CHAPTER VIIHEROIZING RELIEFS

FIG. 31. STELE, MAN FEEDING SNAKE.

Man standing wrapped in a mantle; in his left hand a pomegranate, in the right a winecup, out of which feeds a serpent coiled and erect.

In these instances we approach the ordinary representationof the dead as standing, so common on the tombs alike of Athens and of Northern Greece, numerous instances of which will be found in the ninth chapter. Yet the snake, the flower, the pomegranate, all belong to the special cultus of the dead; and there is not in these cases a reference to the past life, as is probably the case with the great majority of Attic stelae.

Beforewe proceed further, one distinction of importance has to be made. It will be found that all the sepulchral monuments of Greece belong to one of two classes:—

1. Actual tombs, whether temples, or tables, or slabs hewn to be let into the ground.

2. Commemorative tablets. These may readily be distinguished in form, because their width is greater than their height, whereas in the true grave-stele, the height is greater than the width. They were made usually not to be fixed into the ground of the cemetery, but to be set up in chapels or mounted on walls in its neighbourhood. An example will be found inPl. III. These slabs have a closer relation to actual cultus than have the gravestones. Their likeness in shape and in composition to tablets dedicated to the deities is obvious. In fact they belonged to the chapels and shrines sacred to the worship of heroes and exalted ancestors, rather than to the ordinary dead.

When we proceed to trace down the lines of descent of the memorials of ancestor-worship from Sparta in various districts of Greece, we shall find that some of these lines lead us to groups of actual tombstones, but more usually they lead to dedicatory reliefs, closely connected with the cultus of the dead, but not usually coming from actual cemeteries.

One line takes us to the so-called sepulchral banquets ofAthens. The best specimen of these reliefs, found at the Piraeus, and dating from the end of the fifth century, is represented in our plates (Pl. III). It has passed by the absurd name, The Death of Socrates. On a couch, supported by cushions, reclines a bearded citizen, holding in his hand a cup, and apparently pouring the libation with which the Greeks preluded their feasts. At his feet sits his wife, occupied, like many of the ladies represented on Athenian tombs, in admiring a necklace, which she holds in both hands, or possibly a wreath, for the object itself, having been represented in colour and not in the marble, has disappeared. A young slave as cup-bearer is occupied in fetching wine in a jug from the hugecrateror mixing bowl which appears on the left of the relief; beneath the couch a dog is occupied with a bone. On the right of the scene there enters a bearded man, of smaller stature than the reclining hero, who raises his hand out of the folds of his himation in a fashion which to the Greeks implied adoration.

At the first glance there seems but small likeness between this scene of domestic feasting and the stiff Spartan reliefs. Yet when we compare the two in detail, we find that the differences between them lie in the different customs of varying ages, and in the artistic rendering, rather than in the signification. Let us make the comparison.

In the Spartan relief the hero is seated, in the Athenian reclining. Here we have an illustration of the well-known fact that during the historic age the Greeks changed their custom from sitting at meals, as do the Homeric heroes, for a reclining posture. The habit of lying at meals, awkward as it seems to us, was a result of growing luxury. It had long, as we know from the reliefs of the Assyrian palaces, been customary in the East.Fig. 32[83]shows King Assur-bani-pal and his Queen

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feasting in their palace, in the seventh centuryB.C.From the East, the custom spread to the Ionians of Asia Minor, and thence to Greece itself, with other traits of Ionian luxury.

An archaic relief from Tegea (Fig. 33)[84]seems to mark the point of transition in Hellas from the seated to the reclining position. Although only the feet of the hero are seen, yet these feet sufficiently prove that he was extended on a couch. His wife draws forward her veil; between husband and wife is a youth holding a wreath, in regard to whom it is not easy to say whether he is the child of the pair, or merely a cup-bearer, or an adorer.

FIG. 32. ASSUR-BANI-PAL AND QUEEN.

It is a consequence of the assumption of a reclining position by the man in the reliefs, that the woman must be separated from him. In the somewhat unrestrained vase-paintings ofEuphronius and his contemporaries we frequently find women reclining at table with men and sharing their cups. But these, as the disorder of the scenes clearly shows, were hetaerae, slaves of abandoned character. No wife, and no self-respecting concubine would even be present at a Greek banquet. When a husband dined at home, his wife might be present, but would probably not take a share in the repast. She would sit opposite her husband, to cheer him with her talk. But for a Greek wife to sit like the Queen of Assur-bani-pal drinking wine, and pledging her lord in a cup, would be an impossibility. Alike on the Tegean and the Athenian relief she is wholly occupied with her dress, like a true daughter of Greece. The Spartan wife had more in common with her husband.

