An historical study of Athenian verse epitaphs from the sixth through the fourth centuries BC. (PhD Toronto Univ.)

An Historical Study of Athenian Verse Epitaphs from the Sixth through the Fourth Centuries BC

by

Julia Lougovaya

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. Graduate Department of Classics University of Toronto

©by Julia Lougovaya (2004)

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An Historical Study of Athenian Verse Epitaphs from the Sixth through the Fourth Centuries BC Ph.D. 2004 Julia Lougovaya Department of Classical Studies University of Toronto

ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the social and historical significance of Attic verse epitaphs from their appearance in the second quarter of the sixth century to the late fourth century. By examining verse epitaphs in context (both archeological and literary), the thesis assesses the way in which various strata of society commemorated the dead; it thereby permits acquaintance with a wider range of people than found in literary sources. The material under investigation consists primarily of verse epitaphs edited by P.A. Hansen in Carmina Epigraphica Graeca, with the addition of a few recent discoveries. Since this dissertation

considers the archeological context of inscriptions, including the appearance of the inscription, type and location of the monument, etc., it also makes extensive use of archeological data. Chapter One is a study of archaic Attic verse epitaphs. During this period, the practice was confined to the elite, whether Athenians or foreign residents in Athens, and inscribing verse on a funerary monument was one of the features of elite display at a burial site. The tradition ceased around 500 BC when this type of display, which was associated with elite families during the reign of the Athenian tyrants, was either forbidden or deemed inappropriate following the liberation from tyranny and the reforms of Kleisthenes. Chapter Two investigates fifth century Athenian public verse inscriptions. It argues that during a period of at least fifty years (from the reforms of Kleisthenes to at least the mid 460s or even later) the Athenians did not inscribe public funerary monuments with verse epitaphs. Instead, there developed a special genre of inscriptional verse which I call public commemorative or celebratory epigrams. At some point in the mid fifth century the practice

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ABSTRACT

of inscribing verse epitaphs resumed in Athens, in commemoration of those who were granted the honor of public burial by the Athenians. Chapter Three opens with discussion of the reappearance of private grave monuments inscribed with verse epitaphs, and then analyzes verse epitaphs of the later classical period, often in comparison with and contrast to the archaic tradition.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The completion of this thesis was made both possible and enjoyable by the help of many people. My dissertation committee comprised outstanding scholars of various fields who were always ready to share their expertise, Emmet Robbins and Jonathan Burgess in early Greek poetry, and John Traill in the thorny field of Greek epigraphy. Joseph Day's critical comments were very helpful at the final stage of the project. Above all, my supervisor, Malcolm Wallace, contributed to all aspects of my thesis, and has been a most helpful teacher and colleague. My ideas have not always been shared by members of my committee, and I take full responsibility for the views expressed in this study, as well as for any mistakes. I owe many thanks to the Department of Classics at the University of Toronto for providing scholarly and material support during my time as a graduate student, and to Ann-Marie Matti and Coral Gavrilovic for their kind assistance in all practical matters associated with my work at the Department, which was often conducted long-distance. My indefinite gratitude goes to my family for their unflagging support, especially to my father, Michael Bronstein, who helped me in all computer matters, my husband, Rodney Ast, who discussed and read my study, offered numerous insightful comments, and helped in every possible way, to our younger daughters, Alitsia and Aglaia, the source of constant joy, and to our older daughter, Marfa, without whose resourcefulness I would never have been able even to start this work.

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1. Archaic Attic Epitaphs, p. 223. Figure 1. Outline of the stele ofMnasitheios from Akraiphia, p. 57. (After Andreiomenou 2000, p. 85, fig. 1. Drawing by R. Posamentir. Courtesy ofR. Posamentir.) Figure 2. Upper part of the stele of Mnasitheios with reconstructed finial, p. 59. (After Andreiomenou 2000, p. 89, fig. 4. Drawing by R. Posamentir. Courtesy ofR. Posamentir.) Figure 3. Drawing of the gravestone and epitaph for Philon, CEG 76, p. 80. (After Kourouniotes 1897, col. 151, fig. 5.) Figure 4. Drawing of the gravestone and epitaph for Pleistias, CEG 77, p. 81. (After Kourouniotes 1897, col. 152, fig. 6.) Figure 5. Periboloi in Section A of the Kerameikos, p. 159. (After Garland 1982, p. 137, fig. 2. Reproduced with permission of the British School at Athens.) Figure 6. Peribolos of Koroibos of Melite (A 20), p. 160. (After Brueckner 1909, p. 105, fig. 66.) Figure 7. Peribolos ofDionysios ofKollytos (A3), CEG 593, p. 161. (After Brueckner 1909, p. 66, fig. 37.)

V

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ABBREVIATIONS

CAT = Chr. Clairmont, Classical Attic Tombstones, Kilchberg 1993--. CEG = Carmina epigraphica Graeca Carmina epigraphica Graeca: saeculorum VIII-V a.Chr.n., P.A. Hansen, ed., Berlin and New York 1983. Carmina epigraphica Graeca: saeculi IV a. Chr. n. (CEG 2), P.A. Hansen, ed., Berlin and New York 1989. DAA = A. E. Raubitschek, Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis; a catalogue of the inscriptions of the sixth and fifth centuries B. C., Archaeological Institute of America 1949. FGE

=

Further Greek Epigrams: Epigrams before A.D. 50 from the Greek Anthology and Other Sources not included in 'Hellenistic Epigrams' or 'The Garland of Philip ', D. L. Page, ed., rev. and prepared for publication by R. D. Dawe and J. Diggle, Cambridge 1981.

IEG2 = M. L. West, Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum Cantati, 2nd ed., Oxford 1998. IGAA = L. H. Jeffery, "The Inscribed Gravestones of Archaic Attica," BSA 57, 1962, pp. 115-153. IGLPalermo = M. T. Manni Piraino, Iscrizioni greche lapidarie del Museo di Palermo, "SIKELIKA. Collana di monografie pubblicate dal Centra Siciliano di Studi Storico-Archeologici 'Biagio Pace', Serie Storica," 6. Palermo 1973. LGPN =Lexicon of Greek Personal Names LGPN I: Aegean Islands, Cyprus, Cyrenaica, P. M. Fraser and E. Matthews, eds., Oxford 1987. LGPN II: Attica, M. J. Osbome and S. B. Byrne, eds., Oxford 1994. LGPN III.A: Peloponnese, Western Greece, Sicily, and Magna Graecia, P. M. Fraser and E. Matthews, eds., Oxford 1997. LGPN III.B: Central Greece: From the Megarid to Thessaly, P. M. Fraser and E. Matthews, eds., Oxford 2000. LSAG = L. H. Jeffery, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, ed. rev. with a supplement by A. W. Johnston, Oxford 1990. ML

R. Meiggs and D. M. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century, Oxford 1969.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ii

ABSTRACT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

IV

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

V

ABBREVIATIONS

VI

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1

INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE. ARCHAIC ATTIC VERSE EPITAPHS

10

1. Early Archaic Burial Practice to ea. 600 BC

10

Prior to ea 600 BC, 10. Changes ea. 600 BC, 12. Solon's Funerary Legislation, 14.

2. Archaic Attic Verse Epitaphs in Context

15

Typology of Monuments Associated with Verse Epitaphs, 15. Display and Layout of Archaic Attic Verse Epitaphs, 17. Verse vs Prose, 18.

3. Commemorated Deceased

18

Death in War, 19. Virtues of the Deceased, 22. Origin of the Deceased, 26. Untimely Death, 29. Other Expressions of Grief, 37.

38

4. ChiefMourner Identity of the ChiefMoumer, 38. Grief of the ChiefMoumer, 44.

5. Address to a Passer-by and Reflections

45

6. Monument

47

Sight of the Monument, 47. Sculptors' Signatures on Monuments with Verse Epitaphs, 48.

60

7. Meter and Literary Context Meters Employed in Archaic Attic Epitaphs, 60. Metrical Anomalies, 62. Excluded Inscriptions, 63. Literary Elegy and Verse Epitaph, 66. The Meaning of Elegos, 67. Inscriptional Evidence for Threnodic Elegy, 69. Literary Elegy and Verse Epitaph, Revisited, 72.

8. Disappearance of Verse Epitaphs in Attica ea. 500 BC

74

Post-Solonian Funerary Legislation, 74. After the Disappearance: Athenians and Athenians(?) Outside Attica, 80.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER TWO. PUBLIC VERSE EPITAPHS AND COMMEMORATIVE EPIGRAMS Introduction

84 84

1. Literary Evidence to 479 BC

85

Chalkis, ea. 507-501 BC, 85. Marathon 490 BC, 87. Artemisium and Salamis, 91. Plataia, 91.

2. Inscriptional Evidence to 480/479 BC

92

IG 13 1142 (1}, 92. The Persian Wars Epigrams, IG 13 503/504 (2 and 3), 93.

3. Public Commemorative Epigrams: Features and Further Examples

104

The Tyrannicides Epigram (430), 105. The Eion Epigrams, 105. The Eurymedon Epigram, 107.

4. Evidence for the Burial of the War Dead in Athens

112

5. Patrios Nomos

113

6. Public Verse Epitaphs

125

Bringing Ta 6cna Home or Burying on the Battlefield: (a) Individual Burials, (b) Collective Burial, 114. Burying the War Dead Publicly (Bru.lOoic;x}, 117. Prothesis and Ekphora, 119. Epitaphios Logos, 120. Patrios Nomos Reconsidered, 121. Evidence from Pausanias and Plato, 122. The Epitaph for Argive Casualties (135), 125. Epitaphs for Distinguished Foreign Individuals (11, 12, 469), 126. The Epitaph for Athenians who Fell at the Hellespont (6), 129. The Koroneia Epitaph (5), 131. Fragmentary Verse Epitaphs of the mid Fifth Century, 134. The Potidaia Epitaph, 134. An Epitaph for Athenian Cavalrymen (4}, 136. A New Epitaph for Athenian Cavalrymen, 138. Public Epitaphs in the Late Fifth Century, 143.

CHAPTER THREE. ATTIC VERSE EPITAPHS OF THE LATER CLASSICAL PERIOD Introduction

144 144

1. Reappearance of Private Athenian Verse Epitaphs

145

Private Verse Epitaphs in the Fifth Century, 145. Date and Causes of the Reappearance ofPrivate Athenian Verse Epitaphs, 149.

2. Later Classical Attic Verse Epitaphs in Context

157

Periboloi, 157. Typology of Classical Grave Stelai, 158. Display and Layout of Verse Epitaphs, 15 8. Verse Epitaphs Associated with Large Periboloi, 159. Members of Propertied Families, 165.

3. Commemorated Deceased

168

Death in War, 168. Virtues of the Deceased, 171. Origin of the Deceased, 174. Activities of the Deceased: (a) Soothsaying and Priesthood, (b) Medicine, (c) Theater and Music, (d) Craftsmanship, (e) Occupations of Foreigners, 175. Untimely Death and Death in Old Age, 198. Grievous Fate, 200. viii

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

4. ChiefMoumer

200

5. Addresses and Reflections

203

6. Monument

205

7. Peculiarities of Poetic Diction and Meter

205

The Bridal Chamber of Persephone, 205. Gods and Personifications, 207. Meter, 208.

CONCLUSION

209

BIBLIOGRAPHY

212

TABLE

223

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INTRODUCTION

1. Verse Epitaphs as a Subject of Social History The purpose of a funerary monument is both to mark a burial site and to perpetuate the memory of the deceased. In Homer, the place of burial is a physical entity, generally marked in some way, and the memory of the deceased lives on not in written memorials but in songs and legends. Earthen mounds over the graves of heroes tell unwritten tales about those buried beneath them, as we fmd in the Iliad where, before engaging in a duel, Hector imagines his opponent's death and the tomb that will be a source of stories for future generations and will perpetuate the memory of a fallen hero of the Trojan War: crfi~a

Te oi xevwmv enlnAaTei 'EAAT)CJTIOVTCt>. Kai lTOTE TIS eilTlJOI Kat 0\I'IYOVUJV av8pt:Jnwv VTJt lTOAVKAi)YSt lTAEUJV eni oivona lTOVTOV" avSp6s ~ev TObE on~a lTciAat KaTaTe8VT)WTOS, OV lTOT' aptCJTEVOVTa KaTEKTaVE <paiSt~OS "EKTWp. (7.86-91) ... and so that they might heap a mound over him by the wide Hellespont. And someone will say, even one of those not yet born, as he sails on a many-benched ship over the wine-colored sea: "This is the tomb of the man who died long ago, whom glorious Hektor once killed as he was doing deeds ofvalor."

Elsewhere in the Iliad grave mounds serve as landmarks, as, for example, in the case of Ilos' tomb, which is conspicuously situated before the walls of Troy (e.g.,

It. 11.166). In

the Odyssey, Elpenor bids Odysseus to bum his corpse, bury the ashes, heap up a mound and place his oar on top of it, so that future people may learn

(eooo~evotot

nv8eo8at) his

story (Od. 11. 74-78). Legends are likely to have been attached to such markers, which served as a sign, the significance of which was transmitted in songs about the heroes. With the appearance of writing in the eighth century or so, Greeks began to inscribe grave markers, uniting the physical object and spoken word. Writing on the grave marker was meant, first of all, to identify the grave; it indicated possession, much as other kinds of early inscriptions designated the property of gods or men. 1 Simply to identify the marker as funerary and to associate it with a particular individual, a word such as

on~a

or CJTTJATJ

and the name of the deceased would have sufficed. But virtually from the beginning of the tradition of sepulchral inscriptions, we find in Greece something more elaborate than simple 1

LSAG, pp. 61-62; Scodell992, p. 58.

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INTRODUCTION

2

labels. Some epitaphs aimed already then at the preservation of the memory of the deceased through narration of circumstances surrounding the death and burial of the commemorated person, through bestowal of praise, references to the burier, and descriptions of the monument. Mere labeling of the grave was generally the purview of short prose records, while the conveyance of a brief account intended to perpetuate the deceased's memory appears to have been possible exclusively in verse. Interestingly, both prose and verse epitaphs existed concurrently, and early verse epitaphs do not show any sign of having derived from prose records. From the moment that they first appeared, verse epitaphs represented an effort on the part of survivors to keep the memory of the deceased alive, and this effort does not seem to have been considered the result of some religious obligation to the dead, nor was it because of some practical concern about marking the grave with a record that would simply identify it. Verse epitaphs were rather a social gesture through which the burier sought to capture the attention of the reader and perpetuate the memory of the deceased. The claim on memory made in a verse epitaph was a status claim and it was exercised only by a fraction of the society. The circle of people constituting this fraction was, however, wider than the elite ofwhom we are generally informed by our other, mainly literary, sources, and analysis of epitaphs allows one to investigate how this wider circle of people wanted to represent the deceased (and living) members of their families. Verse epitaphs can be expected to follow certain patterns, primarily because their subject matter is limited to the purpose of sepulchral inscription (identification of the burial and commemoration of the deceased) and because they are designed to be consumed by a fairly wide circle of literate people (and thus to conform to these people's expectations). At the same time, an epitaph, when considered along with the monument and burial complex, is unique in belonging to a certain burial and is meant to be memorable. The room between normative requirements and originality or individualization in verse epitaphs is very narrow, but the ways in which both the normative requirements and individualization are carried out reflect broad social norms and demonstrate what was deemed by certain circles of people at certain periods of time to be especially praiseworthy or grievous, and thus worthy of being committed to what was perceived as eternal memory. This study of verse epitaphs therefore aims to be a contribution to Greek social history.

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INTRODUCTION

3

2. State of Scholarship and Objectives

The employment of verse in documenting a burial constitutes a status claim, but the content of these claims may vary by time and place and can involve various social strata. I confine my study of Greek sepulchral epigrams to Attic verse epitaphs from the earliest attestation to the reign of Demetrios of Phaleron in 317-307 BC, when the practice of inscribing them significantly decreased, and I intend to investigate how and by whom these status claims were made at different points within this period. In doing this, I hope to identify some of the tastes and norms of people who are often omitted from literary sources. To gain further insight into these tastes and norms, I have chosen also to examine the inscriptions in their archeological context, since verse epitaphs do not exist in isolation, but are incised on grave monuments and constitute part of the larger display at a burial site. The study of funerary inscriptions as part of the monuments on which they appear was pioneered by L. H. Jeffery, whose article "The Inscribed Gravestones of Archaic Attica" (IGAA) remains indispensable for any investigation of archaic Attic funerary inscriptions.2

Christoph Clairmont' s examination of the correlation between verse epitaphs and funerary reliefs represents a rare attempt to consider both the physical appearance of the monument and the text of the epitaph. 3 There are also several general studies, both literary and archeological, that do not deal specifically with verse epitaphs but help situate them in their historical context. The excellent introduction to Greek burial practices by Donna Kurtz and John Boardman surveys different types of burials and the development of funerary monuments from the Bronze Age through the Hellenistic period.4 Robert Garland's The Greek Way ofDeath briefly covers the general topic of what the Greeks did with their deadfrom attitudes about death to ceremonies surrounding interment of the body-and provides valuable references to the most relevant ancient literary sources. 5 Ian Morris' recent work, Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity, looks at the social structure of ancient society through evidence provided by archeology, suggesting how, for example, archeological fmds from a given cemetery can contribute to our knowledge of a particular 2

Although Jeffery was not concerned with verse epitaphs in particular, many of the gravestones that she discusses actually carry verse epitaphs (simply because, as we will see, there are more verse epitaphs extant from archaic Attica than prose). 3 Clairmont 1970. Although Clairmont's approach is potentially useful, the study is handicapped by the isolated treatment of the monuments under investigation from the broader tradition of inscriptional verse epitaphs. 4 Kurtz and Boardman 1971. 5 Garland 1985.

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4

INTRODUCTION

society and its beliefs about death. 6 In addition to these general studies, there has also been more specialized work done on Greek sculptured funerary monuments by archeologists and art historians like Hans Diepolder, Friis Johansen, Gisela Richter, and Christoph Clairmont. 7 The general topic of Greek epigrams has been widely studied, too, with recent interest particularly in the epigrams of the Hellenistic period, 8 Simonides and the Simonidea, 9 the origin of elegy, 10 and even in the interaction between the written word and its reader, or the "anthropology of reading." 11 Of the scholarship that deals more specifically with sepulchral verse inscriptions, Joseph Day's investigation of how people of the archaic period might have perceived a funerary monument inscribed with an epigram is a good example of a study that fruitfully combines both the archeological and literary approaches. 12 Ute Ecker' s work is valuable for its identification of literary parallels to archaic Greek epitaphs/ 3 while Christian Breuer' s book provides interesting discussion of the representation of values in funerary reliefs and epigrams in the fourth through the second centuries BC. 14 In addition to these contributions, there are of course collections of inscribed verses,

which often include valuable notes or commentaries.

Peter A. Hansen's Carmina

Epigraphica Graeca ( CEG) provides the most reliable texts of sepulchral inscriptions, which are accompanied by brief bibliographies and notes, and it therefore serves as a very good basis for the study of Greek epitaphs. 15 Among older collections, the most relevant for my work have proven to be Georg Kaibel's Epigrammata Graeca ex lapidibus collecta and Epigrammata by FriedHi.nder and Hoffleit, in which the editors, through lucid translations and thoughtful commentaries, clearly show how they have understood each text. 16

6 Morris 1992a. Although the book investigates primarily early Greek material and treats at some length funerary monuments of the archaic and classical periods, the chapter on epitaphs (pp. 156-173) deals exclusively with late Latin funerary inscriptions. 7 Diepolder 1931; Johansen 1951; Richter 1960, 1961 and 1968; Clairmont 1970, and CAT, which is a monumental work that deserves the gratitude of scholars, despite its numerous infelicities. 8 Kathryn Gutzwiller's influential book which investigates the Hellenistic epigram in its broader historical context was published in 1998; in 2000 the Department of Greek and Latin at the University of Groningen conducted a workshop on the Hellenistic epigram, the proceedings of which appeared two years later (Harder et al. 2002); for the past few years the University ofLeiden has been supporting and updating a web site with an extensive bibliography on Greek epigrams (http://www.gltc.leidenuniv.nl/). 9 E.g., Molyneux 1992, Ceccarelli 1996, Boedeker and Sider 2001. 10 Bowie 1986 and 1990, Lewis 1987, Cassio 1994. 11 Svenbro 1993, Sourvinou-lnwood 1996. 12 Day 1989. 13 Ecker 1990. 14 Breuer 1995. 15 Although Hansen does not provide archeological information, he usually refers to the relevant publications. 16 It is noteworthy that Merkelbach and Stauber's new collection of inscriptional verses from Asia Minor (1998--) perhaps best resembles the collection ofFriendlander and Hoffleit.

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INTRODUCTION

5

3. Chronological Divisions

My study of Attic verse epitaphs is divided chronologically into three parts which correspond to three chapters. In Chapter One I treat the period from the earliest attested Attic sepulchral inscription in the second quarter of the sixth century to the cessation of the practice of inscribing verse epitaphs in Attica ea. 500. During this period verse epitaphs were associated with monuments of grandeur, and the tradition of inscribing them was practiced by elite Athenian families. In Chapter Two I concentrate on the fifth century, a period which exhibits some interesting developments: no Athenian verse epitaph is attested from ea. 500 to the mid fifth century, but during this time there emerges a special genre of commemorative epigrams, unassociated with either funerary or dedicatory monuments, which celebrates the achievements, primarily military, of the Athenian state; by the middle of the fifth century the tradition of inscribing verse epitaphs is seen to resume, but these inscriptions are initially restricted to public monuments set up by the Athenian state to honor those who fell at war and who were honored with public burials. In Chapter Three I examine later classical developments, concentrating on the period from the end of the Sicilian disaster, when the practice of inscribing private grave markers with epitaphs resumed in Athens, to the legislation of Demetrios of Phaleron between 317 and 307 BC. 4. Categories of Analysis of Private Verse Epitaphs

The material covered in Chapters One and Three permits similar treatment, and I have therefore divided the two chapters into similar categories. This arrangement will, I hope, highlight similarities and differences between the archaic period, when the practice of inscribing verse epitaphs was engaged in by elite families at Athens, and the later classical period, when families of various social strata opted for verse epitaphs. I also hope to illustrate some of the reasons for the appearance and disappearance of the practice in Athens, which when viewed against the background of the rest of Greece is a remarkable phenomenon: during the sixth and fourth centuries the tradition of inscribing verse epitaphs was nowhere as widespread as at Athens, yet no other state seems to have abstained from this practice to the degree that the Athenians did during the major part of the fifth century. The pattern exhibited at Athens can be interpreted only through better understanding of what commemoration with verse signified at various times, how it was carried out and what circles of people would practice it. In order to assist this understanding my analysis of Chapters One and Three has been framed by the following categories:

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INTRODUCTION

6

Appearance and Reappearance of Verse Epitaphs. I investigate the concomitant social and historical factors that preceded and accompanied the appearance (in the sixth century) and reappearance (at the end of the fifth century) of the tradition of inscribing verse epitaphs. Context. I discuss the locations and typology of grave monuments associated with verse epitaphs, the principles of display of an inscription, its legibility and other aspects of architectural epigraphy. The grandeur of monuments in the archaic period points to the class of people that could afford them; in the later classical period, however, the correlation between the grandeur of a monument and the status of the family that commissioned it is more ambiguous, since a simple stele with a verse epitaph could be set up over the grave of a member of a propertied family. Despite this ambiguity, I offer a methodology that to some extent identifies features of the kinds of verse epitaphs that were commissioned by affluent families in the later classical period and, by identifying these features, helps to define what was normative for those with few financial constraints who could presumably afford whatever was considered finest. Commemorated Deceased. Verse epitaphs generally praise and lament the deceased, as well as include some biographical information that was deemed especially memorable, such as the deceased's origin, age, occupation, or cause of death.

While death on the

battlefield is always praised and death at a young age is always lamented, other patterns in the expressions of grief and praise and in the characterization of the deceased change over time and reflect changes in the circles of people who inscribed verse epitaphs, as well as changes in what people perceived to be most memorable and appropriate for a gravestone. Chief Mourner. From a legal point of view, the heir or kyrios ofthe deceased was generally responsible for funerary arrangements, as well as for setting up the funerary monument. From a practical standpoint, however, several members of the family could participate, as well as individuals outside the family, such as friends or compatriots. References to these people in verse epitaphs would enhance the social aspect of commemoration, since the epitaph might mention the grief of people who had neither legal nor practical involvement in actually setting up the monument. I call those who are said to mourn the deceased the chief mourners. In the archaic period, epitaphs usually identify the person who was responsible for the monument, and parents by far outnumber other relations as chief

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INTRODUCTION

7

mourners. In the later classical period, Athenian verse epitaphs often mention various relations of the deceased but avoid singling out the person responsible for the burial, rather speaking of those who have been left behind to grieve the loss of the deceased. Address to the Passer-by and Reflections. Monuments and verse epitaphs were generally designed to be seen and read not only by the family but by any literate passer-by. The epitaphs, especially archaic, would directly address the passer-by and ask him to lament the deceased, sometimes supplying a reason for the request. Reflections and gnomic expressions were perhaps also meant to emphasize the universality of the message on the gravestone. In the later classical period, the address to the passer-by became rare, while the address to the deceased was widespread and seems to have been one way of creating a more private atmosphere in the implicit dialogue between the reader and the deceased. Monument. Verse epitaphs identify the object on which they are incised, and not surprisingly they usually include such pointers as T68e

crfi~-ta,

or

~-tVfi~-ta,

or demonstratives such as

ev86:8e or Tij8e, among others. Archaic epitaphs more often draw attention to the monument (T68e

crfi~-ta,

or

~-tVfi~-ta):

"this is the monument of so-and-so," "so-and-so set up this

monument for so-and-so," etc., while later classical epitaphs mention the burial site in relation to the deceased and employ the demonstratives ev8a8e or Tijbe, "so-and-so lies here," "the earth here covers the body of so-and-so," etc. The monument can sometimes be described as beautiful, especially in archaic verse epitaphs, and archaic grave markers are sometimes signed by sculptors, which is never the case in the later classical period. Meter and Poetic Diction. Here I discuss the literary quality of the epitaphs, which can vary from outstanding to barely an awareness of formal metrical conventions. It becomes clear, for example, that in the archaic period those who chose to have a verse epitaph inscribed could ensure that it complied with the requirements of content, diction, and meter; when there are serious flaws in the "meter" of an archaic epitaph, I believe that the inscription was not intended to be verse. The situation is very different in the later classical period, when we have epitaphs which the composers clearly intended as verse, but failed to execute as such. Departures from the formal requirements of literary poetry reflect, in my view, the incompetence of the composer and not conscious literary experimentation. The fact that

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INTRODUCTION

8

"higher" genres of poetry did influence verse epitaphs will become clear, and, in Chapter One, I attempt to analyze the relation between literary elegy and elegiac epitaphs. 5. Public Epitaphs and Commemorative Epigrams in the Fifth Century

Chapter Two of my thesis investigates Athenian public verse inscriptions. In it, I suggest that the practice of inscribing private verse epitaphs in archaic Athens was so firmly associated with elite families during the time of the Peisistratids that after liberation from tyranny and the reforms of Kleisthenes it was either forbidden or simply considered inappropriate. I hope to demonstrate, moreover, that the practice was not simply transferred from the realm of private to public commemoration, but was entirely avoided for approximately half a century.

During that period there developed a specific genre

of commemorative monuments with epigrams that celebrated the achievements of the Athenian state, or its best representatives, but that were neither dedicatory nor funerary. In addition to this, I investigate in this chapter the tradition of public burial of the war dead and the emergence in the mid fifth century of verse epitaphs honoring those who received public funerals; from here I proceed to discuss in some detail extant public verse epitaphs. 6. Material

The main body of material under study here are the verse epitaphs found in the two volumes of CEG; unless otherwise indicated, I reproduce the texts of CEG (the numbers of which are printed in bold), with the omission of Hansen's metrical signs in the lacunae, which I render simply with dashes.

