CHAPTER XIMEANING AND STYLE OF THE RELIEFS

This pledge of love for Aste Daphnis made,Who loved her living, and desires her dead.

The name Mica,Little-one, is fanciful, and quite unlike the rather stately names usual at Athens. We might be tempted to see in the seated lady a courtesan; but this view falls to the ground when we compare other stelae. On one tomb a Mica is in company of a Philtate,Dearest; in another she gives her hand to an Ariste,Best[196]. In another beautiful relief of the fifth century another Mica takes leave of her husband Amphidemus, who is represented as a warrior setting out for war[197]. It would seem then that there were certain families at Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries which chose to give fanciful names to their daughters. Generally speaking, the names both of men and women were assigned for sober family reasons, and not in mere caprice.

Before we consider the meaning of the sepulchral family groups, and compare them one with another, it will be well to bring before the reader a variety of typical examples, which we will briefly describe in turn, passing, whenever possible, from the simpler to the more complex, and from the less expressive to the more expressive.

First, we have a series of groups in which the main idea is leave-taking.

Pl. XXII. A lady clad in the sleeved Ionian chiton and over-dress, seated, gives her hand to another who stands before her. Between the two, in the background, stands a bearded man whose head rests on his hand[198]. The imperfect perspective of the group, which may be observed specially in the breast of the seated lady and in the footstool, seems to indicate the fifth

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century as date. Nothing, except the somewhat pensive attitude of the man, indicates that we have here anything but an excerpt from the ordinary daily life of the womenâ€™s apartments.

Pl. XXIII. A seated lady, represented in somewhat better perspective, gives her hand to a bearded man who wears only the himation or cloak, and seems to hold in the left hand a strigil. Between the two, in the background, stands a second lady in the accustomed pensive attitude. Behind the mistressâ€™s seat stands a young slave-girl, clad in the long-sleeved chiton usually worn by maid-servants, her hair wrapped in a kerchief. In the face of the seated figure is a certain eagerness or intensity of expression, which lifts the group somewhat above the level of everyday life; besides which, the symbolism of the sphinx, which is used as a support to the arm of the chair, has a sepulchral meaning. Above the seated figure is inscribed her name, Damasistrata, daughter of Polycleides.

Pl. XXIV[199]. A lady, seated in the same fashion as in the last two reliefs, stretches both her hands towards a matron who stands before her, and who lightly touches her face with the right hand. Behind the seated figure stands a young girl; beneath the seat is a dove feeding. Here the expression of the two principal persons, leaning one towards the other and tenderly embracing one another, has an obvious significance. It is no embrace of daily life, but one which goes before a long parting. The frame in which this relief stands is a modern restoration.

Fig. 66[200]. A young woman, identified by the inscription as Plangon, daughter of Tolmides, falls back, evidently fainting with illness, on a couch. She is supported by a maid-servant, whose rank is indicated by the kerchief which binds her hair, and by her mother, whose extended arms signify sympathy and grief. The father, Tolmides, stands on the left in an attitude of

FIG. 66. DYING WOMAN, FROM STELE.

grief. This is an almost unique representation of the moment of death. Nearly always the Attic artist, whose invariable feeling is â€˜nothing in extremes,â€™ avoids thus clearly portraying the last struggle, and contents himself with some gentle hint of death. Here, by a very instructive variation, he is more explicit. And his fortunate freedom from convention throws back a light on the other scenes which we have passed in review. One of the epitaphs in theAnthology[201]describes

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a painted scene of a similar character, depicted on the tomb of a lady named Neotima, who was represented lying back in the exhaustion of death, brought about by childbirth, while her mother Mnasylla hung over her, and her father Aristoteles stood by, resting his head on his hand, in the usual attitude of grief. Curiously enough, the presence of the husband is not mentioned, nor even his name. Perhaps the commonness of death in childbirth at Athens needs a word of explanation. It may be accounted for partly perhaps by the sedentary life of Athenian women, but more especially by the fact that help in the crisis was not usually afforded by physicians, but by midwives, who had had no training save that which is gained by practice. The resort to male accoucheurs was condemned by the instinctive delicacy of the Attic women.

We must cite one more relief of this class, though it is of interest not for the representation which it bears, which is quite ordinary, but for the inscription[202]. A seated woman, veiled, gives her hand to a standing veiled figure, a bearded man standing in the background. Over the head of the seated figure is inscribed, Î§Î¿Î¹Ï�Î¯Î½Î· Ï„Î¯Ï„Î¸Î·. Choerine then is a wet-nurse, and the lady to whom she gives her hand is probably her foster-child whom she has brought up, and who, even after marriage, retains affection for her old nurse, and erects a monument in honour of her fidelity. This monument stands by no means alone; it is one of many set up both by men and women in memory of their nurses. Such facts show that in Greece, though the nurse would commonly be a slave, natural affection and gratitude often triumphed over social convention, and she was regarded as a friend rather than as a dependant.