FIG. 33. STELE FROM TEGEA.

Another marked divergence between the Spartan and the Athenian relief lies, so to speak, in its tense. In the former, the past is set aside, and we find allusion only to the life beyond the grave. The snake, the pomegranate, the offerings, all have reference to the status of the dead as hero and as an associate of the nether gods. But the Athenian relief might at first sight be supposed to be an excerpt out of daily domestic life. There is no symbolism, no exaltation. Husband, wife, and slave may have met thus a hundred times in their ordinary life on earth. In this we find the influence of the ordinary spirit of grave-reliefs at Athens, which, as we shall see in a future chapter, dwells on and draws from the past daily life rather than the more ghostly life of the future.

Yet a clear indication which unites the two classes of representation is furnished by the votaries who appear in both alike. They are in the Spartan relief very small in stature; a naive way of indicating how far below the hero they rank. The votary of the Athenian relief is scarcely smaller than his ancestral hero. Yet his presence is an undoubted proof of the connexion of the monument with actual worship. On many of the later representations of banquets, this is further emphasized by the introduction of the well-known symbolism of ancestor-worship. In some a snake is depicted in the foreground. In others a horseâ€™s head appears in the background. In others the superhuman character of the hero is indicated by the lofty crown, which belongs to the god of the lower world, Hades or Sarapis, and which appears on the head of the reclining hero[85].

The Spartan monuments were probably in many cases set up as tombstones over the actual graves of ancestors. But the Athenian banqueting reliefs were not usually on tombstones, more often on memorial tablets preserved in chapelsdevoted to the cultus of the dead. This their shape clearly indicates. All tombstones are almost of necessity higher than they are broad, usually tall and narrow. But the banqueting reliefs are oblong in the opposite direction, broader than they are high. This difference indicates a different use and destination. In fact they come rather into line with the reliefs which belong to the worship of civic or local heroes, or those set up by grateful votaries in the shrines of Asklepius and other healing deities, than with the immediate memorials of the dead.

FIG. 34. COIN OF BIZYA.

The likeness between some of the votive monuments of Asklepius and the ordinary sepulchral banquets is so close as to have caused considerable confusion. The Asklepian reliefs appear to borrow of set purpose much of the symbolism which belongs to ancestor-worship. As an instance we engrave (Fig. 34) a coin of Bizya, a Greek city of Thrace[86], struck in the reign of Philip the Arab. On the reverse of the coin we see Asklepius reclining on a couch, against which rests his serpent-twined rod. His daughter or wife Hygieia is seated beside him; a human attendant brings in a wine-jar. The accessories, a coat of mail hung on a tree, a shield suspended from the wall, a horse who trots in from the right, are among the ordinary features of sepulchral banqueting reliefs, and seeminappropriate to a peaceful and non-equestrian deity like Asklepius. Such contamination of one class of monuments by another, such transfer of symbols from one artistic field to another, is among the common phenomena offered by Greek art.

We have now reached phenomena which require careful consideration. We have found that there is no clear line of distinction to be drawn between banqueting reliefs which were set up in honour of dead persons and reliefs which belong to the cultus of heroes, and even of deities who partake of the nature of heroes, such as Asklepius. It is always difficult in dealing with ancient monuments to separate the particular class of which we propose to treat from other classes which are akin to it in origin and in meaning. It is always necessary at last to draw a somewhat arbitrary line, and to adhere to it for the sake of order and method.

In Greek cultus and belief there is no broad distinction to be made between the veneration paid to the more noteworthy of those who were recently dead, and the worship accorded to local and national heroes, Theseus and Orestes, the Dioscuri and Asklepius. In a sense, all the dead were heroes, and any of them might become a worthy object of periodic sacrifice, proprietor of a sacred domain, and lord of a priesthood. I have already (Chap. II) dwelt on these facts from the point of view of custom and cultus; it remains to show their working in the field of art.

In dealing, not with actual gravestones, but with the oblong reliefs which had a closer relation to cultus, and were dedicated only to the more distinguished of the dead, it is quite impossible to distinguish clearly those which were set up in honour of recognized mythic heroes, from those which belonged strictly to the cult of ancestors. Sometimes the inscription may help us to a decision, or sometimes we may find direction in the place where the relief is found. Apart from these externalindications, those offered by the relief itself are usually ambiguous.