The dates are also those of CEG unless

specified otherwise. Texts which are not in CEG (mainly prose epitaphs or verse epitaphs that were made public after the publication of the collection) will be referred to by their IG or SEG numbers. In my study of public Athenian epigrams from the fifth century, I

also include a few texts that survive only in the literary tradition, primarily in the Simonidea. These texts are cited as Simonidea (Simon.) in accordance with Denys Page's Further Greek Epigrams (FGE). Translations of verse epitaphs are mine; for other sources,

translations are mine unless specified otherwise. My criteria for considering an inscription to be an Athenian verse epitaph are, for the archaic material, more rigorous than those of CEG. I include only those epitaphs about which we can be fairly certain that they were metrical (whereas Hansen appears to include

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INTRODUCTION

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all texts that might have been metrical). 17 For fourth century epitaphs, I follow Hansen's corpus, without the addition of any new categories. My policy may seem to be somewhat of a double standard and is explained by the difference in nature of archaic verse inscriptions from those of the later classical period. In the former period, verse epitaphs consistently comply with certain formal requirements of content, diction and meter, and those which fail to do so are most likely not to have been intended as metrical. In the latter period, there is a fair number of epitaphs that are clearly intended as verse but have numerous metrical flaws or anomalies (such as the employment of a single pentameter). The intention to produce a verse epitaph is revealed in some cases only by the employment of certain words and expressions that are generally characteristic of verse epitaphs, while the rest of the epitaph may not conform at all to elementary metrical norms. Whereas CEG is the primary source for the inscriptions, information on the physical appearance of a monument and the layout of an inscription is drawn either from IG or from publications of individual texts. Where possible, I also try to refer to reproductions of monuments in the recent Catalogue of Attic Tombstones by Clairmont, as well as to those in other editions. I give measurements for most of the archaic stones, because with them the dimensions are often important for understanding the type and grandeur of the monument. For the later classical material, however, I describe the type of monument where possible, but offer fewer details about physical features. The reason for the different approach to the two periods is that in the later classical period we encounter a higher number, greater variety and more complicated typology of monuments; a survey of the material is therefore more effective than detailed analysis. For the fifth century, I provide some description of and archeological information about better preserved monuments (as in the case of the socalled Metro Stele), but generally avoid going into detail about those monuments that survive fragmentarily (e.g. the Koroneia or Potidaia monuments).

As with archaic

monuments, the study of each monument here is accompanied by references to more detailed archeological reports.

17

I also apply such categories as "unclear," "likely verse," ''prose with poetic color" for archaic Attic verse epitaphs about which little can be said with any certainty. The category of each archaic text is, moreover, identified in the table {Table 1) that is appended to my study.

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CHAPTER ONE. ARCHAIC ATTIC VERSE EPITAPHS

1. Early Archaic Attic Burial Practice to ea. 600 BC

A brief survey of some features of the burial customs in Attica during the early archaic period is needed, in order to provide context for our understanding of the practice of marking grave sites with monuments bearing verse epitaphs. First, I will outline archaic Attic burial customs prior to the appearance of grave markers with verse epitaphs, and then will attempt to point out some significant changes in burial customs that occurred ea. 600 BC and contributed to the emergence of a certain typology of grave markers which came to be associated with verse epitaphs. To pinpoint the peculiarity of the Athenian practice of material display at burial sites after 600 BC, I will need to discuss the evidence both at the local (Athenian) and at the panhellenic level. Prior to ea. 600 BC Early Attic archaic burial sites fall short of the grandeur of burials of the previous epoch, the Geometric period. 1 Although cremation remained the most common type of burial in seventh century Attica, its typology changed from the so-called secondary (in which the corpse was cremated on a pyre outside the burial pit) to the so-called primary cremation (in which the corpse was cremated inside the pit). As a result of this change, "both the ash amphora and the stately vase above the grave pit were eliminated. " 2 The wealthiest burials comprised elaborately constructed pits, in which the cremation was performed, which were subsequently covered by a low and broad tumulus or rectangular mound. At some distance from the grave, under or beside the earthen mound, there could be an offering trench. The offerings were deposited and burnt during the funeral ceremony, and the trenches were closed and never used again. The size of some of the offering trenches, which reached 12 m in length, and the fmds, which included the fmest examples of Protoattic pottery, testify to the grandeur of the funeral ceremonies. 3 Earthen mounds, which covered the most distinctive burials, 1

Knigge 1991, pp. 16-24; Kurtz and Boardman 1971, pp. 49-67. Knigge 1991, p. 26. 3 Whitley 1994, pp. 213-30; Kurtz and Boardman 1971, pp. 68-90. The rich finds from funerary deposits contrast with the poor votive deposits found in seventh century Attica, which, in turn, look especially meager in comparison with seventh century votive deposits in such places as Corinth, Argos or Olympia. Whitley (1994, pp. 217-218, 224 and passim) points out that this fact, coupled with the lack of evidence for major temple or 2

10

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were large constructions, varying in size from 4 to 10 m in diameter, and were often crowned by relatively small ceramic markers, craters or libation vessels; some tumuli were marked by modest stone stelai. In comparison, in some other areas of Greece material display at seventh century burial sites attained greater grandeur and elaboration than in Attica; for example, the grave of Menecrates in Corcyra (143) was marked by a large tumulus which was covered with dressed stone and which was probably surmounted by a figure of a lion. 4 In the practice of marking gravestones with epitaphs, some areas of Greece such as Corinth and her northwestern colonies were more advanced than Attica, too. At some point in the early seventh century the Greeks started to employ not just gravestones, which they must have had earlier (Homeric epic clearly attests the use of grave markers), but also inscribed grave markers. 5 The practice of inscribing grave markers with the name of the deceased dates in Greece to an early period and is illustrated by a primitive type of ofn..ta, a rough stone marker bearing the name of the deceased; these were found, for example, in Thera, and date to the seventh century. 6 Jeffery compares the practice of marking the grave of the dead with the instinct of "marking ... personal property, of men or of deities," 7 which accounts for the majority of the earliest Greek inscriptions, and can be also compared to the identifying inscriptions that accompany depictions on vases. This type of inscription I will call a record or label type, since it identifies the object on which it is written as the grave marker of the person who was buried there. In the majority of cases these inscriptions provide the name of the deceased and sometimes also the name of the one who carried out the burial and set up the monument.

Almost simultaneously with the

appearance of the practice of recording the name on a grave marker, there appeared an interest in doing something more than simply labeling. Along with record type epitaphs, there existed in the seventh century more elaborate verse epitaphs in hexameters such as, for example, the very epic sounding epitaph for Amiades from Corcyra (145, ea. 600?):

sanctuary constructions, indicates that the Athenians of the seventh century may have had little concern for public cult. Public cult practice, however, might have involved use of perishable items, such as cattle; but it is an important consideration that whatever concern the Athenians had for public cult, they did not use their wealth to express it in any lasting material form. 4 For restoration of this impressive monument, see Mataranga 1994. 5 Scodel (1992, pp. 60-61) even argues that the passages in Homer that are reminiscent of epitaphs, such as//. 6.459-60 or 7.89-91, reflect an already existing tradition of sepulchral inscriptions, which might have come to Greece from the Near East. 6 E.g., /G XII 3.771 1-aBi!la, /G XII 3.783 'ETE6KATJIO. 7 LSAG, p. 62.

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001-la T6Be 'ApvtaBa· xaponos T6vB' OAEicrev "Apes (3apvci~-tevov napa vavcrllv en' 'Apa8801o phofatm, TIOAAolv aplOTEV(f)ovTa KaTa OTOVOfEOav CxfVTcXV8 This is the grave of Arniadas. Ares with flashing eyes destroyed him as he fought by the ships at the streams of Aratthos, displaying the valor amid groaning shouts of war.

Seventh century Attic inscriptions of various genres are not particularly impressive m comparison with inscriptions from other parts of Greece. A couple of seventh century Attic epitaphs are in the tradition of the record type, and are cut on unpretentious grave markers. One is a crude marble stele which bears an epitaph on the shaft beside what might be the traces of a rudimentary relief, IG 13 1194: 'EvtaAo 8vyaTpos 2novBiBol Kepa~-tos crTeAe. The inscription gives the name of a deceased female, followed by two male names, one of which is her father's and the other perhaps her husband's.

The second one is a rough

triangular slab of limestone that bears the name of the deceased in the genitive case, IG 13 1247: 'EmxapiBo. Both stelai are small and roughly finished; their lettering is, to borrow the expression from IG 13, haud dissimilis. They are much closer to the tradition of crude record inscriptions on Thera than to the more refined practice of sepulchral inscriptions in Corinth and her northwestern colonies. In respect to funerary inscriptions, therefore, Attica appears to have been a backwater in the seventh century, but this situation changed drastically in the sixth century. As writing became more widespread, a stone epitaph was increasingly used. Approximately in the second quarter of the sixth century, Athenians started to have funerary epigrams incised on grave markers, and after that archaic Attica ended up producing by far the highest number of sepulchral verses in Greece. Changes ea. 600 BC Ca. 600 Attic funerary practice began to change.

Large tumuli became rare; 9

rectangular mounds were substituted with so-called built tombs (or house-tombs), which became smaller towards the middle of the century, especially in Athens. 10 The number of offering trenches declined, first in Athens and then in the Attic countryside, and beginning in 8

For epic phrasing of the type found in this epitaph, see I/. 16. 669: ... lTOTOI-IOlO po1Jot; 24.256:

... [3opVcXI-IEVOV lTEpl OOTV; 7.89-90: avSpos 1-lEV T65e Oi'j!-10 ... ov lTOT' CxplOTEVOVTO; Od. 11. 383: ... OTOV6EOOOV CxOTi)V. 9

There are some exceptions, the most notable of which is the so-called South Hill in the Kerameikos, see Section 8. It has, however, no offering trench. 10 Kurtz and Boardman 1971, pp. 79-83.

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the mid-sixth century they became very rare. 11 At the same time, more attention started to be paid to lasting elaborate grave markers. In the Late Geometric period monumental grave markers were represented by Dipylon vases, which disappeared in early archaic times and were replaced by smaller kraters during the seventh century. The renewal of interest in monumental form is first attested towards the end of the seventh century in the employment of larger ceramic grave markers, which reached approximately one meter in height, 12 and slightly later in the appearance of large limestone stelai. In the early sixth century, marble kouroi began to serve as grave markers, 13 and the most advanced, of which numerous examples exist, are dated to the period from ea. 575 on. 14 The changes that occurred around 600 in the funeral complexes in the area of the Kerameikos have been explained as a problem of space: there was little room for large tumuli, and built tombs were being constructed directly adjacent to and on top of each other and earlier structures. 15 This explanation also suggests that the number of people who opted to bury their dead in certain areas such as by the city gates increased in the first half of the sixth century, that is that certain burial grounds (such as the Kerameikos) at certain centers (such as Athens) gained some special significance and prestige, and consequently were running out of space, since too many people wanted to have burial plots there. The same tendency, however, is visible outside the city of Athens in the Attic countryside, where space should not have been a consideration, and this fact suggests that simply different patterns of display were adopted. Grave markers, which had now been scaled down in size, acquired grandeur by other means. They were set up at prominent locations, such as along roads, and featured either stelai, often with a statue of a sphinx on top, or statues of kouroi or korai, which were set up on a pillar or stepped base. These monuments were meant to be observed by any passerby, whom they would impress more by the quality of their artwork than by their sheer 11

For discussion of the development of offering trenches in the Kerameikos, see Ktibler 1959, pp. 87-92. Knigge 1991, p. 27 and fig. 22. 13 It is still an open question when marble kouroi started to be used as grave markers. Knigge (1991, p. 27) casts doubt on the idea that the so-called Dipylon Gate Head, ea. 600-590?, belonged to a funerary statue, since the size of this statue would have been considerably greater than life-size, which puts it rather in the company of statues of youths from sanctuaries. The recent finding of the so-called "Kuros vom Heiligen Tor," in the opinion of Niemeier, proves that this kouros, which is also over life-size, along with the Dipylon Gate kouros and the kouros from the Metropolitan Museum in New York, form a series ofkouroi that were used as grave markers as early as ea. 600 (Niemeier 2002, pp. 47-53). The new kouros (and also the Dipylon and New York kouroi), however, was found reused, which prevents us from securely establishing both the original context and date of the statue. 14 Richter 1960, p. 59. 15 Kurtz and Boardman 1971, p. 82. 12

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scale. In the preceding century, the finest grave goods were deposited in offering trenches and were not meant to be seen ever again. The splendid monuments of the early sixth century were designed for the permanent display of the taste, status and wealth of the families to whom they belonged. As at any period, reverent burial constituted part of the duty that the living owed the dead, but only a fraction of the population could and would articulate this duty by means of an enduring and splendid grave marker. In both the seventh and sixth centuries this fraction of the population in Athens was perhaps fairly small, and the change in funerary display pertained probably not to the number of families who could and would spend lavishly on funerary arrangements but rather to kinds of material display. It appears to be significant that the increasing employment of the written word in the second quarter of the sixth century to identify a grave marker followed closely or coincided with the shift in emphasis from a grandiose funeral ceremony with rich offerings to an elaborate and prominently located grave marker, that is from a display confined in time (rituals) and to a particular audience (those present at the ceremony) to one that was permanent (statue or stele) and publicly accessible (for any passerby to behold). Solon's Funeracy Legislation Changes observed in the archeological evidence for funerary practices in Athens naturally lead scholars to seek a correlation between these changes and the Solonian funerary legislation16 which is attested in three separate, albeit relatively late, sources, [Demosthenes] 43.62, Cicero De legibus 2.59, and Plutarch Solon 21. [Demosthenes] alludes to Solon's stipulation concerning funerary arrangements (such as place and time) and to the restrictions on the participation of women in the prothesis and ekphora; Cicero claims that 16

Morris' attempt to demonstrate that the existence of Solon's funerary legislation finds no support in the archeological record since "[t]here is no particular break in Athenian burial customs around 600 B.C." (1992b, p. 37) is not convincing. Such phenomena as the disappearance of offering trenches and diminution in the size of the tumuli and built tombs, coupled with the appearance of sculptured stelai and statues, seem undeniable, even if they cannot be dated precisely. Morris' argument for the continued increase from 700 through the late sixth century in the scale of grave markers in Athens rests on the existence of the so-called Mound G (for a short description of this tumulus see Knigge 1991, pp. 105-106), which is dated ea. 560, and appears to provide evidence that sixth century tumuli were no smaller than their seventh century predecessors. This tumulus in fact can be seen as a counter example to Morris' argument. Although there have been various suggestions for the identity of the family whose members were associated with this mound, all scholars agree that the burial was exceptional and Kiibler, who excavated the mound, even thought that it might have been Solon's own tomb (Kiibler 1959, p. 85; Kiibler 1976, pp. 5-21). The mound stands out, precisely because the practice of erecting large tumuli was by then no longer current. The development of archaic Attic grave stelai, from the earlier composite to later monolithic type, also contradicts the theory of continuous increase of material display at burial sites.

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Solon limited expenditure on funerary attire and musicians, and forbade mourners from lacerating their cheeks and staging /essum funeris, which he explains as lugubris eiulatio. Plutarch gives the most detailed account of several laws that aimed to curb license and disorder at funerals (particularly that caused by women) by lessening funerary expenses and prohibiting mourners from lacerating themselves and from lamenting anyone else but the person being buried. 17 Literary evidence, therefore, depicts Solon's funerary legislation as a) curtailing expenses for the funerary ceremony; b) restricting the ceremony to a certain place and time; c) limiting attendance and restraining emotional outbursts of women. Plutarch explains the reforms as an attempt to end the feuding between the families of Kylon and Megakles which followed the assassination of the former by the latter (Solon 12). 18 Archeological evidence, as we saw, does suggest that the emphasis in material display at the burial site was, at least in some respects, transferred from funerary ceremonies to permanent and impressive grave markers. The scaling down of funerary ceremony would correspond to the spirit of the Solonian legislation, but I would be hesitant to assert that it was Solonian legislation that caused aristocratic funerary display to include grave markers of grandeur. Solon's laws and the archeologically documented changes in funerary display might well represent various facets of an emerging social and political situation in which restrictions on outbursts of human emotion and regulation of material display at certain ceremonies started to play a bigger role. 2. Archaic Attic Verse Epitaphs in Context

Typology of Monuments Associated with Verse Epitaphs The majority of archaic Attic epitaphs was inscribed on the bases of either a statue or of an elaborate stele. Earlier statues were primarily standing kouroi or korai, but in the last third of the sixth century there also appeared seated figures and equestrian statues. Marble and limestone were employed, but so far there is no evidence for the use of bronze statues in funerary markers. The stelai were tall, fairly narrow dressed slabs of marble or limestone with a depiction on the shaft that might be rendered in low relief, incision or paint. The stelai of the first three quarters of the sixth century comprised a separate base and fmial, 17

See the excellent and brief account in Garland 1989, pp. 3-5, as well as Engels 1998, pp. 77-96. Alexiou (1974, p. 21) puts it well: "In the inflammatory atmosphere of the blood feud between the families of Megakles and Kylon that was raging in Solon's time, what more effective way could there be to stir up feelings of revenge than the incessant lamentation at the tomb by large numbers of women for 'those long dead'?" 18

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often in the shape of a sphinx, whereas the stelai of the last third of the century had a simpler finial which was carved in one piece with the shaft, but retained separate bases. The height and thickness of these later so-called monolithic stelai were less than those of the earlier so-called composite stelai. The narrow shaft of a stele was most conducive to the depiction of a standing figure in profile; in the majority of cases it is a figure of a standing young man who is turned to the right. Mature men are also sometimes represented, and towards the end of the century there appeared the type of an older man leaning on a staff, occasionally accompanied by a dog. 19 In at lest one case the main male figure is attended by a smaller female one. 20 In the lower part of the stele, below the principal composition, there could be a separate field with another depiction in relief or painted; 21 these panels are sometimes called predellae, on the analogy with medieval altar compositions. Capitals of the composite stelai could be decorated additionally with carved or painted scenes. Women never appear on their own on the narrow shaft stelai, but at the end of the sixth century there developed a type of wide, thin stelai that did depict seated women, perhaps with attendants. Although a surviving epitaph can rarely be securely identified with a particular monument, the remaining base often preserves traces of joints from which it is possible to guess the original type and scale of the monument. The monuments that are associated with verse epitaphs in archaic Attica, primarily sculpture in the round and tall stelai, must have been distinguished by their cost. Indeed, many of these monuments are of island marble, which had to be transported to Athens. More importantly, they were often the best examples of sculpture of the period and were wrought by leading sculptors of the day, some of whom even signed their works. 22 Besides cost, setting up such grave markers required considerable knowledge and appreciation of aesthetic norms on the part of the families who would commission them. Inscribing a grave marker with a verse epitaphand virtually all archaic Attic verse epitaphs were inscribed on the grave markers of grandeur-was confined to a circle of people who knew poetic norms well and could afford conspicuous monuments, which were distinguished both by their cost and aesthetic qualities. 19

See the discussion of the man-and-dog type in Clairmont 1970, pp. 28-31. The so-called boy-and-girl stele from the Metropolitan Museum depicts a young man and a girl, see Richter 1961, pp.27-29, no. 37. 21 These scenes may include some cavalry motives (Richter 1961, figs. 128, 154, 159, etc.), or a depiction of a Gorgon (figs. 83 and 84). 22 See Section 6. 20

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The proportion of these people to the entire population of Attica must have been small, and we may regard them as members of the elite. Display and Layout of Archaic Attic Verse Epitaphs Grave markers consisted of sculpture in the round or stelai, which were often mounted on stepped bases oflimestone or marble. Verse epitaphs were most often incised on the front surface of the upper block of a stepped base. A stepped base could have three or four blocks, each measuring approximately 0.3 m in height, which means that the surface that included the epitaph would be elevated enough to assist reading. Sometimes epitaphs were inscribed on the predella in the lower part of the main shaft. Archaic Attic funerary inscriptions never appear to have been placed on the sculpture itself, as is often the case with Attic dedicatory inscriptions or funerary inscriptions in other parts of Greece. Beginning with the earliest extant examples, the writing in verse epitaphs is neat and careful, and letters are generally large, ranging from 0.025 m to 0.04 m; sometimes traces of paint over the incised letters and guidelines are preserved. Punctuation marks might be employed to mark the end of a verse (e.g. 13, 19, 51), but more often they separate words or groups of closely joined words, for example XatpeOEI-lO

=T68e oe11a =TraTep eoTe[oe I 8]av6vTos =(14, line 1).

These

marks must have been meant to assist the reader, since the texts were continuous and empty spaces were avoided-a feature characteristic of the archaic "carpeting" style of writing. As a result of this style, both words and verses were often divided at line end. In a few cases, the splitting of words between lines is avoided by the calculated spacing of the letters (e.g. 24, 27), which must have required the investment of particular care in the arrangement of the inscription. At least in one case (24) the inscribed face of the base is framed with double incisions to underscore the decorative appearance of the inscribed surface. Generally, much effort was put into making a verse epitaph at once a decorative part of the tombstone and a presenter of the most legible text possible. The act of reading an early Attic epitaph did not require much deciphering or walking around the monument/3 and any passer-by, assuming he was literate, could quite easily see and read the inscription. 23

Contrast the Attic practice with, for example, the dedication at Delphi, LSAG, p. 103, no. 4.

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Verse vs Prose IG I3 lists 101 private epitaphs that date from the beginning of the practice to before

ea. 500-480, when the tradition of inscribing private epitaphs was interrupted. Three texts, 1245, 1264, and 1273 are of an entirely unclear nature and might well be non-sepulchral, while one epitaph (29) is not included in JG I3 because it is inscribed a clay tablet. Thus, there are 99 archaic epitaphs, which I divide into the following categories: verse (43), likely-verse (9), unclear (18), prose (26), and prose with some poetic features (3). 24 The ratio of verse epitaphs to all epitaphs in archaic Attica is between 53% and 64%, depending on whether we count only verse or both verse and likely-verse against the total number of epitaphs, excluding those that are unclear (that is either a proportion of 43 to 81 or 52 to 81). Although my criteria for considering an epitaph metrical are somewhat more restrictive than those in the collections of Peek or even Hansen, since I distinguish categories of "unclear" and "likely verse" epitaphs/5 the resulting ratio of verse to all epitaphs in archaic Attica (at the very least, halfl) is higher than it would be at any other time and in any other place in Greece. Notwithstanding the fact that precise dating is unattainable, the relative distribution of verse and prose epitaphs during the sixth century is clearly uneven, with patterns being different in the period before ea. 525 from those at the end of the century. 26 In the earlier period the percentage of verse to all epitaphs is higher than in the last decades of the century. A relatively high number of inscriptions in the "unclear" category might somewhat skew the results, but the general tendency for verse to outnumber prose epitaphs in the earlier period is undeniable.

It appears, therefore, that when the practice of inscribing grave markers

appeared and became widespread in Attica in the second and third quarters of the sixth century, most people who chose to commemorate their dead with a lasting inscription preferred to do so in metrical form. Towards the end of the century the practice of marking the grave monument with a prose epitaph (usually recording just the name of the deceased) became equally or even more common. 3. Commemorated Deceased

The primary purpose of any epitaph is to identify and lament the loss of the deceased, and to keep his or her memory alive. When archaic Attic verse epitaphs tell more than

24

See Table I. See Introduction and Table 1. 26 The date of ea. 525 is artificial and does not correspond to any historical date. 25

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the identity of the deceased and the chief mourner, they most commonly expand to add expressions of praise or grief. They can supply some personal information, such as the origin, if it was not Athens, of the deceased, and in some cases they address the passer-by and ask him or her to join in the lament. Some epitaphs also include references to and short descriptions of the burial or the monument. Analysis of the elements of verse epitaphs provides us with some idea of what was perceived to be most memorable and praiseworthy about the deceased and of what was felt most grievous about his or her fate. Death in War Death on the battlefield is the supreme sacrifice of self to society, the supremely memorable and praiseworthy act. It can fall to both the young and old, but when it comes to the young it is the most grievous fate. Death in war, that is on behalf of others, is more than a private family matter and arouses the grief of everybody; Tyrtaeus describes how the entire community of an archaic city laments the one who fell on the battlefield:

Tov

s· 6Ao
apyaAEc.vl Se n68c.vtncrcra KEKT)OE lTOAts. (12. 27-28) In two archaic Attic verse epitaphs praise and grief for the young man who perished at war is given more universal significance by a request to the passer-by, whoever he happens to be, to join in the lamentation. The first example is found in one of the fmest Attic verse epitaphs, which commemorates a certain Tettichos who perished at war (13, ea. 575-550?):

[ehe acrT6]s TlS avep ehe xcrevosl aAo8ev eA8ov : Thtxov oiKTipals avSp' aya8ov napho,: ev noAEI-lOl I
The inscription is incised on a block of island marble which was recovered in Sepolia, north of Athens. The block might have been the top block of a stepped base, which would have been surmounted by a tall stele representing a warrior, although a kouros remains a possibility. 27 Jeffery calls the lettering of this inscription delicate and fine, reminiscent of the inscribing style of the vase painter Sophilos in the second quarter of the sixth century: 27

IGAA, p. 133, no. 34, pl. 38:a. Richter thinks that the base consisted only of the surviving inscribed block, that is it was not a stepped base, and discounts the possibility of its carrying a statue (1961, p. 25, no. 36, fig. 203). The dimensions ofthe block are H. 0.29 m, W. 0.70 m, Th. 0.53 m.

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the epitaph is inscribed boustrophedon; the letters evenly cover the surface of the stone and, as a result, verses and even words are split between lines, while punctuation marks signal verse ends and thus assist reading. Words of lament (the request to the passer-by to lament the deceased) and grief (the reference to the youth of Tettichos) dominate the epigram. Praise is implied in the reference to Tettichos' death on the battlefield, but, otherwise, it is confmed to the formulaic avi]p aya86s, "noble and virtuous man." Tettichos' status as aya86s is also emphasized by the final verse in which the passer-by himself is urged to proceed to npO:y1-1' aya86v. Although the common meaning of the adjective aya86s might be "well-born," in the final verse it connotes something "praise-worthy," since it is to a praise-worthy act that the verse urges the passer-by to proceed. Another well known and well preserved epitaph commemorating a warrior is that for Kroisos (27, ea. 540-530?): crTe8t : Kal oiKTtpov : Kpoicro lnapa cre~-ta 8av6vTos : h6v I noT' ev\ lTPOI-ICxXOIS : oAeae I Sopos : , Apes. Halt and mourn by the tomb of the deceased Kroisos, whom, as he fought once 28 on the front lines, fierce Ares destroyed.

The verse is inscribed on the middle block of a stepped base of Parian marble, which was found in Southern Attica in Anavyssos, in an area that held numerous rich graves and yielded three kouroi. 29 The base is associated with the so-called Anavyssos, or Kroisos, kouros, a superb statue 2.01 m in height, which was found approximately in the same area and at

28

What TIOTE (translated here as "once") means in inscriptional epigrams has been the subject of some discussion. Wade-Gery (1930, pp. 72-82) suggests that the word indicates some significant lapse of time between erection of the inscribed monument and the event which the epitaph refers to. Page (FGE, pp. 270-271), however, argues that the composer of an epitaph intends it for posterity and is looking to the future reader, for whom the described event would have happened "once upon a time." Page adduces several examples of the employment of the word in private funerary inscriptions from various periods, which, he claims, "assure us that the composer was not including the word TIOTE in order to take account of some lapse of time between death and burial." The examples that Page cites, however, mask an important tendency in verse epitaphs before ea. 400, both at Athens as well as in other parts of Greece, namely that during this period TIOTE occurs almost exclusively in epitaphs for those who died in war; in later funerary verses the word can be used in various contexts. It seems, therefore, that in earlier verses TIOTE is employed to elevate the message which is conveyed by the epitaph, and Robbins (1990, pp. 308-309) offers the compelling suggestion that in early inscriptions the employment of TIOTE raises the commemorated men to the level of epic heroes. 29 IGAA, pp. 143-146, no. 57; for photographs of both the inscription and the kouros see, among others, Clairmont 1970, pi. 2; Viviers 1992, figs. 27, 47-48. The dimensions of the block, which forms the front half of the middle step ofthe base, are H. 0.24 m, W. 0.81 m, Th. 0.51 m.