Another group of reliefs is even more thoroughly feminine. It is dominated by the idea of adornment. The well-bornladies of Athens took, as we know, great pains to enhance by art the charms which nature had liberally bestowed upon them. The rouge-pot was a well-known part of their arsenal, and is sometimes found in their graves. They were not, like modern women, the humble slaves of a fashion which constantly changes. The form and disposition of their garments varies but little from century to century. But they were very particular as to pattern and texture, and very careful that each garment should fall in the most graceful and becoming folds. For jewelry they seem to have had a strong liking, and it may be urged as a palliation of so frivolous a taste that the Greek jewelry which has come down to us is in very good taste. The custom of adorning oneself with huge diamonds and rubies, as a proof of wealth, would have been considered barbaric in Greece. Jewelry was mainly of gold, or even gilt bronze, of little material value, but wrought by cunning workmen, in complete disregard of time, with exquisite care and subtilty[203], so as to be in itself a thing of art as well as a mere decoration. If stones were inserted in the metal, they were quite common stones, sards and onyxes and the like, not cut in facets, but carved in the form of scarabs, or engraved with beautifully cut designs in intaglio. Like the dress, the pottery, and the coins of the Greeks, and all the other surroundings of their life, their jewels exhibited on a smaller scale the same unrivalled artistic taste which is shown on a larger scale by their temples and their sculpture.

Pl. XXV. Hegeso, daughter of Proxenus, is seated to left on a chair which is admirably shaped alike for comfort and steadiness. Her hair is bound with a beautifully arranged kerchief; she wears the fine Ionic chiton with sleeves and an over-dress. She is looking at a necklace which she has drawn from a box held by a serving-girl, and which she holds in both

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hands. This necklace must have been represented either by help of colour or metal. The slave-girlâ€™s more simple dress contrasts with the elegance of that of her mistress. The work seems to belong to the early part of the fourth century. This monument is not in the Museum of Athens, but remains in its place in the Cemetery by the Gate.

Pl. XXVI. We have once more a group of lady and jewel-box. But here the attendant who brings the box seems from her dress to be no slave, but a sister or relative. And the seated lady is not here attracted by the jewels, but sits in pensive attitude; it may be, however, that her right hand, which is near her neck, is holding a necklace already adjusted. In some of the details in this relief there is clumsiness, for example in the right arm of the standing figure; nevertheless the design is very graceful.

Pl. XXVII. Here is a further variation. The standing sister or friend, Demostrate, is evidently trying to tempt the taste of the seated Ameiniche by offering her jewels, but cannot even attract her attention. With one hand resting on the seat of the squarely made chair, Ameiniche looks pensively outwards. The artist seems to imply that when personal adornment ceases to interest a woman, the shadow of fate is not far away.

A relief published in theCorpus[204], on which is depicted a lady and her attendant, the former fastening a bracelet, bears an inscription which at once interests us (Fig. 67). The seated lady is named Phaenarete, a name borne by the mother of Socrates. It would be a strange freak of fortune if it had preserved to us the tomb of the mother of Socrates, engaged in an occupation scarcely in harmony with the character of her son. It is curious that there is something to be said in favour of this view, and no decisive argument against it. The date of

FIG. 67. STELE OF PHAENARETE.

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the relief is given by FurtwÃ¤ngler[205]as the Pheidian age; most archaeologists would probably place it rather later, but still well within the fifth century. Phaenarete gave birth to Socrates aboutB.C.470; but when she died we know not: there is certainly no reason why she should not have died at about the date of execution of this relief. Whether she was old or young at the time of her death would make no serious difference; on her tomb an ideal figure would appear and no true portrait.

But it may be said that the parents of Socrates were poor; his father Sophroniscus was a second-rate sculptor, his mother was a midwife[206]: is it likely that such people could afford so expensive a tomb? To which it may be replied that Socrates certainly inherited a small fortune. And it appears that the fine tombs at Athens did not belong by any means exclusively to the wealthy class. Again, Sophroniscus was a sculptor; a tomb of somewhat sumptuous style would therefore cost him far less than the usual price. And the profession of a midwife, in a city where such duties were undertaken ordinarily by women, might be fairly lucrative.

On the other hand, the name Phaenarete does not appear to have been at all rare at Athens. It occurs on three or four existing stelae, some of which belong to the fifth century[207]. Much therefore as we should desire to find in our stele a record of the mother of Socrates executed either by Sophroniscus, or even by Socrates himself, who in his youth followed his fatherâ€™s craft, we cannot do so with any confidence. Such an attribution remains a bare possibility, and we have no means of testing it.

Pl. XXVIII. Here there are obviously preparations for a journey. The principal figure is Ameinocleia, daughter of Andromenes. She is clad in a long chiton and an over-dress which serves also as a veil. A slave is putting on her sandal,during which process she steadies herself by resting a hand on the girlâ€™s head. In front is a friend who bears a box of jewelry. The fair Ameinocleia is evidently setting out on a journey. And it seems evident that there is an allusion to a solemn departure on a journey whence none returns, although in the details of the representation we find no clear suggestion of death. That is unnecessary when the whole group is itself an allusion to it.

