Chapter VII: Heroizing Reliefs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another relief of about the same period, from Tanagra, (Fig. 36), shows us a varied group[95]. Beside his horse the hero stands, clad in chiton and mantle, holding out a flat cup or patera, which a lady standing in front of him fills from a wine-jug. A square altar stands between the two, towards which, in attitude of adoration, approaches a man, represented on a smaller scale, with his wife and two children. The inscription above is Καλλιτέλης Ἀλεξιμάχῳ ἀνέθηκεν. Dedicated by Calliteles to Aleximachus. Whether Aleximachus was a recognized local hero, or only an ordinary dead man raised by Calliteles to heroic rank, cannot be decided with certainty.

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

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

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

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

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

Thirdly, what is the relation between these heroic reliefs and the numerous reliefs and paintings on Attic stelae in which the deceased is represented as riding on a horse? Several of these we cite below in