Chapter IX: Some points of difference between the two classes of

monuments are obvious. The heroic reliefs are broad, shaped like votive tablets: the Attic reliefs are tombstones of upright shape. In the votive reliefs the wine-pouring consort is seldom absent, and votaries are usually present. In the Attic reliefs the horse is merely one of the adjuncts of daily life, and the rider is represented in the guise of his ordinary existence. In fact, as we shall see when we reach the ordinary Attic reliefs, the figure of the horseman, when it occurs on them, is merely a characteristic portrait of a man who in his life had been fond of horses, and perhaps won victories with them at the great sacred festivals.

Nevertheless, it would be very rash to say that the heroic and the ordinary horseman reliefs had no influence on one another. For example, a relief at Tanagra[100] seems to fall exactly between the two classes. On it a horseman in armour rides, followed by an attendant who holds the tail of the horse, as was the way of Greek body-servants. A female figure meets the pair with wine-jug and cup. Here, if the relief belongs to the one class, the servant is out of place; if to the other class, the pourer of wine. Probably, being oblong in form, it is really of the heroic class, but contaminated by the influence of the other. On an ordinary sepulchral slab in the British Museum[101], the horseman and servant recur, but the lady is absent.

In recent years an immense quantity of votive terra-cottas has been discovered on the site of the Dorian colony of Tarentum. These illustrate in a striking fashion the monuments of the Spartan mother-city. They consist mainly of two groups.

In the first group we see a man, bearded or beardless, wearing a tall crown, reclining on a couch, often holding a wine-cup. Beside him is seated a woman, sometimes bearing in her arms a child, who stretches out his arms towards the man. We engrave (Fig. 37) a specimen of the class[102], in which, however, the child does not appear, but instead, in the background, a horse, who seems to be drinking from the flat cup. And this horse connects the first group with the second, which consists of figures of riding horsemen.

Mr. Arthur Evans, who has had the advantage of studying these terracottas at Tarentum[103], is disposed to maintain that the group represents, not deceased persons, but rather the deities of the lower world, Dionysus, Cora, and Iacchus. ‘The terracotta representations here found must be rather regarded as primarily connected with the cult of chthonic deities and national heroes, than with that of departed human spirits,’ though ‘the starting-point may be regarded as purely sepulchral.’ Dr. Wolters, on the other hand[104], connects the representations far more closely with the worship of the dead. But after all, the opposition between these two opinions is not fundamental. Probably at Tarentum, as at Sparta, the dead ancestor and ancestress were regarded as scarcely distinguishable from the king and queen of the world of shades, into whose being they passed at death. Thus the last note struck in the monuments of Dorian hero-worship is in complete harmony with the first.

There are also reliefs in which the heroic character of the deceased is indicated, not by the horse, but by the presence of armour and arms. In some states wealthy and well-born citizens were content to fight on foot, and the position which had seemed to them dignified during life was preserved by them in the unseen world. A good example from Attica (Fig. 38) is given in the text[105]. The hero stands on the right, helmeted; his shield rests against the wall. A dignified lady of the same stature as the hero pours him wine; between the two is an altar: on the left is a votary of small size. These groups may serve to remind us how often in Greece, in the hour of stress and danger, ancestral and local heroes appeared amid the ranks of the fighting men, and turned the tide of battle in favour of their descendants or townsfolk.

Finally, the hero may even appear in the reliefs unarmed, as an ordinary citizen. On a relief from Patras[106] (Fig. 39) he is seated on a throne almost with the dignity of Zeus, a sceptre in his raised hand, a shield hung on the wall above him. His consort stands behind the seat, while from the left there advances a train, men, women, and children, making the well-known gesture with the raised hand which implies adoration, and bringing a ram for sacrifice. A horse’s head appears above through a square opening, the part standing, as so often in these monuments, for the whole. This relief bears a very close likeness to those found in the sanctuary of Asklepius on the side of the Acropolis hill at Athens; indeed, if the hero had held a staff entwined by a serpent we should not have hesitated to identify him as Asklepius. But in the absence of that attribute we are probably justified in considering him to be some local hero of Patras, either mythical or historical.