Some writers have doubted whether in the scenes of hand-taking and of adornment there be anything beyond an ordinary scene of daily life, a domestic interior. The stele of Ameinocleia furnishes reasons for declining to agree with them. As we have seen, in the hand-taking scenes more emotion is commonly visible than an ordinary family scene would warrant. And reflection soon shows that even in scenes of adornment the notion of parting is in place. The Greek lady especially adorned herself when she was preparing to go abroad, to take part, maybe, in some procession in honour of the gods or some marriage festivity. Thus the notions of adornment and of leaving home are naturally connected.

No doubt in these scenes there may be traced another element, one derived from the custom of placing ornaments in the tomb and bringing offerings to the dead. We can trace this influence by means of the paintings of the white lekythi of which we have spoken in Chapter II. On these vases are depicted innumerable scenes from the cult of the dead, among which we often find ladies seated and attendants bringing offerings. We engrave an example[208](Fig. 68). Here the lady who is seated on the steps of the tomb seems to be the person for whom that tomb was made. She holds on her knees a box of jewelry; on either side of the tomb stands a maid-servant. In other instances[209]the maids bring unguent-vases, fans, and

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FIG. 68. SCENE AT TOMB.

other articles of the toilet. These groups, however, are but translations into the realm of death of scenes of daily life, such as are common on Attic vases of the fifth and fourth centuries. These vases often show us the interior of the womenâ€™s apartments, with ladies dressing or engaged in domestic occupation. As an example we may take a pyxis published by Dumont[210], on which are depicted a lady with her hair down, to whom one maid brings a necklace, and another a vessel of ointment, and another lady whose shoe is being laced by a slave-girl. Another vase, published by Heydemann[211](Fig. 69), shows us a seated woman to whom an attendant brings a box of jewelry, and a family group of father, mother,and child. The likeness of these groups to those of the sepulchral reliefs is striking.

The question which is the original in art, the domestic interior or the offering at the tomb, is not an easy one. The former class of scenes is Ionic, the latter Doric in character. Both make their appearance on Attic works at about the same time. It is a case like that of the meeting of two streams, when it is impossible to say which is the main river and which the tributary.

FIG. 69. DOMESTIC SCENE.

We have already observed (Chap. VIII) that a not unfrequent form of monument at Athens in the later period was a flat slab (Ï„Ï�Î¬Ï€ÎµÎ¶Î±), in which were inserted one or more stone lekythi adorned with reliefs. The reliefs are in such cases ordinarily family groups; and the juxtaposition of several of these lekythi in museums has demonstrated some facts not without interest. It appears that sometimes when a family grave was acquired, and covered with a slab, a pair of marble vases were inserted in it, the reliefs of both of which comprise

style="width: 600px;">FIGS. 70 AND 71. FAMILY GROUPS.

FIGS. 70 AND 71. FAMILY GROUPS.

the same set of persons in a somewhat varied arrangement. An instance is engraved (Figs.70,71). On these lekythi[212]Callistomache appears seated, Aristion and Timagora standing; the main difference is that in one case the seated lady faces the right, in the other case the left. On another pair of lekythi we see two husbands, Mys and Meles, with their wives, Metrodora and Philia. On one vase the two husbands have joined hands, while the women stand behind them; on the other vase the wives have joined hands, while the men stand in the background[213]. Sometimes on the lekythi which stood together, either on the same slab or on slabs closely adjacent, we cantrace the successive generations of Athenian citizens, their names recurring commonly in alternate generations.

In a very few instances a deity makes his appearance in the ordinary family groups. The deity who thus intervenes is always Hermes, the guide of souls (Psychopompus), who leads them down the dangerous road to the world of spirits.

FIG. 72. STELE OF MYRRHINA.

Most noteworthy among the stelae on which Hermes appears is that shaped in the form of a lekythus, and bearing the name Myrrhina[214](Fig. 72). In the relief we see the graceful figure of the lady, closely wrapped up and veiled, giving her hand to Hermes, who leads her forth, looking back at her the while.An old man and youths, probably the father and brothers of Myrrhina, stand, the former with raised hand in the attitude appropriate to adoration[215].

This is doubtless a real tombstone; but the same can scarcely be said of the beautiful relief which represents the final parting of Orpheus and Eurydice (Pl. XXIX). Orpheus has dared the perils of the world below and surmounted them. He has led the recovered Eurydice to the very confines of the world of shades; and at that moment his disobedience to the law of Hades, which forbade him to look back, has once more deprived him of his bride. Hermes claims her back, and the lovers must part finally[216]. That this beautiful relief, the date of the original of which is about 400B.C., has some connexion with the grave seems clear; the subject is sepulchral, and the sentiment of the group, gentle and subdued, is closely like that of Athenian tombs. At the same time the form of the relief, low and broad, proves that it is not part of an ordinary monument: rather it was meant to be inserted in a wall. It may be a sort of â€˜elegant extract,â€™ like so many of the copies of the Roman age. The subject and treatment of some celebrated sepulchral monument may have been copied in marble for a Roman amateur, and taken out of its original connexion.

Forthe interpretation and full appreciation of the Attic reliefs, it is important to discuss somewhat carefully a fundamental question, which may be set forth in several ways. Is their allusion primarily to the life of the past or the life of the future? Is the scene of them Athens or Hades? Is the hand-taking a sign of parting or of re-union in a world of spirits? In a word, do they point backward or forward?

