Go, stranger, and at Lacedaemon tellThat here obedient to her laws we fell.
Go, stranger, and at Lacedaemon tellThat here obedient to her laws we fell.
Go, stranger, and at Lacedaemon tellThat here obedient to her laws we fell.
Another public epitaph, also belonging to some of the heroes of the Persian wars, has been found at Megara[244]. It is not, however, the original record, but a copy made of that record when it had almost perished with age in the fourth or fifth century of our aera by one Helladius, who attributes to Simonides the verses which run thus:—
Eager we strove that freedom’s day might riseFor Greece and home; but death is all our prize.Some fell beside Euboea’s sacred strand,Where Artemis, chaste huntress, holds the land:Some died at Mycale; some the warlike showOf Tyrian fleets at Salamis laid low:Some in Boeotian plains, in daring mood,The charging Median chivalry withstood.Here in full market[245], ’mid the thronging crowd,Our townsmen have our honoured grave allowed.
Eager we strove that freedom’s day might riseFor Greece and home; but death is all our prize.Some fell beside Euboea’s sacred strand,Where Artemis, chaste huntress, holds the land:Some died at Mycale; some the warlike showOf Tyrian fleets at Salamis laid low:Some in Boeotian plains, in daring mood,The charging Median chivalry withstood.Here in full market[245], ’mid the thronging crowd,Our townsmen have our honoured grave allowed.
Eager we strove that freedom’s day might riseFor Greece and home; but death is all our prize.Some fell beside Euboea’s sacred strand,Where Artemis, chaste huntress, holds the land:Some died at Mycale; some the warlike showOf Tyrian fleets at Salamis laid low:Some in Boeotian plains, in daring mood,The charging Median chivalry withstood.Here in full market[245], ’mid the thronging crowd,Our townsmen have our honoured grave allowed.
This epitaph was evidently placed on the public grave of the Megarian citizens who fell in the various battles against the Persians. It was no doubt a cenotaph. Pausanias mentions it, and states that the Megarians set the graves of their distinguished dead in the senate-house, so that all future generations might consult in presence of the heroes: Helladius adds, ‘even in my day a bull is sacrificed by the city.’ An epitaph in the market-place and the annual sacrifice of a bull for a thousand years might well supply to the Greek soldier an incentive as great as among us the hope of a monument in Westminster Abbey.
A similar monument in honour of the Athenians who fell at Potidaea, in the Peloponnesian War, is preserved at the British Museum[246]. We may also consider as public a tomb erected at Corfu by Amphilochian soldiers to one of their comrades who had fallen in a skirmish on the opposite coast[247]. It dates from about the third centuryB.C.:—
For thee a bitter fate thy friends beholdOf Amphilochian land the warriors bold,When by Illyrian horse in battle slainWithin an island tomb thy bones remain.They left thee not, when thou wast lying low,Thy comrades brave well-skilled the dart to throw;From deadly battle-press thy corpse they save,And mourning kinsmen bear thee to the grave.
For thee a bitter fate thy friends beholdOf Amphilochian land the warriors bold,When by Illyrian horse in battle slainWithin an island tomb thy bones remain.They left thee not, when thou wast lying low,Thy comrades brave well-skilled the dart to throw;From deadly battle-press thy corpse they save,And mourning kinsmen bear thee to the grave.
For thee a bitter fate thy friends beholdOf Amphilochian land the warriors bold,When by Illyrian horse in battle slainWithin an island tomb thy bones remain.They left thee not, when thou wast lying low,Thy comrades brave well-skilled the dart to throw;From deadly battle-press thy corpse they save,And mourning kinsmen bear thee to the grave.
Public epitaphs such as these are in the highest degree objective. They recount the deeds of a hero and deplore his death, but they seldom indulge in moral reflection, or speak of any future life. This is in fact the character of all early epitaphs, whether from private or public graves. I will cite a few of the sixth century to begin with.
The tomb of Menecrates at Corfu is well known to many travellers, from its beautiful situation. The inscription, written in archaic characters of Corinth, runs thus[248]: ‘This tomb is of Menecrates son of Tlesias of the race of Oeanthe: the people raised it to him. He was proxenus, beloved by the people, and died at sea, and was buried by the stroke of oars of the public ships[249]. Praximenes, coming from his native city, raised with the people this memorial to his brother.’ Menecrates seems to have been consul or proxenus of Corinth at Corcyra, and was succeeded in that office by his brother Praximenes.
The sculptured lion found on the spot may belong to the tomb of Menecrates; but it more probably belongs to another tomb of the same age erected to one Arniadas, which bears a very simple record[250], ‘This is the tomb of Arniadas: bright-eyed Ares was his death, as he fought by the ships at the streams of Arathus, doing many valiant deeds in the sad battle-strife.’