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the same time as the base with the epitaph for Kroisos. 30 The inscription preserves traces of red paint which must have alleviated the task of reading the letters; the engraver inserted punctuation marks and ensured that words were not divided between lines. As in Tettichos' epitaph, the verse opens by addressing the passer-by with the request to stop and lament Kroisos, whom furious Ares-a rare reference to a god in archaic epitaphs--destroyed. The expression might have derived from Tyrtaeus' elegy in which immortal fame and memory is promised to a man who gives up his life in battle for the sake of his land and people:

miSe lTOTE KAEOS ea8Aov CxlTOAAVTat ovS' OVOI-l' a\JToO, aAA' VlTO yiis nep ewv yivETat 6:8avaTOS, OVTtv' aptOTEVOVTa 1-!EVOVTcX TE 1-!apVcXI-lEVOV TE yfis nept Kal nai8c.Jv 8o0pos "Aplls 6Aeallt. (12.31-34) Although the epitaph, much in the spirit of epitaphs for those who died in war (as we have already seen in the epitaph for Tettichos), says nothing about Kroisos' family, fortunately for us his very name might tell us something. J effery suggests that this Kroisos was a son of the famous Alkmeon and was named Kroisos after the Lydian king, the great benefactor of Alkmeon. 31 Of course, our Kroisos might have been not a son but some other relation of Alkmeon; nevertheless, as J .K. Davies concurs, "there is no Athenian family with a better claim on the name than the Alkmeonidai."32 This family of splendid means and fme taste presents us with a characteristic example of what class of people in archaic Attica would choose to inscribe a verse epitaph. A fragmentary epitaph found in an unrecorded place in Attica (30, ea. 535-530) must have commemorated a man who perished in war, but too little survives from what appears originally to have been a long verse inscription; even the meter of the epitaph cannot be determined. The epitaph seems to have had some form of the verb aptaTevc.J which was preceded by OTE, and the juxtaposition of these two words indicates that in its praise 30

Although the kouros has been mounted on the base in the National Museum, there remains some doubt whether the two actually belong together, see IGAA, p. 144. Furthermore, it cannot be ruled out that a base of these dimensions, which was inscribed on the wide surface, supported a stele rather than a statue, so J. Day, per ep. Richter is inclined to accept the joining of the base and the kouros (1960, pp. 115 and 118-119, no. 136). 31 IGAA, p. 144; cf. Herodotus 6.125 32 Davies 1971, p. 374. Viviers (1992, pp. 123-124) develops Richter's suggestion (Richter 1960, p. 116) that Kroisos was of Eastern origin and attempts to identify him with a foreign high scale mercenary who fought on the side of the tyrants ea. 513. Viviers notes that the absence ofK.roisos' patronymic is difficult to reconcile with the hypothesis that suggests that Kroisos was a member of the Alkmeonids. The absence of the patronymic is in fact characteristic of Attic verse epitaphs for those who died in war, and also for the epitaphs which address the passer-by. All in all, there does not appear to be enough evidence to support Viviers' conclusion that K.roisos was "un chefmilitaire a la solde du pouvoir" who was killed probably at the beginning ofHippias' tyranny (p. 124).

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of the deceased the epigram referred to death on the battlefield. The epitaph was inscribed on the marble base of a tall stele depicting a warrior in relief on the main shaft above quadrigae driven by two charioteers, which are incised in the predella; the stele was surmounted by a statue of a sphinx. 33 Virtues ofthe Deceased Words of praise in archaic Attic verse epitaphs are few in number, limited in variety, and vague in meaning. The commonest epithet to be applied to a man is aya86s, whether employed alone (13, 14, 42) or coupled with ow
IJVEIJCl T68' Aiveo oocp(as iaTpo ap(oTo. This is a memorial to the wisdom of Aineias, an excellent doctor.

The inscription is incised on a marble disk bearing a depiction of a seated bearded man. I think the disk might actually be a dedication, because the language is typical of dedications, 35 and there is no reference to the death of Aineias. Furthermore, the dimensions 33

For the sphinx, see Richter 1961, p. 29, no. 38, figs. 110-114, and for the stele, see pp. 32-33, no. 45, figs. 126-128. For the inscription, see Clairmont 1974, p. 224. 34 See the discussion of 67 below. 35 Cf. dedications 252, 270, 272, etc.

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of this disk are much smaller (Dm. 0.27 m, Th. 0.02 m) than the only known inscribed disk that was certainly used to mark a grave (/G 13 1516; Dm. 0.49 m, Th. 0.05 m). 36 If Aineias' disk, however, is funerary, his epitaph is the earliest example from Attica of an epitaph to a doctor, which is one of the most frequently mentioned occupations both in literary sources, beginning with Homeric epic, and verse epitaphs from the fourth century on. 37 However few and vague are the words which are used in verse epitaphs to praise men, their variety is large in comparison with those used for a woman. Women, who are commemorated in at least seven verse epitaphs, are usually lamented but very seldom praised. Among inscriptional funerary verses, there is only one example, the epitaph for a non-Athenian named Lampito (66), who is called aiool11, "respectful" or "seemly"-a common Homeric epithet which can be applied to women of different ages.

Another

example of a verse epitaph that praises the woman it commemorates is the epitaph from Lampsakos for Archedike. 38 The two couplet epitaph is quoted by Thucydides (6.59), while Aristotle (Rhet. 1367b) cites only verse 3, which he assigns to Simonides. Although Aristotle's ascription might (or might not) be the result of a later anecdotal tradition, there is little ground to doubt that the verses cited by Thucydides were indeed inscribed at Lampsakos upon Archedike's tombstone:

avopos aptOTEVOOVTOS ev . EAAaOt TWV eq) eaUTOU · hrnlov 'ApxeBtKllV floe KeKev8e Kovts· f)naTpos TE Kat CxVOpos aOeAcpwv T' ovoa TVpcXVVc.JV natOc.JV T' OVK f}pe.., vouv es CxTao8aAtllV. (=Simon. 26a) Here the earth covers Archedike the daughter of Hippias who excelled those of his time in Hellas. Although she was a daughter, wife, sister and mother of tyrants, she did not lift her mind to arrogance.

This epitaph is quite different from archaic Attic verse epitaphs in that it is more poetic and more opaque than an archaic epitaph. In the opening verse Hippias appears to be highly esteemed, but the second couplet seems to imply that tyrannoi are prone to aTao8aAtll, from which Archedike, however, managed to abstain. If the epigram were composed before 36

Clairrnont provides a good survey of arguments on both sides; he himself argues that the disk was votive (1970, pp. 17-20). 37 Cf. Od. 17.384-387, and see Ch. 3 Section 3 for my discussion of activities commemorated in later classical

~fii·~phls.d · my anaIysis · o f praise · expressions . because It . IS . ctOr an Atheman . woman, aIthough I exc Iude It . me u e It· m from my count of archaic Attic verse epitaphs because it was probably composed later (that is after the Persian Wars) than the period we generally designate "archaic," and during the time when the tradition to inscribe gravestones with verse epitaphs came to a halt in Athens.

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the liberation of Lampsakos from tyrants, that is before 479, it would explain well the praise of Hippias but not the implication that Archedike's husband, brothers and sons were tyrants and inclined to aTao8aAtll. The latter is a strong word that denotes the committing of arrogant acts without regard for their consequences. In Herodotus 3.80 aTao8aAtll is directly connected with tyranny, and the speech of Otanes provides a background against which we can read Archedike's epitaphs: KCJs B' 8:v Eill XPiil..la KOTllPTlli..IEVOV I..IOUVapxlll, Tij E~EOTl aveu8vv~ lTOlEElV Ta (3ovAETat; Kal yap 8:v TOV aplOTOV avBpCJv lTClVTC..JV OTclVTa es TOVTllV TflV apxi]v EKTOS TWV ecu86TCUV VOlll..lclTCUV OTi]OElE. 'EyytVETat l..leV yap oi v(3pts V'TIO TWV nape6VTCUV aya8CJv, q>86vos Be apxii8ev El..lq>VETat av8pwn~. l:ivo B' excuv Ta0Ta EXEl m]oav KOKOTllTO" Ta I..IEV yap v(3pl KEKOPlli..IEVOS epBet lTOAAa Kat aT6:o8aAa, Ta Be q>86v~. "How can a monarchy be a suitable thing? The monarch may do what he pleases, with none to check him afterwards. Take the best man on earth and put him outside of the thoughts that have been wont to guide him. Outrageousness is bred in him by reason of the good things he has, and envy is basic in the nature of man. He has these two qualities, then, and in them he has all evil. Out of his satiety his outrageousness grows, and he does many appalling things out of that; but he does many out of envy, too." (trans. Grene)

With Herodotus in mind, let us explore the possibility that the epitaph for Archedike was composed and incised after the liberation of Lampsakos, perhaps even a considerable time later-Archedike may have lived into the 460s or even 450s, 39 or the epitaph could have been inscribed not immediately after Archedike's death. The reference to Hippias as aptoTevoas ev 'EAAaBt TWV eq>' eaUTOV might simply mean that he excelled all other men of Greece of his time; he was, that is, the most prominent man ofhis time. The expression eq>' EOUTOV

might be a very carefully chosen qualifier of Hippias' excellence and a strong pointer to the past. Hippias' reputation in Lampsakos might not have been that bad-after all, he was not a tyrant there. At Lampsakos he could even have had the reputation of "a good king" and of an exiled hero who, along with his family, was blackmailed into retreat when the children of the family were caught being secretly transported out of the country. 40 Archedike therefore was the daughter of a man who once was the most powerful man in Greece, in the distant and most famous city of Athens.

Archedike's brothers, husband and children,

however, were tyrants in Lampsakos or perhaps in some other cities in the region. 39

All what we know is that Archedike was married in or shortly after 514 (Thucydides 6.59), which suggests that she was born by ea. 528. 40 Herodotus 5.65.

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Their wrong-doings, their ul3pts and cXTao8aA(ll, would have been well remembered and perhaps often commented on in Lampsakos. After the fall of tyranny in Lampsakos and following the battle at Mykale, the tyrants presumably paid their TlotS (as I pointed out above,

CXTao8aA(ll denotes action with disregard for consequences and is often invoked in the context of retribution41 ), but Archedike had no share in their irresponsible actions and never put her mind outside of the proper bonds, although, theoretically, she might have been tempted by all the power that surrounded her. Having had no share in their arrogance, she was liable to no Ttots; still, her family affiliation was of course undeniable. Perhaps her burial was arranged by a relative who was apprehensive of her "tyrannical" origin and chose to address the touchy issue openly and to dispel at once all possible accusations, so that no wrongs associated with the tyrants of Lampsakos would thwart the memory of Archedike. The virtue of Archedike, which her epitaph praises, could have been described simply as

sophrosyne (which is the virtue most commonly singled out among women in verse epitaphs of the fifth and fourth centuries), but it would not have protected her memory from associations with tyranny. The open acknowledgement of her relations to the tyrants might have been the best way to mitigate the feelings of the people of Lampsakos towards a member of the family for which they were unlikely to feel much respect. Two more formal points should be mentioned. The author of Archedike 's epigram does not use the formulaic language of epitaphs, but may rather have offered innovations that would be imitated later,42 and thus Aristotle's ascription of the epitaph to a famous poet is not surprising, even if it is by no means trustworthy (although it is not entirely impossible, since Simonides might have died as late as the mid-460s). 43 The phrasing of the fourth verse is rather exceptional. While the deceased is often praised for his or her virtue, or in one case is said to have been virtuous in spirit and bravery (yap haml:oes vov Te Kal avo[pe]av

41

C£, for example, Theognis 735-736: miTov E-rretTa mx:\1v Teiom KaKa, llTJB' h' 6Tiioow lTOTpO) chao8aAi011TOIOl yeVOIVTO KOK6V. The word and its cognates are applied regularly to the suitors in the Odyssey. It denotes, on the one hand, their arrogance and irresponsibility, and, on the other, points to impending retribution. 42 The expression nBe KEKev8e K6VI), for example, does not appear on stone before 400 BC, but becomes common in later funerary epigrams-and might have been coined in Archedike's epitaph. 43 See Molyneux (1992, pp. 307-341) for a brief assessment of various ancient and modern chronologies of Simonides' life.

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exaoxos heAtKias, 31, ea. 540-520?), employment of the term voOs to describe the character or life of the deceased does not appear in archaic epitaphs. Origin of the Deceased As a general rule, epitaphs speak of the origin of the deceased only when it differs from the place of burial. Death far from home was viewed as a particularly deplorable fate, and it appears as one of the themes of special grief in the earliest Greek verse epitaphs (for example, 143). Earliest surviving archaic Attic verse epitaphs which explicitly refer to death far from the fatherland date to only the end of the sixth century; a few earlier epitaphs to foreigners were in prose (for example, IG I3 1344 for a Karian, ea. 525-520?, IG 13 1349 for a Delian, ea. 530?; IG 13 1372 for a Teian, ea. 525-500?), and they simply

stated the origin of the deceased. It might have been the case that foreigners in Attica did not start putting verse epitaphs on funerary monuments until the last decades of the century, or if they did follow the practice earlier, perhaps they preferred not to indicate their origin and thereby make their epitaphs virtually indistinguishable from those that the Athenians would inscribe for their dead. The latter scenario might be reflected in the epitaph for Neilonides, son ofNeilon, apparently a non-Athenian (42, ea. 525?): I.

II.

TiatOos NeAovos NeiAovioo eaT\ TO OEIJia os )(\Jot {To} a[ya]Sotl {t} IJVEIJO ETIOlEI (sic) xalpiev. "Evootos K[a]l T6vo' enoie.

I. This is the tomb of Neilonides son of Neilon who made a fine monument for his virtuous

son as well. 11. Endoios made this [tomb? statue? 44 ] too.

The epitaph seems45 to be somewhat below contemporary standards since Attic epitaphs of this period are generally executed with greater care. The monument which bore the epitaph, however, must have been of considerable grandeur since it comprised a statue of a kouros and a base with a depiction of a seated man either in low relief or painted incision,46 and it was signed by Endoios, a sculptor so famous that later tradition believed him to be the pupil

44

The masculine T6v5E is rather unusual since most words denoting a monument are neuter (aiiJJa, IJViiJJa, or even ayaAJJa); possible masculine words could be Kovpos (c£ 266) or TVJJ(3os. 45 The inscription was obliterated before or during construction of the Themistoklean Walls and is hardly legible, see IGAA, p. 127, no.19, and DAA, pp. 493-494. 46 For a detailed discussion, including photographs and drawings of the monument, see Keesling 1999. The dimensions ofthe base are H. 0.401, W. 0.715 m, Th. 0.631 m.

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ofDaidalos (Pausanias 1.26.4). Hansen suggests that Neilon was a Samian,47 and if this is so, it might perhaps explain the awkwardness of the verse: if it was Neilon who composed the epigram--or at least collaborated and looked after the composition-he would not perhaps have been as skillful as members of the Athenian elite, since there does not appear to have been a tradition of inscribing verse epitaphs on Samos. 48 Endoios was also responsible for the grave monument of Lampito, who was buried in Athens far from her fatherland (66, ea. 500?):

e[v8a]5e <1>1[--- ea. 10--- ]Ios KaTe8eiKE Savocrav : . J\[a!..rrr.I]To ai5oiev yes chrlo lraTpo·tes. : "Ev801os e1roiecrev. Here Phi-- from (?) --os buried seemly Lampito (?) who passed away far from her fatherland. Endoios made it.

The epitaph is inscribed on the front surface of the upper block of the stepped base that once carried a wide stele. 49 The name Lampito (which appears quite plausible since the letters/\, and TO are undoubtedly on the stone and are separated by enough space to accommodate four letters) is attested twice for a Spartan (Herodotus 6.71 and in Aristophanes Lys.) and in a later source for a Samian (Athenaeus 593 e-f). It is generally assumed that Samos is the likeliest origin of Lampito, because the epigram displays Ionic forms, namely ai5oiev and

TI"aTpotes; these forms, however, are Homeric and would probably be spelled so in the Attic dialect, too, since the spelling with alpha seems to be characteristic only of proper Doric dialects, such as that of Pindar or the Doric lyrics of Euripides. In other words, these adjectives are spelled with alpha in those dialects that would have spelled the genitive of yfi as yas, not yes, as we have in the epitaph. Thus, we can say that the dialect of Lampito's epitaph is not Doric, but it is impossible to determine whether it is Attic-Ionic or Eastern Ionic, as found on Samos. It would help if we could decipher more of the first line, and it has 47

The uncommon name Neilon is attested in the 5th and 3rd centuries BC on Samos, LGPN I, s.v. Nei:\c.uv. Viviers (1992, pp. 71-75) gathers a variety of evidence that plausibly suggests (although does not prove) that the family was oflonian, and more precisely Samian, origin. 48 No verse epitaph of the 6th or 5th centuries survives from Samos, and the two surviving 4th century verse epitaphs are likely (683) or certainly (684) for Athenians who died on Samos, and were composed under Athenian influence; I do not include 685 her because it dates to ea. 300? 49 See the detailed discussion of the base, with drawings and a photograph, in Vi viers 1992, pp. 84-86, figs. 8-10. The dimensions of the block, as in Viviers, are H. 0.157 m, W. 0.765 m, Th. 0.292 m, whereas JG 1380 provides somewhat smaller measurements, H. 0.14 m, W. 0.765 m, Th. 0.24 m, and these are in agreement with Jeffery's, IGAA, p. 130, no. 24.

e

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been proposed50 to restore the name of the chief mourner as t[ATta8es LcXI-lhos or

naphos, but other ethnics could fit, too. Moreover, the first line of the text is very poorly preserved, and photographs show that only .8E and KA "fE6EKE (which can be either

KaTe8eKe or Ka\ e8nKe) are certain, and that the two letters following .8E might be <1>1, A, 61, or 6A. Didier Viviers, who examined the stone, reports that he was unable to find any traces of other letters. 51 The content of the first line is therefore unclear and is of no help in determining the origin of the chief mourner, which in any case could have been different from that of Lampito. In the end, all that we know is that Lampito died far from her fatherland, and this was felt to be a particularly mournful fate. 52 The epitaph for Leanax son ofHeragoras announces that he was Samian (52, ea. 510?). Leanax' grave monument comprised a marble statue mounted on a stepped marble base, but the type of the statue has been debated. Viviers convincingly argues that the statue likely represented a seated figure, because the original upper surface of the base and cutting for the stele were large and close to a square. 53 The epitaph reads thus: I.

11. Ill.

es Lal-ltOlS yevvaios avnp VlTO OTJI-laTl Twt8e I A@va~ 'Hpay6ps_c.:> KEtTat aTioTipo v. !Aepyos eTiolncrev. [Aeav ]~KTOS.

I. From among the Samians, a highborn man lies under this tomb, Leanax son of Heragoras, far from those dear to him. 11. Philergos made it. Ill. OfLeanax.

Leanax' foreign origin is proudly stated in the first verse; it is also emphasized by the consistent employment of Ionic script in the epigram, which is also a feature of other

50

Wilhelm 1909, pp. 33-35. Viviers 1992, pp. 86-86. 52 The words and expressions which are used to describe Lampito and her fate are highly poetic and frequently occur in Homeric epic (for example ev yailJ naTpwfl:l in Od. 13.189, aiSoiTJ napaKOITIS in Od. 3.451, etc.). 53 Viviers 1992, pp. 103-108. He restores (p. 106) the upper surface of the base as H. 0.306 m L. 0.945 m, Th. 1.01 m (p.Th. 0.474-0.505 m); and of the cutting as L. 0.705 m, W. 0.77 (p.W. 0.34-0.365 m), D. 0.02. In fact, they could be even closer to a square, and in any event are very close to the dimensions of the base of Anaxilas' monument (58) which must have represented a seated figure (base H. 0.30 m, L. 0.92 m, Th. 0.92 m; cutting L. 0.73 m, W. 0.73 m, D. 0.03 m). It is impossible to know how the statue was turned and thus it is indeterminable which surface of the base was the front, but I follow the convention to call the surface with the epitaph and the signature (I and 11) the front, and the one with the name of the deceased {Ill) the side surface. Viviers conveniently provides both a drawing and a photograph of the base of Leanax's monument (p. 104, fig. 17 and p. 108, fig. 18). 51

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surviving epitaphs to Samians in Athens (JG 13 1366, 1368, and probably 1367). The verse tells us that Leanax was buried far from his
ovBels yap o\hcu CxVOllTOS EOTl OOTIS TIOAEJ,lOV npo eipiJVllS aipeeTat" ev 11ev yap Tlj oi naiBes Tovs naTepas 86::nTovm, ev oe Tc';) oi naTepes Tovs naiBas. For no one is, of himself, so foolish as to prefer war to peace; in the one, children bury their fathers; in the other, fathers their children. (trans. D. Grene)

Untimely death and the burial of children by their parents represent the inversion of the natural order of life and death, a grievous fate which is frequently alluded to in verse epitaphs. In some cases, especially when no parent is mentioned as the chief mourner, the deceased is explicitly said to have been young at the time of death: Tettichos (13 line 3) "destroyed his tender youth," 55 Xenophantos (45), the deceased in 43 and that in 75 are called

acupos or 6:~ptos, and Phrasikleia is said to remain a kore forever (24). In verse epitaphs that tell us who was responsible for setting up the monument, parents by far outnumber other relatives as the chief mourners, and very few epitaphs say that the monument was set up by children for a parent, or by one spouse for another (see section 4). One of the earliest Attic verse epitaphs commemorates Chairedemos son of Amphichares (14, ea. 560-550?):

XmpeBeJ,lo = T6Be oe11a = naTep eoTE[oe I 8]av6vTos = 'Avs = 6:ya8ov = naiBa 6jAoaiBtllOS enoie. For the deceased Chairedemos, his father, Anphichares, set up this tomb, in grief for his noble son. Phaidimos made it.

54

55

For discussion of the theme of premature death in Greek verse epitaphs, see Griesmair 1966. Friedliinder and Hoffieit 1948, no. 135

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The epitaph was incised boustrophedon on a stepped limestone base of either a stele or statue. 56 Phaidimos' signature, added in prose, indicates that the sculpture was of high quality. The letters of the epitaph are well cut and punctuation marks separate words or small groups of words. Chairedemos is called 6:ya86s, the most commonly employed epithet in archaic Attic verse epitaphs. Most emphasis in the verse is placed not on praise but on lament for the deceased: the expression of mourning concludes the couplet. The inverted order of burying is emphasized through the

seemingly redundant references

to Amphichares as the father and Chairedemos as the child. Although untimely death is always one of the dominant subjects in epitaphs, it seems to find particular prominence in the archaic period. This impression might be partly due to the fact that other themes (such as, for example, death far from the fatherland, death at sea, death in childbirth) are rare or completely absent from archaic epitaphs, and partly, as I mentioned above, to the fact that parents are the predominant chief mourners in archaic verse epitaphs. Another important consideration might lie in the correlation between epigrams and the typology of grave markers that bore them: most archaic Attic verse epitaphs, especially earlier ones, are associated with monuments that probably included a depiction of the deceased, either sculptural, in relief/round, or painted. Epigrams not infrequently refer to the beauty of the monument, and even when they do not, it would be a fair guess that the sculptured grave markers that accompanied the epitaphs were intended to be impressive and pleasing to look at. For Greeks of the archaic period beauty was associated with men of young or mature, but not old, age. Only towards the end of the sixth century do there first appear dignified depictions of older men in monumental art, and only in the late fifth century do representations of both older men and women become common and iconographically developed. Burial sites of older people who were members of the elite must have been marked in some conspicuous but different, perhaps more conservative, way, such as, for example, with brick or limestone house-tombs, the construction of which continued throughout the sixth century, although on a smaller scale than in the seventh. 57 Or, there could have been a plain stele with a sphinx; the absence of inscriptions does not allow 56

It might have been found in the Kerameikos, but this information depends on dealers' stories and is unreliable, see IGAA, pp. 117-118, no. 2. For a photograph of the base, see IGAA, pl. 32:c; for a possible ' restoration of the monument as a composite stele, see Richter 1961, p. 26. 57 See my analysis of 61 below.

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one to interpret numerous fmds that might or might not have been associated with burials. What does survive suggests that in archaic Attica a verse epitaph was one of the elements that was integral to the beauty of the memorial as a whole, and consequently most of the epigrams accompanied what was believed to be a beautiful depiction, that is a depiction of a young or perhaps middle-aged person, whose untimely death the epigram would lament. Interestingly, archaic verse epitaphs in which children are said to have been responsible for the commemoration of their parents cluster around the end of the sixth century (57, 61, 64), at the time of the appearance of older men in funerary sculpture. 58 Nevertheless, no archaic epitaph explicitly refers, as far as I know, to the old age of the deceased. Epitaphs of this type first appear in the late fifth century, when they include, in addition to the reference to old age, reference to the deceased's long and happy life. There is, however, one epitaph (67=JG 13 1258, ea. 500?) that seems to contradict the statement that the elderly were not honored with epitaphs in the archaic period; for this epitaph has been thought to allude to "mature death." Three extant fragments have been assembled to form an unusually wide and thin stele or plaque (H. 0.515 m, W. 0.735 m, Th. 0.07 m), with the bottom part broken off.

The letters are very large (0.045 m) and

carefully incised. Hansen prints the following text:

[cr6]q>pov, eu[xcrvlv]ETOS, xcre[VtKI6]s. m[vu]:ros, TCx I Ka~· [eioo]s hopl[a(o eavaT]O J•.lOI[ipav hexeh Xcrl[-- non plus quam 6/itt. - -] Prudent, quick-witted, hospitable, discreet, knowing good ways, X-has the lot of mature death ...

Upon examination of the stone, Joseph Day reports that in line 3 restoration, is to be preferred;" 59 the editors of IG

"m[cr1~:r6s,

the old

e 1258, upon examination of a squeeze,

keep the restoration m[crcr]:ros. Hansen, however, rejects this restoration primarily on philological grounds and suggests that the deceased of this epitaph was a paterfamilias whom the word mvuT6S would better suit. The idea of the deceased being old in turn 58

Stelai of the man-and-dog type usually represent older men (for discussion of the type, see Clairmont 1970, pp. 28-31; see also Hiller 1975, pp. 152-154, 156-158, and 177-179, with pis. 5:1-3, 7:2, and 19:1 correspondingly); employment of the type of seated statues suitable for representation of older men becomes wider at the end of the century (57, 58, which are both incised on the bases of seated statues). 59 Day 1985a, p. 376. The "older" restoration in /G 12 1026b is actually m[oo]T6s, that is the same as accepted by the editors of IG 1258. Photographs of the stone (e.g. in /GAA, pl. 39:c; ~r Harder 1943, p. 114, who also provides a drawing of the inscription) seem to show no traces between m and T6s, and I can see no traces of a tau, either, which suggests to me that the squeeze (consulted by the editors ofiG 1258) is of less help than personal examination of the fragments (as done by Day).

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prompted the (supplemented) reference to "mature death" at the beginning of the second verse. 60 The inscription is very fragmentary and the restorations have to be accepted with caution, even though the text appears to have been incised stoichedon. 61

Although the

restoration of the pentameter appears convincing, it poses some difficulties. First, as stated above, no archaic epigram in Attica (or, for that matter, in other parts of Greece) refers to the old age of the deceased. Secondly, the expression "he has the lot of mature death" strikes me as odd and is unparalleled. Xenophon does employ the expression 8avaToc; wpaloc; in reference to Agesilaos, 62 but notably it goes along with evKAeilc; !3ioc;, that is it conforms to the diction of fourth century epitaphs in which the mentioning of the old age of the deceased is always accompanied by a reference to his or her long and happy or praiseworthy life. 63 Still, even in fourth century sources the word wpaloc; more often denotes the prime or blossom of youth. Although I cannot propose any convincing restoration, I want to point out that the existing one is very tenuous 64 and that if the first word of the second verse was related to or was some form of wpaloc;, it was likelier to denote a youth or adult (as opposed to a child), but not an old person. 65 If this is correct, m[cr1~:r6c;, as seen by Day, poses no problem since it is more than suitable for a young man. Death before marriage might have been perceived as the most grievous fate for a woman. One of the earliest and most heartbreaking Attic verse epitaphs is for Phrasikleia (24, ea. 540?): I.

11.

cre~-ta

pacrtKAeiac;. I K6pe KEKAEOOI-lat I aiel, CxVTl Ycll-lO ITiapa e~v TOVTO I Aaxocr' OVOIJO. 'AptcrT(ov Tlapt[oc; 1-l'ETI]o[ie]?E.