In this controversy the names of eminent archaeologists appear on both sides. But to the English reader it will be more satisfactory to find a brief statement of the arguments cited on this side and on that, than to learn what line has been taken by the various authorities[217].

The view which makes the future the time, and the spiritworld the scene of the sculptured reliefs has in its favour many analogies, and will naturally commend itself to those who are attracted by the investigations of comparative religion. There can be little doubt that the seated pair of the Spartan monuments are regarded as holding their court as heroized dead. And a number of intermediate links connect these clearly marked memorials of ancestor-worship with the usual Attic groups in an almost uninterrupted series, so that to draw

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a line of division at any point between backward-looking and forward-looking representations is by no means easy. Let us follow a few of these series.

In the Spartan relief (Pl. II) the heroic pair hold in their hands the winecup and the pomegranate, drink and food of spirits. The hero ofFig. 30holds both. Both may be found repeatedly also on the stelae of Athens and the rest of Greece.

1. The winecup. On the beautiful archaic stele of Lyseas at Athens[218], the hero is represented not in relief, but painted on the marble; he stands erect, holding in one hand a winecup, in the other a lustral branch. Not very much later in date is the stele[219]on which appears in relief a veiled lady seated, who holds in one hand the flat patera (Pl. XVI). Here the patera seems to stand in the place of the winecup, and clearly has the same reference to the receipt of libations.

2. The pomegranate. On an archaic tombstone of Aegina[220], a seated lady gives her hand to a male figure standing before her: in the other hand she holds a pomegranate. Again, on a stele of the early part of the fifth century, which comes from Larissa in Thessaly[221], a lady called Polyxena stands, drawing forward with one hand her veil, and in the other holding a pomegranate.

Nor is it only the attributes held by the Spartan heroes which appear in Attic and other reliefs, but also the offerings brought to them by worshippers. We will take the cock and the dove, which are prominent at Sparta or on the Lycian Harpy Tomb, which so closely resembles in its symbolism the Spartan monuments.

3. The cock. From Larissa comes a fifth-century stele[222], on which is a relief representing a young Thessalian, clad in a chlamys, who holds in one hand a spear, in the other a cockHis name is Vekedamus. A cock is also painted on a tomb at Athens which bears the name of Antiphanes[223].

4. The dove. An Athenian tomb of the middle of the fifth century[224](Pl. XXX) bears the seated figure of a lady, Eutamia; before her stands an attendant of small stature, who brings her a dove and a toilet-box. Here the dove has the appearance of an offering. But on a number of Athenian stelae the dove appears evidently as a common household pet. It is sufficient to refer to our Plate XVIII andFig. 61; though perhaps a more pleasing instance than either of these is offered by a charming relief at Brocklesby Park[225], in which we see a young girl fondling two doves, which at once takes our thoughts to the offering of two doves at the temple of Jerusalem after childbirth[226], though doubtless the correspondence is accidental.

The horse and the dog also, which figure so prominently on the Spartan tomb (Fig. 30), are of frequent occurrence at Athens.

5. The horse. We have already spoken of the many votive and sepulchral reliefs on which the dead appear as horsemen. And the horse is also of frequent occurrence on portrait-stelae. Of this we have cited instances above, Chap. IX. The horse on the base of the Lyseas monument seems to be a memorial of some victory in the racecourse. But on another very early tomb, from Lamprika in Attica[227], we find, sculptured on the face of it, a young knight on horseback fully armed. Another armed horseman carved beneath the feet of a standing man occurs on an Attic tombstone of somewhat later date[228]. On the lekythus-stelae of the fourth and third centuries, in the scenes of leave-taking, the husband who gives his hand to hiswife is often accompanied by a horse[229], and sometimes also by a youth who bears his armour.

6. The dog. On the stele by Alxenor (Pl. IX) we have a dog as companion of the dead; also in Pl. XIII and on the Ilissus relief (Pl. XV). This addition to sepulchral groups is so common, and so natural, the Greeks being as fond of dogs as we are, that it requires no comment.

The stele of Eutamia (Pl. XXX) seems to lie very nearly on the boundary between the heroizing stelae and ordinary Attic reliefs. At first glance it does not present any marked deviation from the usual Athenian types. Yet when one examines it in detail many links are evident connecting it with Sparta and ancestor-worship. The difference in scale between the seated lady and her attendant makes the latter seem rather a worshipper than a mere handmaid. And the offerings which she brings, more especially the dove, belong to the cultus of the dead. The dog too, sculptured in relief above, offers an exact parallel to the horse in relief of the steleFig. 30. Our first point then, that there is an unbroken line of connexion between stelae of the Spartan and those of the Athenian class, is made out to demonstration.

But another point may be made out with equal clearness, that at all events a large part of the Attic reliefs have reference exclusively to the past. Several groups of them may be cited in proof.