That some of the banqueting reliefs were set up in honour of persons recently dead may be proved[87]. Indeed, in later times, such scenes not unfrequently decorate actual tombstones. This being the case, it is reasonable to assume that the great majority of them belong to tribal and family worship. They were set up, not usually at the tomb, but in shrines and heroa in the neighbourhood of the cemetery, or in the chapels of deities or heroes; sometimes, perhaps, in private houses, to be a constant reminder to the survivors.

In an early and interesting sepulchral relief in the British Museum[88]we have an unusual group. On a couch there recline an old man and a young, doubtless father and son, while a second son leads in a horse. This relief may serve as a transition to another class of oblong cultus-reliefs. The cult of heroized ancestors does not find its only memorials in Greece in the reliefs in which they are represented as seated or reclining. There is another group of monuments in which they appear as horsemen, or as leading horses.

The connexion of the horse with the heroic dead, whencesoever the notion may have arisen, was certainly in some districts of Greece very close. Milchhoefer has shown[89]how the sculptural evidence indicates that this connexion was closest in Thrace and Northern Greece. And this is but natural. The aristocracies of Thessaly, of Boeotia, and other northern parts of Greece were essentially equestrian; whereas in Peloponnesus the horse, being unsuited to the rugged mountain paths, was comparatively rare. The strength of a Thessalian army lay in its cavalry; the strength of a Spartan army in its array of spearmen. To a horse-loving race it was natural to think of the mighty dead as horsemen. Even at Sparta the nationalheroes, the sons of Zeus, Castor and Pollux, were essentially riders; and on monuments they seldom appear without their steeds. Still more close is the connexion between heroes of Northern Greece and their horses.

A great deal of learning has been expended by a variety of archaeologists to prove that the horse, when he appears in the sepulchral banquets and the present class of reliefs, is of chthonic signification; that he belongs mythologically to the gods of the world below, and to mortals assimilated to them[90]. It may be doubted whether they have proved their case. Hades is in Homer ÎºÎ»Ï…Ï„ÏŒÏ€Ï‰Î»Î¿Ï‚, in allusion to the dread chariot in which he bore away Persephone[91]; but he does not appear as a rider. The wild rider or hunting ghost is familiar in northern lands, but not in ancient Greece. It seems preferable to take the simpler explanation, that a chief accustomed all his life to riding would scarcely be supposed to lack a horse in the fields of Hades. We have ancient evidence that the presence of a sculptured horse beside a sculptured man showed his knightly rank in theAthenian Constitutionof Aristotle[92], where we are told that a statue of one Diphilas on the Athenian Acropolis, which was set up to mark his rise to the knightly rank, had a horse standing beside it.

Several extant monuments show how the god-like heroes of Northern Hellas came as horsemen to receive the tribute of the living. And this kind of monument spread from the north into other parts of the Greek world.

One of the earliest and most typical of these reliefs is in the British Museum[93](Fig. 35). It comes from Rhodes, and may be dated about 400B.C.In it we have a combination in three figures of the three elements which in this class of monumentsare almost universally mingled. First, there is the hero himself on horseback. Next, there is a female figure of stature equal to or greater than his own[94], who meets him and pours him a cup of wine. Thirdly, there is a worshipper on a somewhat smaller scale, who does homage.

FIG. 35. HORSEMAN RELIEF, BRITISH MUSEUM.

Another relief of about the same period, from Tanagra, (Fig. 36), shows us a varied group[95]. Beside his horse the hero stands, clad in chiton and mantle, holding out a flat cup or patera, which a lady standing in front of him fills from a wine-jug. A square altar stands between the two, towards which, in attitude of adoration, approaches a man, represented on a smaller scale, with his wife and two children. The inscription above is ÎšÎ±Î»Î»Î¹Ï„ÎÎ»Î·Ï‚ á¼ˆÎ»ÎµÎ¾Î¹Î¼Î¬Ï‡á¿³ á¼€Î½ÎÎ¸Î·ÎºÎµÎ½. Dedicated byCalliteles to Aleximachus. Whether Aleximachus was a recognized local hero, or only an ordinary dead man raised by Calliteles to heroic rank, cannot be decided with certainty.

FIG. 36. HORSEMAN RELIEF, BERLIN.

Another very similar relief is figured in the fourth volume of the AthenianMittheilungen[96]. It is from Thebes. The hero stands, holding a lance in one hand, and in the other the usual flat cup, the patera. From the right seven figures approach. The first is the lady who pours wine, and behind her are six worshippers, who bring in a pig and a fowl for sacrifice. The sepulchral character of the relief is emphasized by placing a tumulus just in front of the horse, and in fact under his forefoot.