I. The tombstone of Phrasikleia: I shall always be called a maiden, having received, instead of marriage, 66 this name from the gods. 11. Aristion the Parian made me. 60

Defending m[vv1:r6s over m[oo]:r6s Hansen writes: 'in hoc titulo manifeste de patre familias agitur, non de iuvene cui monumentum ab amicis aut amatore positum est' (67). The argument appears to be a circular one. 61 As Jeffery notes, "(t]he stoichedon had failed by the sixth line" (IGAA, p. 141, no. 51), see pl. 39:c, and even a clearer illustration in Harder 1943, p. 114. 62 ElTEITa Se Tl Kat lTAEOV 8pTJVOV OlTEOTIV i1 (jios TE evi
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The left side surface of the base bears the signature of Aristion from Paros (II), who was also responsible for the monuments that bore verse epitaphs 34, 36, and 41. 67 The verse epitaph (I) decorates the front surface of the upper block of a stepped or pillar-base of limestone, which supported a kore of island marble. 68

Even though the letters were

somewhat obliterated when the block was reused, the high quality of engraving remains apparent. Neatly cut letters are arranged in what is sometimes referred to as the earliest example of Attic stoichedon: most letters are lined up vertically, and those few that are pushed together are the result of the stonecutter's successful attempt to finish each line with a complete word. In 1972, the kore from the monument was found not far from the Panaghia church in Merenda in the wall in which the block carrying the epitaph for Phrasikleia was once built.69 The kore is of very high quality and superbly preserved. The excellent state of preservation, including traces of paint, has permitted the formulation of an interesting interpretation. Jesper Svenbro thinks that the statue was buried shortly after it was completed by some people who wanted to protect it from being destroyed. 70 The threat, he thinks, could not have been coming from the Persians since the sherds discovered around the statue do not support such a late date. Svenbro suggests that Phrasikleia belonged to the Alkmeonid family and that it was with the return of Peisistratos to Athens in ea. 540 that the statue from Phrasikleia's memorial was hidden, in order to avoid the destruction wreaked by Peisistratos and his followers on anything associated with the Alkmeonid family. 71 Svenbro also points out that the -kleos part is common in the names of the Alkmeonids. While the hypothesis is attractive, the support is insufficient. No evidence yet discovered suggests any connection of the Alkmeonid family with the area (that is with the deme Myrrhinous), and names 67

Aristion's name is certain in 34 and plausibly restored in 36 (which is cut by the same letterer and employs the same formula as 34) and in 41 (in which the stone preserves ]ap1os perhaps from[' Ap1aTiov Tl]ap1os). 68 For a photograph of the base see IGAA, pi. 39:a, the dimensions of the base are H. 0.31 m, W. 0.567 m, Th. 0.585 m; for photographs of the statue, see Matsrokostas 1972. 69 Mastrokostas 1972. 70 Svenbro 1993, pp. 12-14. 71 Svenbro relies on Isocrates 16.26: "And during the forty years of civic discord the Alcmeonidae were hated so much more bitterly than all other Athenians by the tyrants that whenever the tyrants had the upper hand they not only razed their dwellings, but even dug up their tombs" (G. Norlin, trans., Cambridge, Mass./London 1980). Svenbro interprets Isocrates' remark as referring to the year 540, when "Peisistratos returned to Athens, expelling the Alcmaeonid family" (p. 12). It should be noted, however, that Isocrates' assignment of the destruction of the burials of the Alkmeonids (which Thucydides 1.126.12 associates with Kleomenes' intervention in 508) to the Peisistratid period is not trustworthy (see, e.g. Davies 1971, p. 374) and in any case could not be narrowed down to the year 540.

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that include the compound -kleos are numerous. 72 The family of Phrasikleia and the circumstances in which her grave statue was buried remain unknown. Another early verse epitaph which most likely commemorates a woman who died before marriage is also associated with a statue of a kore (18, ea. 550-540): [--- 9-10--]

.1.

[non plus quam 6-7 /itt.]l1..1e q>IAes :TimBos vvvvv(v)l KaTeBeKev:

KaAOV iBev I OfVTCxp : atBll..lOS : epyaaaiTo ... set me [as the tombstone?] of the dear daughter, beautiful to behold. Phaidimos worked it.

The epigram is incised on the upper block of a four-stepped base which was surmounted by a kore; all the fragments of the memorial were found in Vourva in central Attica. The statue and the upper block of the base are of island marble, and the rest of the base is limestone. The letters are carefully and deeply cut, and splitting of a word at line end is avoided (the last two letters ofthe inscription, TO, are inscribed boustrophedon at the right edge of the block). Punctuation marks are used to separate group of words. 73 Although the hexameter is badly preserved, it seems clear that the woman was commemorated by her parent(s), who lamented her as their q>tATJ Tiais. At least two early Attic verse epitaphs were inscribed on monuments for two children, brother and sister. Remarkably, both monuments are tall stelai of the early archaic type, which never features a depiction of a woman alone. It seems therefore that a woman could be commemorated on a stele only with a man, which might mean that the parents would choose this type of grave marker either in cases when both children died together (for example, in a shipwreck or from disease), or when a girl predeceased the man. I doubt that economic reasons played too significant a role in setting up one stele for two people. Perhaps more important was the extremely grievous loss that was expressed by the inclusion of both children in a single monument; combining the two also indicated that they were, in death, together in Hades. One of the most famous examples of archaic Attic funerary sculpture, the so-called boy-and-girl stele from the Metropolitan Museum, appears to commemorate a pair of siblings. The shaft of this magnificent stele, 74 which was surmounted by a sphinx, bears a relief 72 On the other hand, the name Phrasikleides is attested in a propertied family of the deme ofMyrrhinous in the fourth century, Davies 1971, p. 558, no. 14980. 73 For a good photograph of this inscription, see Richter 1961, fig. 200. The dimensions of the block are H. 0.295 m, W. 0.556 m, Th. 0.588 m. 74 Even apart from the artwork, the mere height of this monument, 4.234 m, is impressive. For photographs, measurements, and detailed discussion of the monument see Richter 1961, pp. 27-29, no. 37, figs. 96-109, 190, and 204.

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depicting a youth and a girl. The monument is exceptionally well preserved, but unfortunately the epitaph which is incised on the base, survives only fragmentarily (25, ea. 540-535): 1-lVEI-la
It has been suggested that the monument was connected with the Alkmeonid family. The

hypothesis is based on two considerations: first, it seems that the stele was destroyed soon after it was erected; secondly, the restoration 1-lE[yaKAei in the first line, which has been accepted by several scholars, points to the Alkmeonids (this consideration seems to involve a degree of question-begging).

The suggestion has been convincingly challenged by

Margherita Guarducci who shows that the restoration of the name Megakles is but one of numerous possibilities.75 Davies is certainly right too in his conclusion that "since moreover the fmd-spot is uncertain, the question remains open."76 The relationship of the epitaph to the relief has been much discussed. The father is clearly said to be responsible for the monument, but the role of the mother-whether she is commemorated along with the children, or commemorates them, along with the fatherhas been the subject of debate. 77 It seems most plausible that the monument was set up to commemorate both the brother and the sister, which explains her presence on the relief and appearance as a young girl. The sculptor here employs the iconography of a standing youth, which was common at this time, and the figure of a girl is a clear addition to the existing scheme. The female figure could hardly have been decorative or subsidiary since such figures were generally depicted either in the predella or on the capital of the stele. It seems more likely therefore that the relief represents the deceased who were buried where the stele stood. As for the sister's name, Guarducci believes that it was in the lost part of verse 1, since, she claims, "there is no doubt that it must have appeared in the inscription."78 This is 75

See Guarducci's discussion (in the appendix to Richter 1961, pp. 159-164), in which she summarizes well earlier interpretations. 76 Davies 1971, p. 374; Clairmont 1970, pp. 13-15; JGAA, pp. 146-147, no. 48. 77 For the latter interpretation, see Peek 1942, p. 86, Clairmont 1970, pp. 13-15, et al. Clairmont follows Peek (who believes that the monument was for a mother and son) in understanding oliv as joining the references to the individuals who were buried together, but he suggests that the hexameter mentioned the brother and the sister, while the pentameter introduced their mother, who was also buried with (oliv) them. 78 Guarducci in Richter 1961, p. 159.

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not necessarily the case, since, as we will see in Section 3 below, other epitaphs do not always name the commemorated children. I think that 25 could therefore have had a reference to the sister without naming her. The 1-lirrnp in the epitaph then is one of the commemorating parents, along with the father, and not the commemorated deceased; the lost half of the pentameter could have been a formula of grief, such as Tiailia 6Aocpup61..levos (or

6Aocpup61..lEVOl or 6Aocpupl-lEVTJ), the expression employed in the epitaph for Chairedemos (14). 79 Although the surviving text of 25 has no explicit verb of lament, the repetition of cp(A-

words and the description of one of the commemorated children as 8avwv contribute to the expression of grief on the part of the parents. The fragmentary monument with epitaph 26, which also commemorates siblings, preserves the entire text of the epigram but the shaft of the stele is lost. The inscription is incised on the lower part of a broken stele; 80 the surviving fragment is well picked on the back side, which suggests that it was likely the bottom panel of a tall monolithic stele. The epitaph was probably engraved in the predella of the stele, the shaft of which might have carried a depiction of a man and a girl in relief, as in the boy-and-girl stele (25), or a painting; it could also have depicted only the boy. 81 Obviously, we carmot assess the quality of the artwork of the lost shaft, but the fact that a famous sculptor, Phaidimos, signed the work suggests that it could hardly have been of poor quality. 82 The epigram consists of three iambic trimeters (26, ea, 540-530?):

T68' 'Apxlo 'oTt oel-la: Kal8eAcpes cp!Aes,: EvKoviOI..llOES : Se TOOT' eTiolleoev KaA6v,: OTEAelv: 8' eTI' miTot : 8eKe la(Oll-lOOOcp6s. This is the tombstone of Archias and his dear sister. Eukosmides built this tomb well, and skilled Phaidimos placed a stele on it.

79

If we were to fit in two children, I would suggest something like TeKv' 6:\ocpvp6J.1EVOS (or 6Aocpvp6J.lEVOI or 6:\ocpvpOJ..lEVTJ), but I have reservations about the word TEKVOV in an epitaph of such an early date and in reference to a youth. 80 IGAA, pp. 139-140, no. 48, pi. 38:c; Harrison 1956, p. 29, note 7, and p. 33, note 22. The dimensions of the fragment are H. 0.51 m, W. 0.46-0.48 m, Th. 0.165-0.17 m. 81 If the surviving fragment is in fact the predella, its height suggests to me that the original stele was of the early type in which the height of the predella exceeds its width. A parallel can be seen in the stele of a warrior from the National Museum in Athens (inv. no. 2687), which measures H. 2.395 m, W. 0.37-0.44 m, Th. 0.1450.166 m, and dates to ea. 560, see Richter 1961, p. 22, no. 27, figs. 83-85. 82 See my discussion of artists' signatures in Section 6.

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I. ARCHAIC ATTIC VERSE EPITAPHS

The lettering is not superb, but punctuation marks are employed to assist reading. The verse is metrically correct, and the choice of meter was presumably dictated by the names Eukosmides and Archias, which could theoretically have fit dactylic meter but could scan much more easily in iambic. The name of Archias' sister was not included; perhaps the identification of her through her bother was felt sufficient.

She is described as "dear,"


(KaTa
as, for example, in the short iambic epitaph for Myrrhine (49, ea. 520-500?): [oiJ~-tot 8av6oes ei~-tll [oe]~-ta Mvpives. Alas! Of a deceased woman I am the tomb-marker, one named Myrrhine.

This epitaph curiously displays some affinity to the oil-lOt-type epitaphs from Selinus. 84 Perhaps Myrrhine was a foreigner, or there could have been an independent tradition in Attica of epitaphs that started with an exclamation of lament: there survives a prose epitaph for Pediarchos which also opens with oi~-tot. 85 The stone with Myrrhine's epitaph is lost and thus it is impossible to judge what type of monument it once belonged to; it appears that even the dimensions of the stone were not recorded, although there exists a drawing of the inscription. 83

These references are characteristic of the archaic period and are fairly uncommon in verse epitaphs of the later classical period. 84 Wallace 1970, pp. 95-97. 85 In epitaphs from Selinus o'h.101 usually employed with the vocative of the name of the deceased, "Alas, o so-and-so!" or separately as an absolute cry "Alas!" (see IGLPa/ermo 78,79, 82, 82, 84, 86, 88, 89, 92, 95-97; but LSAG, p. 276, no. 21 from Hyb1a Heraia has the name of the deceased in the genitive). The construction of oi1.101 with the genitive seems to mean "0, alas for thee (or for him or her)!" as in the epitaph for Pediarchos, IG 1267, cf. Sophocles Ant. 82. Jeffery thinks that in Myrrhine's epitaph there is "a conflation of two stock formulas: oi1.101 MvppiVl')) (KTA.) and Mvppivl')) ei1.11 ofilla (KTA.)" (IGAA p. 142 no. 54). I wonder, however, whether a full stop is intended after oi1.101 which was to be understood as an absolute exclamation "Alas!" Cf. 'Ayaoia El.lli TO oCi1.1a Tlo Kapia. oil1.101, JGLPalermo 84).

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An interesting verse epitaph for a foreign resident86 of Athens, Anaxilas from Naxos, describes the monument as lamenting the deceased (58, ea. 510-500?):

OaKpv6ev 1TOAV1TEV8es 'AvaxoiAa eo' 6Ao
Anaxilas' tomb was in the Kerameikos and his grave marker consisted of a large base of island marble which was probably surmounted by a seated statue. 87 Anaxilas is praised on account of the "conventional" virtues of ocu
6Ao
noAvnev8es are elevated Homeric epithets which are often employed in archaic poetry. The word 6Ao
describe the Mnvov

~ve~a,

which suggests the metaphorical equation of Aatvov and enos,

deftly appropriate for a monument with a verse epitaph.

4. Chief Mourner Identitv of the Chief Mourner When a person dies, one or more persons take charge. The "paradigm case" is when a man dies and there is an adult son at home or within reasonable distance who steps in. His legal position is that of the heir who enters upon the property; he becomes the kyrios of the oikos of the deceased and of his widowed mother, if she is alive. Funerary disbursements 86 87

For discussion of the possible meaning of~ETEOtKov, see Whitehead 1977, p. 64, note 44, and p. 168, note 24. For the dimensions of the base see note 53.

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are made by him; he arranges for the funerals, supervises the workmen, and negotiates with a sculptor (these are his practical responsibilities). He is acting on behalfofthe whole oikos, and so he is referred to in the epitaph, but other prominent members of the oikos may be mentioned too in any extended epitaph (this reflects social concerns). Certainly, there were numerous cases that did not conform to this paradigm, because, for example, a man had no male children or they were not around, or children predeceased their parents (and many other scenarios can be thought of). Furthermore, the legal, practical and social position could coincide but could also be different and reflect a departure from the paradigmatic situation which I just described. In fact, it appears that the case in which parents bury their children, which was perceived as abnormal, was the most common situation referred to in a verse epitaph. Approximately 30 archaic Attic epitaphs refer in some way, explicitly or implicitly, to the chief mourner who buried the deceased and set up a grave marker over the burial. When the father is the chief mourner, as in twelve epitaphs, he is acknowledged as such, or his role is referred to indirectly (for example, through calling the deceased a child and mentioning the father's name) (14; 25; 32; 41; 42; 46; 50; 51; 53, 55, 68; 71); references to mothers occur in four epitaphs (33, 35, 43, 54); in two cases it is not entirely clear whether the epitaph refers to both parents or only to one (18, 25); in one verse epitaph the mourner is the husband, along with the mother of the deceased (54); one mourner is the brother (70); in three verse epitaphs children bury their parent(s) (57, 61, 64); in nine more cases the relation of the chief mourner to the deceased is either not stated (26, 40, 58, 66) or cannot be determined from the surviving fragments (15, 16, 45, 65, 74). Thus, in 17 out of 25 (we have to disregard five fragmentary epitaphs), that is in 68%, parents are referred to as chief mourners, whereas children are said to bury their parents in 3 verse epitaphs (12%). These figures show that putting up a verse epitaph must have been a means to commemorate particularly grievous deaths, that of children, and not part of any common "duty to the dead," such as a proper and reverent burial, which would have been rendered to both young and old. From a legal point of view the burial and marking of the burial with a monument should have been carried out by the heir of the deceased, and a woman could not be responsible for these arrangements. Practically speaking, though, women were likely to have

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had a say or even played a part in these arrangements; socially, they could be mentioned in the epitaph as responsible for the monument and lamenting the dead. Several verse epitaphs refer to a woman as the chief mourner along with a another male family member. As we have seen, in two epitaphs mothers join fathers in lamenting their children; in one epitaph the mother seems to join her son-in-law in commemorating her daughter and his wife (54, ea. 510-500?):

"O
I.

I. Opsios for his wife and Apsynthie for her daughter set this memorial up for the deceased Oinanthe. 11. And this too Aristokles made.

Some scholars suggest that the deceased is Oinanthe, wife of Opsios 88 and daughter of Apsynthie; 89 others that the deceased Oinanthe is the daughter of Opsios, while Apsynthie, who is also deceased, is his wife and the mother of Oinanthe. 90 The first interpretation seems more plausible since the name of Oinanthe is certainly in the genitive case and tied closely to the expression 1-lVEI-la KaTa
The

typology of this stele, which is wide 92 and likely to have represented a seated figure (perhaps with an attendant), is consistent with a few other grave memorials for women from the latter part of the sixth century; 93 the monument is signed by Aristocles who is securely attested in at least three more inscriptions. Reference in an epitaph to a woman acting together with a man as chief mourners is by no means surprising. It is more surprising to encounter in archaic Attica an epitaph 88

The name is perhaps attested in two dedicatory inscriptions, IG 13 754 and 763, both ea. 500-480? but the three might well be different people. 89 So Stauropoullos 1965, p. 86, no.1; Daux 1973, pp. 249-251; Viviers 1992, pp. 133-139. 90 Robert 1968, p. 448, no. 195; Clairmont 1970, p. 15, note 13. The editors of LGPNII also consider Oinanthe to be the daughter ofOpsios and daughter(?) of Apsynthie, s.v. Oivav6n (1). 91 Davies 1971, pp. 299-300. Viviers (1992, pp. 138-139) suggests that both Apsynthie and Oinanthe were Ionians, but there is little ground for this hypothesis. 92 The dimensions of the base are H. 0.235 m, L. 0.845 m, Th. 0.355 m; and those of the cutting: L. 0.68 m, W. 0.11 m; for a detailed description and a photograph, see Viviers 1992, pp. 133-139, fig. 32 93 IGAA, pp. 149-150, Vivers 1992, pp. 208-218.

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in which no male mourner is mentioned and only a woman is said to be responsible for the burial, which, from a strictly legal point of view, she could not have been. The mother of Aisimides (?)94 had her son's tombstone inscribed with an hexameter (35, ea. 530?): ~imp[{8o T6]8E [ae]h..ta
The epitaph is inscribed on a large block of limestone (perhaps the top block of a stepped base), 95 which bears traces of stucco and has a cutting for a thick stele. It was found in the Kerameikos. The lettering is not particularly careful but, as Jeffery points out, is somewhat close to the boy-and-girl inscription (25), which stood on a magnificent monument. 96 Yet, in Aisimides' epitaph, which resembles a metrically arranged label, no punctuation marks are employed, and line and word ends do not correspond. As a result, the word at the end of each line is interrupted and carried over to the next, and the resulting appearance could not have been very impressive. The quality of the sculpture is impossible to assess, but the sheer size of the surviving base must indicate a costly monument. Epigram 43 (ea. 525?) probably spoke of the mother of the deceased as either the sole chief mourner or as eo-mourner, along with another male relation, but the inscription is so poorly preserved that little can be deduced from it. Only half of the marble base on which the text was inscribed survives. The long base97 most likely supported two columns or two vases with a stele situated between them. The inscription consists of three lines written stoichedon, and fifteen letters survive from each line. Hansen98 believes that originally it was an epigram in three couplets, which, if so, would make it one of the longest elegiac epitaphs in early archaic Attica (another one being 58, of a slightly later date, ea. 510-500?) and second in Greece only to the Ambracia epitaph (SEG 41.540), which consisted of five couplets. Because 43 is so fragmentary, the possibility cannot be excluded that the base bore two independent inscriptions commemorating two deceased individuals, or, on the contrary, that the epigram was hexametric and consisted only of three or four verses. The preserved part of the text undoubtedly has the word J.l.TlTllP in the nominative case preceded Jeffery rules out Peek's suggestion to read Tl]a~~::n~[axot, which would require an ypsilon of a very archaic shape, IGAA, pp. 119-120, no. 7. 95 The dimensions of the block are H. 0.39 m; L. 0.8 m; Th. 0.91-0.92 m; for a photograph see IGAA, pi. 33:c. 96 JGAA, pp. 119-120, no. 7. 97 The dimensions ofthe preserved part are H. 0.267 m, p.L. 1.105 m, Th. 0.967 m. 98 For a detailed discussion of this epitaph and the monument, see Hansen 1976. 94

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by the demonstrative T6Se (line 2) and the first person verb 6.Aoqnipol-!at (line 3). It may be, therefore, that the mother was mentioned in the text as the chief mourner, but there is no way to know whether there was also a reference to the father or some other person, as in the boy-and-girl monument. Although it is tempting to see the nominative 1-ltlTllP as the subject of 6.Aocpvpol-!at, one should remember that these words might have been separated by one and a half verses, in which a subject of the first person verb could have been introduced. 99 In total, there are six Attic archaic verse epitaphs that mention surviving females, 100

but in only one of them (35) is a woman singled out as responsible for the burial. Perhaps an epitaph from Troezen (138, ea. 550-525?), the first verse of which resembles the epitaph to Aisimides, 101 offers some insight into occasions in which mothers would assume the responsibility for setting up the grave monument: .6ai-!OTii-!Ol : ToSe Ocll-!0 :
Amphidama would not have been responsible for the burial if there were other children in the house, brothers ofDamotimos. We may also assume that Damotimos' father had passed away before him. Perhaps, Aisimides' mother was in a similar situation and participated actively in the arrangements for his burial, although she, being an Athenian, must have had a kyrios who legally would have been in charge of the commemoration of Aisimides. He might have delegated funeral arrangements to her and did not object to an epitaph which referred only to her. Archaic Attic verse epitaphs never mention relatives beyond parents, children, siblings and spouses, although there must have been situations when an oikos (and so the responsibility for burying the deceased head of this oikos) would be passed to an uncle or cousin or nephew. Perhaps in this case the mother could have had greater involvement 99

Hansen (1976, p. 160) suggests that the reader of the inscription could be the intended subject of the firstfterson verb. 00 25, 33, 35, 43, 54, 61. Theosemos' epitaph (74, ea. 500-480?) might have included a reference to his wife, but it also could have been to a friend, who was named at the end of the verse, so I cast this epitaph with other "undeterminable" chief mourners; I follow Wallace in considering 37 and 38 to be prose (1985, pp. 316-317), and furthermore I am unsure whether 37 is sepulchral. 101 This resemblance, of course, does not suggest any direct influence, but shows once again that hexametric record-type epitaphs display little variety throughout different parts of Greece during the sixth and even fifth centuries.

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in the funerary arrangements-and would have been likelier to refer to it in the epitaphthan in those cases when the oikos was passed to immediate kin. One epitaph is particularly interesting in offering insight into funerary arrangements after the death of the head of the oikos (61, ea. 510-500?): ~[i]y~e.e[---

-ea. 10--- J.epvAioo,

ho Tooe oe11a I

[TI]~iOes

eTioieoav [1-le]T[p]os

e
Radiant (?) ... -erulides, for whom this tomb his children made at the command of their mother.

Even though the first line is badly preserved, the general sense and construction of the epigram is clear. It provides a conventional record stating that the children set up the tomb for their father, but also adds that the children did so at the command of their mother. 102 The epigram is one of only three archaic Attic verse epitaphs in which children are said to commemorate parent(s), but it might reflect the situation that I called in the beginning of this section "paradigmatic."

The sons would be legally and practically responsible for the

monument, and in the eyes of the law the mother could only express her wishes; in real life, however, her wishes in such a matter as the funeral arrangements and grave monument for her deceased husband were perhaps rather a behest than a request. The sons might have been still young and wished to emphasize their compliance to their mother's will, while she might have wanted the epitaph to emphasize the fact that the sons were adult and capable of carrying out funerary responsibilities. The type of monument on which this epitaph is inscribed is rather uncommon for grave monuments with epigrams: the epitaph is incised on "two adjoining blocks [of limestone] from the lower course of a large monument, perhaps, a 'house-tomb' or a long stepped base." 103 The limestone is stuccoed. The dimensions of this praegrandis base, as the editors of JG 13 1226 call it, are H. 0.49 m, L. 2.40 m; the monument is likely to have been set up in the Kerameikos, because the base was built into and still is in the Themistoklean wall by the Sacred Gate. 104 Peek relates that at least eighteen more limestone blocks, some with traces of stucco, were found built into the wall nearby, and these finds have led him to propose the restoration of a house-tomb type memorial. Jeffery contends that a stepped 102

For the expression, cf. a fifth century dedicatory (?) inscription from Thessaly (343): [- - - I ?BeKchav 6e]oav I ['A1TOAA]c.:lVI vv(v)l [1TaiO]es enpolll[a]xo: 1TaTpos V I E
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base could be a possibility, for example, for an equestrian statue. Still, the dimensions appear too big even for the lower course of a stepped base; furthermore, as a rule, the upper and not the lower block of a stepped base carried the inscription. The base of the equestrian monument of Xenophantes (50, ea. 510?), also found built into the Themistoklean wall/ 05 has the dimensions H. 0.26 m, W. 0.57 m, Th. 1.655 m, and the inscription is placed on the shorter side, while 61 is incised on the long side of the base. A house-tomb, therefore, is the likelier candidate for 61. This type was perhaps considered more appropriate for the grave of an older man. It was perhaps also viewed as more traditional: the surviving evidence shows little change in the construction of house-tombs throughout the sixth century. Although house-tombs must have been decorated, 106 they were conspicuous mainly for their size and for the space around the tomb, much the same as the tumuli and brick tombs of the earlier period, and this type of memorial permitted a certain grandeur that did not rely on sculpture, which in the archaic period tended to depict only the young. It might well be the case, therefore, that the widow of the deceased in 61 opted for what was viewed as a more traditional monument befitting the grave of an older man. Grief of the Chief Mourner In many archaic verse epitaphs the reference to the chief mourner, either by name or by relation (for example, naTfJp or J..ITJTTJP ), is accompanied by an expression of his or her grief. In the epitaph for Chairedemos (14) his father Amphichares is 6Ae

It was discovered after the publication of IGAA. It is not entirely clear how they were decorated. Boardman (1955, pp. 51-58) suggests that numerous surviving painted clay plaques were placed, in series or singularly, on the house-tombs, but confesses that there is no material evidence for this practice. 106

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5. Address to a Passer-by and Reflections Verse epitaphs often directly address the reader by asking him to lament the deceased and also by reminding him of his own inevitable death. Addressing a passer-by seems to have appeared in Greek verse epitaphs with the advance of elegiac meter in inscriptional verse.

The earliest surviving Attic epitaph-the one for Tettichos (13), which is also

probably the earliest surviving inscriptional elegiac couplet, addressed and admonished the passer-by; Kroisos' epitaph (27) also asked the passer-by to stop and lament the deceased. As mentioned above, Attic epitaphs that address the passer-by do not name the chief mourner. Perhaps the very address to the reader with the request to lament the deceased was thought to ensure that the reader assumed the role of the mourner and, with the mourner no more confined to a certain person from the family of the deceased, the epitaph was elevated to the level of a public message. This is probably why commemoration of death in war was especially conducive to epitaphs containing the address to a passer-by (13, 27, SEG 41.540), and perhaps it was in fact first employed in an epitaph for a man who fell on the battlefield. Having appeared in Attic epitaphs in the second quarter of the sixth century, the address to the passer-by eventually became used in elegiac verse epitaphs in other parts of Greece (SEG 41.540 from Ambracia; 159 from Thasos; 117 from Thessaly-a patchwork of somewhat later date, ea. 480-450?), and in Attica itself. Thus, the expression with which the passer-by is addressed in Kroisos' epitaph appears in the pentameter of the epitaph for Thrason (28, ea. 540-530?):

av8po1TE hO<JTElXE[I]S: Ka8' ooolv :
The reason why the passer-by should lament the deceased is formulated in Thrason's epitaph in one word, io6v (=iowv), with the implication that, having beheld the monument, the passer-by would naturally lament the loss of such a man.

The monument most likely

featured a tall stele with a relief depicting Thrason, and probably stood at the side of the Dromos or the Sacred Way, 107 and thus it was observed by numerous wayfarers. The epitaph 107

The epitaph is carved on the upper block of a stepped base (H. 0.205 m, W. 0.79 m, Th. 0.53 m; the cutting for the stele measures L. 0.48 m, W. 0.166 m, D. 0.10 m), which was built into the Themistoklean wall by the 37:e-f; Viviers 1992, p. 122, fig. 28. The measurements Dipylon Gate, IGAA, pp. 132-133, no. 33, pl. of the base and the cutting for the stele suggests that the latter was a tall stele similar to, for example, the stele from the National Museum in Athens (inv. no. 2687}, Richter 1961, p. 23, no. 27, figs. 83-85.

