Part 58 (2/2)
_Decorative Stelae._--The stelae crowned with the palmette and acanthus acroteria are described below, Nos. 599-618. They are princ.i.p.ally derived from Athens, but several specimens (Nos. 611-618) roughly worked in coa.r.s.e limestone are a part of the collection of sculptures from Kertch. One of the best examples of Attic work of this cla.s.s in the British Museum, will be found in the Department of Egyptian and a.s.syrian antiquities, namely the stele of Artemidoros with a bilingual Greek and Phoenician inscription. (Dodwell, _Tour_ i., p. 411; _Greek Inscriptions in Brit. Mus._, cix.)
_Scenes from Daily Life and figures of Animals._--The monuments with portraits and scenes from daily life are catalogued below, Nos.
619-679. The incidents chosen are taken from all parts of life, and in late times are apt to be of a _genre_ character with scenes from children's games, &c.
Reliefs with figures of hors.e.m.e.n, where the scene appears only to be an incident from daily life, and not connected with the heroification of the deceased, have also been placed here (Nos. 638, 661-666).
Examples of the figure of an animal placed on the tomb, of a symbolic or decorative character, are best seen among the archaic sculptures (compare those from Xanthos), but the bull, No. 680, is a specimen of a figure from an Attic stele.
The types which have been described so far, are simple records of the deceased person. We turn now to various cla.s.ses, which are not represented among the Attic remains of the archaic period, and which are more or less of religious or ritualist significance.
_Vases._--The Sepulchral Vases, which are represented either in relief or in the round, are a common form of monument at Athens, and are connected with the observances paid to the dead. These vases which are sometimes lekythi, and sometimes amphorae or hydriae, may be decorated with patterns, or with subjects in relief, such as appear on other sepulchral stelae. They probably are to be traced from the vessels of pottery in which offerings were brought, to be poured out as libations on the tomb. Compare below the account of the ”Sepulchral Banquet.”
There is ancient authority for the view that the vase indicates an unmarried person. Eustath. on _Il._ XXIII., 141, p. 1293: [Greek: kai tois pro gamou de teleutosin he loutrophoros, phasin, epet.i.theto kalpis eis endeixin tou hoti aloutos ta nymphika kai agonos apeisi].
Demosthenes (_in Leochar._ pp. 1086 and 1089, ed. Reiske) speaks also of [Greek: he loutrophoros] (sc. [Greek: hydria] or [Greek: kalpis]), being placed on the tomb of an unmarried person. (k.u.manudis, p. 18; _Greek Inscriptions in Brit. Mus._, No. lx.x.x.)
On the other hand, the tombs of a father, Philoxenos, and of his sons Parthenios and Dion, in the Cerameicos at Athens were all surmounted by stone vases (_C. I. A._, ii., 3191-3193; Conze, p. 16). Perhaps a distinction must be made between the lekythi which represent libations at the tomb, and the hydriae, which have the special meaning mentioned above. An early instance of the Attic sepulchral vase, with painting and relief, is placed by Kohler on epigraphic grounds between 450 and 430 B.C. (_Athenische Mittheilungen_, x., pl. 13, p. 362.)
_Figures clasping Hands._--In Attic reliefs, chiefly of the fourth and subsequent centuries, the two princ.i.p.al persons are often represented clasping right hands together, and such scenes are commonly known as Scenes of Parting. A more correct interpretation may be gathered from a fragment of an archaic sepulchral relief from Aegina (_Athenische Mittheilungen_, viii., pl. 17), in which a female figure, enthroned and holding a pomegranate (compare the Spartan reliefs mentioned below), clasps the hand of a standing figure, which is shown by the scale to be that of another deceased person. In this case the scene is laid in Hades, and the clasping of the hands is significant of affection, not of separation. Hence it has been thought that all subjects with the clasped hands represent the meeting and union in Hades after death (Furtwaengler, _Coll. Sabouroff_, i., p. 46). There is, however, no proof that the artist was always consciously placing the scene in Hades, and in No. 710 Hermes seems about to conduct the deceased person to the nether world. The presence of figures in att.i.tudes of grief, of children and servants, seems to show that these reliefs are symbolic of family affection, though the artist had no very clear and logical conception of the moment depicted.
An early example of the clasping of hands on an Attic monument is supplied by the sepulchral vase above mentioned, of 450-430 B.C.
(_Athenische Mittheilungen_, x., pl. 13.)
Such subjects as the foregoing are often placed within an architectural structure, usually consisting of two pilasters and an entablature, sometimes surmounted by a pediment. Various theories have been proposed on the subject. It has been suggested that the architectural ornament indicates the votive character of the relief (_Journ. of h.e.l.len. Studies_, v., p. 111), or the home of the dead person (Pervanoglu, _Grabsteine der alten Griechen_, p. 14), but there is no evidence of any such special significance attaching to the form.
(Compare Furtwaengler, _Coll. Sabouroff_, i., p. 52.)
_The Sepulchral Banquet._--From the fourth century onwards, a type of relief commonly known as the Sepulchral Banquet becomes very common in Attica and elsewhere. In a normal example of the fully developed type, the chief figure is that of a man rec.u.mbent on a couch, holding a cup.
Before him is a table with food. A woman, according to Greek custom, is seated upright at the foot of the couch. Boys or attendants are seen drawing wine. The head of a horse is often seen at the back of the relief. A snake is frequently introduced, and often drinks wine from a cup held by one of the figures. Further, a group of adorant figures, usually on a small scale, may be represented about to sacrifice at an altar, near the foot of the couch.