1. Reliefs in which an actual death-scene is portrayed. Such a scene is represented in ourFig. 66. It is clear that here nothing can be referred to except what has occurred in the past; and this is equally clear in the case of—

2. Reliefs in which is represented some notable scene in the life of the deceased. A good example is offered by the monument on which Dexileos appears striking down his enemies (Pl. XII), or that of Democleides, Fig. 59.

3. Reliefs in which the profession of the deceased is indicated, as in the case of the physicians[230]: and as in the stele of Mynno (Fig. 62).

It has been said that the reference to the past in such cases may be explained from the Greek notion that the future life was a continuation of the past on the same lines but in a ghostly fashion. But this statement will not bear a closer examination. An earthly hunter may hunt in Elysium: possibly a warrior may be imagined as finding new and ghostly enemies to overthrow. But could it be for a moment supposed that a woman would spend her time in Hades in repetitions of sickness and death, or that a physician would find there need for the exercise of his old craft? It is thus abundantly clear that in some at least of the Attic reliefs the backward look prevails.

The class of reliefs from which we may best illustrate the two different fashions of interpretation is the very large class in which is represented hand-giving, the Greek Î´ÎµÎ¾Î¯Ï‰ÏƒÎ¹Ï‚. Sometimes one of the pair who are hand in hand is standing and one seated: sometimes both are standing. There are three ways in which the attitude of the pair may be interpreted. First it may be taken to mark a mere family group, an Attic interior scene, a portrait of husband and wife or father and son in a connexion which marks their unity of feeling and mutual affection. Second, we may combine with this idea that of parting. To this view I have inclined in a previous chapter. Third, we may take the hand-giving as indicating the reception in Hades by those who have gone before of their kindred who follow them. In the funeral oration of Hyperides there is a passage[231]which is cited in favour of this view, in which the orator speaks of the heroes of old in Hades

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greeting, with a Î´ÎµÎ¾Î¯Ï‰ÏƒÎ¹Ï‚ their descendants who follow them in the way of virtue and honour. So in the poets also, as we have above seen, there are frequent references to the life of the re-united family in Hades. And in fact a hope of such re-union seems to have existed among all peoples in which family life was highly developed.

We can scarcely venture to rule any of these views out of court. We can indeed venture to say that in the Athenian reliefs as they reach us, the setting is full of allusions to the life of the past, while all that suggests Hades is conspicuously absent. At the same time, while this is the clear result of artistic analysis, it is quite impossible to say that the hopes and longings of survivors may not have sometimes found in the mere grouping of a family scene some earnest of re-united family life under other conditions than those of earth. Artistic groups, like strains of music, may be interpreted by the emotions rather than by the intellect, and suggest many things to many people.

We can best solve the questions we have raised by drawing clearly a line of distinction between the origin of the Attic sepulchral groups and their meaning. They undoubtedly derive much both from the ancestor-worship of early Hellas, and from the monuments in which that worship found expression. But it is very unlikely that to the Attic mind of the fifth and fourth centuries they usually conveyed much of religious meaning. The bright genius of Attic art had little sympathy with the mystic side of manâ€™s nature. Its tendency was not towards ethical religion, but towards beauty and enjoyment and social life. Thus, in the memorials of the dead, the Athenians and those who took their tone from Attic art sought to produce a pleasing and not too vivid memorial of the dead, rather than a record of hope in the future life. They did not disbelieve in the future world, nor did they practically neglect the simple and pleasing ritual of the cultus of the dead. But their mindsturned more naturally to thoughts less severe and gloomy, thoughts of the present, of the beauteous land they dwelt in and the charm of their social surroundings.

But on the other hand it must be allowed that in the case of the cultus-reliefs of the oblong class (Chapter VII), the reference is to the future and not to the past. The worship of the dead could not begin until they were canonized, so to speak; and to this canonization all the details of the reliefs refer. If the question be asked whether the scene in which the august hero sits on his throne or leads his horse is Hades or the tomb itself, the answer is not easy. There seems to have existed in this matter a confusion of mind. The earliest beliefs of the human race seem to regard the dead as continuing in the grave an existence which is a ghostly echo of the past life, and there receiving the constantly presented offerings of their descendants. But the Greeks, as we know them in history, had risen to a higher level of thought. They thought that the soul travelled away from the resting-place of the body until it reached the shadowy realm of Hades and Persephone, there to receive from divine justice the reward or the punishment which it had earned in its earthly life[232]. Such was the view of the priest and the poet, and of educated people generally. But it is a familiar fact in the history of religion that custom and cultus move far more slowly than doctrine; and that to this body of usage is attached a survival of the earlier or more primitive belief. So it came to pass in Greece, in spite of the philosopher who spoke of the soul as mounting to its native aether, and of the poet who sang of the realm of Hades and dread Persephone. Still through the centuries offerings were brought to the tomb, and the dead were supposed there to enjoy them. Still the stele remained a sort of shrine of the family cultus, and ancestors were regarded as there present in the same supernatural fashionin which deities were present in their temples and their images. We can scarcely upbraid the Greeks; for we too, while commonly believing in heaven, if not in hell, still think of our dead as present in some sense at the tomb in which we have laid their bodies. And modern scientific research even indicates some justification of this deep-seated prejudice, which mere reason disowns. For there is everywhere a deep-seated belief that apparitions haunt the places where the persons whose shadows they are lived their lives or underwent some overpowering emotion.