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has no word of praise for the deceased because, presumably, the reference to the visual representation was felt sufficient to arouse grief and demand lament for the loss of such a man. It should also be noted that the inscription is very carefully executed: the letters are neatly carved, punctuation marks and guidelines are employed, and the text is evenly spread over three lines (the first two lines have 23 letters each, and in the third line, which has 27 letters, the cutter skillfully pushed the letters closer to each other). An appeal to the passer-by to lament the deceased could also be justified by a gnomic generalization, as seen in the following inscription (34, ea. 530?): 108 I.

[' A]VTIAOXO : lTOTt OE!l' aya8o I Kat a6cppovos avop6sl

II.

[oaKpv K1?:r~p[x1~ov, _e:ret K?t I ae 11evet 8avaTos. 'AptcrTiov I 11' eTI6eaev.

I. In front of the tomb of Antilochos, an excellent and wise man, shed a tear, since death awaits you too. 11. Aristion made me.

This epitaph includes little that might be considered specific to the deceased, and could have stood on the grave of any Athenian aristocrat. The fact that the deceased belonged to a certain type of men, the aya8ot Kat awcppOVES, appears to have been considered more important than any peculiar information about the deceased. The gnomic expression in the pentameter seems to encourage the passer-by to reflect on his own life and is reminiscent of the ending of the epitaph for Tettichos, vea8e eTit Tipay11' aya86v. Expressions of admonition and addressing the passer-by are confined in archaic Attica to elegiac epitaphs, but generalizations can be employed in hexametric epitaphs, too (40, ea. 530-520?): 109

:olTIKAEOS 1Tat00S ~a!lalatcrTpcXTO ev8aoe OE!la I Tletmavaxs KaTe8eKe· To I yap yepas ecrTt 8av6vTo[s]. This is the tomb of Epikles son of Damasistratos. Peisianax set it up, because this is what is due the dead.

The second verse employs a Homeric formula, 11. 16.457, 675 and 23.9, and Od. 24.190, 296; the first verse by itself would suffice as an epitaph, but the chief mourner evidently wanted 108

Epitaph (I) is incised on the front face of the upper block (H. 0.21 m, p.W. 0.68 m, Th. 0.70 m), and the signature (11) is on the left side face of the stepped base, which perhaps carried a column, IGAA, p. 120, no. 8, Pc!. 34:a-c. 09 The epitaphs is incised on the upper block (H. 0.22 m, W. 0.70 m, Th. 0.705 m) of the stepped base which preserves a cutting for a wide and thick (L. 0.53 m, W. 0.19 m, D. 0.085 m) stele, IGAA, pp. 144-145, no. 58, pi. 40:a. The text in line 4 (that starts with yap) is cut in rasura, but the reason why the original text had been erased is not clear.

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his name to be included, and inclusion of it gave him one and a half verses. The end of the second verse was then easily filled with an appropriate formula. 6. Monument

Sight of the Monument As we have seen in the epitaph for Thrason and others, the fact the monument was intended to be viewed could be taken into account by the composer of the verse epitaph. In some cases, the representation of the deceased is invoked as a way of praising the deceased 110 and is seen as strengthening the request to the passer-by to lament him or her; in others, reference to the sight of the monument, which must have featured a depiction of the deceased, emphasizes the impossibility of seeing the deceased himself, who is held by death (46, ea. 525-500?): 111 OEj..la
hov 8avaTo[s BaKpv]l6es Ka8[e]xet.

Diodorus set up for all to see this tomb to his dear son, Stesias, whom tearful death holds.

112

Another example in which the sight of the deceased's tomb is meant to elicit grief is found in an epitaph for Smikythos (51, ea. 510?): 113 oiKTtpo npoaopo[v] lnmBos T6Be ae~-ta I 8av6vTos : ~j..llKV8[o]

I h6s TE
Lament as you see the tomb of the deceased child, Smikythos, who destroyed the hope of those dear to him.

And we encounter a similar expression in the epitaph for Kleoites (68, ea. 500?t 4 : nat[Bo]s [an]?
Thus, for example, 19, the fragmentary epitaph for Xenokles, seems to say that "having seen" his tomb "one would know (or recognize) prowess." 111 The stone with the epitaph is lost, so it is unclear to what type of a monument it once belonged, IGAA, f·12 132, no. 31. An epitaph from Thasos is even more explicit (161, ea. 500-490?): Tj KaMv TO I.IVTU..IO [TTa]ITI)p EOTT]OE 8av6a[T]t]l A~pETT]I' ovyap [ET]h ~waav EOO<J>OOI.I[E8a]. 113

The epitaph is inscribed on the upper block of the stepped base (H. 0.398 m, W. 0.535 m, Th. 0.252 m) which carried a stele, the cutting for which measures L. 0. 45 m, W. 0.11 m. For a photograph, see Viviers 1992,p. 138,fig.33. 114 The epitaph is incised on a block (H. 0.19 m, W. 0.735 m, Th. 0.58 m) of the base, which perhaps carried a stele--since the epitaph is incised on a wide face of the block, Jeffery thinks that the base was probably surmounted by a stele rather than by a kouros, IGAA, p. 147, no. 67, fig. 41 c-d. The base of the monument of Neilonides (42) also had the epitaph inscribed on a wide face (W. 0.715 m, Th. 0.631 m) and supported a statue of a kouros; thus there is, in my opinion, a good possibility that the monument ofKleoites included a kouros. 115 I print the reading ofHansen, CEG 11, p. 301, no. 68, in which he adjusts his earlier text to accord with Day's examination of the stone.

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At the monument of the deceased Kleoites, child of Menesaichmos, as you look, lament, since he died in the flower of his beauty.

It has been much debated whether both epitaphs employ the imperative forms of the verb

oiKTipc.:> (oiKTtpov and oiKTtpe, respectively) or the first person oiKTipc.:>, but in either case the lamentation is accompanied and enhanced by the reader's viewing of the monument. The grief is also emphasized by additional descriptions of the deceased: Smikythos destroyed the hope of those dear to him; Kleoites was in the flower of his youth--presumably KaA6s refers to the age group, approximately 15 to 25 years old. It might be significant that the epitaphs for Smikythos and for Kleoites allude to the deceased as members of closer circlesthat of their families and friends-than is customary in those Athenian epitaphs which address the passer-by with the request to lament the deceased (13, 27, 28, 34). This consideration suggests to me that the verbs of lament in both epitaphs are rather employed in the first person form than in the imperative, and are meant to evoke some sense of the closeness of the circle of mourners, the friends and relatives of the deceased, who were responsible for burying and setting up the grave monuments. I will return to this question later. In a few other cases the monument itself is described with an epithet denoting beauty,

KaA6v (18, 26) or xapiev (42), and such a description seems to suggest some pride on the part of the chief mourner in setting up a seemly monument wrought by a famous sculptor. Interestingly, while KaA6s is a common word in archaic verse epitaphs, employed to describe either the deceased or his/her monument and burial, the word can hardly be found in later classical epitaphs. 116 Sculptors' Signatures on Monuments with Verse Epitaphs Many archaic funerary monuments, including those that bore verse epitaphs, are signed by sculptors, and in some cases a reference to the artist has been incorporated into the verse epitaph itself. The issue of artistic signatures on gravestones has been a subject of epigraphical, literary and archeological studies, and indeed it pertains to all these fields. The epigraphical approach to the question is exemplified by the groundbreaking study 116

Hansen lists three occurrences, of which one (548) is a possible restoration flagged by a question mark; the next one (ei TO KaAw<; EOTI Saveiv, 595, line 1) is in a line that is likely to have been borrowed from a literary piece, and in any case does not modify the monument or the deceased; and the last (578, line 3, KaAw<;) is in the badly preserved part of a bombastic epitaph for an actor and seems to modify some action on the part of some "heroes," that is it does not seem to be applied to the deceased.

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of Jeffery, who attempted to identify some letter-cutters and trace their connections to workshops of particular sculptors, while also pointing out that the content of epitaphs inscribed on monuments signed by the same sculptor may display some stylistic unity. 117 The literary approach has recently been demonstrated by Ute Ecker who concludes in her study of the literary aspects of verse epitaphs that the artist's signature should be viewed as a guarantee of the quality of the monument and that its purpose is to contribute, along with the verse epitaph, to the glory of the deceased. 118

Scholars of art history and

archeology have investigated sculptors' signatures in order to assess the activities of workshops and schools of sculpture and to outline some artistic tendencies and influences. Two recent works, those of Viviers and Brunilde Ridgway, dealing with various facets of archaic sculpture offer insightful analysis of several issues surrounding the archaic custom of signing sculptural works. 119 I am much indebted to both studies, and would like to analyze what seem to me to be uniquely Attic tendencies in signing works of sculpture and to investigate the Attic phenomena in the broader context of lasting material display at archaic burial sites. The Aegean islands were the main centers for production of large works of round sculpture and relief during the seventh and sixth centuries. In Attica, the art of large marble sculpture was virtually unknown before approximately 600 BC, but within a quarter of a century or so Attica became a center for this art with a large output of works, and the Athenians clearly valued sculpture and individuals' achievements in sculpture. The pride a person took in commissioning a monument from a famous sculptor was so high that it was deemed possible and apparently desirable to have the sculptor sign his work. The fact that the artist would sign the artwork is by no means surprising-numerous vase-painters left their signatures, and the importance of authorship of a famous piece of art is clear from ancient literary sources. 120 It has been noticed, however, that in Athens "masters' signatures do not begin to appear on the citadel until ea. 530, while funerary monuments were already being signed almost thirty years earlier," 121 and that there appears to be some correlation 117

IGAA, pp. 149-153 and passim. Ecker 1990, pp.l32-149, esp. p.137. 119 Viviers 1992, and Ridgway 1993. 120 See, e.g., Stewart 1990, I, pp. 19-32 and pp. 65-72, and Ridgway 1993, pp. 421-431, for discussion of such issues as fame, rewards and self-esteem of Greek sculptors. 121 Ridgway 1993, p. 428. 118

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between signatures and verse epitaphs. 122 Phaidimos signed three monuments, all bearing verse epitaphs (14, 18, 26), and in two cases (18 and 26) his name was included in the sepulchral epigram along with the reference to the monument as KaA6v. Another sculptor, Aristion from Paros, signed four monuments, all with verse epitaphs (24, 34, 36, 41), three of which use similar expressions to describe the virtues of the deceased: cre1-1' 6:ya8o Kal

cr6
verse epitaphs, and this suggestion is certainly attractive. 123 There might have also been collaboration between the chief mourner and the sculptor or stonecutter. Although a funerary monument might seem to be an unlikely place for an artist's signature to appear, signatures were fairly numerous and often prominently displayed on gravestones in archaic Athens. The fact that signatures on gravestones preceded those on votive monuments is even more surprising. Indeed, prior to approximately 530 all surviving artistic signatures are associated with grave monuments and not with dedications. At least seven grave monuments that date to before ea. 530 are signed, three by Phaidimos and four by Aristion from Paros, while the earliest signed dedications date to the last third of the sixth century (/G 13 1009, which is dated by the editors to ea. 550-540?, is likely to be of later date 124), and only after ea. 510 do signatures on dedications become frequent. 122

IGAA, p. 140, no. 49. Wallace 1984, pp. 310-311; see also Wallace 1970, p. 100, note 16. 124 Jeffery thought that Aristokles worked from the mid- to the end of the sixth century, IGAA, pp. 126-127, no. 18 and p. 152; editors of IG 1009 suggest that there might have been two sculptors of the same name. Viviers (1992, pp. 139-141) dates JG 1009 to the end of the sixth century on the basis of the shape of the nu, and believes that the Aristokles of IG 13 1009 is the same one who worked at the end of the century. It does appear that the letters ofe 1009 are not unlike those ofe 1256, which is signed by Aristokles and is dated ea. 510. The main reason for the early dating of IG 13 1009, ea. 550-540?, is the fact that it is written boustrophedon. Although boustrophedon writing is more common in the middle of the century, there are examples dating to the late 6th and even early 5th cc. See, for example, IG 995, a dedication from Eleusis (ea. 500-450?), which is written from right to left; leges sacrae in the Eleusinion at Athens, JG 13 232, early 5th c., and an epitaph JG 1274bis (540-520?) are written boustrophedon. Another reason to suppose that there were two sculptors by the name Aristokles has been the theory that there was "apparent specialization of workshops and masons. The sculptors and letterers of funerary monuments seem by and large different from those who worked on the acropolis dedications" (Ridgway 1993, p. 425). The impression that sculptors who worked on funerary monuments did not work on dedications may derive from the fact that for about thirty years the signatures were 123

e

e

e

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The ratio 7:0 for the period before ea. 530 indicates perhaps something more than random survival and means that early archaic dedications were in fact less likely to be signed by an artist than grave markers. It should also be noted that, generally speaking, archaic Attic dedicatory verse inscriptions are much less susceptible to innovation than epitaphs. 125 The situation changes only towards the end of the century when there appear more dedications that bear an epigram and are signed, but until ea. 520-510 the practice is still more common with grave memorials. It is also noteworthy that the artist Endoios who flourished in the last quarter of the sixth century signed four works, two tombstones and two dedications. Both grave monuments bear verse epitaphs (42 and 66), while both dedications are in prose (IG I3 763 and 764).

Comparison with the rest of the Greek world underscores the peculiarity of Attic 'signing' practice. The earliest surviving artistic signatures elsewhere date to the end of the seventh century and the practice is not uncommon in the following century. 126 Most early signatures come from dedications at major religious centers such as Ptoion, Delos or Olympia, while funerary monuments are generally unsigned. This fact allowed Ridgway to conclude that outside Athens "all the signatures extant ... are on votive offerings. The funerary purpose of some pieces can only be assumed, not proved; nonetheless not even one of the possible candidates has preserved a master's signature." 127 In fact, a signed funerary stele from Orchomenos in Boiotia has long been known, and recently another grave stele with a verse epitaph and artist's signature was found in Akraiphia. I will return to these exceptions later. The following picture of artists' signatures emerges: in the early archaic period, that is during the seventh century, it was customary for a sculptor outside Attica to sign a piece of work which was designated as votive. In some cases sculptors themselves would

inscribed only on funerary monuments, and by the time the practice of signing votive sculptures was adopted at Athens the sculptors of the generation of Phaidimos or Aristion were no longer around. At the end of the sixth century, Endoios and Philergos signed both funerary and votive monuments, and Aristokles, I believe, also worked in both fields. 125 Many dedications, either hexametric or elegiac (the latter were not even employed on the Acropolis until the 520s), have a set of conventional elements (who dedicated it, to whom it was dedicated and a demonstrative pointing to the object of dedication) and they do not differ much from dedications elsewhere in Greece, see Wallace 1984, pp. 307 and 313. 126 For the earliest sculptors' signatures see LSAG, pp. 62-63, with references, and the valuable and concise survey "Signatures outside Attica" in Ridgway 1993, pp. 430-432. 127 Ridgway 1993, p. 431.

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vow the work to a deity, 128 but in the majority of cases the work would be dedicated by another person. In Attica, the first signatures appeared on funerary monuments, and only towards the end of the sixth century did the practice of signing votive monuments become widespread; the tradition of signing funerary sculpture was exclusive to Attica throughout the archaic period, with two Boiotian stelai being exceptions to this rule. This pictures raises at least two questions.

One of them was formulated by Ridgway, "Why to sign a grave

marker?" and the other one concerns Attic exclusivity and Boiotian exceptions. Many sculptors who worked in Attica in the sixth century might have come from the Greek East, particularly from the Aegean Islands. Although the custom of signing an artifact can be attested in various parts of Greece, some especially noteworthy examples are of Cycladic origin. A dedication from Delos dating to the late seventh century has the signature ofthe Naxian sculptor Euthykartides 129 who dedicated his work in the sanctuary of Apollo. 130 Four archaic dedications from Paros are signed (two of them accompany an epigram): 412, 413, /G 12.5.1.219, and /G 12.5.1.252. The monuments bearing 412 and /G 12.5.1.219 date

to the early sixth century, while those bearing 413 and /G 12.5.1.252 date to the last quarter of the sixth century; thus, the practice of signing votive sculptures was common on Paros both earlier and contemporary with the practice of signing grave monuments in Attica. The signature in 413 (ea. 525-500?) accompanies an elegiac couplet and is itself a single hexameter containing a boastful announcement: ToO Tlapio Tioirn.ta

KptTcuviB~ euxo~-t[at

eTvat]. This signature resembles one of the boastful signatures of Phaidimos, who is called oocp6s in 26 and praised for making the monument KaAov iBeiv in 18. Early sixth century island sculptors might have brought with them to Athens the practice of signing their works-one may only wonder how many works Aristion of Paros produced and signed in archaic Athens if there survives evidence of four signed monuments, all funerary. Summarizing various possible explanations of the phenomenon of artists' signatures on grave monuments in Attica, Ridgway concludes that "[i]t is difficult to escape the thought that artists signed as a form of advertisement, to prompt further commission." 131 If the sculptors

128

E.g. the Naxian Euthykartides, see below. LSAG, p. 291, no.3 130 The fact that Euthykartides could both make and dedicate his work to the Delian Apollo testifies to the sculptor's prosperity. 131 Ridgway 1993, p. 429. 129

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were the initiators of the practice and employed it for advertisement purposes, why would they not have signed votive monuments, as they were accustomed to do in their homelands? We should not, I think, overestimate the influence of the artist and underestimate the tastes and demands of those who commissioned the monuments. The latter must at least have consented to if not asked for the name of the sculptor to be displayed, sometimes as prominently as the names of the chief mourner and the deceased. In the eyes of Athenian aristocrats, a sculptor's signature must have contributed to the beauty and value of the monument and must have been one of the elements constituting the ideal complex of lasting commemoration at the burial site: a stele or statue mounted on a stepped base, with the latter bearing a verse epitaph and signature of the artist (the memorial for Phrasikleia (24), for example, would be an embodiment of such an ideal).

If we are to keep the word

advertisement in the explanation of signing practices, it should also be thought to denote advertisement of the status and tastes ofthe family of the deceased and not just the sculptor's attempt to prompt further commissions, even if the latter is not entirely insignificant. If signing were entirely up to a sculptor and served the purpose of advertising, we would, as I have indicated, expect the sculptors to have signed dedications, too, and this is an additional reason to believe that it must have been the Athenians who cared to have funerary, and not votive, monuments signed by the sculptors. But why? In what follows I only attempt to approach the question, and do not pretend to have the complete answer. Let me divide the period under consideration into two parts: prior to the 520s (the period during which the practice of signing sculptural works was confmed to funerary monuments) and the end of the century (when the votive statues start to bear artists' signatures). From what evidence remains, there does not seem to be any drastic difference in the artistic quality of funerary and dedicatory monuments throughout the sixth century; in quantity, however, there appears to be a sharp increase in votive sculpture, especially on the Acropolis, in the last quarter of the sixth century or even after the reforms of Kleisthenes in 508/7. 132 Since the quality of the artwork does not appear to explain the absence of sculptors' signatures, we have to look for other significant characteristics in which votive and funerary monuments and their inscriptions differ.

132

See Keesling's overview of the problem of dating the increase of votive statues on the Acropolis (2003, pp. 36-62).

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a) Purpose. Dedications were meant for a god, or gods, and were intended to please them, while funerary monuments were meant to keep one's memory alive, but this seemingly important difference does not appear to have found much reflection in, for example, the iconography of kouroi or korai, which could be used in either votive or funerary contexts. b) Place. Archaic Attic funerary monuments were set up along the roads and were constantly accessible to numerous passers-by, with some epitaphs even stating that they were set by the road, and the prominence of the address to a wayfarer also demonstrates the dependence on a large audience.

The Acropolis might have been less accessible, and it has even been

suggested that during the time of the tyrants, who had a residence there, access to the Acropolis was limited. 133 c) Layout. Archaic Attic dedicatory inscriptions of the earlier period are often harder to read than epitaphs. Dedications, for example, are often inscribed downwards on the column which supported the offering. d) Poetic Originality. Dedications are quite formulaic, especially during the earlier period, and until the 520s they were composed in hexameters; the appearance of elegiac did not change the diction of dedicatory inscriptions in the same way that it did epitaphs. Departures from sheer record types do not appear until around the end of the sixth or beginning of the fifth century. e) Poetic Quality. Unlike verse epitaphs, archaic dedications sometimes fail to meet formal metrical requirements. To illustrate this and other points mentioned above, I would adduce a dedication by Alkimachos son of Chairion. He dedicated to Athena a statue of a seated man (Acr. 629) which might represent Chairion, who was a tamias or treasurer of Athena before the middle of the sixth century; 134 the statue was mounted on a column that bore the following inscription (195, ea. 525-500?): 'AAIKl!.lOXOS ~.t' ave{cr}8eKe ~lOS KOpEl T65' aya.A~.ta I evlxo.Aev ecr8.Ao Se lTOTpos hOs Xmp(ovos ElTEtJxETal
E.g. Langlotz 1939, p. 9. Cf. IG 13 590 and 1516; the first mentions Chairion the tamias of Athena, and the second (found in Eretria) appears to be his epitaph. See also DAA, no. 6; Kees1ing 2003, pp. 182-185. 134

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The quality of these verses is low compared to archaic Attic verse epitaphs of the same period, and the inscription is carelessly inscribed. There is no signature of the sculptor. On the other hand, the statue is of finest quality, and the family is likely to have been of the highest property class. 135 At the end of the sixth century the following changes occurred in dedications and dedicatory inscriptions on the Acropolis: --the number of dedications increased, and there began to appear dedications of people whose status could not have been high (e.g. IG 13 546, a dedication of a small shield by a female bread maker named Phrygia), but they did not eclipse dedications by the aristoi; leaving aside the question of a possible connection between this increase and the reforms of Kleisthenes, we just note that the "bulge" in dedications, as Anthony Raubitschek calls it, might have reflected the increased accessibility to the Acropolis; --verse dedicatory inscriptions became more elaborate, and elegiac meter started to be used; --sculptors' signatures appeared; --the layout of inscriptions became closer to that of epitaphs, with the inscriptions often placed on the front surface of the base. The different developments in archaic funerary and dedicatory verse inscriptions might be at least partly explained by the different purposes and contexts of funerary and votive monuments. Early dedicatory inscriptions simply identified the donor and recorded the act of offering; it was between the man (or woman) and the god (or, more often, goddess), and the latter perhaps was not perceived as caring much for the written word or in need of any catchy address; more importantly, votive offerings were not constantly accessible to viewers and readers in the way that funerary monuments were. Funerary monuments allowed men to have an enduring record of an address to other men; those who commissioned splendid grave markers with verse epitaphs announced to the community that they belonged not only to families of handsome means, but that they both knew and appreciated poetry and art, and valued achievements of particular artists. Herodotus' description of Kallias the Athenian (6.122) shows that to impress people through immense spending was an admirable feature of an Athenian aristocrat. Funerary art offered one opportunity for such lavish spending,

135

If the Chairion of Alkimachos' dedication is the same as the Chairion of the epitaph from Eretria (/G 13 590, and 1516), which is a probable assumption, he was also "of the Eupatrids."

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and insuring the presence of the artist's signature on the grave marker was perhaps meant as a way to attest to this lavishness, which in turn attested the excellency of one's family. Once the Acropolis became more accessible, inscriptions on votive offerings became both more reader-friendly and more imposing. In many cases, they started to expand from a mere record of what had been done, to a description of how and why it had been done; speaking to a deity started to involve looking over the shoulder at the audience of men. Now I wish to address the two Boiotian grave markers that appear to contradict the rule that sculptors signed funerary monuments only in Attica. Although they seem, prima facie, to be exceptions, they actually confirm the rule. The grave stele which is signed by Alxenor was found in Orchomenos.

It is made of local Boiotian marble and depicts a

bearded man leaning on a staff and offering a locust to a dog; the epitaph might have been inscribed on the base, which is now lost; the artist's signature is carved under the relief (150

= IG 7.3225, saec. V in.): 136 'A:\xcn1vop .ETTOlTJOEV ho Naxtos· aAA' eo(8eo[8e]. Alxenor from Naxos made it. But, you, behold!

Alxenor's pretentious signature (150) immediately reminds one of the signature of Kritonides (413) and of the signatures of the Athenian sculptors.

The stele, which Alxenor was

responsible for carving, is dated to the first quarter of the fifth century, that is to the period when the number of Attic grave monuments sharply decreased, and it has been suggested, on the basis of stylistic analysis of the stele, that the Naxian Alxenor came to Boiotia via Attica. The motif of an older man accompanied by a dog is first attested in Attica at the end of the sixth century, and in the first decades of the following century it spread north-east from Attica. 137 Alxenor, in the tradition of island sculptors and following the Attic practice of signing the grave monument, proudly signed the stele, and he did so very likely upon the demand of the Boiotian person who commissioned the monument and who perhaps wanted to imitate Attic tradition. 138 136

The dimensions of the stele are H. 2.04 m, W. 0.61-0.59, Th. 0.18 m; for a detailed description and a photograph, see Hiller 1975, pp. 177-179, pi. 19:1. 137 For discussion of several stelai of this type, see Clairmont 1970, pp. 28-31, no. 8, which is a man-and-dog stele from Apollonia Pontica. 138 Hansen calls the script of this inscription ''Naxia ... nisi quod H pro e primigenio at XI pro DI scribuntur." In fact, there are inscriptions in Athens in the first half of the fifth century which display similar script, that is with H for both eta and h, A for lambda, the three bar sigma (e.g. IG I3 865), and XI for chi is conventional Attic. It is impossible to determine, therefore, whether the script is Ionic or Attic.

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I. ARCHAIC ATTIC VERSE EPITAPHS

The new stele 139 which was found in Akraiphia is signed by Philorgos (Philourgos ), who, the editor contends, should be identified with Philergos, 140 an artist who worked in Athens in the last quarter of the sixth century and signed two monuments there (52, and a dedication, JG I3 763, which is eo-signed by Endoios ). The new finding is a marble stele with an anthemion and a depiction of a young man in relief (Fig.l ). The youth is turned to the left; he holds a rooster 141 in one hand and a flower in the other; a short pillar is depicted in relief on the lower left side of the stele; the pillar bears a verse epitaph (I) incised downwards; the signature of the sculptor (II) is engraved in the field below the relief on the main shaft (predella) and is conventionally written from left to right (SEG 49.505):

I Mvam8elo: ~ve~· eil~i e1r'68ot: KaAov 16::\a Tluptlxos : apxales : CxVTi I
~·eeeKev:

I. Placed by the road, I am a beautiful memorial to Mnasitheios.

But Pyrrhichos set me up because of his Iongstanding affection. 11. Philourgos made it.

The epitaph is incised in the Boiotian alphabet with the characteristic Boiotian chi, but its dialect is distinctly Ionic. Even if the forms apxales and


(for which

Figure 1. Outline of the stele of Mnasitheios from Akraiphia

139

Andreiomenou 1999; see also Andreiomenou 2000. The fmding is further publicized in SEG 49.505 and BE 113 (2001) no. 506. The dimensions of the stele are H. 1.65 m, L. 0.375 m, Th. 0.0985 m. 140 Andreiomenou asserts that the names !:Aopyos (=i:AoOpyos) is the Attic version of the Ionic names !:Aeopyos, 1Mepyos, and i:Aepyos (1999, pp. 98 and 105), which allows her, on the one hand, to identify IAOPrOI of the new Boiotian inscription with <1>1Mpyos the Athenian, and, on the other, to spell it as !:AoOpyos, this variant of the name being attested seven times in Attica in 51h-4th cc. (LGPN 1994, s.v. !:AoOpyos). I feel some reservation in accepting the equation of all these names. If the IAOPrOI (=i:AoOpyos) of the Boiotian monument is the same as the sculptor i:Aepyos from Athens, who (Andreiomenou follows Viviers' hypothesis) was originally from Samos, why would his name be spelled in the Ionic way in Attica but in the Attic way in Boiotia, where there was no contraction to secondary o? It might be, however, that the Attic name i:Aepyos would be spelled (pronounced?) in Boiotia as i:Aopyos, cf. Mvnoiepyos in Attica (LGPN 1994, s.v. Mvnoiepyos) and Mvaoiopyos in Boiotia (IG 7.538.11, 3rd c. BC). 141 Andreiomenou (1999, pp. 106-108) suggests that the rooster is a sign that Mnasitheios was the epw~evos of Pyrrhichos.

