citizens who fell in battle, and whose graves are a memorial of their
warlike prowess. We give three examples.
First, the tomb of Aristonautes, son of Archenautes (Pl. XI). This is
almost the only example which has come down to us of a complete ναῗδιον
or temple. The letters of the inscription indicate the earlier part of
the fourth century. Aristonautes is represented in the act of charging
the enemy; he wears a conical helmet adorned with ornaments of
gilt-bronze[171], and a cuirass; in his hands were sword or spear and
shield. The relief is so high that the figure is almost in the round, to
which circumstance we must attribute the loss of the left leg, which is
now replaced in plaster. A chlamys lies on the left shoulder. The ground
on which the hero charges is the rocky soil of some battlefield; the
background was painted blue to bring out strongly the manly lines of the
form. This monument comes from the Cerameicus at Athens.
[Illustration:
PLATE XI
_Page 146_
]
It would not be easy to imagine a more vigorous and lifelike image of a
fallen warrior than this. Drapery and bodily forms alike are of the
noblest. The face, with its square form, overhanging eyebrows, and
parted lips, breathes the very spirit of military ardour. Such as every
friend of Aristonautes would wish him to look when he sprang forward in
his last fatal rush upon the foe, such he stands in imperishable marble.
A grave in Westminster Abbey is supposed to recompense the English
soldier for pain and untimely death, but surely the idea of living in
marble under the eyes of all his fellow-citizens might furnish at least
as strong an impulse to valiant deeds as the thought of a modern
cathedral with its tasteless monuments and inanimate likenesses. It
would, however, be a mistake to suppose that this figure, for all its
lifelikeness, is an individual portrait. It is too strongly marked by
the style of one of the noblest of Attic sculptors, Scopas, to allow us
to doubt that there is in it a strong ideal element.
Another monument of the same school is the well-known relief (Pl. XII)
in which we see Dexileos of the Athenian cavalry riding down and
transfixing an overthrown foe, who vainly tries to strike back[172]. The
inscription beneath this relief, which comes from a small chapel near
the Dipylon gate of Athens, proves that it was executed in memory of a
horseman who fell in the Corinthian War of 394 B.C. History records that
in the battle the Athenians were defeated, and one is tempted to pause
for a moment to consider how a modern sculptor would have represented
Dexileos. An artist such as those who have modelled the tombs of St.
Paul’s and Westminster would probably have sculptured him smitten to
death, falling back in the arms of a grateful country; perhaps would
have added above an angel crowning him with a wreath of celestial
reward. But the Greek artists of the good period could not find in
defeat and death any elements worthy of their art: they must represent
those whom they portrayed in the moment of success and victory, not in
that of overthrow. The difference is very suggestive. Infinitely
inferior to Greek art in charm, in simplicity and dignity, modern art
introduces higher elements than were usually taken into account in
Hellas. From the artistic point of view the ancients were right; but
from the ethical point of view there may be more to be said for the
moderns.
[Illustration: FIG 56. WARRIOR OF TEGEA.]
A more modest memorial of a warrior comes from Tegea[173] (Fig. 56). In
the relief we see a man named Lisas in the
[Illustration:
PLATE XII
_Page 148_
]
guise not of a hoplite but of a peltast or auxiliary. His defensive
armour consists only of a conical helmet and a shield. His chiton is
girt only on the left shoulder, so as to leave the right arm perfectly
free. What he carried in the right hand we cannot be sure. It was filled
in in colour, and has disappeared. The attitude makes us at first think
of a sling. But it is more likely that the weapon was a light javelin
for throwing. Lisas is evidently advancing over rocky ground to the
attack.
From monuments of warriors we pass to those of young athletes; and in
Greece almost every man who died before coming to full maturity appears
on his tomb in athletic guise. The exercises of the palaestra were not
reserved, as among us, for a certain number of the most robust young
men, but were, like the military service with which they were nearly
connected, a part of the life of every man not given up to sloth and
luxury. On Pl. XIII is a noble figure of an athletic ephebus. He stands
solidly on flat feet, naked but for a chlamys which he holds with the
right hand, while the left grasps strigil and oil-flask, the necessaries
of the life of the athlete. The bare body is treated with utmost
simplicity and without a trace of self-consciousness. A dog sits at his
master’s feet with nose upturned. This monument is from Thespiae in
Boeotia, and must date from the middle of the fifth century: the letters
over the head, Ἀγαθόκλη χαῖρε, are, it need scarcely be said, of much
later times, proving that this stele, like so many at Athens, was used
again in Roman times to mark a fresh tomb.