Thus it seems quite natural to regard the scene of the cultus reliefs as the actual graveyard where they were set up. And this interpretation is in most cases satisfactory. But some of them have a clear reference to the land of spirits. In one instance, on an Attic votive tablet, we see a deceased mortal feasting with Herakles and the Muses[233]and there is a whole class of monuments which represent deceased heroes supping with Dionysus. We engrave one of the most characteristic examples[234](Fig. 73). An elderly man reclines on a couch, beside which is a table spread with fruits, and a slave pouring wine. A serpent twined round the table has clearly a sepulchral reference. The wife of the hero is seated at his feet: both turn with surprise and delight to the left of the relief, where the young Dionysus, bearing a thyrsus, and supporting his reeling body on the shoulder of a young satyr, advances towards the couch. The dead man had doubtless been a votary of Dionysus, perhaps attached to the Orphic mysteries; and the god to whom in his earthly life he had devoted himself comes to sup with him in the world of shades. In this case certainly the banquet must be regarded as held, not at the tomb, but in some nobler scene.

Next to the meaning of the sepulchral reliefs of Greece, the style of art in which they are executed requires some attention.

FIG. 73. DIONYSUS AS GUEST.

The reliefs of the sixth century, and down to aboutB.C.460, are excellent examples of the art of their time, in no way inferior to other contemporary works of sculpture. The relief of Pl. II introduces us to a school of artists of whom we have no other knowledge, a school localized in Peloponnesus, and trying to work out an independent line of art. The early reliefs of Athens and the Islands stand, however, on a much higher level. We have already seen that Professor Brunn, an admirable judge, had early discerned in the qualities of the Aristion relief (Pl. IX) the promise of the excellence of later Athenian art. The other stele ofPl. IX, that of Alxenor, shows similar merits, and a somewhat more advanced style. The group of mother and children (Pl. XIX) is a work of the greatestdelicacy and charm: the forms of mother and infant, showing through the orderly folds of the Ionian dress, indicate genuine love of nature and appreciation of form; and the group is full of the same sentiment which charms us in the tombs of a later age.

The reliefs of the sixth century were usually executed in honour of distinguished persons; they frequently bore the name of the sculptor, and that sculptor would usually be one whose fame was great. This shows that early sculptors were proud of executing tombs: at a later time tombs almost never bear an artistâ€™s name.

As we approach the middle of the fifth century, the art of the sculptor in Greece is taking constantly a higher and a wider range. Great temples are rising on all sides, especially at Athens, and offering to great artists noble opportunities of distinction to be won either by designing the great cultus-statues of the gods, or by fitly adorning the outsides of their temples. The sculpture of athletes also had, in the hands of Pythagoras of Myron and of Polycleitus, reached a perfection hitherto undreamed of. And at the same period the sumptuary laws of Athens, which were only gradually falling into neglect, closely limited the sum of money to be spent on tombs. Under these circumstances we cannot be surprised that the sepulchral monuments of the middle of the fifth century, of the age of the Parthenon and the Temple of Nike, are mostly of somewhat small size and poor execution. In their style they show something of the contemporary grand style, but it is only a distant cousinship to it which they display. They are not the work of great artists, but of workers scarcely above the level of the skilled stonemason.

Several of the groups figured in our plates belong to this age. As examples, we may take Pl. XVII, the stele of Amphotto, which is a work of the earlier half of the fifth century, and Plates X, XIII, XVIII, XX, XXI, XXVI,all of which were probably executed in the latter half of that century. The form of these stelae is simple, even clumsy, the gable above usually surmounted by three acroteria, on which an acanthus pattern was probably painted. The subjects consist of few figures in simple groups. The perspective is by no means perfect; for instance, the breasts of Tynnias (Pl. X) and of Mica (Pl. XXI) are too fully turned to the spectator. Nevertheless these reliefs have an extraordinary nobility and dignity. Tynnias might almost have sat for a model of the Zeus at Olympia: Lysander (Pl. XX) is the model of a modest and well-bred Athenian boy: Mica (Pl. XXI), in spite of her fanciful name, has not a touch of levity. Like the maidens of the Parthenon frieze, all these human beings behave as if in the immediate presence of the gods. They embody nobility and repose.

In the fourth century, the conditions of sculpture at Athens again underwent a great change. No new and splendid temples rose from the ground. No great public buildings offered a wide field to the architect, the painter, and the sculptor. Art worked mainly in the service of individuals. And, at the same time, the sepulchral monuments of Athens became far more sumptuous. It is therefore quite natural that they should have been sometimes undertaken by artists of renown.