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compare 1-!VEI-Ia cplAEI-IOO\JVES in 32 from Attica) are simply poeticisms with Ionic endings, one would not expect in Boiotian the psilosis in

e1r' 68ol, since the spiritus asper is generally

retained in Boiotian inscriptions throughout the fifth century; secondly, the word 1-!VEI-Ia would generally be spelled in Boiotian as 1-!VOI-Ia--cf. the name of the deceased, Mnasitheios, which, with the alpha, reflects the normal Boiotian spelling. In addition to the Boiotian alpha in the first syllable, the name displays a Boiotian feature in having El instead of E in the penultimate syllable, with El remaining short. This peculiarity can be best explained, I think, as a Boiotian trait because there was a strong tendency in Boiotian for E to progress in the direction of the l, and E before other vowels (and in proper names even before consonants) had a more closed sound than in other positions and could consequently be spelled El, and later simply as

t.

142

Thus, the name of the deceased and the script conformed to local

Boiotian norms, but the verse was probably composed by an Ionian. The Boiotian norms are likely to have been dictated by the person who commissioned the monument, that is by Pyrrhichos, 143 who opted for a script and spelling of the name that was familiar to the audience (i.e. the Boiotians), while the Ionic dialect may be explained by the dialect of the composer of the verse, whom it is tempting to identify with Philergos, who was either an Athenian or Ionian. 144 The editor, Angeliki Andreiomenou, dates the new Boiotian relief to 520-510 primarily on the basis of its similarity to the monument of the children ofKylon (32, ea. 530?), which employs the word cplAEI-IOO\JVES, and on the basis of its letter form. 145 The latter is rather inconclusive because the inscriptions that Andreiomenou adduces as comparanda are dated vaguely to the last quarter of the sixth century, while the epitaph for Neilonides 142

Buck [1928] 1973, pp. 21-22. C£ also 327 (ea. 550-525) in which El is employed twice to designate a short closed e sound. 143 The name is fairly common all over Greece, but in the sixth and fifth centuries it does appear more in the Doric and Aeolic parts of Greece than in the Ionian. 144 Viviers believes that there is enough evidence to suggest that Philergos was from Samos (1992, pp. 103-114, esp. pp. 113-114). I would not argue for Samos in particular, but the suggestion that he was an Ionian is attractive, although in this case it seems strange to me that his name would have been spelled
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(on the monument signed by Endoios) which most scholars date to ea. 530-520 (42) is so badly preserved that it can be of little help for the comparison of letter form. The letters on the Boiotian stele might date, I think, anywhere from the end of the sixth century through the first quarter of the fifth. The composition and the style of the relief, however, suggest a date rather in the early fifth century. The layout of the relief in which the head of the figure breaks into the field of the palmette finial is unparalleled in archaic reliefs (Fig. 2). Archaic stelai, whether earlier

Figure 2. Upper part of the stele of Mnasitheios with reconstructed finial

composite or later monolithic, have horizontal divisions which clearly separate several fields such as the predella, the main shaft, and the finial. Each field may bear a figured or a decorative relief or painting. The depiction in the lower part of the shaft of a stele, if there is any, is separated by a lintel, and the palmette that surmounts the shaft is separated either by a mould or by a painted horizontal band. The depiction on the shaft of the stele is often surrounded by a frame, whether carved or painted, and the finial is separated from the main shaft by the upper horizontal part of the frame. 146 If there is no frame, a horizontal painted or moulded taenia separates the finial from the main shaft of the stele. The blurring of horizontal divisions of a stele seems to be more characteristic of funerary reliefs of the fifth century, as in the stele of a horseman from Thespiai 147 or the stele of an athlete from Nisyros, 148 both dating to ea. 450. Furthermore, the figure on the new Boiotian stele is turned to the left, the position which fmds no parallel in sixth century material but is attested in grave reliefs of the fifth century. 149 On archaic grave

146

See, for example, Richter 1961, pp. 40-45, figs. 140-141, 144-145. Kurtz and Boardman, p. 224, and pi. 54. 148 Hiller 1975, pp. 161-162, and pi. 10:2-3. 149 The editor of the new Boiotian stele discusses the turn of the figure and offers some parallels, all of which date to the early to mid fifth century, but does not consider this enough to warrant a date in the fifth century (Andreiomenou 1999, p. 93 and notes 74-76). Examples of early reliefs that depict figures turned to the left include Clairmont 1970, pp. 31-33, no. 9 with pi. 5, from Olbia, first quarter of the 5th c.; Hiller 1975, pp. 160-161 with pi. 10:1, from Rhodes, second quarter of the fifth century; Ozgan 1986, pp. 27-30 with pi. 89, from <;anakkale, first half of the fifth century, and some others. 147

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reliefs standing figures are always depicted with the left leg forward, which means that with the figure turned to the right (as they always are), the profile view almost resembles a two-dimensional has-relief. But when the figure is turned to the left, the necessity arises to create a deeper and more three dimensional image, especially in the area of the thighs and buttocks, since the advancing left leg leaves the right side of the rear partly open to the viewer. The right side, therefore, has to be depicted at a deeper level than the main surface of the relief (which corresponds to the surface of the left side of the body), and consequently the relief attains bigger depth; with greater depth, more variety in the postures of the depicted figures result, too. Both the depth of the reliefs and the variety of postures developed over the fifth and especially the fourth centuries, whereas archaic reliefs tend to have consisted of more two-dimensional and static representations, and this perhaps explains why the figures on the archaic reliefs are always turned to the right. But to return to Mnasitheios' gravestone, the turn of the figure to the left appears to me to be another indication of a date rather in the fifth than in the sixth century. This monument, therefore, was produced around the same time and in the same milieu as the monument signed by the Naxian Alxenor, and perhaps by a sculptor with a similar career, who started in Ionia, continued on and gained fame in Athens, and eventually moved north to Boiotia, probably ea. 500, when the demand for funerary sculpture in Athens decreased or ceased all together. Aristocratic Boiotians might have had high respect for sculptors who came from Athens and were proud of securing the employment of famous masters. It should also be noted that the practice of setting up a carved grave marker and inscribing it with an epitaph, either in prose or verse, had already had a long history in Boiotia, and the Ionian sculptors coming from Athens could have counted on a healthy demand for their services. The two stelai from Boiotia therefore attest the spreading of the Athenian practice of signing grave monuments to Boiotia shortly after the time when sculptured grave markers went out of use in Athens, and thus they confirm the rule that signing grave markers in the archaic period was a tradition peculiar to Athens. 7. Meter and Literary Context

Meters Employed in Archaic Attic Epitaphs Archaic Attic verse epitaphs can be broken down into the following metrical arrangements: at least twenty nine verse epitaphs are elegiac; six are hexametric; three are iambic; the meter of a few others is unclear but appears to be based on a dactylic foot, that is

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it is either hexametric or elegiac. Iso Long epitaphs are rare: most elegiac epitaphs consist of one couplet; four hexametric epitaphs consist of one verse, and two have two hexameters; two iambic epitaphs consist of three trimeters, and one is a single trimeter verse. Evidently, most archaic Attic verse epitaphs were composed either in hexameters or in elegiac couplets with apparent preference given to the latter. Archaic Attic epitaphs in hexameters can be characterized as metrically arranged record-type epitaphs, which usually contain a set of conventional elements. These elements are: a) the name of the deceased; b) verbs KaT-/em-T(8r)l. .ll,

'(cJTTUll,

ei11l, or no verb at all;

c) the word oi;1-1a or 1-lVfil-la; d) a "demonstrative" form such as ev80:8e or T68e; e) often the name of the person who erected the monument; f) in some cases brief descriptions of the deceased. 151 Record-type epitaphs were used in Attica as well as in other parts of Greece throughout the archaic period without much variation. 1s2 In three cases where iambic is employed (26, 49, and 70), the meter seems to have been resorted to in order to accommodate proper names that would not easily fit a dactylic foot. Archaic verse epitaphs always incorporate the name of the deceased or of one of the deceased (or at least a reference to the deceased as the child of the chief mourner), and often also the name of the chief mourner. There is no example of an archaic funerary inscription that would combine the name of the deceased in prose with a verse epitaph that does not include personal names, the device commonly employed in the later classical period. Thus, in the archaic period the challenge of fitting a proper name to a dactylic foot was met by the employment of iambic meter. The same was true of dedicatory verse inscriptions; for example, the dedication of Alkmeonides, son of Alkmeon, in the sanctuary of Apollo in Ptoion was inscribed with an epigram in four tetrameters (302). If not for the names, iambic inscriptions could have been composed either as couplets or as hexameters. As a rule, archaic Attic verse epitaphs are metrically correct in both the juxtaposition of long and short syllables within a foot and in the arrangement of the feet in metrical units

See Table 1. Wallace 1984, p. 307. s Thus, an Attic epitaph (53, ea. 510-500) reads: Avaem ev6a5e ae11-1a TTaTep LEIJOV eiTTe6eKev, a Boiotian one (109, ea. 600?) has: 'Ail
ISI 1 2

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(that is in a hexameter, iambic trimeter or elegiac couplet). In contrast, many later classical Attic epitaphs, although clearly intended as metrical, were not executed as such, but rather as prose with elements of poetic formulas. Instances of failed attempts to compose a correct verse epitaph are not infrequent in other parts of Greece during the archaic period; the metrical correctness of archaic Attic verse epitaphs stands out and indicates the literary competence of their composers. Archaic Attic verse epitaphs that appear to contain flawed meter are likelier to have been intended as prose than to have been written by poor versifiers who were incapable of producing a metrical inscription, and to clarify this thesis I would like to discuss apparent exceptions to the general rule. Metrical Anomalies First. I wish to survey briefly several cases of metrical anomalies in archaic Attic verse epitaphs. Two epitaphs, 14 (ea. 560-550?) and 470 (ea. 550-540?), have a cretic instead of a dactyl in the first foot of the first verse, and in both cases it is due to proper names: Xatpe8ru..tos (14) and AvToKAeiBTJs (470). 14 is signed by Phaidimos and might well have been composed by him, or at least with his participation. Phaidimos' s signature is incorporated in 26, which consists of three trimeters, and in the composition of which, with its praise for the sculptor, he is likely to have participated. Even if he did not compose this epigram, he would certainly have been aware of it and thus would have known that iambic epitaphs can accommodate a name such as Chairedemos. It must not have been deemed necessary, however, and this fact suggests that the first foot of 14 for some reason did not offend the ears. Perhaps the employment of a cretic in the first foot of a dactylic verse was not perceived as a metrical mistake in sixth century inscriptions. In the case of AliToKAeiBTJs, the composer could have made the name fit, e.g., with two spondaic feet, but chose not to do so, which seems to me to support the suggestion that either a cretic instead of the first foot dactyl did not offend the ears or that it was scanned with the shortening of the third syllable. 153 A proper name seems to have been the source of metrical flaws in 32, which fails to accommodate the name of the father of the deceased; it starts ae1..1a T68e: KvAov, which

153

Other examples of a cretic in the first foot are 138 and 320, although the latter is from the fifth century. Cf. West 1982, p. 27, where he discusses the metrical accommodation of proper names and adduces 380 which contains two names with cretics in the place of dactyls (although not at the beginning of the verse).

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requires scanning T6oe as

v

-.

63

This might not have been felt as a flaw because cre~-ta Tooe

was perceived as a complete unit, and even marked as such by punctuation marks. 31 is an elegiac couplet accompanied by a hexametric line, but the arrangement is different from frivolous combinations of hexameters and pentameters which are common in the later classical period. The third verse is separated from the couplet by a blank space; furthermore, it appears to include a sculptor's signature, and therefore constitutes an entity, separate from the elegiac epitaph. Excluded Inscriptions I have chosen to exclude from my study a few of the texts that Hansen includes in his collection, because I consider them to be either not metrical or not funerary. A puzzling inscription, which survives on a marble disc (37, ea. 530?), reads:

rva8ovos : TOOE OEI-la, : 8ho o' a\ITOV : I aoeA
The first three words and the beginning of the fourth scan--

I-

v

v

I-

v

v,

but then the

meter breaks down hopelessly, and I agree with Wallace that the inscription was not intended to be metrical. 154 Furthermore, I am not sure that it was an epitaph. The narrative part of this inscription is rather exceptional and does not comply with the features of known contemporary epitaphs. The beginning is clear: "this is the sema of Gnathon,»~

55

but what

follows is troublesome: "the sister put/set him." If miT6v refers to Gnathon, the choice of verbs is rather strange since T(8rn..tt more often governs words such as sema, mnema, or stele (see, for example, 26 or 46), and not the buried person (but 'A8r')Vaiot nv8ay6pTJV e8ecrav, in 6 verse 2, ea. 460-450?). The rest of the line has been interpreted as either "[buried] after nursing him [Gnathon] in mental disease," 156 or that she cared for him in vain,frustra. Leslie Threatte suggests reading heAI8tov as ..; i]AI8tov, 157 and I even wonder whether the sister's 154

Wallace 1984, p. 317. I also do not accept Hansen's classification as metrical ofthree other epitaphs which preserve only the name followed by the expression T6Be ofiiJa, with the rest lost, 23, 65 (which also has the name ofthe chief mourner and the verb emH8eKe(v) in the beginning of the first line), 73. 155 The word ofiiJa, however, does not always denote a tomb in inscriptions. Thus, Hansen argues that 459 is not an epitaph; Simon. 24 calls a dedication to Artemis OlliJOTa. In Homeric epic the word is used with a wide range of meanings. 156 Friedlander and Hoftleit 1948, p. 148, no. 161. 157 Threatte 1980, I, p. 428.

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name, or rather nickname, could be 'HAfBtov. If, however, the inscription is an epitaph, it attests a single case of a sister burying her brother. Although legally impossible, practically speaking, this is an easily imaginable and socially acceptable responsibility that a woman could assume for herself, if, for example, their parents were dead or absent. 47 (ea. 525-500?), which is composed in three hexameters that are reminiscent of Homer

158

but full of mistakes, is unlikely to have been an epitaph. It starts with ev86:oe, which

is characteristic of epitaphs, but proceeds to say not that the deceased was buried here, but that he swore an oath (line 1). The expression htep6s eillt at the end of line 3 is perhaps intended to strengthen the oath (and such an expression seems unsuitable for an epitaph). Two people are involved, a man and a boy; when the inscription was carved, one of them, Gnathios, had died in war, but it is unclear whether Gnathios is the name of the boy or the man. What was the purpose of the inscription is also unclear to me. 159 It is inscribed negligenter on a lapis rudis, both features uncharacteristic of archaic Attic epitaphs. Perhaps, the purpose of the stone was just what the opening lines state, it marked the place where the oath had been sworn. Two archaic Attic epitaphs are generally believed to consist of a single pentameter. The first epitaph is 72 (=JG

e 1260, ea. 500-480?), and the text, as printed in IG, reads: ae1-1a Too' ei1-1l Kpi [To?] ~eAe<po ·~
Jeffery 160 and Peek161 believed that the line was an attempt at a pentameter, while Hansen 162 suggested that it was intended as a hexameter. The first editor of the inscription believed that the initial iota in ei1-1i was a correction of a sigma, and he concluded that the stone cutter must have had the more common eoTi in mind. The writing is badly preserved and, according to J effery, "is scored by the plough." There are no photographs of the stone, but there does exist a photograph of the squeeze and a drawing by James Oliver. On the basis of these reproductions I suggest that the correction could have gone the other way around: either the iota was corrected to sigma or what appears to be an iota was actually a random stroke

158

See Friedliinder and Hoffleit (1948, pp. 63-64, no. 59) for discussion of the Homeric parallels. See Friedliinder and Hoffleit (1948, pp. 63-64 no. 59) for the interpretation of this inscription; they believe that Gnathios was the man who died in war, and that the boy is unnamed. See also commentaries in /G 1399. 160 IGAA, p. 134, no. 36. 161 Peek 1942, pp. 84-85, no. 139. 162 Hansen 1975, no. 68. 159

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that interfered with the sigma; in either case, sigma is the first letter of the following word, which is in fact the name of the deceased. The text then should read:

oe1-1a T6Be Ll-ltKpij[- -]

~eAEcpo ·~cpt[Bvaio].

This is the tomb ofSmikri--, son ofTelephos of Aphidnai. 163

If my restoration is correct, it helps explain something else in the text. Usage of the word OEI-la with the demonstrative pronoun and the first person verb is unparalleled, and, generally

speaking, employment of the first person verb in archaic Attic epitaphs is relatively rare. In epitaphs outside Attica, the monument can speak in the first person, e.g. 146, but in those cases no demonstrative pronoun is employed. 164 The only exception is 174, a mid fifth century epitaph from Sinope, which appears to be the result of a rather unfortunate patchwork of prose and poetic formulas and can by no means be adduced as evidence of any norm. 165 There survive, however, prose epitaphs that include reference to the oe1-1a and the name of the deceased and do not employ any verb, i.e. ofil-la T6(5e) ToO Belva, e.g. /G I3 1259 and 1344 (and the earliest surviving epitaph from Attica, /G I3 1194). 60 (=/G I3 1227, ea. 510-500?) is another candidate for a single pentameter epitaph.

The text is written stoichedon; the editors of /G I3 1227 suggest the following reading and restorations:

[?8epo]vos : TiatBos [oe~-ta] T6Be : AvToKAEos. ~ Any discussion of meter depends on consideration of how much of the inscription is missing from the left side of the stone. The measurements of the stone are: H. 0.40 m, p.L. 0.50 m, Th. 0.67 m, and Jeffery suggests that it might have been the lower block of a stepped limestone base. She also points out that the surviving stone could have had an adjoining block on the left which would have carried part of the inscription, although she does not rule 163

For more detailed discussion of this epitaph and possible restorations, see Lougovaya 2003. The syntax of this epitaph troubled both Jeffery (IGAA, p. 134, no. 36) and Burzachechi (1962, p. 38) who independently came to the conclusion that two constructions, ofilla (1-!Viil-!a) T68' eOTi Tov Seiva and ToO Seiva ei1-11 oi;1-1a (1-!Viil-la) are confused here. 165 Pace Svenbro 1993, p. 37. The existence of epitaphs that include both the demonstrative T68e and first person verb ei1-1i is of crucial importance to his theory of "egocentric" epitaphs. He defends the text of /G 13 1260 from Jeffery's and Burzachechi's condemnations as having "perfectly normal syntax." Unfortunately, Svenbro claims that further examples of this type of syntactical construction are unnecessary and does not provide any, pp. 24-43, esp. pp. 32-33. 164

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out the possibility that there could have been only one stone which had been recut and that in this process only a few initial letters on the left side were lost. Thus, there are several possibilities: 1) if there was an adjoining block, 166 the inscription might have been much longer and the epitaph was an elegiac couplet; 2) if there was no adjoining block, the inscription was not much longer, and it was not metrical; 3) there were four more letters in each line, as supplemented in JG, and the inscription consisted of a single pentameter. The first two options seem more plausible to me than the third one, which presumes unconventional verse. There is another reason to discourage accepting (3) as an option: the resulting verse would have had no room for a verb. No "verb-less" archaic verse epitaph survives from Attica, 167 while there are a few examples of relatively long prose epitaphs that, while lacking a verb, make reference to the OEI-la and the name of the deceased, with the patronymic or place of origin or both. Finally, one may wonder whether ]T68e : AuToKIAeos could have been a part of the artist's signature, on analogy with the signature

in Oinanthe's epitaph (54, 11): Kat T68e 'AptoTOKAEos. Although no sculptor by the name AuToKAi)s is attested, the possibility of such a signature should remain open. 168

Literary Elegy and Verse Epitaph By the time verse epitaphs appear in archaic Attica, they had existed in other areas of Greece for at least a century. The meter of early verse epitaphs elsewhere, before the appearance of elegiac epitaphs in Attica in the second quarter of the sixth century, was hexameter. The earliest Attic verse epitaphs are elegiac and seem to have little in common with the hexametric epitaphs of the earlier period; in other words, there is no development (at least as far as our evidence suggests) from hexameteric epitaphs to elegiac. With the introduction of elegiac meter, some new features seem to have been brought into inscriptional poetry, such as the address to the passer-by, future tense verbs or explicit expressions of emotion. By the time verse epitaphs disappear in Attica at the end of the sixth 166

The length of the lower step of a stepped base could easily be over one meter, see, e.g., JGAA, p. 122, no. 14, in which two adjoining blocks form a lower course of some kind of a large monument with combined length of 1.20 m. Note that this monument displays some similarity to no. 17: both are made out of limestone, the writing is partly stoichedon, and Jeffery assigns both inscriptions to the same Mason E 1. 167 62 {=/G 13 1393, ea. 510-500?) is a possible exception, but it has not been agreed whether it is an epitaph or a dedication. 168 There are numerous incomplete signatures ofwhich only a few letters survive, e.g. IG 1218bis, /G 13 1222, etc., which might fit several names.

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century, the elegiac couplet is the meter of verse epitaphs throughout Greece, although hexameters never ceased to be used, and iambic continued to be employed for its usual purpose, to accommodate personal names.

There might well be no single, rational

explanation why the Athenian elite privileged elegiac meter for verse epitaphs, but we can attempt to assess some possible reasons for the introduction and popularity of elegiac couplets for verse epitaphs. This issue, which is generally of little or no concern to scholars, borders on another, much debated question, that of the connection between elegy and lament, or, in other words, the question of the possible existence of archaic elegy of lament, which might have been performed at funerals. Whether threnodic elegy existed in the archaic period is a crucial question for those who attempt to outline the development of elegiac poetry, because the existence of threnodic elegy, if proven, could explain the association of the word elegos with lament in the late fifth century. Up until now no surviving archaic elegy has been shown to be elegy of lament. Debate surrounding this issue has recently been revived by a couple of epigraphic discoveries, which were interpreted as evidence for the existence of archaic threnodic elegy. In what follows, I will first discuss threnodic elegy, with an aim to demonstrating that the inscriptional evidence does not attest the existence of a genre of threnodic elegy, and then proceed to discuss possible reasons for the employment of elegiac couplets in verse epitaphs. The Meaning of Elegos Ancient and some modem scholars have generally thought that there was an intrinsic connection between elegy and mourning. Indeed, the word elegos (or elegoi) is attested five times in Euripides and once in Aristophanes, 169 and in all these occurrences it seems to mean "sung lament," suggesting that there was a genre of elegy of lament. In Euripides, however, the word eAeyos is always modified by another word rendering the idea of lament, e.g. oaKpvc.uv eAeyous (Tr. 119), aAupov eAeyov (He/. 185), etc. Thus, the meaning ofeAeyos in these places should be "song" rather than "sung lament;" furthermore, in all the occurrences

the word eAeyos is employed in lyric meters, which casts doubt on the possibility of a connection between sung lament and elegiac meter. In support of the existence of a genre of threnodic elegy, Page argues that the Doric elegy found in Euripides' Andromache 169

Euripides, Tr. 119, I.T. 146 and 1091, He/. 185, Hypsip. 1 iii 9, and Aristophanes, Av. 217. See Page 1936, pp. 206-208, and West 1974, p. 5.

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(103-116), the only occurrence of couplets in Greek drama, is the sole survivor of a tradition of Peloponnesian threnodic elegy, which goes back to such poets as Echembrotos, Clonas, or Sacadas. 17° For Martin West, performance of elegies at funerals is rather a fact than a hypothesis. 171 In 1986 Ewen Bowie attempted to demonstrate "that little or no early Greek elegy was lamentatory," 172 arguing that there could have been a genre of elegy of consolation, such as Archilochus 13, which, as well as any other type of shorter elegy, including martial, would have been performed in a sympotic setting. Longer elegiac poems, Bowie contended, were intended to be performed at public festivals. 173 As for the word etegos, Bowie suggested that it meant either "what we mean by elegy" or "that it meant 'a song sung to the autos."' Although various types of songs in various meters could have been sung to the autos, the high proportion of songs in elegiac meter which were sung to this instrument resulted in the coinage of the term etegos. 174 In the same year that Bowie's influential article appeared, an Attic epitaph was published in which the verb oflament is employed in the first person (470, ea. 550-540?): 175 AvTOKAeiBo T615e OEIJa veo TIIpooopov 6:vhollat Kat 8alvaTOl TaVT(.]Ia.( ... 7-8 . .. I -------1-------]. Looking at this tomb of young Autokleides, I am distressed, and to death ...

This discovery and publication of the epitaph necessitated reconsideration of 51 (whether the first word of the epitaph should be restored as the imperative oiKTtpo or kept as oiKTipo for the first person form oiKTipc.u), and led David Lewis to suggest the existence

of a category of epitaphs with anonymous first person mourners. For Lewis, the two sixth century inscriptions, 51 and 470, were important for "breaking down the dividing line between the funerary epigram and hypothetical threnodic elegy." 176 The discovery of an epitaph from Ambracia, SEG 41.540 (av5pas [T]ovsB' [e]o.Aovs 6.Aocpvpo1Jat, KTA.), 170

Page 1936, with Bowie 1986, pp. 24-26. West 1974, p. 13. 172 Bowie 1986, p. 22. 173 Bowie 1986; see also Gerber 1997, pp. 91-96. West (1974, pp. 10-13) suggests eight various types of settings for performance of elegy. 174 Bowie 1986, p. 27. 175 See the ed. pr. by Matthaiou 1986, pp. 31-35, pis. 4-5, who provides detailed description of 470 and 471, which is a small fragment of a similar stele also with a verse epitaph of which only a few letters survive. Regarding the epitaph of Autokleides, Matthaiou believes that "[i]t is someone whose name is not preserved on the stone addresses the deceased in the first person, a rare example of its kind," p. 34. 176 Lewis 1987, p. 188. 171

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has further motivated attempts to establish the existence of archaic threnodic elegy, the traces of which, it has been argued, are most apparent in verse epitaphs spoken by an "anonymous first person mourner," or "lamentatore estemo," 177 who is to be identified with the reader of the epitaph. Let us reexamine the inscriptional evidence. Inscriptional Evidence for Threnodic Elegy First, we have to assess the validity of the claim that epitaphs 51, 470, SEG 41.540, and we may add here 43 and 68, attest the existence of the genre of threnodic elegy. When an epitaph (or indeed any inscription) is spoken in the first person, the identity of the speaker is usually clear. Most often it is the monument (KElllat, 153; eoTnKa, 58; llE pointing to the monument, numerous inscriptions); it might be the deceased (KEKAi)oollat, 24; KElllat, 80); it can also be the chief mourner in epitaphs and the "doer" in other inscriptions (oTfioa (?), 74; Sa\.l)a, 136; eoocpo611[e8a], 161; Tioinoa, 459). Albio Cassio argues that in those cases when an epitaph employs the first-person verb of lament, its subject is meant to be none of the above, but is instead the reader of the epitaph, who in the process of reading enacts the lament. In fact, this proposition generalizes an earlier interpretation by Hansen of the verb 6Aocpvpollat in a poorly preserved epitaph (43), for which Hansen suggests that "the best explanation is undoubtedly that the reader in front of the monument by reading (which of course in antiquity meant reading aloud) the inscription was automatically made to lament the deceased." 178 In 43 and SEG 41.540, however, the subject of the verb 6Aocpvpo11at may well be the monument (Hansen considers but dismisses this possibility for 43) or the chief mourner. 43 is, I think, too badly preserved and of little help; it is possible that it was meant to be spoken by the mother of the deceased, since the word llETEp, in the nominative case, occurs earlier in the epitaph. SEG 41.540, with its narrative and its appeal to the people, KaE llCxV 'Apa88iova KaE Eu~evov ioTE, TioAiTaE (verse 9), must be spoken either by the monument or by the chief mourner, whose identity is not clear to us but perhaps was made clear in the lost part of the epigram or by an inscription on the stele which is now lost; it could hardly have been intended as the discourse of an anonymous reader. 177

178

Cassio 1994. Hansen 1976, p. 160.

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Indeed, why would the anonymous reader be expected to reenact an address to the people of Ambracia? Epitaphs which combine the participles of "looking at" with the verb of grief or lament in the first person (51, 470, 68) cannot be, of course, explained as spoken by the monument, since the monument can hardly be described as npoaopov itself, but I do not see why both avtol-lat (470) and oiKTipo (51) cannot be spoken by the chief mourner, who, looking at the tomb, feels pity for the deceased, and has the epitaph record this grief. I discussed above that both 51 and 68 allude to the fairly narrow circle of family and friends of the deceased, which, I think enforces my suggestion that they were meant to have been spoken by the chief mourners. I think, therefore, that epitaphs with a first person verb of mourning record the lasting grief of the survivors, such as, for example, the father in the case of 51 and likely a parent in 470, rather than aim to make the reader reenact funerary lament, a ritual which would have been confined to a certain time and defined by certain rules. Furthermore, the type and layout of the inscription of Autokleides' stele finds a curious parallel in the stele of Pediarchos, which contains an exclamation of lament, IG I3 1267 (ea. 530-520?): 4

E~T~.