Of somewhat later date is the relief on an Attic lekythos (Fig. 57), in
which we find an athlete exercising himself[174]. Stark naked, according
to the invariable custom of the Greek palaestra, he rests his weight on
one leg, while on the other he balances a heavy stone ball, such a ball
as was actually found in the gymnasium of Pompeii. This was doubtless
an exercise of the class used for training special muscles and producing
a perfect physical development. In front of the athlete stands a
slave-boy, holding his oil-flask, and behind him is a pillar on which is
his garment.
[Illustration: FIG. 57. ATHLETE BALANCING STONE.]
A stele from Thespiae, of the middle of the fifth century[175] (Fig.
58), presents us with the figure of a young horseman, seated on a
galloping horse. He wears the chiton and the Thessalian horseman’s
cloak, the chlamys. The reins were filled in in bronze; the holes for
fixing the metal being still visible in the horse’s mouth and neck. The
easy and masterly
[Illustration:
PLATE XIII
_Page 150_
]
seat of the rider, and the noble forms of the horse, place this relief
among the most pleasing which we possess.
[Illustration: FIG. 58. YOUNG HORSEMAN.]
A fine monument of the age and style of Pheidias comes from Aegina (Pl.
XIV). Carved on it is the beautiful figure of a young man clad in a
mantle, who holds in his left hand a bird, and extends the right without
obvious purpose[176]. By this hand is a bird-cage; under it is a
sepulchral monument, against which a boy leans, and on the top of which
is a sculptured cat. The cat was well known in Egypt in antiquity, but
the Greeks were unfamiliar with it, and its presence in this connexion
is curious. The young man reminds us by the form of his head and his
garment of the youths of the Parthenon frieze, who are his
contemporaries and may come from the same chisel. The beautiful
ornament which surmounts the group forms in its extreme gracefulness a
fitting boundary to it.
Another striking group (Pl. XV) comes from the bed of the Ilissus. It is
nearly a century later in date than the last-mentioned. We see in it a
youth of magnificent proportions, half sitting on and half leaning
against a sepulchral column. In the left hand he grasps a short staff,
which rests on his knee. At his feet is a dog scenting the quarry; on
the steps of the stele is seated in an attitude of dejection a young
boy, while an old man, no doubt the father of him to whom the tomb
belongs, gazes earnestly into his face. No doubt this vigorous young man
was a hunter of hares, the short staff being such as hunters used to
throw at the prey. Nothing but the view of the original of this
wonderful relief, or at least of a cast of it, suffices to make one
appreciate quite adequately its beauty.
With these reliefs we may compare an epitaph[177], written by an
anonymous author to be placed on the tomb of a young man named Pericles.
From the description of the relief which the tomb bore it is clear that
the implements of the chase were represented in it in detail; this would
be quite natural in the Hellenistic age, as we may see by comparing
several examples in the Museum at Athens[178]:--
A marble tomb I stand for Archias’ son,
Young Pericles, and speak his hunting done.
The horse, the spear, in my relief are set,
The dogs, the stakes, and on the stakes the net.
Yet all are stone. The beasts their pleasure take
Around; thy wakeless sleep they cannot break.
In the last two cases a stele has been present in the background, and a
boy shows by his attitude and expression traces of grief. By such gentle
hints does the sculptor of
[Illustration:
PLATE XIV
_Page 152_
]
[Illustration:
PLATE XV
_Page 152_
]
Greece shadow forth rather than express his meaning. The deceased
himself is in both cases represented in the perfection of health and
vigour; it is only the minor characters of the groups who give a
suggestion of the mortality of such perfection.
[Illustration: FIG. 59. STELE OF DEMOCLEIDES.]