The qualities of moderation, of self-control and of nobility which belong pre-eminently to almost all Greek productions of the fifth century, are in nothing to be observed more clearly than in the epitaphs of that period. A few specimens will suffice as well as many to exhibit this character. Many or most of them record a death in battle: it appears that only when a man thus died for his country or was otherwiseespecially distinguished, was he allowed an epitaph recording more than his name and that of his father. A grave at Anactorium[251]of the fifth century bears the inscription, ‘This tomb near the way shall be called by the name of Procleidas, who died fighting for his country.’ Another at Thisbe[252]in Boeotia reads, ‘Dear to citizens and friends I fell in the front ranks fighting valiantly.’ The following record civic or personal rather than military merit. From Thespiae[253], ‘As a memorial over Olaidas when he died I was erected by his father Ossilus, to whom his departure brought sorrow.’ From Tanagra[254], ‘Thy native city, Cercinus son of Phoxius, Heracleia in Pontus, shall have sorrow at thy death among our friends; so never shall we forget thy praise: greatly did I admire thy nature.’ The ‘I’ of the former of these two epitaphs is the tombstone; the ‘I’ of the second is a sorrowing friend.
The epitaphs of the fourth centuryB.C.are of similar character, but somewhat more abundant and less rigid in type. The following from Oreus in Euboea[255]is decidedly pleasing:
In bloom of youth by praise thy fame was spread,In blameless ways thy childish days were sped:In man’s estate, when law and country bade,Where hostile ranks by Ares were arrayed,A horseman, thou didst strive with fair renownThy fathers and thy fatherland to crown.This tomb, to mark thy worth, thy sire doth raise,Thy city decks it with unceasing praise.
In bloom of youth by praise thy fame was spread,In blameless ways thy childish days were sped:In man’s estate, when law and country bade,Where hostile ranks by Ares were arrayed,A horseman, thou didst strive with fair renownThy fathers and thy fatherland to crown.This tomb, to mark thy worth, thy sire doth raise,Thy city decks it with unceasing praise.
In bloom of youth by praise thy fame was spread,In blameless ways thy childish days were sped:In man’s estate, when law and country bade,Where hostile ranks by Ares were arrayed,A horseman, thou didst strive with fair renownThy fathers and thy fatherland to crown.This tomb, to mark thy worth, thy sire doth raise,Thy city decks it with unceasing praise.
An epitaph from Thebes[256]seems to have been erected over a soldier of the Sacred War: ‘When young I cultivated merriment (ε�φ�οσ�νην ἤσκουν) associating with my companions in the gymnasium. I die in war, bearing aid to the Delphic land. My grandfather was Euenoridas, my father Neon.’ In this epigram notes quite unfamiliar to the Christian world arestruck. The deceased had fallen on what might have passed as a crusade, an expedition to punish the sacrilegious aggression of the Phocians on the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Yet instead of dwelling on such religious merit, the epitaph speaks of his cheeriness of disposition and his sociability, of his worship of the ‘goddess fair and free, in heaven yclept Euphrosyne.’ In fact no quality is more often mentioned with praise in sepulchral inscriptions than the social habits of the deceased. An inscription of the same age from Athens[257]seems to record the success of a comic actor, who is praised especially for having overcome his natural disqualification for his pursuit: ‘All Hellas admires thee, Euthias, and misses thee in the sacred festivals; nor without cause. For through art, not natural gift, in vine-crowned comedy of gentle mirth thou wast second in rank, but first in art.’ In athletic sports also we learn that the spectators most applauded those who won by science, not mere strength. Another contemporary inscription from Athens[258]is in more poetic form: ‘Divine Modesty, daughter of high-minded Shame, one who valued above all thee and warlike Valour, Cleidemus of Melita son of Cleidemides is here buried.’
It will be observed that all the epigrams hitherto cited are from the graves of men, not women. Indeed, inscriptions from women’s tombs very seldom, at this early time, contain more than the name with that of father or husband. Generally speaking, until the time of Alexander, the women of Greece were content to shine with borrowed light, and to be notable in the home rather than in the city. Of sculptural honour they had, as we have seen, even more than their share; but to praise a woman in public might well seem to her friends to approach indelicacy. In the later age inscriptions recording female worth are frequent. There is no question that as the public life of Greece decayed, women became more and more prominent in the cities.
It is not easy to assign, on epigraphic grounds, an exact date to sepulchral inscriptions of the third and later centuries down to Roman Imperial times. Partly for this reason, and partly because the later epitaphs of Greece really form one class, I prefer to group them rather by subject than by period. Generally speaking, they have more literary pretensions than earlier epitaphs, and their character is more personal and subjective, so that they give us information on many subjects as to which early inscriptions are silent.
An epitaph from Melos[259]of the third centuryB.C.is set over a wife, but it bears a suspicious appearance of being the composition of the husband: ‘I love even in death my husband, for with no common care he made me a tomb conspicuous to all. And me his wife he made equal to the heroes in veneration in memory of the sweet joys of love.’ As a memorial of a young man who met with some accident on the shore of Leucas[260], the following epigram was graven: ‘Unfavourable weather kept back Telesphorus and loosed his girdle (i.e. delayed the girding of his loins for a journey). The shore proved fatal to him; and destiny would no longer wait. Alas! for his untimely death, and his sad parents!’ We may next cite a couple of Boeotian epitaphs inscribed over literary men. From Larymna[261]: ‘Behold, stranger, here the tomb of departed Philo, who gave himself to the skilled pursuit of polite letters, while to all the citizens of Larymna he showed a nature ever friendly. Early he has quitted his life yet at its prime; and with universal mourning his city weeps his loss.’ Still more detailed is the following, from Orchomenus[262], of the second centuryB.C., set up over one Philocrates of Sidon: ‘Thou boastedst a maturity, Philocrates, not unworthy of thy earlier life, urged on by the subtle mind. For from early youth, asis right, thou hadst been familiar with the doctrines of Epicurus, easy to understand. Then, obedient to the rudder of Fortune[263], in a wandering life, thou didst preside at the contests of men among the Minyae[264]. Now thou liest close to thy son, thy limbs touching his, without sorrow, having come out of life to join him gone before.’ Sometimes inscriptions of this biographic character contain literary touches. For example, on a public tomb at Thera[265], set up in honour of Admetus, priest of Apollo Carneius, the epitaph ends, ‘leaving to wife and mother heavy grief: yet what wonder? even Thetis had to mourn the loss of the slain Achilles.’