3 2

neoiapxos apXEl T00To 'Evneoiovos· Oll-lOl neotapxo

1

~

Alas for Pediarchos son ofEmpedion. Pediarchos begins these graves.

Here, the exclamation of sorrow and lament is followed by a dry record in lines 3-4 that Pediarchos begins(?) the afJI-laTa; if the lament were to be reenacted by the reader, what about the record? It seems more reasonable to suppose that the epitaph is spoken by the chief mourner. The stelai of Pediarchos and Autokleides are of similar, and otherwise uncommon, dimensions in width and thickness (JG I3 1267 has W. 0.32-0.345 m, Th. 0.095-0.105 m; 470 has W. 0.325-0.305 m, Th. 0.12-0.097 m); the inscriptions are cut retrograde and from the bottom up, which in the case of IG I3 1267 was tentatively explained by Jeffery who proposed that "perhaps the stele was set up high on a wall or mound, so that the lowest line was at eye-level, and stood on the right side of one entering the family precinct." 179 179

IGAA, p. 136, no. 42, fig. 13; for 470 see Matthaiou 1986, pp. 32-34, pis. 4-5.

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Autokleides' stele might well have come from a precinct, too, since a small fragment of another stele (471), also inscribed retrograde and apparently of close dimensions, was found at the same place as Autokleides' stele. Perhaps the context of the precinct would have clarified the identity of the chief mourner. In any case, the reader should have been expected to reenact a mourner at the funeral no more than he was expected to reenact the monument in those epitaphs in which the monument or the deceased is the speaker. Furthermore, epitaphs which address the passer-by clearly demonstrate that the reader is not expected to be identified with the speaker of the epitaph, although he is expected to feel pity for the deceased. Interestingly, the literary piece that is most similar to inscriptional verse epitaphs with the first person verb oflament is not a couplet but is in tetrameters (IEG2 Anacreon, iamb. 2):

aAKlJ.lCUV cr' (!) 'AplOTOKAElOTJ TIPWTOV oiKTtpcu
Page 1936, West 1974, p. 2, Bowie 1986,44.

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to lament and mourning. Some expressions, such as "shameless Pontos destroyed" (132) or "blazing Ares destroyed" (145) perhaps implicitly emphasize the pain of the loss, but one cannot find references to grievous feelings and lament in early epitaphs. It is with the appearance of elegiac epitaphs that we find in sepulchral verses such words as oiKTipc.v,

6Aocpvpol-lm, (c':nr)oBvpol-lm, 6AocpvBv6s, nev86s, KTA., whether they are used to express the feelings of the chief mourner, or are spoken in the address to the reader or the description of the monument. Archaic elegiac epitaphs, therefore, seem to admit of more explicit emotion than earlier epitaphs in hexameter, and these emotions are those of sorrow and grief. This change suggests to me that the switch to the employment of elegiac couplet for sepulchral verses was more than a random fad, and that there should be some connection between elegiac poetry and the development of verse epitaphs, but to identify this connection we do not need to postulate a genre ofthrenodic elegy. Literary Elegy and Verse Epitaph, Revisited Bowie argues for a sharp distinction between poetry of consolation and that of lament, convincingly demonstrating that while there was archaic elegy of consolation (for example, Archilochus 11 or 13) there was no elegy of lament. 181 The main difference between the two, besides content, is the occasion of the performance: while lament was performed at funerals, elegy of consolation, which could include elements of lament without being wholly threnodic, was performed, Bowie argues, in sympotic settings. Descriptions of death and lament for the dead can be found not only in elegies of consolation, but also in other types of elegy. Martial elegy, for example, describes universal grief over the death of a truly virtuous man (Tyrtaeus 12.27-28; Callinus 1.16-19) and thereby aims to inspire listeners to live up to the standards of true virtue; universal lament is presented as a reward for a praiseworthy life and glorious death. Other archaic elegiac poems, such as those of Mimnermus or Theognis, often refer to sorrow and grief, for example, at the approach of old age (Mimnermus) or at the baseness of contemporaries (Theognis), and this grief is expected to be shared by the listeners. Thus, we often find expressions of both lament and sorrow in elegiac poems which might overall be devoted to other major themes, such as military valor or one's moral standing, etc.

181

Bowie 1986, pp. 22-27.

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Although a simplification, one may perhaps say that in the archaic period choral lyric was public in content, performance and address, since it was performed by a chorus at public festivals. Individual lyric was private in content, performance and address, since it was performed within a narrow circle of close companions. Elegiac or iambic monodies, which were performed to the accompaniment of the flute fell somewhere in between public and private; monodies were delivered to audiences at formalized sympotic settings, which were narrower than those of public festivals but wider than a circle of close companions, and they were often personalized, insofar as they were delivered in the first person and intended to convey a personal message, although the message was of such a nature that it presupposed the agreement of the listeners. Most archaic elegy was performed at symposia, aristocratic drinking parties conducted in accordance with certain norms and restrictions that governed various aspects of a symposium, from the ratio of water to wine to games and topics of conversations or themes of songs. It has been proposed that performance of poetry at a symposium was one of the ways in which "those positive models (praise of a worthy man, the CxVDP aya86s) and those negative ones (through the psogos, censure of the KaKOl,

8etAoi, etc.) to which the group of companions subscribes" 182 were established. Elegiac poetry, therefore, was a medium for expression of normative attitudes and was well familiar to members of symposia. Participants in an archaic symposium were probably both able and expected to compose such poetry, arranging in a proper couplet some personal message that would have been welcomed by other participants, who tended to be members of the cultured elite. Composition of verse epitaphs in elegiac couplets might have arisen from this culture of symposia, and the elegiac couplet was perhaps viewed as an appropriate form to convey a personal message (record of the death of one's family member) to a public audience (any passer-by). The question remains why it was in Athens that elegiac epitaphs became so widespread. There is no evidence that symposia in early sixth century Athens were any more popular than those in, for example, Ionia. The poetry and culture of symposia would have been available during the seventh and sixth centuries to the cultured elite throughout Greece. It appears, however, that starting perhaps in the second quarter of the sixth century 182

Pellizer 1990, p. 180. Negative models are primarily those of iambic poetry, which, Pellizer argues, was also generally meant for sympotic gatherings.

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or somewhat earlier, Athens was a place where the display of one's tastes and means became particularly widespread. There seems, for example, to have been some mass production of artistic objects, such as sculptural works and vases, which were used by a large number of people outside the temple grounds, whereas in other parts of Greece the employment of artistic objects was concentrated in major sanctuaries.

Statues of kouroi

and korai were set up all over Greece, but only in Athens, it seems, were so many used as grave markers; moreover, grave stelai with reliefs were popular in no other place to the degree that they were in Athens.

Conspicuously inscribing verse epitaphs on a base

of a splendid grave monument must have been part of the public display favored by the Athenian elite, and these are likely to have been the same people who were well familiar with the culture of symposia and indulged in various elite activities. 183 It might have also mattered that the Peisistratids offered patronage to the arts, and perhaps they themselves had a special inclination to statues and elegiac inscriptions, which, for the most part, would not have outlived the tyranny. The fact that some evidence still did survive suggests to my mind that there were once many elegiac inscriptions in Attica which were connected with the Peisistratids: the anecdote about the Hipparchean Herms ([Plato] Hipparch. 228d-229b), which were set up between the city and the country demes and bore an elegiac couplet, has found support in archeological evidence (304); Peisistratos the younger had an elegiac inscribed on his dedication to Apollo (305), and perhaps also on the Altar of the Twelve Gods. 184 8. Disappearance of V er se Epitaphs in Attica ea. 500 BC

Post-Solonian Funerary Legislation Sometime around the turn of the century the massive output in Attica of carved gravestones with epigrams came to an end. It is impossible to date this interruption precisely: there are clearly a lot of monuments before 510, and virtually nothing after 480. 183

It is noteworthy, that three monuments with verse epitaphs (30, 50, and 53) feature depictions of equestrian scenes in relief or a horse statue. 184 Thucydides says that the Altar of the Twelve Gods had an E1riypallllO (6.57). The same word is used for the epitaph of Archedike and also seems to be implied for the dedication to Apollo, both in couplets; Herodotus employs the word three times, all three for verse inscriptions; and Euripides refers to an imaginative epitaph that a poet, 1-JOVOOTIOIOS, could have written on the tomb of Astyanax as an ETiiypallllO (Tr. 1189-1191). Thus, all the early attestations of the word ETiiypallllO mean inscription in verse, and if the dedication on the Altar of the Twelve Gods was in verse, it is quite likely to have been in elegiac couplet(s).

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The disappearance of monumental tombstones is usually associated with the so-called post aliquanto 185 law to which Cicero refers in Leges 2.64-65:

Sed post aliquanto propter has amplitudines sepulchrorum, quas in Ceramico videmus, lege sanctum est 'ne quis sepulchrum faceret operosius quam quod decem homines effecerint triduo;' neque id opere tectorio exomari nee hermas, quos vocant, Iicebat imponi, nee de mortui laude nisi in publicis sepulturis nee ab alio, nisi qui publice ad earn rem constitutus esset, dici licebat. sublata etiam erat celebritas virorum ac mulierum, quo lamentatio minueretur; auget enim luctum concursus hominum. But sometime later, on account of the grandeur of the tombs that we see in the Kerameikos, a restriction was passed as law that "no one shall make a grave which would require more work than ten people can accomplish in three days," and it was not allowed to decorate the tombs with opus tectorium, nor to set up the so-called hermae, nor to praise the dead with the exception of those buried publicly and only by the man chosen publicly to do it. Crowds of men and women were also forbidden, to diminish the amount of lament. Large gatherings of people increase grief.

Cicero surely speaks of some anti-luxury law, but the exact meaning is unclear. The prohibition against building a memorial that would require "more than ten men could accomplish in three days" might refer to the heaping of a mound over the burial site or to the preparation of the funeral enclosure; 186 but the practice of covering a grave with a huge earth mound does not seem to have been common towards the end of the sixth century, anyway: most of the big tumuli date to the preceding century and two exceptionally big and exceptionally late ones, to the middle of the sixth century. 187 Opus tectorium has been interpreted as referring to the practice of decorating built tombs with series of painted clay plaques. The series disappear, however, around 530, 188 and it is hard to believe that antiluxury funerary legislation forbidding clay plaques would allow the employment of free standing statues, which quite clearly continue after 530. Another theory suggests that opus tectorium means the covering of the earth tomb with stucco (for both decorative and

enforcement purposes), but the usage of plaster seems to continue through the fifth century. 189 Similarly, what Cicero means by hermae remains a complete mystery. Boardman suggests that it could refer to changes to the finials on stelai-from the figure of a sphinx to a simple

185 Earlier in 2.64 Cicero speaks of Solon's funerary legislation, consequently, post a/iquanto must mean "sometime after Solon." 186 Garland 1989, pp. 5-6. 187 The so-called South Hill and Mound G in the Kerameikos. 188 Boardman 1955, p. 51 and passim. 189 Kiibler 1976, p. 201, note 107.

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palmette, which occurs approximately at the same time as single plaques substitute series, but this requires us to date the legislation to the time of Peisistratos' reign, which Boardman himself believes to be too early a date! 90 I would add that an anti-luxury law that banned figured finials on stelai but still allowed equestrian statues, which are known to have existed as funerary monuments in the last quarter of the sixth century, is also hardly probable. Thus, we can still subscribe to the opinion of Kurtz and Boardman that Cicero's account "offers more problems than solutions." 191 No matter what Cicero's account means in detail (and Cicero could surely be confused, while Demetrios of Phaleron, Cicero's source, might be purposefully unclear), it appears that Demetrios, and then Cicero, talked of some anti-luxury funerary law which was passed in Athens after Solon but before Demetrios. If there was legislation concerning funeral display, it is tempting to connect it with the reforms of Kleisthenes, as was first done over a hundred year ago by Gustav Hirschfeld. 192 Since then scholars have challenged this suggestion by claiming that archaic grave stelai do not disappear abruptly ea. 507, but continue, albeit in very reduced numbers, to be employed until the 480s. Consequently, a more complicated theory has evolved that has tried to reconcile the apparent anti-aristocratic character of the law with the archeological evidence. Verena Zinserling has proposed that although Kleisthenes was behind the decree to ban funeral luxury, the law was not enforced until later, probably by Themistokles in 487, and Clairmont accepts this hypothesis. Karen Stears tentatively suggests that either Kimon, the son of Miltiades, or his associates were responsible for the legislation that restricted display at private burials, while promoting the custom of public burial of the war dead. 193 In his recent book on laws against funerary

°Kurtz and Boardman 1971, pp. 84-87, 90.

19

191

Kurtz and Boardman 1971, p. 90. Hirschfeld 1893, p. 13. 193 Stears believes that Kimon might "have put forward the post aliquanto law in conscious imitation of Spartan practice, whereby the right to commemorate the dead by means of inscribed funerary markers was a privilege granted only to those who had fallen in service to the polis" (2000, p. 45). This theory is based on the assumption that the legislation, while restricting the erection of private grave memorials, allowed public ones. The law as reported by Cicero, however, has no provision for public grave monuments, and so far no public inscribed grave monuments dating to before the mid-460s has been found. Virtually nothing is documented in archaic or contemp~rary sources about Spartan burial practice in the early fifth century, and this fact renders examination of the relationship between the two practices, Spartan and Athenian, futile. In those cases in which we do have some evidence, such as burial of the war dead, the practices diverge: the Spartans bury their war dead at the battle site and erect monuments with verse epitaphs, whereas the Athenians, apart from two exceptional situations, bury their dead at Athens and do not seem to commemorate the dead with verse epitaphs, see Ch. 2. 192

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luxury, Johannes Engels opts in the end to leave the question open, although he points out two periods of time as the likeliest possibilities for the institution of the law-either between 508 and 501 or between 488 and 481, connecting it thereby either with Kleisthenes or with Themistokles, and he notes that personally he finds the later date more attractive. 194 There are several problems with these explanations. The first is the assumption that the law, if it was in fact passed, had to be responsible for the disappearance of sculptured grave markers. Cicero actually reports restrictions, not a ban, and specifies what type of monuments were banned. Even though we do not know what types he meant, it is both unlikely that Cicero meant and indeed said that one was not allowed to set up a marble plaque with a verse epitaph-it would surely meet the 10 men/3 days stipulation. Thus, the existence of a law does not need to be proved by the complete and notable disappearance of enduring and inscribed grave markers. Secondly, it is impossible to show that a monument or epitaph dated to, let us say, ea. 500, cannot be moved to ea. 508, since we simply have no means to date with such precision. A different approach has been suggested by Morris who argues that the question of the post aliquanto law is not all that important, since around 500 material display of wealth in funerary practice declines everywhere in Greece, although not evenly in different regions, and that the "restraint from about 500 to 425 and rapid increase thereafter are genuinely panhellenic phenomena." 195 Consequently, there is no need to believe that a particular law could account for changes in Athenian burial practice, because in any case that law would be unable to explain parallel changes in other parts of Greece. While Morris' theory may be right, and there might have been some general decrease in funeral display throughout Greece during the fifth century, the problem remains that in other states people commemorated their dead with gravestones inscribed with verse epitaphs-in Boiotia, for example, they even welcomed artists from Athens. Furthermore, it is hard to say that commemoration with inscribed and sculptured gravestones continued in other areas of Greece-we can keep Boiotia as an example-in reduced numbers, because numbers had never been high there. The Athenian pattern of wide employment and the virtual disappearance of monuments of this type is without parallel. 194 195

Engels 1998, pp. 97-106, esp. pp. 105-106. Morris 1992b, pp. 41-42.

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Morris also offers an alternative to the "panhellenic" approach, in order to elucidate the change in Athenian burial practice. This approach is based on a theory proposed by Aubrey Cannon, who explains changes of abundance and restraint in funeral practice in various cultures as a cyclical process. 196 Cannon argues that when high funerary expenditure becomes conventional and widespread, it is among the wealthiest that expenditure begins to decline and modesty in display becomes a sign of good taste. He suggests that once the monuments reach some peak of grandeur and further elaboration fails to be impressive, it is the difference, that is restraint in place of grandeur, that signifies pretension. 197 While this theory attractively explains the cyclical nature of abundance and restraint, it cannot help date the turns of the cycles. It might well be the case that putting up expensive memorials with epigrams became a sign of bad taste and wealthy Athenians started to prefer more modest grave markers, but we are still faced with the question why they started preferring modest ways ea. 500. The idea that it was because the monuments reached such grandeur that there was no room for further impressive elaboration, would not work any better ea. 500 than at some other point in time. Furthermore, this theory does not explain the alleged decrease in funeral display in other parts of Greece, where there was no particular grandeur in the preceding period to begin with. While I have no solution to the problem, I may offer a few observations. First, the attempt to accommodate archeological dates to precise political dates might be futile, since it is impossible to achieve necessary precision. No Athenian epitaph yet found can be dated securely to, let us say, the year 500; one must allow for at least ten years on either side, e.g. 510-490. 198 Moreover, even those scholars who claim that it is possible to date some memorials with verse epitaphs to the period from 500 to 480 agree that the number would be very low. Still, it is to accommodate this archeological evidence that they prefer to place the anti-luxury law between 488 and 481, 199 or even more precisely in 487/00 in order to explain the complete disappearance of carved and inscribed gravestones, but, as I showed above,

196

Cannon 1989, p. 447. Cannon 1989, pp. 444-447; Morris 1992b, p. 42. 198 The long controversy over the date ofPeisistratos' dedication to Apollo ( IG 948) is an excellent example of an inscription which looks (i.e. in terms of its script) somewhat twenty years later than it should be on historical grounds. 199 Engels 1998, pp. 105-106. 200 Zinserling 1965, pp. 29-34, followed by Clairmont 1970, p. 12. 197

e

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the law does not need to be supported by the complete disappearance of grave markers, and we do not know what types were banned, if the specification referred to certain types. It is undeniable that archaic tombstones with verse epitaphs were associated with

Athenian aristocracy. Theoretically, a verse epitaph could be inscribed on a small plaque, but in reality this was not the case in archaic Attica, where verses were put primarily on grave monuments of considerable grandeur. Even when towards the end of the century funerary epigrams became somewhat more standardized, they continued to be associated with magnificent memorials. A verse epitaph, as I discussed above, was viewed as an element of the status and excellence of an elite family. A monumental grave marker, especially one with a verse inscription talking about, for example, a father and son, represented a person who was to be praised, lamented, and admired qua member of his family. Of course, he might also have been virtuous and handsome, but the fact that his image could be set out in the form of a beautiful monument for everybody to see was owed to his family, which had the means to afford and taste to choose the particular monument and verse. It does seem that this form of public display of the position of a family was incompatible with Athens after Kleisthenes. The aristoi in the fifth century could set up dedications on the Acropolis, or could undertake liturgies, or could spend money in some other ostentatious way, but they could not record on stone private praise of a private man, which would be seen and read publicly. Much of Kleisthenes' reforms was intended to enervate the influence of elite families and install mechanisms prohibiting a family from excelling on the basis of the family network. While any tyranny can be viewed as relying heavily on the power amassed within and distributed among members of a family, it was especially so in the case of the Peisistratid extended family. The early Athenian democracy must have been anxious to divorce personal family interests from public political activity. This could not have been an easy task, because many distinguished families had prominent members and thus were extremely influential as a family. Probably no Athenian would disagree that the Alkmeonids or the Philaids had power as a family, but after the expulsion of the tyrants or the institution of Kleisthenes' reforms, honor which could have been bestowed on a prominent member of an influential family had to be justified in terms of the person's contribution to the public good of the state.

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Thus, we come to a suggestion that was proposed long ago, that if there was a law curtailing display in funerary practice, it dated to after Kleisthenes' reforms, and might even have been part of it. It might not have been enforced too strongly, but the old aristocratic practice of splendid grave markers could have become uncomfortable for rich Athenians in the new political situation, which valued a person for his achievements as a member of the state, and not for the fact that he belonged to a well-off and influential family. They may even have abhorred any display reminding them of the habits of the elite at the time of the tyrants. After the Disappearance: Athenians and Athenians (?) Outside Attica A separate, and rather complicated, topic that should be addressed here concerns verse epitaphs that appear to commemorate Athenians or persons connected in some way to Athens who died abroad, all of which date to the period after ea. 500, that is after the tradition of inscribing verse epitaphs came to a halt in Athens. Sometimes these epitaphs display features of the Attic tradition, while at other times they reflect local trends. Hansen includes under Attic epitaphs an inscription for Philon, who was a sailor and may have died in a shipwreck. The plaque with this epitaph was found in Eretria, and it is incised in Attic script (76, ea. 500-480?): 201

Figure 3. Drawing of the gravestone and epitaph for Philon, CEG 76

ev8a81e
The monument has been described as a shapeless slab with careless lettering/02 and the drawing in K. Kourouniotes' edition clearly shows that this gravestone was not executed in the tradition of archaic Attic grave monuments with verse epitaphs (Fig. 3). As for the verse, the first line stutters at the proper name and the formula KlaTa yai' eiKaAvcrcpev is unfortunately attached to a short syllable. It has been suggested that ev8a8e was mistakenly 201 202

Kourouniotes 1897, cols. 151-152. Fried1ander and Hoffleit 1948, p. 84, no. 79.

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written instead of TeiOe, and that TovSe = TOV Si). 203 The composer of this epitaph seems to have tried to put together a few formulas but was not entirely successful. The pentameter is somewhat surprising and finds no parallel in surviving Greek poetry, but I tend to doubt that a person who failed to solve metrical difficulties in the rather uncomplicated initial verse, could come up with such a poetic pentameter. The composer may have drawn on some source which has not survived. The epitaph says nothing about Philon's origin and, needless to say, the name gives no clue, since it is a very common name. It appears that Hansen includes it with Attic epitaphs on the basis of the fact that it is incised in Attic script. Jeffery, however, points out that "[i]n the first half of the fifth century a standardizing influence, which is probably that of the Attic alphabet, appears in Eretrian."204 Thus, the script in Philon's epitaph also appears to assist little in determining his origin. The type of gravestone, a marble plaque measuring

Figure 4. Drawing of the gravestone and epitaph for Pleistias, CEG 77

H. 0.50 m, W. 0.32 m, and the untidy layout of the inscription (Fig. 3) do little to support inclusion ofthis inscription in the tradition of archaic Attic gravestones. Another verse epitaph in apparent Attic script from Eretria which Hansen includes among Attic epitaphs commemorates a man who was born in Sparta, grew up in Athens, and died in Eretria (77, ea. 500-475?): l.

II.

TlAEIOTtas. LlTClpTa 1-lEV naTpfs EOTIV, EV evpvxlopOlOl <S') 'A86:vms e8p6:cp8e, 8avc1To I Se ev86:Se !lOip' EXI?(E. .

I. Pleistias. 11. Sparta is his fatherland, in spacious Athens he was brought up, and here the lot of death reached him. 203

See CEG 76 for discussion of various suggestions. Hansen cautions that no surviving inscriptional epigrams have Bi). 204 LSAG, p. 85.

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Pleistias perhaps died and was commemorated soon after the Persian Wars, and the chief mourner wanted to emphasize Pleistias' connection to the most glorious places in Greece. How are we to classify this monument and epitaph? The script appears to be Attic, but the type of the monument, a low base (H. 0.22) surmounted by a small tetragonal pillar (H. 0.74 m) with an abacus, and the way of inscribing, deorsum, is ostensibly non-Attic/05 the spelling, 'A8~vats,

as FriedHinder and Hoffleit suggest, is probably a poeticism rather than a Doric

form. 206 It is impossible to determine, I think, whether the composer of this epitaph imitated Attic or conformed to local traditions. Perhaps the chief mourner accepted the local typology of grave monuments, but opted for a verse epitaph in accordance with the old Attic custom of inscribing grave monuments with verses, although the custom was not by then employed any more in Athens. It is noteworthy that the name of the deceased, Pleistias, is not included in the verse. Although it is not a very easy name to put in a dactylic foot, it is not an impossible one, and exclusion of the name might also point to a different stage in the development of the practice of inscribing gravestones with verse epitaphs. In archaic epitaphs names are always included in the verse, but towards the end of the fifth century there develops a tendency to put names, especially those which are hard to incorporate in the dactylic meter, outside the verse epitaph. The beginning of this tendency may therefore date to the first half of the fifth century, and Pleistias' epitaph would be one of the early examples of"post-archaic" epitaphs. A verse epitaph from Aigina commemorates an Athenian (80, ea. 475-450?, the dates in JG 13 1503 are given as 450-431 ?): 207 I.

Il.

xafpETE oi Tiapt61vTes· eyo OE 'AvTtcnaiTes hvos 'ATap(3o KEil-lat I Tetoe 8av6v TiaTpfoa I yev TipoAm6v. 'AvTtOTCcTESI 'A8evaios.

I. Hail, passers-by! I, Antistates son of Atarbos, lie here, having died, and having left my

fatherland. 11. Antistates the Athenian.

The local Aiginetan tradition was perhaps not very elaborate: neither the chief mourner nor the composer of Antistates' epitaph apparently minded the fact that the first verse was rather a heptameter than a hexameter. The opening formula of 80 is paralleled in the epitaph for 205

For a photograph see LSAG, pl. 16:17. C£ 302, a dedication by an Alkmeonid at Ptoion. 207 For a photograph, see LSAG, pl. 17:19. The stele is not very big (H. 0.72 m, W. 0.52 m, Th. 0.08 m), and the inscription seems to be its sole decoration. The relatively neatly carved letters gradually decrease from huge letters of0.0042 m in the first line smaller ones of0.019 m towards the end. 206

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Mnesitheos from Aigina which was found in Eretria; the latter is inscribed on an "[i]rregular stele in unusual informal lettering"208 and belongs, I think, to the same milieu as the other three epitaphs under discussion here (108, ea. 450?):

5

xalpeTe TOt1Tapt61VTES,: eyo Se eavovl KOTOKEII..IOI.: oevplo iov clVOVEI..tat, avlep TlS TEOE Te8aTIITITar: ~evos aTI' Aiyllves, Mvecr(8eos 8' ovlv~..ta• Kat 1..101 1-tVEI..t' eTiel8eKe· q>(Ae 1-tETEp Tt~..tlaphe Tv~-tm e1r' aKpoTiaTot crTe.Aev aKa~-taTov, 1 haTIS epei TiaplOOI Otal~..tepes 01-tOTa lTOVTa· T~tpaphe p' ecrcrTecre q>I.Aiot eTilTimol eav6vTt

Hail, passersby! Having died, I lie here. Having come close, read what man is buried here: a foreigner from Aigina, named Mnesitheos. And the monument at the top of the tomb my dear mother Timarete set up for me, an enduring stele, which will be continually and forever (Sla!lepes = Sia!lTIEpes) announcing to the passers-by: Timarete set me up for her dear child, who died.

This epigram is a patchwork of various formulas and even dialects, and perhaps further demonstrates that inscribing verse epitaphs was not a developed tradition in either Aigina or Eretria. All four epitaphs display little affinity to the tradition of archaic Attic verse epitaphs; the monuments on which the epitaphs were incised also seem to stand in no relation to archaic Attic grave monuments. This diminution in the quality of monuments and sepulchral epigrams, which apparently were commissioned by or for people who stood in some relation to Athens and who were buried in areas of Greece that were closely connected to Athens, demonstrates that inscribing verse epitaphs was practiced at this time not by the cultured elite but by those people who, on the one hand, must have considered verse epitaphs to be a desirable sign of status, but, on the other hand, lacked the competence to compose or commission a metrically correct couplet.

208

Friedlander and Hoffleit 1948, p. 130, no. 140.

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CHAPTER TWO. PUBLIC VERSE EPITAPHS AND COMMEMORATIVE EPIGRAMS

Introduction The liberation of Athens from the tyrants and the reforms of Kleisthenes influenced the norms of funerary display in Athens and in particular the practice of inscribing verse epitaphs to commemorate deceased family members. The practice of inscribing private verse epitaphs came to a halt in Athens and did not resume until the end of the fifth century, but within that period there developed a tradition of public verse epitaphs to commemorate the war dead. This tradition of public verse epitaphs did not, however, directly evolve, following the Kleisthenic reforms, out of the archaic practice of elite burials, but was preceded by a period during which no verse epitaphs were inscribed in Athens.