But the young men of Athens were not all notable for warlike prowess or
skill in the palaestra. Another relief[179] represents a youth seated
reading from a scroll. He was either an author or an ardent student of
letters. The work is of the fourth century. In our chapter on epitaphs
may be found several destined for the tombs of those who excelled rather
in intellectual pursuits than those of the gymnasium.
In some cases the reference to the past life of the deceased and the
manner of his death is clearer and more explicit. For example, one
Democleides (Fig. 59) is represented on his tomb as seated in an
attitude of dejection on the deck of a galley[180]. His head rests on
his hand; behind him lie his shield and helmet. No doubt he was a
soldier who perished at sea, whether in a naval engagement or by
shipwreck. An epigram in the _Anthology_[181], by an unknown writer, was
evidently written to be placed under some such representation as this:--
A vessel’s oars and prow I here behold.
O cease! why paint them o’er the ashes cold?
Nay! let the shipwrecked sailor underground
Forget the fate which ’mid the waves he found.
It has been pointed out that, in the reliefs of tombs, the persons
represented usually merge their individual peculiarities, and appear as
types. But few rules are without exceptions: and, as an exception, I
engrave (Fig. 60) a highly characteristic portrait of an elderly man,
who appears in the background of a group of the fourth century[182]. It
is not what we should call a classical type, but full of character and
energy, and quite individual in character.
The early art of Greece is seldom very successful in dealing with
children. Children did not, in the great age of Hellas, interest the
Greeks as they do us; they were valued rather for what they would become
than for what they were. Thus the representations of them are made too
much in the light of the future, and boys and girls on the monuments are
figured as little men and women. This was the more natural
[Illustration: FIG. 60. ELDERLY MAN, FROM STELE.]
as children had no childish dress, but wore clothes like those of
adults. One has only to compare, in the celebrated group of Praxiteles,
the figure of the child Dionysus with that of Hermes, who carries him,
to realize fully the lacuna thus produced in ancient art. An early
Athenian stele (Fig. 61) bears in relief the figure of a young boy named
Callis[tratus?], who holds in one hand a bird, while a dog leaps up to
greet him. The name being incomplete, some have regarded the child as a
girl, and in fact the decision as to the sex is not easy.
Turning from men to women, we may cite a few instances of the
characteristic portrait, though, generally speaking, the tombs of women
are decorated with such groups as we shall deal with in the next
chapter.
[Illustration: FIG. 61. BOY, FROM STELE.]
First we may take a stone (Pl. XVI), the very form of which, with the
rough surface of the lower half, sufficiently proves that it was placed
directly in the ground or the mound of earth which covered the
grave[183]. The device is simple, a veiled matron seated, holding in her
hands attributes the nature of which is not easily determined, but which
may be
[Illustration:
PLATE XVI
_Page 156_
]
[Illustration: FIG. 62. PORTRAIT OF MYNNO.]
a cake and a bird, and in any case must be regarded as gifts of the
survivors. The work is archaic, even earlier in character than the
Persian Wars, according to the editors of the _Corpus_. In another early
relief (Fig. 62), which bears the name of Mynno[184], we may see under
the seat of the lady a work basket, such as we have already observed
placed under the so-called Penelope’s seat. With both hands Mynno twists
her thread on a distaff, which is visible immediately under her left
arm. The form of the stele indicates the fifth century; and it is
noteworthy that the art of the time had not yet mastered the problem of
presenting the breast in true profile: while Mynno’s face is turned to
the right, her bosom appears to be turned rather towards the spectator,
and even the further knee is represented with some clumsiness.
Beside these simple and characteristic portraits of seated women we must
place a standing figure. The stele bears the name of Amphotto, and comes
from Thebes (Pl. XVII). There is here, as in many Boeotian monuments, a
pleasing absence of convention. The dress of Amphotto is arranged in an
unusual manner; her hair streams down her back. She seems at first sight
quite an ordinary mortal; yet there are features in the representation
which belong to another sphere. On the girl’s head is a tall circular
crown, of the kind called by archaeologists the _polus_, which is a
distinguishing mark of goddesses in early art. In her hands also are
perhaps a flower (represented in painting and so lost) and a fruit,
which are the characteristic offerings to the dead, and remind us of the
Lycian and Spartan monuments of the cultus of heroes.