The epitaphs which express a sentiment as to human life are usually of Roman age. I will, however, cite a few of them, in order to complete our survey. An epitaph from Samos[266]ends with the reflection, ‘If due account were made of piety, never would my home have incurred such misfortunes as these.’ One from Tanagra[267]ends, ‘O mortals, turn your thoughts to what is paltry: if you meditate better things, Hades is envious of the good.’ These are feelings which doubtless often touch the minds of relatives and friends in our days, but on this particular point we are more under the dominion of convention than were the Greeks; and the utterances of cynicism or despair are mostly excluded from our graveyards. The following from Thespiae[268]is more in the line of propriety: ‘Who would not weep over the vain hopes of parents, looking at me?’
Many epitaphs of the later period contain some statement as to the destiny of the spirit. Such statements are, however, usually expressed in very conventional form; they have the air rather of poetical amplification than of a real hope beyondthe grave. In this respect they contrast markedly with early Christian inscriptions; in which, however rough and inelegant the form may be, there lies an unmistakable air of real feeling. A pagan epitaph of Sparta[269], of the second centuryA.D., runs: ‘Adorned with every virtue, noble Titanius, son of Paeon, thou possessest the Island of the Blest.’ We can scarcely imagine that at this late period the Island of the Blest lived in popular belief, or that the phrase is anything but a poetical reminiscence. An epitaph, which may have been written beneath the sculptured dog, on the tomb of Diogenes the Cynic[270], runs thus: ‘Lies he here, who dwelt in an earthen cask? Aye, truly; but now that he is dead, he has the stars for his home.’ With this optimistic rhetoric we may compare the cynical and pessimistic rhetoric of another epitaph, ‘Mix the wine, and drink deep with brows crowned with flowers, nor scorn the delights of love: all the rest at death is consumed by earth and fire[271].’ As this epigram accompanied a relief which represented a man reclining at table, the whole seems to have been a cynical travesty of the banqueting reliefs above discussed.
Where, however, mention is made of Hades and Persephone, or where we catch an echo of Orphic phrase, we may suspect a more serious meaning. In the following, for example, from Crommyon[272], the opening phrase seems to belong to Orphism and the Mysteries, ‘I Philostrata have gone back to the source whence I came, leaving the bondage in which nature yoked me. Having filled up the measure of fourteen years, in the fifteenth, a virgin, I quitted the body, childless, unwedded, a maiden. May those to whom life is an object of desire grow old to their hearts’ content.’ The same character attaches to the following, from Megara[273]: ‘The body of Nicocrates rests in the lap of earth; his heart (κÎαÏ�) has fled above to the divine aether.Thanks to thee, Pluto, kindly deity, for this destiny. Gentle and lovable, a favourite with all was the son of Callitychus; now another and a divine light receives him.’
We occasionally find mention made of Hermes in epitaphs as leader and friend of departed spirits. An anonymous epitaph of thePalatine Anthology[274], reads thus: ‘They say that Hermes leads the good on the way that bears to the right from the pyre to Rhadamanthys: by this way Aristonous, the much-mourned son of Chaerestratus, went down to the abode of Hades, who receives all men.’ The phrase ‘bears to the right’ must refer to some known chart or description of the paths of souls, which are described in greater detail in some of the Orphic inscriptions. For example, on a gold tablet found at Petelia in Italy[275], buried doubtless with one who had been initiated in the Orphic Mysteries, we find a sort of guide or way-book for the last journey: ‘Thou shalt find on the left of the abode of Hades a well, and beside it planted a white cypress. And thou shalt find another, cold water flowing from the Lake of Mnemosyne: before it stand guards. Then shalt thou say, “I am a child of earth and starry heaven, but a heavenly race is mine, as ye yourselves know. I am dry and faint with thirst; give me then speedily cold water flowing from the lake of Mnemosyne.�’The spring on the left, the name of which is not given, is doubtless that of Lethe, or forgetfulness. The soul which wishes to claim its immortal rights must avoid this water, and demand in virtue of its divine nature some of the other water, that of memory, that its individuality may not be lost. This seems to be the path to the right, on which Hermes leads those who have in their lifetime prepared themselves for the journey.
It would be easy to multiply epitaphs of this kind, but they would lead us into regions of thought and belief outside thelimits of this book, which is concerned not with the opinions of Greek philosophers and mystics but of every-day people.