The meaning of this type has been a subject of long controversy, but it is best understood if the later reliefs are studied in connection with the oldest known specimens of the same subject. A series of archaic reliefs from the neighbourhood of Sparta (_Athenische Mittheilungen_, ii., pls. 20-25; Furtwaengler, _Coll. Sabouroff_, pl. 1; _Journ. of h.e.l.len. Studies_, v., p. 123), contains subjects somewhat of the following character: A male and female figure, represented on a heroic or divine scale, are seated enthroned, holding as attributes a large two-handled cup, or a pomegranate. Figures of wors.h.i.+ppers approach, carrying a pomegranate or a c.o.c.k, and a snake is sometimes present. The sculptures of the Harpy Tomb (No. 94), have been sometimes cla.s.sed with the works here described, but this has not yet been established.
The transition from the Spartan type to the Sepulchral Banquet type is still obscure, but a connecting link is furnished by a relief from Tegea (_Athenische Mittheilungen_, iv., pl. 7), in which the woman is enthroned, while the man reclines on a couch with a table before him.
(Compare also the relief from Mytilene No. 727.) It seems probable that we have in these reliefs symbolic representations of offerings made by living relations or descendants for the pleasure and sustenance of the dead. Such offerings of food and drink made by the living at the tomb are common to all primitive peoples. The Egyptians, in particular, made regular offerings of actual food, and at the same time surrounded the mummy with sculptural representations of offerings, which, it was thought, served to satisfy the incorporeal _double_ of the dead person. The early notion that the deceased was within the tomb, and enjoyed the food and drink offered to him in a material manner, became less distinct in later times. The periodical offerings a.s.sumed a more ritualistic and symbolic character, and were celebrated by the Greeks under the name of [Greek: nekysia].
The older archaeologists thought for the most part that the Banquet reliefs were representations commemorative of life on earth, or descriptive of the pleasures enjoyed by the dead in Hades. Dumont (_Rev. Arch._, N.S. xx. p. 247) and Hollaender (_De Operibus Anaglyphis_), interpret them as referring to the periodical offerings made at the tomb. It will be seen that this view is not very different from that which has been adopted above, and which is the view of Gardner (_Journ. of h.e.l.lenic Studies_, v., p. 130), and Furtwaengler (_Coll. Sabouroff_, i., p. 28). The reliefs, however, have more force than mere pictorial groups, if we accept the Egyptian a.n.a.logy, and allow that the sculpture represents, by subst.i.tution, the offerings of material food. The snake is naturally a.s.sociated with the grave, from its rapid mysterious movements, and from living in caves and holes.
Compare the story of the snakes that were seen by Polyeidos in the tomb of Glaukos. (Apollodor. 3, 3, 1; Roscher, _Lexicon_, p. 1687).
The votive character of the Banquet reliefs is proved in some instances by inscriptions, (_Journ. of h.e.l.len. Studies_, v., p. 116; Roscher, _Lexicon_, p. 2553). It is doubtful, however, whether the artist was always conscious of the meaning of his work, and in some instances, as in the tomb at Cadyanda in Lycia (No. 766), the banquet appears to be merely a scene from daily life, and as such it closely resembles some of the vase paintings. In No. 737 and other late examples, the relief, though of the type of the banquet, is commemorative rather than votive.
In Athens the type of the Sepulchral Banquet was also applied to another purpose, namely, for votive reliefs to Asclepios. The two cla.s.ses of monuments are completely a.s.similated in those examples in which wors.h.i.+ppers come to sacrifice at the end of the couch. Numerous specimens of reliefs have been found in the temenos of Asclepios at Athens, and it is possible that the sculptures from the Elgin Collection, Nos. 714, 715, belong to this series. In the newly-discovered papyrus fragments of Herodas, the sons of Praxiteles are mentioned as authors of a relief dedicated to Asclepios. A figure of Asclepios, composed like the princ.i.p.al figure of the sepulchral reliefs, has also been found on a vase from the Temple of the Cabeiri at Thebes ([Greek: Ephemeris], 1890, pl. 7). For other examples of the same type on vases of different meanings, see _Athenische Mittheilungen_, xiii., pl. 9; _Arch. Anzeiger_, 1890, p. 89. For the most recent discussion of the whole question, see Roscher, _Lexicon_, p. 2565.
_Hero and Horse._--There is another type of sepulchral relief, somewhat akin to that above described, in which, however, the horse of the hero takes a more prominent position. The hero is seen either riding on his horse or standing near it, and receiving a libation poured out by a female figure, sometimes a Victory. Here also the snake is frequently introduced to mark the sepulchral character of the relief. In the earliest examples the connection between this type and the foregoing is made clearer by the presence of diminutive figures of supplicants bringing offerings, or making gestures of adoration.
Compare a Theban relief (_Athenische Mittheilungen_, iv., pl. 16), and a relief in the Sabouroff Collection, inscribed [Greek: Kalliteles Aleximacho anetheken] (_Coll. Sabouroff_, i., pl. 29), and a relief from c.u.mae (Roscher, _Lexicon_, p. 2555). For a list of reliefs with figures of hors.e.m.e.n, see Furtwaengler, _Coll. Sabouroff_, i., p. 40; Roscher, _Lexicon_, p. 2556. It has been thought that the horse is shown in these subjects on account of its a.s.sociation with Hades, but in some instances, if not in all, it relates to the pursuits and status of the deceased, and is introduced for the use of its master, and not for any Chthonian significance.
_Reliefs from Lycia._--See below, p. 350.
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