The Amphotto stele belongs to the middle of the fifth century. Of the
same age is an interesting slab at the British Museum[185], on which is
depicted a woman seated, also wearing the polus. She holds in one hand a
leaf-shaped fan, of the same kind which the statuettes of Tanagra
commonly hold; and in the other hand a cup from which a serpent feeds.
The serpent here takes us still nearer to the ideas which gave rise to
the Spartan stelae.
A class of reliefs must not be omitted which represents
[Illustration:
PLATE XVII
_Page 158_
]
[Illustration: FIG. 63. GIRL WITH DOLL.]
[Illustration: FIG. 64. PRIESTESS OF ISIS.]
young girls holding dolls. The specimen engraved (Fig. 63) is from the
tomb of one Aristomache[186]. Aristomache is about thirteen or fourteen
years old; the undeveloped breast shows her not to have attained full
womanhood. Her head, gently bent, is turned towards a little figure, no
doubt intended for a terra-cotta statuette, which she holds in her right
hand. This statuette might perhaps represent a deity; but the comparison
of other reliefs[187], where a doll is certainly represented, makes us
disposed to see one here also. Greek girls were allowed dolls until they
married, when they often dedicated them, with balls and other girlish
toys, to some female deity[188]. The presence of the doll, then, shows
that Aristomache has not yet taken a husband and laid aside infants of
terra-cotta for those of flesh.
Finally, we engrave (Fig. 64) a characteristic figure of a priestess of
Isis[189], from a tomb on which she appears, probably in company of her
parents, but they have been broken away. In the stiff and formal dress
of her calling she advances, bearing in her hands the sistrum and vase
of the goddess who, of all the deities, was most closely associated with
the future life. To her patronage and protection her priestess trusts
for a prosperous voyage past the dangers of the last voyage, and a happy
resting-place in Hades. The letters of the name, Alexandra, show that
the monument belongs to the Roman age, though it is by no means wanting
in charm.
This figure is characteristic of the late age of Attic reliefs, but
parallels to it at an earlier period are not wanting. For example, an
Athenian tomb of the fourth century[190] shows us a lady seated, to whom
a young girl brings a tympanum or drum, the special instrument of the
Phrygian Goddess Cybele. And a metrical inscription, which accompanies
the design, tells us that the deceased lady was a priestess of Cybele.
Cybele, at an earlier time, filled in some respects nearly the same
place in the religion of the Athenians which Isis took in Hellenistic
days. The paths of the dead were under her guardianship, and she might
be trusted to ensure to her votaries a place in the world below.
CHAPTER X
FAMILY GROUPS
We next reach the ordinary family groups, a class of representations
usual in the most beautiful and distinctive of the Athenian stelae. It
is these which have captivated a long series of travellers and artists
from Goethe onwards; and it is these which naturally rise before the
imagination when the cemeteries of Athens are spoken of. Goethe has
observed that the wind which blows from the tombs of the ancients comes
with gentle breath as over a hill of roses. And there is no other series
of monuments which seems to take us so readily into the daily life of
the Greeks and to make us feel that they were men and women of like
nature with ourselves, no longer cold and classic, but full of the warm
blood and the gentle affections of ordinary humanity.
It is the natural pathos and the artistic charm of the family groups
which adorn the majority of the tombs of ancient Athens, which strongly
impress all visitors to that beautiful city, even visitors to whom most
of the works of Greek sculpture do not convey any strong emotion. There
is scarcely any one, however hardened by Puritanic training or the
ubiquitous ugliness of modern surroundings against what is simple and
true and lovely in art, who does not feel, through the hard shell of
Philistinism, some touchings of sympathy and delight, if he spends a
morning in the Cerameicus, or an afternoon in the sepulchral rooms of
the National Museum. The influence of ancient Athens has made the
cemetery of modern Athens, in spite of many incongruities, one of the
most beautiful in the world. If, with the remembrance of Athens still
fresh, we visit the great cemeteries of London, it is impossible to
express the feeling of ugliness and bad taste, of jejuneness in design
and poverty of execution with which they oppress the spirits. Religious
hope and consolation are among us, a chill resignation was the natural
attitude of the Greeks in the presence of death; and yet we
counterbalance the superiority of our religion by the inferiority of our
taste and perceptions.