We have the testimony of Pausanias to the fact that Praxiteles himself sometimes made the sculptural adornment of the great Attic sepulchres. Outside the Peiraeus gate, among other noteworthy tombs, Pausanias[235]found one which he thus describes: â€˜Not far from the gates is a tomb, whereon stands a soldier standing by his horse: who he was I know not, but it was Praxiteles who made both man and horse.â€™ The contemporary painter Nicias also undertook tombs. Pausanias[236]tells us that outside the gates of Triteia in Achaia was â€˜a tombof white marble worthy of note in all respects, but particularly remarkable for the paintings on the marble, the work of Nicias. There is a throne of ivory, and seated on it a young and beauteous woman, behind whom stands a maid-servant holding a sunshade. Also a young man standing, not bearded as yet, clad in a chiton with a purple chlamys over it: beside him is an attendant carrying hunting-spears and leading dogs of hunting breed.

Praxiteles and Nicias were closely associated in art; Praxiteles is even said to have declared that his sculpture owed much of its charm to the colouring applied to it by Nicias. We may judge then that the beautiful sepulchral monuments of the fourth century, whether set up at Athens or elsewhere, owed their excellence to the second Athenian school, to Praxiteles and Scopas and their contemporaries. An examination of the monuments themselves fully confirms this view. More than one archaeologist has been struck with the strong likeness to be traced between the heads recently recovered from the pediments of the temple of Athena at Tegea[237], which are our best evidence for recovering the style of Scopas, and some of the Attic sepulchral reliefs, especially that of Dexileos (Pl. XII) and that from the Ilissus (Pl. XV). These works are certainly of the age of Scopas. The tomb of Dexileos was set up immediately after 394B.C., and in the same year the old temple of Athena at Tegea was burned, affording to young Scopas the task of its reconstruction. It is quite possible that some of the existing tombs of the fourth century may be the actual work of sculptors of the second Attic school. In the moderation, the gentleness, the pleasing sentiment of these Athenian tombs we see precisely the qualities for which Praxiteles was celebrated. But, generally speaking, sepulchral monuments are of the class of work which a great sculptor would leave topupils and assistants, just as they left the decorative sculpture of the bases of their great statues.

The tombs of this age are larger and more sumptuous, and the groups at once more complicated and more expressive. There is less repose than in the stelae of the fifth century, and more sentiment. Characteristic figures of warriors of this age are those of Dexileos (Pl. XII) and Aristonautes (Pl. XI): and among family groups we may notice the Ilissus relief (Pl. XV), the stele of Damasistrate (Pl. XXIII), and the group of Pl. XXIV.

Our plates scarcely come down to a later time than the fourth century, but among the most interesting figures found on tombs of the later age is the figure of the girl devoted to the service of Isis inFig. 64.

Afterthus entering into the question of the meaning of the Attic sepulchral reliefs, and discussing their relation to the Greek beliefs as to the future world, it is necessary to give some account of the inscriptions which accompany the reliefs.

By far the most usual inscription on an Attic tomb consists of a proper name, to which is added commonly a patronymic. In addition to this simple record, archaic tombs sometimes bear the name of the artist who executed them. Towards the end of the fifth century the custom comes in of adding also the place to which the deceased belonged. The reliefs of the best age are not signed by an artist, and in fact anything beyond names and demes is, in the fifth and fourth centuries, quite unusual. The strict canons of developed Greek art seem to have rejected any long or metrical epitaph as out of place or in bad taste. Later, in the third and second centuries, longer inscriptions, often written in elegiac metre, are far commoner.

Our plates and engravings furnish specimens of the ordinary kinds of inscriptions. The two archaic reliefs of Pl. IX bear the artistsâ€™ names, in one case á¼œÏ�Î³Î¿Î½ á¼ˆÏ�Î¹ÏƒÏ„Î¿ÎºÎ»ÎÎ¿Ïƒ[238], in the other á¼ˆÎ»Ï‡ÏƒÎ®Î½Î¿Ï� á¼�Ï€Î¿Î¯Î·ÏƒÎµÎ½ á½� Î�Î¬Ï‡ÏƒÎ¹Î¿Ï‚: to the latter signature is added a delightfully naÃ¯ve comment, á¼€Î»Î»' á¼�ÏƒÎ¯Î´ÎµÏƒÎ¸Îµ, Just look! implying that in the artistâ€™s own opinion his work is well worth lookingat. The inscription on the tomb of Dermys and Citylus (Fig. 55) records the name of the dedicator, á¼ˆÎ¼Ï†Î¬Î»ÎºÎ·Ï‚ á¼”ÏƒÏ„Î±Ïƒâ€™ á¼�Ï€á½¶ ÎšÎ¹Ï„Ï�Î»Î¿Î¹ á¼ á½ƒ á¼�Ï€á½¶ Î”ÎÏ�Î¼Ï…Î¹.

After the archaic age, the inscriptions are simpler, as á¼ˆÎ¼Ï†Î¿Ï„Ï„ÏŒ (Pl. XVII), Î•á½�ÎÎ¼Ï€Î¿Î»Î¿Ï‚ (Pl. XVIII), Î”Î·Î¼Î¿ÎºÎ»ÎµÎ¯Î´Î·Ï‚ Î”Î·Î¼Î·Ï„Ï�Î¯Î¿ (Fig. 59), Î¤Ï…Î½Î½Î¯Î±Ï‚ Î¤Ï�Î½Î½Ï‰Î½Î¿Ï‚ TÏ�Î¹ÎºÎ¿Ï�Ï�ÏƒÎ¹Î¿Ï‚ (Pl. X), ÎšÏ�Î±Ï„Î¹ÏƒÏ„á½¼ á½ˆÎ»Ï…Î½Î¸Î¯Î± á¼ŒÎ³Ï�Ï‰Î½Î¿Ï‚ Î¸Î½Î³Î¬Ï„Î·Ï� Î“Î»Î±Ï…ÎºÎ¯Î¿Ï… Î´á½² Î³Ï…Î½Î®, and so forth.

