death. The rarity of names on the Spartan tombs may be readily accounted for by the existence of a stern law of Lycurgus[76], that names were not to be recorded on the tombs except in the case of priestesses, or of warriors who had fallen in battle. Another regulation of the great lawgiver ordained that bodies might be buried within the city, and memorials of the dead set up in the neighbourhood of the temples. Such monuments were not always gravestones, but sometimes memorials of those who were buried in a different place, or had fallen on foreign service.
In view of such facts as these we cannot hesitate to see in the sepulchral reliefs of Sparta reference to individuals, the ancestor, or the ancestor and his wife. They are the shrines of the family worship of the Laconians. But yet in a sense the dead man is identical with Hades. In Egypt each of the virtuous dead became part of Osiris. According to Herodotus the Getae thought that their dead returned to their deity Zalmoxis. In Greece, by dying, men put away the individual accidents of the flesh and became in a sense united with Hades. This no doubt is one reason why down to the second centuryB.C.we scarcely ever find individual portraits on tombs, a fact to which we shall hereafter return.
The cultus of ancestors was closely parallel to that of the gods. To both, sacrifices of food and of drink were constantly brought. To the temple of the gods corresponded the family heroum or shrine. To the statues of the gods corresponded the representation of the human dead in anideal or heroized form. And gods and ancestors alike partook with their votaries of food at stated times, becoming the guest-friends of the worshipper.
Regarding the relation of the Spartan stelae to the cultus of ancestors as certain, we may proceed to consider in the light of that connexion the meaning of various details of the reliefs. The thing that is perhaps of the highest interest in them is the high honour paid to women. Ancestor and ancestress sit in state side by side, and are approached by their descendants, the smallness of whose figures is intended to portray the humility of their approach to their heroic progenitors. That ancestor-worship should find a special home at Sparta need not surprise us. We know that respect for elders and for parents was almost as strongly rooted among the conservative Laconians as it is in our days among the Chinese and Japanese. An exhortation to be worthy of their predecessors was the appeal which most readily stirred the hearts of the Spartan spearmen. They lived under the shadow of the past to an extent which we can hardly realize. But it is scarcely so familiar a fact that Sparta was the city in all Greece where women were held in highest honour. The Athenians inherited something of the Ionian desire for the seclusion of women, and to the contemporaries and countrymen of Thucydides it seemed high praise of a woman to say that she was never talked of. At Sparta, on the other hand, in some of the great crises of history, women are prominent in the foreground, from the days when little Gorgo saved her father Cleomenes from being bribed, to the days when Agiatis stirred up a later Cleomenes to his projects of political reform. The Spartan education, which seemed to regard women as only of use for bearing children to uphold the State, can scarcely have aimed at a high intellectual ideal. Modern German writers are fully convinced that sharing the exercises and games of the men must have rendered Laconian womencoarse and masculine. Yet the Spartan ladies had a great share in the ownership of land; Spartan nurses were sought for in all Greece for the rearing of boys; and we learn from Plutarch that in all matters the Spartans were ready to take the advice of their women, and looked on their approval as the highest of rewards. On this regard for women among the Laconians, the treatment of women in their sepulchral reliefs is an excellent commentary.
The offerings brought to the seated pair in the relief first cited are such as belonged in a special way to the dead. The pomegranate was the food of the Shades, which, when Persephone had tasted in the palace of Hades, she belonged to him beyond recall. The cock and the egg are the simplest meat-offerings which were brought to the dead and enjoyed by the living. Flowers in all countries and in all ages have been laid on the tomb; and the Greeks who loved to deck their banquets with them were not an exception to the general rule. The winecup in the hand of the seated hero may be characterized as a very broad hint to his descendants that at the tomb were due the libations which were grateful alike to the gods and to the spirits of the dead. The serpent who is sometimes represented as drinking from the cup is either the companion of the dead or even his spirit in another form. The way in which a serpent disappears into the ground marks him out as essentially a chthonic being.
A few more characteristic specimens of this class of monuments must be cited. On a stele from Chrysapha (Fig. 30) we see a man, depicted in an archaic style of art, seated, holding winecup and pomegranate; at his feet leaps a dog, while a horse is depicted in relief in the background. In discussing this relief Dr. Furtwängler[77]advocates the view that horse and dog have a symbolical reference, the horse being
FIG. 30. SEATED HERO.
FIG. 30. SEATED HERO.
FIG. 30. SEATED HERO.
nearly connected with Hades and the dog with Hecate, both mythologic beings closely connected with the dead. I have proposed[78]a somewhat bolder view, that these animals sculptured on the stone bear the same relation to the mortal horse and dog which had belonged to the hero that the portrait bears to himself, and that they are really a survival of an ancient custom, whereof we find traces in the graves of Greece and Italy, by which the horse and dog of a deceased warrior were slain and buried in the same place with him. Whether their bones were mingled with their master’s, or whether they are merely figured on his gravestone, themeaning is much the same, that wherever the lord is, there are his faithful attendants: ‘Admitted to that equal sky, his faithful dog shall bear him company,’ as Pope says. In any case, horse and dog on a tomb are certainly a mark of knightly rank.
Among many proofs that the animal companions of the hero had reference rather to his occupations and necessities than to any symbolism, the evidence afforded by a grave at Tanagra[79]seems worth citing. Although that grave is of a period later than Alexander the Great, it seems to preserve early Greek ways of looking at death and what lies beyond. The interior of this grave contained paintings of the head and neck of a horse, a sword and a loom, besides a house and various articles of furniture. Here the paintings seem closely to represent what might at an earlier time have been the contents of the grave. The horse and the sword belong to the husband, the loom to the wife, whether we are to consider these as reflections of the past life of the pair or as an accompaniment of their ghostly existence. The furniture and the house are provision for their spiritual need of a domicile, just as in the graves of Egypt we find paintings of the life of the house and farm, there placed to break the shock of death, and provide for the shadow of a departed landlord a shadow of his past employments[80].
We pass to the representations which serve to bridge the gap between the grave-monuments of Sparta and those of other districts. Among the Spartan reliefs published by Milchhoefer, the following occupy one plate[81]:—
A female figure, seen from the waist upwards, clad in a chiton, holding in her left hand a tall flower.
A youth, standing, clad in a chlamys; he holds a staffin one hand, in the other a cake or fruit; before him a snake erect.
Both of these are of quite early style: with the latter of them we may compare the following in the Museum at Athens[82]:—