A priestess of Zeus, at Argos[276], seems to have found a tomb in the sacred precinct of the god; whence her epitaph runs: ‘The divine ruler, to whom it was my honour to minister when alive, took my blameless life and gave me this favour among the dead. Hence I have not a tomb underground, but dwell in the place of the blest, in the golden home of the gods.’ Here there seems to be a play upon the place of burial, as involving a parallel exaltation of the spirit. An elegant epitaph by Dionysius of Magnesia, still extant, from Paros[277], begins by an inquiry as to the name of the dead person, then goes on to narrate the history of her life, and ends with an appeal to Persephone, and a kindly greeting to survivors:—
O Maid of many names, Queen ruling wide,Her by the hand to pious places guide.On all who, passing, greet the soul belowWith kindly word, may God some good bestow.
O Maid of many names, Queen ruling wide,Her by the hand to pious places guide.On all who, passing, greet the soul belowWith kindly word, may God some good bestow.
O Maid of many names, Queen ruling wide,Her by the hand to pious places guide.On all who, passing, greet the soul belowWith kindly word, may God some good bestow.
This epigram brings us to the last class of extant epitaphs, that in which the passer-by is addressed in friendly or in threatening language. This kind is not exclusively late: we have already seen that the Spartan epitaph at Thermopylae addresses the wayfarer, and bids him carry a message to Sparta. But it is very common on late tombs. In an epitaph from Crete[278], of the first century, the wayfarer is requested to say as he passes, ‘May earth lie light on thee.’ In another, of the same age, from Pholegandros[279], we read, ‘Having duteously greeted me, the dead Diogenes, go, stranger, to thine own affairs, and may they prosper at thy will.’ The gentle custom of giving a passing greeting at the tomb, in the word χαῖpε, seems to have been usual among the Greeks. Thus easily one kept on good terms with the dead, and won their friendlywishes. On the other hand, any sort of violence done to a grave or its inmates brought down on the sacrilegious violator all kinds of plagues and miseries, which are sometimes, in late Roman times, set forth in the epitaph itself,in terrorem. Sometimes a sum of money is mentioned which the violator must pay as a fine to redeem his guilt; but sometimes he is threatened with direr penalties, gout and fever and many other diseases. The tomb of Annia Regilla, wife of Herodes Atticus, at Athens, bears an inscription in which the prayer is set forth that for any one who disturbs the grave the earth may refuse to bear fruit and the sea refuse to bear his ships, and that he and his race may perish miserably. Blessings are heaped on all who may honour the burial-place. Our minds naturally pass to the well-known epitaph on Shakespeare’s tomb at Stratford, which may perhaps have been framed on an ancient model.
At a decidedly higher literary level than the epitaphs collected from Greek gravestones are many of those put together in the seventh book of thePalatine Anthology. All real lovers of Greek letters are acquainted with the delightful epigrams written by poets of the Hellenistic age to adorn the tomb: gems of Callimachus, of Meleager, of Leonidas of Tarentum, and others. English poets, from Dr. Johnson to Mr. Andrew Lang, have devoted hours of leisure to rendering in English verse these flowers of ancient poetry, which are best characterized in the well-known words as slight things but roses, βαιὰ μὲν ἀλλὰ ῥόδα. If, however, we accept the comparison of the Epigrams of theAnthologyto roses, we must remember that our roses are highly cultivated and civilized flowers. No person with any literary discernment would compare them to the brier-rose, the anemone, or the primrose.
In previous chapters of this work I have occasionally ventured on versions of Greek epitaphs from theAnthology. Yet, in view of the purpose and character of this book, we can makebut careful and scant use of that collection. Roses may be a suitable adornment for a tomb, but when one is anxious carefully to study the form of the monument and to examine its sculptural decoration and its epitaph, roses may be in the way. As it comes down to us, theAnthologyis put together on literary rather than historic principles. Dates and schools are mixed up with the most perplexing indifference. Epigrams of Simonides and Sappho are placed next to the verses of Callimachus and Archias, of Rufinus and Paulus Silentiarius, authors who between them cover a space of more than a millennium. And, moreover, in no department of Greek letters is the rhetorical and epideictic spirit, that pest of Greece, more rampant than in the epigram. The great majority of sepulchral epigrams were written, not to duly honour the dead, but to display the literary taste and ingenuity of the poet. So that while we admire greatly the finished and exquisite beauty of these poems, we can seldom suppose that they embody much feeling or contain much thought. One class of epitaphs in theAnthology, the anonymous, has more actuality, being commonly transcribed from actual tombstones: but from the literary point of view these are the poorest.
I propose, however, to give in this place renderings of a few of these literary epitaphs, selecting such as belong to an earlier period, and such as have some interest in their matter, and not merely in their style. In some cases I give a version of my own; in other cases I use the elegant translations which Dr. James Williams, of Lincoln College, has kindly placed at my disposal.
We find not rarely on Greek tombs of all periods colloquies between the dead and wayfarers. The following is a literary version by Leonidas[280]of such a dialogue, carried on in a style of stately courtesy:—
‘Lady, what name, what father dost thou own,That lieth ’neath this shaft of Parian stone?’‘Prexo, the daughter of Calliteles.’‘Where wast thou born?’ ‘Beside the Samian seas.’‘Who paid thee fitting funeral honours thus?’‘The husband of my youth, Theocritus.’‘How came thy death?’ ‘In childbed did I die.’‘Thine age?’ ‘But two and twenty years lived I.’‘And childless?’ ‘Nay, of mother’s care bereft,Calliteles, just three years old, was left.’‘Long life and ripe old age thy boy await.’‘Friend, all good things be showered on thee by fate.’