Another relief, in the Museum of Berlin[97], is similar in most respects; but the lady of tall stature here stands behind the horseman, and instead of paying him homage, seems to receive it in common with him from a train of approaching votaries. A large serpent erect in the background is the friend and companion of the hero.

There can be no question as to the association of these reliefs with worship, since the preparations for sacrifice are actually represented on them. But in many directions they offer us a series of interesting problems.

Firstly, is the hero who is thus honoured merely an ordinary dead person raised at death to heroic rank, or is he one of the local heroes who were everywhere in Greece held in honour, mythic founders of cities or ancestors of tribes, or healing and oracular demigods like Amphiaraus and Trophonius? No doubt, in many instances, the heroic horseman of the reliefs is of this latter class. Yet that a man recently deceased is sometimes the recipient of honour is proved by the inscriptions in some cases, and may be almost with certainty inferred from the presence of the tumulus on the relief last described. On the monuments the hero is represented in the bloom of early manhood; but of course it does not follow that he died young: immortal bloom belongs to the hero after death, however worn and wrinkled age may have left him.

Secondly, who and what is the lady who on the reliefs pours wine? Her stature, which is equal to that of the hero himself, and far greater than that of the worshippers, shows at once that she is no living mortal or descendant, but a person of equal rank with the horseman. As a matter of artistic tradition we can trace her genesis quite clearly, as has been well shown by FurtwÃ¤ngler[98]. On the Spartan stelae we foundancestor and ancestress seated side by side. When the reclining position supersedes that of sitting, the wife necessarily moves from her husbandâ€™s side and sits opposite to him. It is a variety of the same motive when the husband sits or stands and the wife pours him wine, a group found on several stelae[99], one as early as the Persian wars, and very commonly in the paintings of Greek vases, from quite an early period. The motive of wine-pouring being thus thoroughly established in Greek art, could easily be transferred from one kind of group to another. It may have been that in some cases the hero had no wife, or he may have had several successively: that would make no great difference, as the idea of the group is fixed. As FurtwÃ¤ngler expresses it: â€˜Il importe dâ€™insister sur le fait que nous sommes ici en face dâ€™une forme artistique, qui avait pour objet dâ€™exprimer une conception de ces puissances souterraines dÃ©rivÃ©e dâ€™un des principaux usages de leur culte.â€™ This is a far more reasonable explanation than that of some writers, who fancy that the wine-pouring lady is a kind of Houri, or nymph of Paradise, who awaits the hero in the next world to recompense him with her embraces for the pains which he has in this world undergone for the good of mankind.

Thirdly, what is the relation between these heroic reliefs and the numerous reliefs and paintings on Attic stelae in which the deceased is represented as riding on a horse? Several of these we cite below in Chapter IX. Some points of difference between the two classes of monuments are obvious. The heroic reliefs are broad, shaped like votive tablets: the Attic reliefs are tombstones of upright shape. In the votive reliefs the wine-pouring consort is seldom absent, and votaries are usually present. In the Attic reliefs the horse is merely one of the adjuncts of daily life, and the rider is represented in the guise of his ordinary existence. In fact, as we shall seewhen we reach the ordinary Attic reliefs, the figure of the horseman, when it occurs on them, is merely a characteristic portrait of a man who in his life had been fond of horses, and perhaps won victories with them at the great sacred festivals.

Nevertheless, it would be very rash to say that the heroic and the ordinary horseman reliefs had no influence on one another. For example, a relief at Tanagra[100]seems to fall exactly between the two classes. On it a horseman in armour rides, followed by an attendant who holds the tail of the horse, as was the way of Greek body-servants. A female figure meets the pair with wine-jug and cup. Here, if the relief belongs to the one class, the servant is out of place; if to the other class, the pourer of wine. Probably, being oblong in form, it is really of the heroic class, but contaminated by the influence of the other. On an ordinary sepulchral slab in the British Museum[101], the horseman and servant recur, but the lady is absent.

In recent years an immense quantity of votive terra-cottas has been discovered on the site of the Dorian colony of Tarentum. These illustrate in a striking fashion the monuments of the Spartan mother-city. They consist mainly of two groups.