It is very notable how complete in all these representations is the
predominance of women, and how domestic is their tone. This fact can
only be explained when we consider that these monuments belong, in the
great majority of cases, to the time after the political greatness of
Athens had been shattered at the battle of Aegospotami. In ancient
Greece generally, and more especially at Athens, men gave to their wives
and families only such time and care as they could spare from more
engrossing occupations. By nature the Athenians were intensely
political. And while Athens was a ruling power, and every citizen had a
part in the game of politics played on a great scale, it was to public
life that their thoughts and energies were directed, and the life of the
home remained very much in the background. Every scholar is familiar
with the contemptuous language applied by Aristophanes and Euripides to
women; and Xenophon in his _Oeconomics_ regards that girl as best bred
who had seen and heard the least, and had but the virtue of modesty.
Secluded homes like these were not likely to claim very much of the life
of the man whose whole soul was bent on the extension of the Athenian
Empire. The fact is that all noble deeds in the world are bought at a
price, and part of the price paid for the unrivalled burst of public
splendour at Athens in the fifth century was the seclusion of women and
the institution of slavery.
But even in the _Oeconomics_ of Xenophon we have the picture of a worthy
citizen who gives much time and care to his home and his wife. And as
public life decayed in the fourth century, and as manners became less
severe, women became a more important element in the life of the
community. The wife was no longer looked on as merely necessary for the
production of citizens, while the courtesan accumulated vast wealth, and
sometimes built temples or gave away cities. It is in the fourth century
that a growing sympathy for child-life makes the children in Attic
sculpture cease to be little men and women, and become real children.
And it is the art of the fourth century which gives for the first time a
noble and ideal expression of the life of the family, and the mutual
love of its members.
The best plan will be, first to set before the reader several
characteristic specimens of family groups, and afterwards to discuss the
questions, many and not easily answered, which they suggest.
On Pl. XVIII will be found a somewhat exceptional subject, father and
children only. Seated on a chair of the convenient domestic shape,
Euempolus, as he is styled in the inscription, holds in one hand a bird,
and extends a finger of the other hand to the children in front of him,
of whom the nearer, clad in an over-garment only, seems to be a boy; the
further, who wears also a tunic, is apparently a girl. Both have their
long hair done up in a roll, and both have the stiff air which is usual
in case of children of the fifth century. Another work of the same early
period is the stele of Xanthippus in the British Museum (Fig. 65)[191].
The object in the hand of Xanthippus has been a puzzle to
archaeologists. The prevailing view takes it for a shoe-maker’s last,
and supposes that Xanthippus, far from being ashamed of his trade,
glories in it even on his
[Illustration:
PLATE XVIII
_Page 164_
]
[Illustration: FIG. 65. XANTHIPPUS AND CHILDREN.]
tomb. But an objection to this view is that trades were certainly not
held in high honour among freemen anywhere in Greece. The name
Xanthippus too, which belonged to the family of Pericles, was one of the
noblest at Athens, and it seems impossible that it can have been borne
by a mere cobbler. It seems more likely therefore that what Xanthippus
really holds is a votive offering; perhaps some memorial of a cure
wrought on one of his feet by Asklepius. The other hand of the hero
rests on the neck of his little daughter, while an older girl or
perhaps his wife holds a bird. The work is almost contemporary with the
Parthenon frieze; the monument most dignified and charming.
The earliest and one of the most interesting of the groups which
represent a mother and her children is the so-called Leucothea relief in
the Villa Albani (Pl. XIX). A mother, clad in a sleeved Ionic tunic and
an over-dress, is seated dandling on her knee her youngest infant, a
little girl who stretches out to her a loving hand. Under the seat is
the matronly work-basket. In front two elder girls approach their
mother, and behind them a maid-servant, also clad in the Ionian dress,
brings a wreath.
Before the consideration of this delightful group begins, we must
observe that the clumsy right hand of the infant and the head of the
nurse are modern restorations. The rest of the design, though of archaic
stiffness, and dating from a time not later than the Persian wars, shows
the greatest promise. The arm of the mother as seen through the sleeve,
and the forms of the infant’s body, are rendered with care and delicacy.