‘Lady, what name, what father dost thou own,That lieth ’neath this shaft of Parian stone?’‘Prexo, the daughter of Calliteles.’‘Where wast thou born?’ ‘Beside the Samian seas.’‘Who paid thee fitting funeral honours thus?’‘The husband of my youth, Theocritus.’‘How came thy death?’ ‘In childbed did I die.’‘Thine age?’ ‘But two and twenty years lived I.’‘And childless?’ ‘Nay, of mother’s care bereft,Calliteles, just three years old, was left.’‘Long life and ripe old age thy boy await.’‘Friend, all good things be showered on thee by fate.’
‘Lady, what name, what father dost thou own,That lieth ’neath this shaft of Parian stone?’‘Prexo, the daughter of Calliteles.’‘Where wast thou born?’ ‘Beside the Samian seas.’‘Who paid thee fitting funeral honours thus?’‘The husband of my youth, Theocritus.’‘How came thy death?’ ‘In childbed did I die.’‘Thine age?’ ‘But two and twenty years lived I.’‘And childless?’ ‘Nay, of mother’s care bereft,Calliteles, just three years old, was left.’‘Long life and ripe old age thy boy await.’‘Friend, all good things be showered on thee by fate.’
The following bears the name of Sappho[281]:—
The dust of Timas: ere her bridal sheSaw the dark chamber of Persephone.Their lovely hair her playmates offered here,Cut off to honour her who was so dear.
The dust of Timas: ere her bridal sheSaw the dark chamber of Persephone.Their lovely hair her playmates offered here,Cut off to honour her who was so dear.
The dust of Timas: ere her bridal sheSaw the dark chamber of Persephone.Their lovely hair her playmates offered here,Cut off to honour her who was so dear.
This seems of archaic simplicity compared with the metrical epitaph on Clearista by Meleager, already cited in Chapter VIII. Nothing could well be simpler also than the following by Callimachus[282], whose art in this case conceals art:—
Saon the son of Dicon here doth lieIn holy sleep: the good can never die.
Saon the son of Dicon here doth lieIn holy sleep: the good can never die.
Saon the son of Dicon here doth lieIn holy sleep: the good can never die.
A charming epitaph[283]on one Amyntichus, being anonymous, is probably from a real tomb:—
Dear earth, receive Amyntichus to rest,Mindful of all his labour spent on thee;Thee with the boughs of Bacchus oft he dressed,And in thee planted oft the olive-tree,Filled thee with Deo’s grain, and trenches ledTo make thee rich in herbs and autumn fruits.Lie thou then lightly on his hoary head,And busk his tomb with springtide’s tender shoots.
Dear earth, receive Amyntichus to rest,Mindful of all his labour spent on thee;Thee with the boughs of Bacchus oft he dressed,And in thee planted oft the olive-tree,Filled thee with Deo’s grain, and trenches ledTo make thee rich in herbs and autumn fruits.Lie thou then lightly on his hoary head,And busk his tomb with springtide’s tender shoots.
Dear earth, receive Amyntichus to rest,Mindful of all his labour spent on thee;Thee with the boughs of Bacchus oft he dressed,And in thee planted oft the olive-tree,Filled thee with Deo’s grain, and trenches ledTo make thee rich in herbs and autumn fruits.Lie thou then lightly on his hoary head,And busk his tomb with springtide’s tender shoots.
An epitaph, by Leonidas[284]of Tarentum, on one Clitagoras, refers to offerings at the tomb, such as we have spoken of in Chapter II:—
Shepherds, who tend upon yon mountain steepYour herds of goats and flocks of fleecy sheep,A little gift Clitagoras to-dayFor sake of Queen Persephone doth pray;I would that sheep should bleat, and from a rockA shepherd pipe soft music to his flock;And let one hind cull fresh young meadow-bloomIn early spring, and crown therewith my tomb;Another take and milk a mother eweAnd with the stream this funeral stone bedew;The dead are reached by kindly acts of men,And e’en the dead can make return again.
Shepherds, who tend upon yon mountain steepYour herds of goats and flocks of fleecy sheep,A little gift Clitagoras to-dayFor sake of Queen Persephone doth pray;I would that sheep should bleat, and from a rockA shepherd pipe soft music to his flock;And let one hind cull fresh young meadow-bloomIn early spring, and crown therewith my tomb;Another take and milk a mother eweAnd with the stream this funeral stone bedew;The dead are reached by kindly acts of men,And e’en the dead can make return again.
Shepherds, who tend upon yon mountain steepYour herds of goats and flocks of fleecy sheep,A little gift Clitagoras to-dayFor sake of Queen Persephone doth pray;I would that sheep should bleat, and from a rockA shepherd pipe soft music to his flock;And let one hind cull fresh young meadow-bloomIn early spring, and crown therewith my tomb;Another take and milk a mother eweAnd with the stream this funeral stone bedew;The dead are reached by kindly acts of men,And e’en the dead can make return again.
This is a pastoral picture well worthy of Theocritus; the last two lines show how persistently there lingered among the Greek peasants that notion of the exchange of services between dead and living of which I have spoken above.