In the first group we see a man, bearded or beardless, wearing a tall crown, reclining on a couch, often holding a wine-cup. Beside him is seated a woman, sometimes bearing in her arms a child, who stretches out his arms towards the man. We engrave (Fig. 37) a specimen of the class[102], in which, however, the child does not appear, but instead, in the background, a horse, who seems to be drinking from the flat cup. Andthis horse connects the first group with the second, which consists of figures of riding horsemen.

FIG. 37. VOTIVE TABLET, TARENTUM.

Mr. Arthur Evans, who has had the advantage of studying these terracottas at Tarentum[103], is disposed to maintain that the group represents, not deceased persons, but rather the deities of the lower world, Dionysus, Cora, and Iacchus. â€˜The terracotta representations here found must be rather regarded as primarily connected with the cult of chthonic deities and national heroes, than with that of departed human spirits,â€™ though â€˜the starting-point may be regarded as purely sepulchral.â€™ Dr. Wolters, on the other hand[104], connects the representations far more closely with the worship of the dead. But after all, the opposition between these two opinions is not fundamental. Probably at Tarentum, as at Sparta, the dead ancestorand ancestress were regarded as scarcely distinguishable from the king and queen of the world of shades, into whose being they passed at death. Thus the last note struck in the monuments of Dorian hero-worship is in complete harmony with the first.

FIG. 38. HERO ON FOOT.

There are also reliefs in which the heroic character of the deceased is indicated, not by the horse, but by the presence of armour and arms. In some states wealthy and well-born citizens were content to fight on foot, and the position which had seemed to them dignified during life was preserved by them in the unseen world. A good example from Attica(Fig. 38) is given in the text[105]. The hero stands on the right, helmeted; his shield rests against the wall. A dignified lady of the same stature as the hero pours him wine; between the two is an altar: on the left is a votary of small size. These groups may serve to remind us how often in Greece, in the hour of stress and danger, ancestral and local heroes appeared amid the ranks of the fighting men, and turned the tide of battle in favour of their descendants or townsfolk.

FIG. 39. HERO SEATED.

Finally, the hero may even appear in the reliefs unarmed, as an ordinary citizen. On a relief from Patras[106](Fig. 39) he is seated on a throne almost with the dignity of Zeus, a sceptre in his raised hand, a shield hung on the wall above him. His consort stands behind the seat, while from the left there advances a train, men, women, and children, making the well-known gesture with the raised hand which implies adoration, and bringing a ram for sacrifice. A horseâ€™s head appears above through a square opening, the part standing, as so often inthese monuments, for the whole. This relief bears a very close likeness to those found in the sanctuary of Asklepius on the side of the Acropolis hill at Athens; indeed, if the hero had held a staff entwined by a serpent we should not have hesitated to identify him as Asklepius. But in the absence of that attribute we are probably justified in considering him to be some local hero of Patras, either mythical or historical.

Inregard to the laws which regulated the erection of monuments of the dead, and the forms which those monuments assumed in successive ages, under the influence of custom and belief, our information does not reach far beyond Athens. At Athens alone have we been so fortunate as to find, beneath the soil, a considerable part of an ancient burying-ground, where not the graves only, but also the monuments erected over them, are untouched by the spoiler, and almost as fresh as they were when Athens was a powerful city. It will therefore be well worth our while to consider the history of the Athenian monumental customs, which have been carefully studied on the spot by several able archaeologists.

Graves of the Mycenaean age have been discovered in Attica, at Sparta, and at Menidi. Of such graves we have already spoken. At an uncertain period, probably about the eighth century, there succeeded, in place of these, the graves found in such numbers just outside the Dipylon gate of Athens, and so called Dipylon graves. The pottery found in these burying-places is very interesting, although the devices are rude, because there are painted upon it representations from the contemporary life of Greece, the prehistoric Greece of the age of Homer and of Hesiod. The most ordinary pictures are sea-fights, or else the burial ofthe dead. Of the representations of Greek obsequies which these vases bear we have had occasion to speak above[107]. The reason for the selection of the subject belongs to the present connexion.

The time appears to have been one of poverty and of depression in art. The rich treasures and the admirable talent for decoration which belonged to the Mycenaean age lay buried in the past. The Greece which we know, the historic Greece of art and poetry, of philosophy and history, had not yet come into being. The moon had set and the sun had not risen, and men moved in the dimmest twilight. Thus it can scarcely surprise us that the graves of the Dipylon class, with their poor and scanty contents, were surmounted by no sculptured monuments. In place of a column or a slab, there stood on the graves one of the large amphorae of the period, enriched with adornment of geometric patterns and lines of stiff animals. Into these vessels were poured, almost beyond doubt, the offerings of food and drink brought by survivors and descendants. The choice of a sepulchral subject for the vases is thus readily accounted for. The vessel rested probably on a mound of earth, such as the Ï‡á¿¶Î¼Î±, of which we shall presently speak, or on a simple pedestal of stone.

