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

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

In the Spartan relief (Pl. II) the heroic pair hold in their hands the winecup and the pomegranate, drink and food of spirits. The hero 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

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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.

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.