Sometimes not only human beings but also favourite animals had their tombs and epitaphs. Especially, we are told, was this the case at Agrigentum in Sicily, a city which paid dearly for its luxury and effeminacy at the time of the Carthaginian invasion of the end of the fifth century. The following[285], by Meleager, was for a hare:—
A long-eared hare was I and swift of feet,When Phaenium stole me from my mother’s breast.She gave me young spring flowers to be my meat,And in her bosom oft I lay caressed.True mother she! but death soon came to me,Good living made me fat and overfed.Here lie I ’neath her chamber floor, that sheIn dreams may see my tomb beside her bed.
A long-eared hare was I and swift of feet,When Phaenium stole me from my mother’s breast.She gave me young spring flowers to be my meat,And in her bosom oft I lay caressed.True mother she! but death soon came to me,Good living made me fat and overfed.Here lie I ’neath her chamber floor, that sheIn dreams may see my tomb beside her bed.
A long-eared hare was I and swift of feet,When Phaenium stole me from my mother’s breast.She gave me young spring flowers to be my meat,And in her bosom oft I lay caressed.True mother she! but death soon came to me,Good living made me fat and overfed.Here lie I ’neath her chamber floor, that sheIn dreams may see my tomb beside her bed.
We are here clearly in the region of elegant trifles: and being there we may give a few more specimens of the poeticart which, like the acanthus, gave an elegant finish to the tomb. The following is Meleager’s lament over Heliodora[286]:—
To Hades, Heliodora, from above,I send these tears, the relics of my love,Tears hard to weep; and on thy tomb I pourThis memory of loving days of yore.O bitter, bitter, darling, is my woeA bootless gift for Acheron below.Where is my flower? By Hades snatched away,The budding blossom is but dust to-day.Grant, Mother Earth, that one so dear as sheMay softly in thy arms enfolded be.
To Hades, Heliodora, from above,I send these tears, the relics of my love,Tears hard to weep; and on thy tomb I pourThis memory of loving days of yore.O bitter, bitter, darling, is my woeA bootless gift for Acheron below.Where is my flower? By Hades snatched away,The budding blossom is but dust to-day.Grant, Mother Earth, that one so dear as sheMay softly in thy arms enfolded be.
To Hades, Heliodora, from above,I send these tears, the relics of my love,Tears hard to weep; and on thy tomb I pourThis memory of loving days of yore.O bitter, bitter, darling, is my woeA bootless gift for Acheron below.Where is my flower? By Hades snatched away,The budding blossom is but dust to-day.Grant, Mother Earth, that one so dear as sheMay softly in thy arms enfolded be.
The next epitaph, by Philip of Thessalonica, is quite Hellenistic in character[287]:—
Architeles the Sculptor, where was laidHis son, with mournful hand the tombstone made.Not cut with iron tool the lines appear;The stone was furrowed by the frequent tear.O stone! lie lightly, that the dead may knowA hand indeed paternal set thee so.
Architeles the Sculptor, where was laidHis son, with mournful hand the tombstone made.Not cut with iron tool the lines appear;The stone was furrowed by the frequent tear.O stone! lie lightly, that the dead may knowA hand indeed paternal set thee so.
Architeles the Sculptor, where was laidHis son, with mournful hand the tombstone made.Not cut with iron tool the lines appear;The stone was furrowed by the frequent tear.O stone! lie lightly, that the dead may knowA hand indeed paternal set thee so.
I cite only the end of another epitaph, by Heracleitus, which is said to have adorned the tomb of a lady named Aretemias[288]. It is so neat and compressed that I have in vain tried to render it in an English heroic distich:—‘Twin sons I bare: one I left to my husband as a stay of old age; one I take with me as a memorial of my husband.’
We may add a couple more epitaphs which clearly belong to the epideictic or rhetorical class, but which please by the neatness of their form. One by Damagetes[289]professes to record the last words of a lady named Theano, of Phocaea, in Asia Minor.
Phocaeans! hear the moan Theano made,As night received her with eternal shade.‘How sad my lot! Afar some unknown seaIn thy swift ship, my husband, beareth thee.Fate stands beside my bed. Ah! wert thou by,Holding thy loving hand that I might die.’
Phocaeans! hear the moan Theano made,As night received her with eternal shade.‘How sad my lot! Afar some unknown seaIn thy swift ship, my husband, beareth thee.Fate stands beside my bed. Ah! wert thou by,Holding thy loving hand that I might die.’
Phocaeans! hear the moan Theano made,As night received her with eternal shade.‘How sad my lot! Afar some unknown seaIn thy swift ship, my husband, beareth thee.Fate stands beside my bed. Ah! wert thou by,Holding thy loving hand that I might die.’
The following professes to belong to a tomb of Ajax[290], on which was placed a mourning woman, who represented his unappreciated worth or valour:—
On Ajax’ tomb with closely shaven hairI sit, sad Worth, in semblance of despair,Grief-struck at heart that with the Achaean hostDeceitful Fraud more weight than I can boast.
On Ajax’ tomb with closely shaven hairI sit, sad Worth, in semblance of despair,Grief-struck at heart that with the Achaean hostDeceitful Fraud more weight than I can boast.
On Ajax’ tomb with closely shaven hairI sit, sad Worth, in semblance of despair,Grief-struck at heart that with the Achaean hostDeceitful Fraud more weight than I can boast.