As we approach the historic age of Athens, the stone monument with its painting and reliefs makes its appearance. It is not difficult to divide into periods the history of the production at Athens of monuments of the dead. It falls quite naturally into three sections:—

(1) The time before the Persian wars, 550-480.(2) The time of perfected art, 480-300.(3) The Hellenistic and Roman age.

The epic custom of Greece was to erect over the deada Ï„Ï�Î¼Î²Î¿Ï‚ or mound, with a ÏƒÏ„Î®Î»Î· or gravestone[108]placed upon or beside it. Such a custom was continued in later Greece in the case of great graves made after a battle to contain the bodies of the slain. The tumulus at Marathon is well known to visitors to Greece, and the lion set up to crown the mound at Chaeroneia, where the Theban sacred band was cut to pieces by the phalanx of Philip, still exists in fragmentary condition. But for the graves of private persons the lavish customs of the heroic age in Greece gave place to more modest ways.

A passage in Ciceroâ€™sDe Legibus[109]gives us some interesting information in regard to Athenian customs. Solon, Cicero tells us, legislated only against the violation of tombs, not against their sumptuousness. But some time after, in consequence of the growth of splendid tombs in the Cerameicus, a law was passed, forbidding tombs more elaborate than could be made by ten men in three days. Nor were they to be decorated with plaster[110], nor were Hermae to be set on them. Notwithstanding, after a time, the luxury of tombs again increased; until Demetrius Phalereus (B.C.317-307) carried a law that no monument should be erected save a column not more than three cubits in height, or a flat slab, or a water-vessel[111]. A magistrate was appointed to see that the decree was complied with.

The legislation of Demetrius does appear, as we shall presently see, to have been successful. If the earlier legislation mentioned by Cicero was effectual, it must be placed in the days of the democracy which succeeded the expulsion of the Tyrants or in the stirring times of the Persian wars. For there is a decided dearth of sepulchral monuments atAthens in the first half of the fifth century. In the latter half of the sixth, and again in the latter half of the fifth century, they are numerous and elaborate. Whether Ciceroâ€™s words, â€˜aliquanto post Solonem,â€™ can be stretched to cover a period of nearly a century may, however, be doubted.

FIG. 40. ACHILLES AT TOMB OF PATROCLUS.

We have evidence that during the latter part of the sixth century, the Ï„Ï�Î¼Î²Î¿Ï‚ the ÏƒÏ„Î®Î»Î·, the mound and the slab, persisted side by side. Often a grave would be marked by both; sometimes one or the other would be wanting. In the course of time the mound has usually disappeared, while the slab often remains. But it is easy to prove that the mound was common to early periods. Not only do we find mention of it in a variety of authors[112], Herodotus, Plato, Lucian, Pausanias, but its form is depicted upon black-figured vases. We give an instance (Fig. 40) in which Achilles is represented as dragging the body of Hector tied to his chariot beside the mound which represents the grave ofPatroclus[113]: a serpent and the shade of Patroclus appear. Here the tomb is a white mound of oval form, whence it may be judged that in place of a mere mound of earth sometimes an artificial structure was built, and a recent discovery at Athens fully confirms this view. In the Piraeus street were found in 1891[114]remains of an erection about two yards in diameter, which consisted of a framework of tiles overlaid with fine stucco, and which seemed originally to have been in the shape of the upper half of an egg. This was clearly just such a tomb as is figured in the vase-painting: and doubtless in antiquity such mounds were common, but they perished easily, or might very commonly be destroyed by careless workers in the course of excavation. At Myrina Messrs. Pottier and Reinach found the contents of tombs in many cases lying on the surface of the ancient soil; a fact for which they account by saying that these objects must originally have been covered by a mound.

On the mound would in some cases be set the commemorative stone. In other cases in this period also, as we learn from vase-paintings[115], an earthenware vessel was set on it to receive offerings. Sometimes we find in the representations mound and stele set side by side. And sometimes there is a third feature of the tomb, a Ï„Ï�Î¬Ï€ÎµÎ¶Î±, or table, that is, a horizontal stone. In one remarkable vase-painting[116]we see clearly mound, stele, and table. More commonly we find the stele and the table only; the latter being used as a seat by the dead person, or sometimes serving as a place of deposit for baskets of wreaths and other offerings. See, for example,Fig. 11, p. 22.