It is only necessary to compare the details with those of the figures on
the Harpy Tomb of Xanthus (Fig. 27) in order to recognize how vastly
superior the artists of Greece proper at the time were to those of
Lycia, especially in the sense of the proportions of the body, and the
art of so arranging drapery as to display rather than to conceal them.
In most respects we clearly have here an ordinary scene from the life of
the women’s apartments. The mother has risen and breakfasted, and the
nurse brings her the children. And yet there are in the scene certain
details which probably have a special meaning. The position and attitude
of the two elder children remind us oddly of the little worshippers who
appear in the corner of the Spartan relief. And the wreath, though no
doubt flowers and ribbons were continually used by both men and women in
Greece for the adornment
[Illustration:
PLATE XIX
_Page 166_
]
of their persons, is yet one of the most usual and characteristic
decorations of the tomb. It appears that here, as in almost all the
designs with which we are to deal, there is some allusion to death, as
well as to mere domestic happiness. This, however, is denied by some
very competent archaeologists; and we must postpone further discussion
of the subject until we have passed under review a certain number of
characteristic examples of the class.
A very simple and noble specimen of fifth-century work represents a
mother and son, Chaerestrata and Lysander[192] (Pl. XX). The mother is
handing to the son by the wings a little bird. The son, a dignified
youth, wrapped in his himation ‘like an image of modesty’ as
Aristophanes puts it, stretches out one hand to receive the gift. On the
Lycian Harpy Tomb, a youth presents in similar fashion to a seated male
figure a dove held by the wings; and this bird, as the smallest and
least expensive of animal offerings, was a very usual gift to the dead.
Lysanias is almost beyond doubt the person in whose honour the tomb was
set up, and his mother’s gift can scarcely have failed to convey to the
mind of a Greek spectator some sepulchral significance.
A group of a very different kind appears in our next example[193] (Pl.
XXI). A young man named Dion is giving his hand to a very beautiful
seated woman, Mica, whose drapery is quite a model of arrangement. Her
attention is divided between her companion and the mirror which she
holds up in her left hand. The pair are probably husband and wife, and
one may conjecture, though it is by no means certain, that it is the
wife who died, and to whom her young husband has set up this beautiful
monument[194]. A similar relief, though of a later period, found at
Naples[195], bears a simple and graceful epitaph:--
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
[Illustration:
PLATE XX
_Page 168_
]
[Illustration:
PLATE XXI
_Page 168_
]
[Illustration:
PLATE XXII
_Page 168_
]
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 women’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 mistress’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
[Illustration: 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 ‘nothing in
extremes,’ 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 the _Anthology_[201] describes
[Illustration:
PLATE XXIII
_Page 170_
]
[Illustration:
PLATE XXIV
_Page 170_
]
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, Χοιρίνη τίτθη. 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-born ladies 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
[Illustration:
PLATE XXV
_Page 172_
]
hands. This necklace must have been represented either by help of colour
or metal. The slave-girl’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 the _Corpus_[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
[Illustration: FIG. 67. STELE OF PHAENARETE.]
[Illustration:
PLATE XXVI
_Page 174_
]
[Illustration:
PLATE XXVII
_Page 174_
]
the relief is given by Furtwängler[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 about B.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 father’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 girl’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
[Illustration:
PLATE XXVIII
_Page 176_
]
[Illustration: 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 women’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.
[Illustration: 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 (τράπεζα), 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
[Illustration: 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 can trace 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.
[Illustration: 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 400 B.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 ‘elegant extract,’ 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.
CHAPTER XI
MEANING AND STYLE OF THE RELIEFS
For the 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
[Illustration:
PLATE XXIX
_Page 182_
]
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 of Fig.
30 holds 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 cock His 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 and Fig. 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 his wife 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 stele Fig. 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 our Fig. 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 δεξίωσις. 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
[Illustration:
PLATE XXX
_Page 186_
]
greeting, with a δεξίωσις 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 man’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 minds turned 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 fashion in 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.
[Illustration: FIG. 73. DIONYSUS AS GUEST.]
