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.