The ordinary stele was in shape a tall and tapering slab, surmounted by an acanthus pattern. On the face of it were commonly the names of those buried, and, as a rule, two rosettes. In our frontispiece, which represents a part of the cemetery of the Cerameicus in its present form, may be seen several stelae; and one is figured in the text (below,Fig. 43) as an example. The rosettes seem to represent the two breasts, and we may here see a hint that the stele takes the place of a portrait-figure, just as does the turban which commonly surmounts modern Turkish tombs.

In the sixth century the stele is commonly adorned with a portrait of the deceased in low relief; but sometimes a painted portrait takes the place of one in relief.

Not all stelae, however, were of tall and narrow form, nor was the device on them always limited to a single figure: groups sometimes make their appearance, and to accommodate them the stele has to be made broader. This development we will trace in the next period. Meantime we must say a few words as to the pillar (ÎºÎ¯Ï‰Î½) which is frequently mentioned as well as the stele in ancient epigrams. The small round pillar, carved with a simple inscription, which is so abundant at Athens, belongs to the later age of the city. But in early times pillars were frequently set up on graves, and surmounted with a portrait or figure of some kind. As examples we may cite the supposed grave of Orpheus in Pieria, which was marked, according to Pausanias[117], by a pillar surmounted by a hydria; and the grave attributed to the sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, on which stood a pillar supporting a shield[118]. On the grave of Aristomenes at Messene also was a pillar to which the ox, annually destined to be sacrificed to the hero, was tied[119]. At a later time the grave of Epaminondaswas marked, like that of the sons of Oedipus, by a pillar supporting a shield, and that of Isocrates by the figure of a siren, standing on a pillar 30 cubits high. The oldest existing specimen of a sepulchral pillar is from the tomb of Xenares in Corfu.

The terms Ïƒá¿†Î¼Î± and Î¼Î½á¿†Î¼Î±, which are frequently applied to the tomb both in existing epitaphs and in the epigrams of theAnthology, do not seem to refer to any special form of monument, but rather to the purpose of the tomb as a significant monument (Ïƒá¿†Î¼Î±) or as a memorial (Î¼Î½á¿†Î¼Î±).

Every one who examines the early graves of Attica must be struck with the fact that whereas it would seem natural that tombs should be set up by children for their parents, at Athens the opposite rule seems to prevail. Commonly tombs profess to be erected for those who died young by their sorrowing relatives. Not only were young men who fell in battle honoured with fine monuments, but young men who died of disease, and unmarried girls. A large proportion of the women whose tombs we find seem either to have died unmarried or else to have perished in childbirth. It would seem that ordinary citizens, who died in the course of nature, were buried in great family vaults; but that separate tombs with fine sculptural decoration were erected in special cases, when a father lost a promising and beloved boy or girl, or a young husband lost at one blow his wife and his hope of a progeny to carry on his name and tend his old age. The erection of a tomb to relative or friend was no matter of course, but an exceptional proceeding, adopted when feeling ran strongly, and required some satisfaction in outward act. The stern law of Sparta allowed only the names of men who fell in battle or women who were priestesses to be publicly set up. At Athens feeling took the place of law; and while those who died for their country were sure of honourable burial, ornate tombs were the gifts of special affection. Weare told that the effeminate people of Agrigentum erected special tombs to their horses and pet birds. Here, as in so many cases, the Athenians maintained the human mean, between harsh rigour on the one hand, and luxurious effusiveness on the other.

To the second period,B.C.480-300, belongs the great mass of the fine sepulchral monuments of Athens. In the age of Pheidias, the custom comes in of flanking the sculptural group of stelae with a pair of pilasters supporting a small gable, as seen in several of our plates, and by degrees the ground between the pilasters recedes, and a deep interior is seen, as in Plates XI, XXVI, &c. By this recessing is produced the monument in the form of a small and shallow temple, within which we see in very high relief some scene from the daily and domestic life of Athens. These are the most splendid of the Athenian tombs, in date almost confined to the fourth century. They are the monuments of which Cicero writes; â€˜amplitudines sepulcrorum quas nunc in Ceramico videmusâ€™: even in Ciceroâ€™s time they were evidently one of the great sights of Greece; how much more notable are they now, when we have but a wreck of the artistic wealth and splendour of Greece with which to compare them!