Thesepulchral monuments of Greece Proper are all on a modest scale, and noteworthy on account of their beauty of design and charm of sentiment rather than for their magnificence or costliness. In order to find sumptuous tombs erected by Greek architects and decorated by the great Greek sculptors, we must cross over into Asia. We have in a previous chapter spoken of some of the monuments of Asia Minor which are contemporary with the earliest tombs of Greece. We have now to observe how Greece in the later fifth and the fourth centuries paid back the artistic debt which she owed to Asia. The custom of erecting magnificent memorials of departed rulers long prevailed in all parts of Asia. And when Greece stood without a rival in the arts of architecture and sculpture, it was natural that the wealthy princes who planned the monuments of their predecessors, or sometimes their own destined tombs, should import Greek artists, and allow them a free hand to produce great mausoleums, in which the art of Greece registered in beautiful forms the affection of kinsfolk and the veneration of subject populations.
Without at all intending to exhaust the subject, I propose to give some account of a few of the most noteworthy of these monuments, especially of the Nereid monument and the Gyeulbashi heroon in Lycia, and the Mausoleum a Halicarnassus. These tombs I select not as typical of their age andcountry, but rather as exceptional. They represent the almost complete victory in Asia not only of Greek art, but even of Greek ideas. Side by side with these monuments there were erected in Asia Minor, and especially in Lycia, tombs in which native tendencies, such as we have seen in an earlier chapter were still dominant. Sir Charles Fellows brought from Lycia some tombs of this character, and casts of the reliefs of others which remain in their site. The most interesting representation is from a tomb at Cadyanda[291], on which we see banqueting scenes, dancing figures, a group of four girls playing with knucklebones, and so forth, with bilingual inscriptions in Greek and Lycian. But to comment on these scenes as if they were of Hellenic origin would lead us far astray. Like the paintings and reliefs of Etruria, they represent a peculiar and lost phase of civilization, thinly veneered by the art and thought of Hellas.
In his third journey through Lycia, in 1842, Sir Charles Fellows discovered, not far from the agora of Xanthus, a lofty stone basis, some 33 feet by 22 in dimensions; and in close connexion with it a large quantity of reliefs and of fragments of Ionic architecture[292]. Leaving the basis where it stood, he brought to England the sculpture; and by the labours of English archaeologists the tomb to which both basis and sculpture belonged has been reconstructed. I repeat the restoration of Falkener[293], which has been accepted by Overbeck and other authorities (Fig. 74). The restoration is not in all points certain. As the basis remains there cannot be any question as to its form and the position of the sculptured friezes which adorned it. And the examination of the upper surface of thebasis established a pteron or line of columns all round, with statues standing in the intercolumniations. But as to the position of the friezes which belong to the upper part of the monument, and as to the acroteria which Falkener places on the top of all, there remains considerable uncertainty. The whole of the sculpture may be studied in the British Museum, and is published by Professor Michaelis in the tenth volume of the RomanMonumenti dell’ Instituto.
FIG. 74. NEREID MONUMENT, FALKENER.
FIG. 74. NEREID MONUMENT, FALKENER.
FIG. 74. NEREID MONUMENT, FALKENER.
From the present point of view the most important of
FIG. 75. GABLE OF NEREID MONUMENT.
FIG. 75. GABLE OF NEREID MONUMENT.
FIG. 75. GABLE OF NEREID MONUMENT.
the scenes depicted on this monument is to be found in one of the pediments[294](Fig. 75). The hero of whom the tomb is a memorial is seated in state, sceptre in hand: his wife sits opposite, and the children are grouped about them. Further to the right are attendants on a smaller scale. One dog is asleep under the master’s chair, another lies in the corner of the pediment. In the other pediment there is a warlike scene, of which only one-half is preserved. The midmost figure, doubtless the hero again, is on horseback[295]charging an overthrown foe, to whose aid his companions, clad as Greek hoplites, hurry forward. The representation here is no doubt of some notable feat of arms of the owner of the tomb. To the warlike scene the peaceful scene first described corresponds. Atfirst sight it seems merely a picture out of daily life: but if we bear in mind the ordinary symbolism of the Greek tomb we may fairly find in it some sepulchral significance. The grouping of the children about their parents reminds us of many Attic sepulchral reliefs, and the train of attendants bears a decided resemblance to the group of votaries usual on heroizing reliefs. In fact, we find here what is called by archaeologists a contamination. The Asiatic custom of regarding a tomb as a monument of the fame and a record of the exploits of some great ruler or leader of men is penetrated by the genius of Attic sepulchral art, and takes new and more beautiful forms.
Treating the two pediments as striking the keynote of the whole sculptural adornment of the monument, we shall not hesitate to find in all its representations allusions to the life and exploits of the hero whom it commemorates. But of the four friezes which encircled the building at various heights, three furnish us with information which is too vague to be historically useful. The theme of the first is battle, of the third hunting, of the fourth feasting and repose. It is only the frieze numbered as the second in the publications which gives us more detailed and accurate information. Here are unfolded to us the successive scenes of the siege and capture of a hostile city; the battle before the walls, the attempt to storm and the defence, the parleying and surrender, the escape of some of the inhabitants and the leading into captivity of others. In the scene of capitulation the central figure is an Eastern king or ruler, in Persian cap; behind him an attendant bears a sunshade; around him stand his guards. This potentate is approached by two elderly men, staid and dignified, who are clearly the representatives of the city, and come asking for terms. In other scenes we find a bold but a necessarily unsuccessful attempt to represent without due perspective the city walls with the heads of the defenders showing above them,the women wailing, the attacking force adjusting the ladders for scaling, or repulsing sorties of the besieged.