The reliefs of the sixth century, and down to about B.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 of Pl.
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
greatest delicacy 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 artist’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: ‘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.’ The contemporary
painter Nicias also undertook tombs. Pausanias[236] tells us that
outside the gates of Triteia in Achaia was ‘a tomb of 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 394 B.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 to pupils
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 in Fig. 64.
CHAPTER XII
INSCRIPTIONS
After thus 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 artists’ names,
in one case Ἔργον Ἀριστοκλέοσ[238], in the other Ἀλχσήνορ ἐποίησεν ὁ
Νάχσιος: to the latter signature is added a delightfully naïve comment,
ἀλλʹ ἐσίδεσθε, Just look! implying that in the artist’s own opinion his
work is well worth looking at. The inscription on the tomb of Dermys
and Citylus (Fig. 55) records the name of the dedicator, Ἀμφάλκης ἔστασ’
ἐπὶ Κιτύλοι ἠὃ ἐπὶ Δέρμυι.
After the archaic age, the inscriptions are simpler, as Ἀμφοττό (Pl.
XVII), Εὐέμπολος (Pl. XVIII), Δημοκλείδης Δημητρίο (Fig. 59), Τυννίας
Τύννωνος Tρικορύσιος (Pl. X), Κρατιστὼ Ὀλυνθία Ἄγρωνος θνγάτηρ Γλαυκίου
δὲ γυνή, 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. Furtwängler 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 the _Corpus of Attic
Reliefs_. And further confirmation is afforded by the epigrams of the
_Anthology_. 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 his _cortége_. Another
reads[240], ‘This is Timocleia, this Philo, this Aristo, and this
Timaetho; all daughters of Aristodicus.’ In fact, to this general rule
of the explicatory character of the inscriptions only a few doubtful
exceptions make their appearance. One of these exceptions appears on
our Pl. XXVII. The group consists of two ladies, whereas the names above
are Μικίων Αἰαντοδώρου Ἀναγυράσιος, Ἀμεινίχη Μικίωνος Θριασίου,
Δημοστράτη Αἴσχρωνος Ἁλαὲως--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. Weisshäupl, in an excellent paper on Greek
epitaphs[241], which has been of great service to me in this chapter,
that the term χαῖρε, 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. Brückner has tried to
prove that the πέντε ἱππεῖς 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:--
Go, stranger, and at Lacedaemon tell
That 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 rise
For 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 show
Of 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 century B.C.:--
For thee a bitter fate thy friends behold
Of Amphilochian land the warriors bold,
When by Illyrian horse in battle slain
Within 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 otherwise
especially 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 century B.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 renown
Thy 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 (εὐφροσύνην 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 are
struck. 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 century B.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 century B.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, as is
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 beyond the 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
century A.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 (κέαρ) 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 the _Palatine
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 the limits 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 below
With 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 friendly
wishes. 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
the _Palatine 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 the _Anthology_ to
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 the _Anthology_. Yet, in view of the
purpose and character of this book, we can make but 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, the _Anthology_ is 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 the
_Anthology_, 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.’
The following bears the name of Sappho[281]:--
The dust of Timas: ere her bridal she
Saw 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 lie
In 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 led
To 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 steep
Your herds of goats and flocks of fleecy sheep,
A little gift Clitagoras to-day
For sake of Queen Persephone doth pray;
I would that sheep should bleat, and from a rock
A shepherd pipe soft music to his flock;
And let one hind cull fresh young meadow-bloom
In early spring, and crown therewith my tomb;
Another take and milk a mother ewe
And 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 she
In 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 poetic art 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 pour
This memory of loving days of yore.
O bitter, bitter, darling, is my woe
A 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 she
May softly in thy arms enfolded be.
The next epitaph, by Philip of Thessalonica, is quite Hellenistic in
character[287]:--
Architeles the Sculptor, where was laid
His 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 know
A 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 sea
In 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 hair
I sit, sad Worth, in semblance of despair,
Grief-struck at heart that with the Achaean host
Deceitful Fraud more weight than I can boast.
CHAPTER XIII
LATER MONUMENTS OF ASIA MINOR
The sepulchral 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.