It has been sometimes supposed that the temple-like form of these tombs, whence they are called Î½Î±á¼°ÏƒÎºÎ¿Î¹, indicates special veneration for those to whom they are erected. If houses in form like those of the gods are given to mortals, surely, it may be said, the mortals are raised almost to the rank of the gods. This view, however, is mistaken. The architectural forms which we associate with Greek temples are not originally peculiar to them. It is only because the temples of Greece have survived the secular buildings that we are disposed to look on pillars and gables as belonging specially to the gods. We have, however, still a few secular Greek buildings, such as the Propylaea of Athens; and we see them to be constructed onsimilar architectural principles to the temples. The Ionic and Doric styles of architecture were no more exclusively religious in use or origin than was Gothic architecture in England. The Î½Î±á¼°ÏƒÎºÎ¿Î¹ were not temples, but merely a framing for a domestic interior, such as is often represented on vases. They are rooms of the womenâ€™s apartments in Greek houses. A dead lady in theAnthologycalls her tomb Î¿á¼°ÎºÎ¯Î± Î»Î¬ÏŠÎ½Î±[120].

About contemporary with the introduction of the Î½Î±á¼°ÏƒÎºÎ¿Î¹ was the custom of shaping the tomb after the fashion of a vase. These stone vases are extremely common in the Museum of Athens. Perhaps the earliest of them is one published by KÃ¶hler[121]. In the relief of it we see two men hand in hand, and it bears an inscription which KÃ¶hler on epigraphic grounds assigns to the periodB.C.450-430. It is painted like a real Greek vase with palmettes and maeander patterns. It was probably at the time when the custom of placing terra-cotta vases on the tombs was dying out, that it occurred to the sculptors to replace them by making the stele itself in the form of a vase, adorned like the ordinary stelae with inscription and relief. The marble vases were of two kinds. First, we have the lekythos or unguent vase, of the same shape as the red-figured and white ground vases very commonly placed in Athenian graves. These latter are mentioned by Aristophanes[122]as the work of the inferior artist: á½ƒÏ‚ Ï„Î¿á¿–Ï‚ Î½ÎµÎºÏ�Î¿á¿–ÏƒÎ¹ Î¶Ï‰Î³Ï�Î±Ï†Îµá¿– Ï„á½°Ï‚ Î»Î·ÎºÏ�Î¸Î¿Ï…Ï‚, and in another passage he speaks of them as sometimes let into the tomb and fastened there with lead[123]. To imitate them in marble was therefore natural. For an instance of the lekythos tomb see figures 70 to 72, below. In the case of those who died unmarried, a vase of another form was used as the model. Here again we have only an imitation in stone of a terra-cotta vase often placed on the tomb. At Athens it was a custom, when a marriage was about to take place,for a girl to bring to the bride a vessel of water from the spring Callirrhoe for a bridal bath. The water was fetched in a two-handled vessel of peculiar form, the Î»Î¿Ï…Ï„Ï�Î¿Ï†ÏŒÏ�Î¿Ï‚, such as seems not to have been used on any other occasion. The Athenian Museum contains several imitations in terra-cotta of the marriage vase; and in every case the scenes painted on these vases are taken either from the ceremonies of marriage or those of mourning. When a girl was married the marriage vase was used in the pomp and jollity of the wedding: when she died unwedded, it was placed on her tomb as a memorial. As Athenian epitaphs put it, in that case she was wedded to Hades. On the tombs also of youths who died before the marriage-day, the Î»Î¿Ï…Ï„Ï�Î¿Ï†ÏŒÏ�Î¿Ï‚ of terra-cotta was regarded as an appropriate decoration. A well-known passage of Demosthenes[124]gives us explicit authority for this usage. â€˜What is the proof,â€™ he asks, â€˜that Archiades died unmarried? A marriage vase is set up on his tomb.â€™ Sometimes the marriage vase thus set on the tomb was an ordinary vessel of terra-cotta. Sometimes it was represented in relief on the stele. And sometimes the stele itself was fashioned in the form of a marriage vase.

The usage is well illustrated by a stele from Kalyvia, now at Athens[125], of which we give an engraving (Pl. IV). The whole field of the stele is occupied by a great marriage vase in relief. On the top of it, on a basis, stands a Siren, tearing her hair and beating her breast in sign of sympathy with the mourners. On the body of the vase is depicted a scene from the funeral rites. A marriage vase stands erect in the midst of three mourners, all apparently women, one of whom is tying to the handle of the vase (this vase has but one handle)

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