The siege and the capture of a hostile city was evidently one of the most notable events of the life of the hero of the monument. With some plausibility archaeologists have found allusion to the same siege in the beautiful figures of women which stood between the columns of the pteron, the temple-like structure which crowned the monument. These figures represent young girls in the dress of Attic maidens flying in haste and alarm from some danger which threatens them. At their feet are various marine creatures: the dolphin, the sea-snake, a crab, a water-bird, or a fish. This curious circumstance has given rise to the commonly accepted view that they represent Nereid nymphs hastily escaping over the surface of the sea from some rude alarm, flying in disorder to their father Nereus, as they do on more than one vase when Peleus has laid hands on their sister Thetis. What more likely to cause a panic among the shy and peaceful ladies of the sea than a marine battle, or even the attack of an army on a city of the seacoast?
Urlichs has tried to show that all the historical indications which may be derived from the frieze of the siege and from the presence of the flying Nereids may be explained if we assign the tomb to the king or satrap, Pericles of Xanthus, who, as we learn from a fragment of Theopompus, laid siege to the neighbouring city of Telmessus, and after a stubborn resistance compelled it to capitulate. Before we can accept or reject this theory we must briefly consider two questions. Is an actual historic event depicted on the tomb, or is the representation merely of a mythical siege of the past? And what is the date of the monument?
As to the first of these questions I have already sufficiently indicated my view. The sculptural history of the siege is too detailed and precise to be a rendering of a merely typicalor ideal siege. The two emissaries of the besiegers must have had prototypes, and recent prototypes, in real life; and the king before whom they stand is no mythical chief, but the ruler for whom the tomb was made. This has been disputed by Wolters, but the general consensus of archaeologists is against him.
On the other point, the date of the monument, there has been much wider divergence of opinion. At first, in England, it was placed in the sixth century, as a monument of the conquest of Xanthus by Harpagus, the general of Cyrus. This, however, is quite impossible. Soon the pendulum swung too far in the other direction, and the sculpture was brought down to the fourth century, and even connected with the school of Scopas. The date fixed by Furtwängler[296], the latter part of the fifth century, is now generally accepted. In the forms of the Nereids we may trace the artistic influence of the Victory of Paeonius, set up aboutB.C.424. And if some of the figures of the friezes be carefully considered they will be found to show traces of undeveloped art, even of archaism. The Nereid monument belongs to the age of the Parthenon and the temple of Athena Nike, not to the age of the Mausoleum.
If therefore we were compelled, as Urlichs supposed, to assign the taking of Telmessus by Pericles to so late a date as the 102nd Olympiad (B.C.372), we should be obliged to give up its assignment to that king. But there is no conclusive reason for the date fixed by Urlichs. There is therefore no improbability that our monument may be a memorial of Pericles of Xanthus. In any case it has an important place among the remains of antiquity, because it stands in the line of descent, a line marked by many lacunae, which connects the mural reliefs of Assyria, with their fulness of historic detail, and the magnificent monuments of imperial Rome. The NereidMonument and that of Gyeulbashi, as well as some of the sarcophagi from Sidon, with which I shall deal in the fifteenth chapter, naturally strike the student as being set in a key somewhat different from that of ordinary Greek sculpture. The mythological scenes portrayed on them find ready parallels in Greece, but the more historic scenes carry our minds to the wall-sculptures of Assyria or the reliefs of Roman columns, such as those of Trajan and Aurelius, rather than to other Greek works. The reason of this is probably that the art of these Asiatic monuments is influenced by that of Ionia, which is to us, unfortunately, but little known. The Ionian tendency was towards history, that of the Dorians towards religion. The great Greek painters, following Ionian precedent, celebrated in their works many historic battles. Bularchus in very early times is said to have portrayed, for a Lydian king, a victory of the Magnesians: Panaenus painted at Athens the battle of Marathon, Androcydes of Cyzicus painted for the Thebans a picture of their victory at Plataea, and Euphranor depicted the battle of Mantineia. But in Greece sculpture took a different and more ideal line, and translated the battles of the present into mythic combats of the past, in which Centaurs and Amazons rather than fellow-Greeks represented the vanquished party. The sculpture of the Nereid monument is dominated by a more realistic and historic spirit. The sculpture at Gyeulbashi is on the border-line, so that we find it hard to decide whether the scene of the siege there portrayed is Ilium or Lycia, and whether the battles are being fought on the windy plain of Troy or the southern coast of Asia Minor. The sculpture of the Mausoleum is of the purely Greek and ideal character. But the greatest of the Sidonian sarcophagi returns, as we shall see, in the age of Alexander the Great, to a more realistic level.
The heroon of Gyeulbashi was discovered in the heart of Lycia by Schönborn in 1842. For a long time the discoveryremained almost unnoticed. But a few years ago an Austrian expedition was sent to secure such remains of the monument as have artistic value, and these are now deposited in the Museum of Vienna. Unfortunately they have suffered terribly, being of limestone and not of marble, from exposure to the weather, and some of the friezes have almost perished. Casts of the better-preserved portions are to be found at South Kensington and Oxford. And the whole monument is published in the completest and most satisfactory form by Professor Benndorf[297].