When the tomb belongs to one person these inscriptions are simple, and there can be no ambiguity in their interpretation, nor is there any doubt to which of the persons represented in the relief the identifying inscription belongs. But when the inscription contains several names the matter is not so simple. Dr. FurtwÃ¤ngler lays down the rule that the names are the names of the dead; in that case, as the dead and the living appear together in the reliefs, there would be no necessary correspondence between relief and inscription. I find however, in the great majority of cases, that not only do the inscriptions agree with the reliefs, but that the names are placed over the figures in order to identify them. The analogy of Greek vases here helps us. On vases it is an ordinary custom to place over each of the persons of the design his or her name, merely for purposes of identification. It appears that the same custom prevails in sepulchral reliefs. Confirmation of this view will be found in abundance by any one who examines theCorpus of Attic Reliefs. And further confirmation is afforded by the epigrams of theAnthology. One records[239]not only the name of the person to whom the tomb belongs, and who appears in its relief, but also the names of the dog, the horse, and the slave who form hiscortÃ©ge. Another reads[240], â€˜This is Timocleia, this Philo, this Aristo, and this Timaetho; all daughters of Aristodicus.â€™ In fact, to this general rule of the explicatory character of the inscriptions only a few doubtful exceptionsmake their appearance. One of these exceptions appears on our Pl. XXVII. The group consists of two ladies, whereas the names above are ÎœÎ¹ÎºÎ¯Ï‰Î½ Î‘á¼°Î±Î½Ï„Î¿Î´ÏŽÏ�Î¿Ï… á¼ˆÎ½Î±Î³Ï…Ï�Î¬ÏƒÎ¹Î¿Ï‚, á¼ˆÎ¼ÎµÎ¹Î½Î¯Ï‡Î· ÎœÎ¹ÎºÎ¯Ï‰Î½Î¿Ï‚ Î˜Ï�Î¹Î±ÏƒÎ¯Î¿Ï…, Î”Î·Î¼Î¿ÏƒÏ„Ï�Î¬Ï„Î· Î‘á¼´ÏƒÏ‡Ï�Ï‰Î½Î¿Ï‚ á¼‰Î»Î±á½²Ï‰Ï‚—the names of one man and two women. But it appears that in this case a name was originally placed only over the seated lady: this was erased, and the three names which we find were inserted at a later period. We may safely therefore assert that at all events in the great majority of cases the names placed on the tombs identify the persons of the reliefs, and do not by any means necessarily give us a clue to the occupants of the grave.

It is pointed out by Dr. WeisshÃ¤upl, in an excellent paper on Greek epitaphs[241], which has been of great service to me in this chapter, that the term Ï‡Î±á¿–Ï�Îµ, Farewell, which is common in late Greek epitaphs, does not occur on the graves of Athenian citizens. The age of the deceased, in modern epitaphs one of the most indispensable features, is seldom stated on Greek tombs: a curious exception being found in the case of Dexileos.

Among the tombs which we engrave, only this of Dexileos (Pl. XII) bears a long or a detailed inscription. The record here tells us that the hero was born in the archonship of Teisander, and died in that of Eubulides, and was one of the five horsemen at Corinth. The last phrase is curious, nor is its meaning certain. Usually it is explained as meaning that Dexileos took part in some noted feat of arms with four other horsemen in the Corinthian war. But recently[242], Dr. BrÃ¼ckner has tried to prove that the Ï€ÎÎ½Ï„Îµ á¼±Ï€Ï€Îµá¿–Ï‚ were the adjutants of the Hipparchi, and persons of definite rank in the army.

After the age of Demetrius of Phalerum, when the sepulchral monuments of Athens become poorer and smaller, the inscriptions as a rule remain very brief. But on exceptional tombs of this age, and a larger number of the Roman period,we find long inscriptions in prose or in verse, giving the history of the occupant or moralizing on life and death. Already in another work[243]I have given a brief account of the general character of Athenian epitaphs. I therefore in this place prefer to take my examples not from Athens, but from other parts of Greece. There is, at all events in later ages, no great difference in character between the sepulchral inscriptions of Athens and those of other cities, if we except those districts of Asia Minor which were partly under the influence of Asiatic religions and ways of thinking. Where the epitaph has some pretension to literary style I give a rendering in heroic verse, in other cases a prose translation may suffice.

We may begin with the inscription of a public tomb. At all times these tombs bore epigrams of a nobler type than those of private persons. Commonly they were set up in some public place and were the scene of heroic honours. The epigram which they bore would be composed by some noted poet. Every one knows of the noble lines written by Simonides for the Spartans who fell at Thermopylae:—

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