In this chapter I will first discuss possible evidence for funerary epigrams

commissioned by the Athenian state for those who fell in battle. I intend to show that no verse epigram, whether inscriptional or literary, that purports to be a public verse epitaph for the Athenian war dead can be shown to date to the period between the reforms of Kleisthenes and the mid 460s. During this time, when neither private nor public verse epitaphs were inscribed in Athens, there appeared and developed a unique genre of inscriptional verses which I call commemorative or celebratory epigrams. The Athenian state commissioned a number of epigrams that commemorated the achievements of the entire state or of some Athenians, but that were neither explicitly funerary nor dedicatory (examples include epigrams for the tyrannicides and Athenian victories during the Persian Wars and subsequent campaigns). The second part of the chapter will be devoted to analysis of public verse epitaphs for the war dead; these inscriptions are well attested in Athens after the middle of the fifth century and, albeit transformed, into the fourth century.

Investigation of public

verse epitaphs for the Athenian war dead will require reexamination of the complex of procedures which are associated with the so-called Patrios Nomos, in accordance with which the Athenians buried and commemorated their war dead. Having reassessed the development of the Patrios Nomos, I will concentrate my discussion on extant public verse epitaphs for those who were granted public burials in Athens.

84

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1. Literary Evidence to 479 BC It seems reasonable to assume that if the Athenians placed restrictions on lasting

display at private burial sites and banned certain practices from private funerals (such as funeral orations) while, at the same time, allowing them at public funerals, they should also have transferred the earlier practice of setting up an elaborate stone funerary monument inscribed with a funerary epigram (the ideal aristocratic grave monument) from private to public burials. This assumption, however, is false, and the purpose of what follows is to demonstrate that the early Athenian democracy did not in fact mark the public burial sites with monuments inscribed with verse epitaphs. Those epigrams which are sometimes classified as verse epitaphs commissioned by the Athenian state for those who fell in war turn out, upon closer examination, to have been either epitaphs for non-Athenians, or else non-funerary, if not from a significantly later period. Chalkis. ea. 507-501 BC The earliest epitaph sometimes considered to commemorate the Athenian war dead is Simon. 2: 8fpcpuos EOI-lTWru.tev UlTO lTTU)(l, Oi'jl-!a o' ecp' iJI-liV eyy\}Sev EupflTOU OTJI-lOOlc;x KEXUTat' OUK CxOlKC.VS, epaTi]v yap CxlTC.VAEOOI-lEV VEOTTJTO TPTJXEiav lTOAEI-lOU oe~cii-lEVOl vecpEATJV. We were slain under the glen of Mount Dirphys, and near the Euripos a mound has been heaped upon us by the people, and not unjustly, since lovely was the youth we destroyed under the onslaught of the harsh cloud of war.

The epigram survives only in Planudes, but, as Page asserts, "it is a fair guess, but only a guess, that it comes from that period [i.e., is contemporary with Simonides]."1 Nothing in this epitaph openly contradicts the supposition that the epigram is authentic, but interpreting the text poses difficulties. Most scholars agree that the epitaph refers to Athens' victory over Chalkis, the date of which lies between 507 and 501 (Herodotus 5.77). Opinions diverge, however, over whether the inscription was intended to commemorate the victorious Athenians or the defeated Chalkidians. Clairmont, following Felix Jacoby, states that the epigram commemorates the Athenians, since it refers to a public burial (OTJI-!Oofc;x KEXUTat) while Page insists that the dead must be the Chalkidians since E01-1Tl8TJI-IEV clearly points to 1

FGE, p. 189. Molyneux (1992, pp. 84-86) and Clairmont (1983, pp. 87-89), however, treat this guess as certainty.

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a defeat,2 Hugh Lloyd-Jones in his review of Page's FGE rightly points out that E0!-.1118111-lEV means simply "we were overwhelmed, slain,"3 and thus can be applied to either side. Notwithstanding connotations of this verb, the tone of the verse is certainly not triumphant, whereas we might expect the victorious Athenians to have said something at least to indicate that the fighting had been worthwhile. Indeed, their victory was fast and decisive, and the stakes-defending the new democracy-were high. Back in Athens, Herodotus tells us, they dedicated some chains in which they had bound the Boiotians and Chalkidians until they were ransomed, and from the tithe of the ransom they set up a bronze quadriga, the base of which bore an epigram, which survives, with some variants, in the literary tradition. Several small fragments of the inscription also survive (179=Simon. 3): 4 LOEOIJOI EV +axAvoeVTlt OlOEpEOl eaj3eaav hvi3JPIV : naiOELS 'A8eva(ov epy1-1aatv EI-ITIOAEI-IOJI Leevea BotoTov Ka\ XaAKtBeov Ba~-tacravTESJ, : TOV htlTlTOS ~LEKclTEV naAAaOl Taao' e8eaavj. In a dark, iron bond the sons of the Athenians checked hybris, taming in deeds of war the Boiotian and Chalkidian tribes, and from the tenth of their ransom they dedicated these horses to Pallas.

The splendid offering to the goddess was commemorated with no trite epigram. 5 The tone is exceedingly triumphant, and it appears to me that the people who celebrated their victory with this epigram would surely not be the same people who commemorated the dead in Simon. 2. If Simon. 2 was for the Chalkidian dead, we might better explain some of the peculiarities in the epitaph. The first couplet of the epigram rings of epic, as is not uncommon in archaic epitaphs,6 and provides some information about where the men perished. The second couplet has been suspected of being a later addition and detached, but it is defended by Page who points out the similarity in composition between these verses and the epitaph to Tettichos (13). I would like to add another consideration. If we 2

See Clairmont 1983, I, p. 89; Jacoby 1945, pp. 159-160; FGE, p. 190. Lloyd-Jones 1982, p. 141. 4 The history of this epigram is complicated; see FGE, pp. 191-193, for discussion of the literary tradition; for discussion ofthe epigraphical tradition, see ML, pp. 28-29, no. 15, and IG 13 501. 5 To appreciate the high quality of this verse, one need only look at the formulaic Attic dedications extant from throughout the sixth century, which, unlike some verse epitaphs, did not accommodate poetic innovation and did not display much originality. This dedication, however, shows great artistry, and the line SEOIJOI ev t<'xx:\v6evTit mSepe01 eoj3eoav hvj3p1v is so far from being formulaic that its exact wording and meaning continue to defy consensus. 6 See, e.g., 131, 139, 143, 145.

3

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accept that the epigram stood on the memorial for the defeated Chalkidians, the overtly pessimistic tone might reflect Athenian presence in Euboia following the conflict. The most peculiar feature of the epitaph is the fact that it says nothing about the cause of the battle or the enemy, nor does it praise the valor of the fallen men. We do not necessarily expect an explicit reference to the cause for which the men died, but in public epitaphs we do usually encounter some, even if it is metaphorical or vague, reference to circumstances surrounding a battle. For example, the deceased are said to have died defending their fatherland, or some statement is made about how the men fought. Here, they are said to be buried by the people "not unjustly," because they yielded up their lovely youth to the violent cloud of war. No cause is cited. A reference, even an oblique one, to the nature of the conflict would not fit the situation in Chalkis after the conflict, and the Athenians would be unlikely to have tolerated it. But they probably would not oppose commemoration of the fallen foes, provided it was not expressed in a way that was offensive to the Athenians. The composer seems to have borne this in mind, as he found it important to incorporate justification for the burial, stating that it was carried out OUK a8iKws. Marathon 490 BC The Vita Aeschyli tells us that Aeschylus was defeated by Simonides "in the elegeion for those who died at Marathon." 7 Nothing here suggests that either Simonides or Aeschylus wrote an epitaph for the war dead at Marathon, and the work which is alluded to in the Vita Aeschyli could have been an elegiac poem, which might have included praise of and lament

for the Athenian heroes who fought and fell at Marathon. 8 Plutarch, drawing his information from Glaukias the rhetorician, refers presumably to the same poem (eAeyeiat) by Aeschylus, in order to provide historical evidence for the battle:

rAavKias 8' 6 pi)Twp Kai TO 8e~lOV Kepas AiavTi8ats Tiis ev Mapa8CJvt napaTCx~Ec.JS ano8o8i;vat, Tais AioxvAov tTTlV 11E8op(av eAeyeiats lTlCJTOVI-lEVOS, i)yc.JVlCJI-lEVOV Ti]v 1-lCx)(TIV EKElVTJV emcpavCJs (lEG II2 Aesch., fr. 1). 9 And Glaukias the rhetorician says too that the right wing was assigned to the Aiantidai in the Battle at Marathon, and he bases this on the eAeyeia1 of Aeschylus, who fought in this battle with distinction. 7

332.5-8 Page (Aeschylus, OCT). For the most recent discussion of the problematic term eAeyeiov, see Boedeker and Sider 2001, p. 4, note 4. 9 Bergk emends the nonsensical TTJV 1JE8opiav as eis TTJV Mapa8wviav, see IEG2 Aesch., fr. I. The context in Plutarch (Quest. Conviv. 628 de) makes it clear that the battle in question is in fact Marathon. 8

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If this testimony has any value, it is likely to allude to a longer poem and not to a verse epitaph, in which such precise information as the formation of the wing would hardly have been included. The recently discovered Plataia elegy of Simonides 10 might have included a description of the disposition of the Greek troops involved (11.33-43); on the basis of this precedent, we might consider the possibility that Aeschylus wrote a longer elegiac poem on Marathon rather than an epitaph. The fact that the Vita calls his elegeia eis Tovs ev Mapa8C:>vt Te8vTJKOTas might have resulted from the scholiast's assumption that elegeia have to be concerned with lamentation of the dead in a verse epitaph; in any case, the scholiast is likely to have had no direct knowledge of the text. 11 Another piece of literary testimony sometimes cited as evidence for a verse epitaph at Marathon comes from Lycurgus (In Leocratem 109):

oi 11EV yap np6yovot TOVS [3ap[36:povs eviKT)oav, oi npwTOI TiiS 'ATTtKiiS ene[3noav AaKeBatllOVIOI B' ev eep!lOTI\JAatS napaTa~cXIlEVOI, Tats 11EV TVxatS oux O!lOiats expf)oaVTO, Tij B' avBpeic;x TIOAV TrcXVTC.UV Btf)veyKaV. [109] Totyapovv ETit TOtS t6piOIS TOV [3iovt !lapTVpta EOTIV iBetV TiiS apETiiS aUTWV avayeypa!lllEVa CxATJ8ii npos anavTas TOVS "EAAT)Vas, EKeivots llEV" w ~etv'' ayyetAOV AaKeBat!lOViots' (:ht TijBe KEi11e8a TOtS KEiVC.UV TIEt80!1EVOI VO!li!lOIS, Tots B' VllETepots npoy6vots· 'EAAi)vc.uv npo11axovvTes 'A8nvatot Mapa8C:>vt xpvooq>6pc.uv Mf)Bc.uv EOT6peoav BvvalltV. 0

0

0

0

For your ancestors defeated the barbarians when they first came to Attica .... The Lakedaimonians took the field at Thermopylai, and, although their fortune was not as happy, in bravery they far surpassed all rivals. [109] And so over their graves (?) a testimony to their courage can be seen, faithfully engraved for every Greek to read; to the Spartans: 0 traveler, go tell the Lakedaimonians That here we lie, obedient to their laws. And to your ancestors: Athenians, fighting in the front ranks of the Greeks at Marathon, strewed the might of the gilded Medes.

The first, and perhaps most famous Greek epigram, is for the Spartans who fell at Thermopylai (Simon. 22b); it is attested in Herodotus (7.228) (with slightly different wording at the end

JEG 2 Simon. frs. 10-17. The scholiast explains Simonides' defeat of Aeschylus by commenting on the general character of their respective styles. According to him, Aeschylus' style was not suited to the eAeyeiov, which requires subtle expression of compassion, but was of such a nature that-and here the anecdote about the appearance of the chorus in the Eumenides follows-children would faint and women miscarry. It appears, therefore, that the scholiast was merely assigning to Aeschylus a style that would fit the anecdote, and had no text to draw from. 10 11

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of line 2) and raises little doubt about its authenticity. The second one (Simon. 21), for the Athenians, has been at the center of heated debates about whether it was inscribed on the Soros at Marathon, 12 or was not inscriptional at all (and that there was no epigram on the Soros at Marathon). 13 The main premises of the two arguments are as follows: a) Both Herodotus and Pausanias say nothing about a verse epitaph at Marathon. b) The epigram says nothing about death or burial (Jacoby), to which Page responds that the epigram to the Peloponnesians who fought at Thermopylai (Simon. 22a) and which was also quoted by Herodotus at 7.228 does not speak about death either:

Mvptacnv noTe TijBe TptaKooims EllaxovTo EK neAOTTOVVCxOOV XlAtaBes TETopes. Against three million men four thousand soldiers from the Peloponnesos once fought here.

c) The epigram has no demonstrative pronoun pointing to the place of burial or the buried casualties. The absence of both is highly unusual for an inscriptional epitaph. (No matter how unconventional Simon. 22a is, it does include the demonstrative Tfjt5e pointing to the locale marked by the monument and epigram.) d) The epigram names both the dead men's home and the battlefield, which is anomalous. Page himself adduces this argument as something that Jacoby could have used and then he refutes it, although not very convincingly. None of these points seems decisive for the date of the epigram, and the debate might benefit from a glance at the historical context. The Athenians in the epigram are called 'EAAi}vwv TTPOilOXOVVTES, which would be rather strange before Xerxes' invasion, if

we understand the expression to mean "fighting in the first ranks," with the implication either that they were champions of Greece, or that they fought in the geographical frontline of Greece. 14 The epigram might be more at home in the period when the Athenians were wont to use the battle of Marathon as a piece of propaganda (from the mid fifth century on), as it is, for example, in the speech of the Athenians at Sparta (Thucydides 1.73.4) and in the speech, allegedly by Aspasia, in Plato's Menexenos.

12

So Page, FGE, pp. 225-231. Jacoby 1945, p. 176. 14 The apparent parallel in v.4 ofKallimachos' dedication (256), npo h]eMvov, is certain in neither restoration nor meaning. Even if the restoration is correct, the expression might have meant "defending the Greeks" (as, for example, in the //. 8.57), which is, I think, different from "fighting in the frontlines of the Greeks," which implies fighting among other Greeks. 13

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While the content of the epigram and its similarity to one of the inscriptions at Thermopylai (Simon. 22a) are consistent with a post-Plataian date, the arguments listed in a) through d) are important for determining the genre of the epigram. The arguments of Page and Jacoby strongly suggest that the epigram quoted by Lycurgus, if it were inscriptional, could not have been an epitaph documenting the burial of the fallen men, but could have belonged to some kind of commemorative monument set up to celebrate the prowess of the Athenians at a battle that was increasingly viewed as their most famous achievement. The first line of the epigram, followed by a different pentameter, is cited by Aristides (Or. 28.63) and the Suda (s.v. notK(An). Aristides' version is:

'E.A.Af)vcuv TipollaxovvTEs 'A8nvaiot Mapa8wv1 EKTEtvav Mf)Bcuv evvea IJUplaBas. Athenians, fighting in the front ranks of the Greeks at Marathon, killed ninety thousand Medes.

Suda's version exaggerates further:

'E.A.Af)vcuv TIPOilaxovvTes 'A8nvaiot Mapa8wv1 EKTetvav Mf)Bcuv e'£Kocn 11Vpt6:Bas. Athenians, fighting in the front ranks of the Greeks at Marathon, killed two hundred thousand Medes.

Notwithstanding the absurd numbers, the Suda is perhaps more trustworthy here than Page allows when he assigns this epigram to the Stoa Poikile, where a version of it, whether the one cited in the Suda, or in Aristides, or by Lycurgus, might well have been inscribed. I fail to see why "it is most improbable that Lycurgus would quote, as a Marathon-counterpart to the famous Thermopylae-epitaph, ... a caption from a much later painting." 15 Actually, this is exactly what we would expect him to do, since his purpose was not to respect the authenticity of the epigrams, but to quote texts most familiar to his audience. 16 I believe, therefore, that the epigram cited by Lycurgus was composed not until after the battle of Plataia, either in the period when the Athenians did become champions of Greece by fighting the Persians in the frontlines, or else later in the fifth or even in the fourth century when the battle of Marathon was regularly employed as a piece of state 15

FGE, p. 227. The "trustworthiness" of Lycurgus' commentaries on the poetry that he cites is underscored, for example, by his story, allegedly known to any Greek (Ti) yap OVK o10e TWV 'EAAf]vwv, asks our orator a rhetorical question), that during the Messenian Wars the Spartans took the Athenian poet Tyrtaeus to be their general and to teach them how to be brave, and never paid any respect to any other poet (105-107). 16

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propaganda. It is possible that the epigram was painted or inscribed in connection with the painting in the Stoa Poikile; and even if it was eventually inscribed also at the Soros or on the Tropaion at Marathon, it commemorated a historical victory rather than documented a burial; that is to say it was not an epitaph praising or lamenting the death of those who fell in fighting but a commemorative epigram celebrating the achievement of the Athenians in destroying their enemy. Artemisium and Salamis There is no evidence for the existence of verse epitaphs for those Athenians who fell fighting the Persians at Artemisium, Salamis or in any other battle during Xerxes' invasion. An epitaph for the Corinthians survives in both the literary tradition (Simon. 11) and on stone (131). The dedicatory epigram cited by Plutarch, Them. 8.4 (=Simon. 24), if authentic, must have stood on the Athenian dedication to Artemis, which was erected after the battle at Artemisium.

Pausanias reports that the graves of the Athenians and Spartans at Plataia were inscribed with elegeia (9.2.5):

KaTa Be Ti]V eaoBov 1-lclAlCJTa Ti]v es TIAaTatav Ta
On the basis of Pausanias' statement some scholars simply proceed to pick through the epigrams from the Simonidea looking for those that would best suit the Athenian and Spartan graves. Theodor Bergk suggests that the two epigrams ascribed by the Anthology (7.253 and 251 = Simon. 8 and 9) to Simonides and assigned by the scholiast of Aristides (schol. Aristid. Ill 154-5 D) to Thermopylai were the two elegeia that Pausanias saw in Plataia. Page and others since Bergk have followed this suggestion and adduced the excellence of the verses, which were imitated in a later epitaph, a product of a rather

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incompetent composer, (595), as evidence of Simonidean authorship and of the inscriptional authenticity of the epigrams. 17 First, the argument that the lemmata in the Palatine Anthology and Aristides' scholiast are mistaken in ascribing the epigrams to Thermopylai, because we know from Herodotus which epigrams were incised at Thermopylai, is weak. There could have been more inscriptions at Thermopylai than Herodotus cites, or, perhaps even likelier, Simon. 8 and 9 could have been inscribed there long after Herodotus' time. Secondly, the elegeia that Pausanias saw could have been of any date, since Plataia retained for centuries the panhellenic cult of Zeus Eleutherios, which was established after the great battle of 479; the "editing" and "re-editing" of history started there early18 and likely continued for long. Conceivably, Pausanias could have seen Simonides' Plataia elegy, or some parts of it, which might have been inscribed in the Hellenistic or even Roman periods, as was the case with a verse inscription in Megara (Simon. 16=/G VII 53) that commemorated various battles of the Persian Wars and, in the prose part, was ascribed to Simonides. Whatever happened with the memorials at Plataia, there is no evidence to support the prevailing belief that Simon. 8 and 9 were the epigrams which Pausanias saw, let alone that they were "no doubt written within a few weeks or at most a few months ofPlataia." 19 2. Inscriptional Evidence to 480/479 BC IG 13 1142 (1)

The supposed inscriptional evidence for verse epitaphs for the Athenian war dead during the period of the Persian invasions also does not withstand scrutiny.

A small

fragment which appears to preserve part of a verse inscription is often interpreted as a fragment of a public verse epitaph (JG 13 1142=1):

- - - eSexaaTo ya - - - - -·e m8apeov a - - With this inscription Hansen opens his list of Attic public verse epitaphs. Although he gives the vague dates ea. 490-460?, he puts it before the Persian Wars epigrams (2 and 3), thereby implying an earlier date. The inscription was likely metrical, but one can by no means be 17 While expressing some doubt about Simonides' authorship, Aloni (2001, p. 98), for example, takes it for granted that the epigrams mentioned by Pausanias were Simon. 8 and 9: "According to our sources, Simonides composed various contributions to these celebrations [se. for the victory at Plataia]: the two epigrams [Simon. 8 and 9] that, according to Pausanias (9.2.5), were inscribed on the tombs of the Athenian and Spartan dead were attributed to him, though with some reservation." 18 Herodotus describes the empty tomb of the Aiginetans, which was built ten years after the battle, 9.85. 19 Molyneux 1992, p. 197.

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Donald Bradeen does not accept it as a sepulchral

2

inscription/' Jacoby and Clairmonf3 suggest that it was incised on a monument set up in the Agora to honor those who fell on the battlefield. The identification of the genre of this inscription has to depend entirely on one's theory regarding the introduction in democratic Athens of verse epitaphs for the war dead.

In other words, any interpretation of this

fragment will inevitably lead to question begging, and therefore it seems best to omit discussion of it altogether. The Persian Wars Epigrams. /G I3 503/504 (2 and 3) The following discussion is based on the text of IG I3 503/504, which includes the editors' transcription of a recently rediscovered and still not fully published stone C. All scholarship that I discuss, with the exception of Angelos Matthaiou 1988, John Barron 1990, and Catherine Keesling 2003, was written before the discovery and preliminary publication of this stone. There are now fragments of three blocks (A/4 B and C) connected with the same monument, and a fragment which possibly preserves a part of a copy of A I (Ag. I 4256). 25 Block A carries two verse inscriptions {I and 11), one under the other; the inscriptions are two lines each with each line comprising a couplet. A I and A 11 are incised in different hands (the first is stoichedon), and these hands "might be as much as fifteen years apart, but they could be virtually contemporary."26 Hansen followed Reinhard Stupperich in considering block B to be a fragment of a different monument with an epigram (3), but the editors of IG I3 503/504 report that with the discovery of block C which has BAAON inscribed in the same script as that of block B, there is good reason to believe that block B 20

If the words are divided correctly (which is likely) the Doric form atSO:peov is surprising, and Hansen's parallel with hnmoavvat is not entirely satisfactory because the words which end with -aVva I -avvn display various spelling in the inflections already in Homer and across different dialects in the archaic period. The Doric 01Sapeov is probably akin to the employment of the Doric forms in the new fragment of the Persian Wars epigrams (below), where, I suggest, it was due to the Doric dialect of the composer. 21 See commentary to IG 13 1142. 22 Jacoby 1944, p. 48, note 57. 23 Clairmont 1983, I, pp. 90-91. 24 There are two unadjacent fragments that constitute block A; the right-hand one was found in 1855 in Hadrian Street, and the left-hand fragment was found in the Agora in 1932. 25 In the most recent study of the stone, Step hen Tracy (2000-2003 [2004]) demonstrates that the piece should be dated to the late third or early second century B.C. The text of Ag. I 4256 overlaps with A I only by two letters, yet it has been widely accepted that it represents a later copy of the fifth century epigram (ML, p. 55). Although Matthaiou challenges this assumption (2000-2003 [2004]), I am not convinced by his arguments and in what follows I treat Ag. I 4256 as a likely copy of A I. 26 ML, p. 55, no. 26.

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belonged to the same monument as blocks A and C. It seems impossible to determine, however, whether stone B, which shows remnants of two lines (that is of one quatrain) originally carried one or two quatrains. Block C/7 according to the editors of IG, must have carried two quatrains inscribed in four lines, of which the first (upper) is lost but the second (lower) is fairly well preserved. Two surviving lines on block C must have continued for ea. 5 letters on an adjacent block (D) which has not survived, and it remains unclear whether stone D would have carried more text in addition to the lines belonging to the inscription on block C. The inscription on block C appears to be by the same hand as A II, but C is, unlike A II, for the most part written stoichedon. The inscription on stone B (one word of which appears to continue on stone C) is in a different hand from the others and not stoichedon. The similarity of A II to C and the fact that A I and most of C are stoichedon complicate the dating of the inscriptions even more, and I am inclined to think that they are separated by no significant period of time and were cut at some point between 480 and 475; 28 perhaps they were cut virtually simultaneously but by different letterers. IG prints the following texts (IG I3 503/504): 29 Lapis A I CxVOpoV TOVO' CxpETE( .. .9. .. OS acp8tTOV] aie( (:] [ .. 8 . .. ]v[.]p[ ..... 9 . ..... VEI-lOCJl 8eof:] I eoxov yap TieCof TE [Kai OKV1T6pov ElTi veo]v :

heAAa[oa 1-11e 1raoav oovAto[v e1-1ap ioev :1. Virtue of these men ... an ever eternal fame (?) ... the gods bestow. For both the infantry and those upon the swift sailing ships prevented all of Greece from seeing the day of slavery.

11 ev apa TOtoC' aoap[a---------- -] ~6T' aiXI-lEV , o~eoa1-1 1rp~o8e ~vAov I avxtaAOI-l 1Tpeoat p- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CxCJTV l3fat Tiepo6v KAlVcii-lEVo[ 1 ---- ---- ].

a:v- ------------

For them, indeed, there was (of?) adamant ... when they set the spear before the gates ... near the sea ... to bum ... the city to the violence of the Persians, relying on ....

27

For details see Matthaiou 1988, pp. 118-122, and pis. 17-18. The latter date is based on my view that the Eion epigrams (Simon. 40) are authentic, and if the story of their commissioning is trustworthy, it seems that they were set up not long after the events they commemorated; see below. It also seems that the Eion epigrams postdate the Persian Wars epigrams, and the latter, therefore, should have been composed in the first half of the 470s. I am aware, however, that this argument is rather tenuous and welcome other suggestions. 29 I omit dates and metrical and some epigraphical marks and change the layout of the inscription to reproduce them by verse with the indication ofline divisions. 28

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Lapis B (cum continuatione in lapide C) [-------------- -1TE)~o( TE Kat[----)

[--------------- --------- -1 I [- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -]o veoot [---------------------- -e]~aAov. 30

Lapis C disticha duo in taenia superiore amissa hepKos yap Tipom:XpotSev - - - - - - - - - - - - v TE~ ------- -1:-lEI:-l TT~AAa8os hmol[-- 1 ov8ap 8' CxlTElpO 1TOpTlTp6<po aKpov EXOVTES V Toiotl,.lTiav8aAes oA~os emoTpel[
Lapis D am issus est; fortasse etiam alii. Lapis A: I In exemplare quartP 1 saeculi (Ag. I 4256) servatur - - - - - - - os acpe1- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - VEI,.lc.uot Seo(· - - - - - - - WKUlTOpc.uv E1Tt vnCJv - - - - - - - ov Tjl,.lap i8eiv

The nature of the memorial remains uncertain. The archeological evidence suggests that the monument was located on the Acropolis or, perhaps even likelier, in the Agora, 32 which by itself would rule out the possibility that the inscriptions were proper epitaphs, since there were no burials at either place at this time. The inscriptions seem to refer to military achievements of either the Athenians or the Greeks in general during the Persian Wars (I will shortly discuss the possible identification of the campaign(s)), but the fact that there is no explicit reference to the death of the commemorated men supports the idea that it did not lament casualties but was rather "a monument parallel to the herm-monument set up for Eion.'m It has been pointed out that the demonstrative pronouns at the beginning of A I and A II suggest that the monument was surmounted by stelai carrying casualty lists; consequently, the epigrams must have commemorated, it has been argued, the fallen men, even if they were buried elsewhere. I think, however, that even if the Persian Wars monument did have stelai with lists of names, it is anachronistic to assume that the lists were those of casualties. In his narrative about the Battle of Lade in 494 BC, Herodotus (6.14) 30

{3aAov is incised on stone C.

31

For the new date, see note 25 above. See the discussion of the fmd-spots of the fragments in Barron 1990, pp. 134-135, note 10. 33 ML, p. 57, no. 26.

32

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tells us about a Pillar in the Samian agora that contained a list of the names of the trierarchs who stood fast in battle, contrary to the orders and despite the flight of their generals. The monument, which would have been set up after the liberation of Samos following the battle at Mykale in 479, was not an epitaph, since neither burials nor even a cenotaph are appropriate to an agora. Nor was it a memorial to the commanders who died in the Battle of Lade-Herodotus does not tell us that all eleven trierarchs died, which we would expect him to do, had it been so. 34 The Pillar rather honored for their patriotism and steadfastness those who stayed and fought-some may have died, some survived. There is a later example of a non-casualty list referred to in a celebratory epigram. The Heroes of Phyle were honored with a monument by the Metroon in the Athenian Agora in 403/402 (431). The monument seems to have contained a decree rewarding those who aided the democratic restoration and the names of those involved, as well as an epigram in their honor, which included a demonstrative pronoun pointing to the list of names. A list of names on a war monument does not, therefore, necessarily have to have been a list of those who fell fighting. It could have been a list of strategoi, or of the bravest, or of some others. In fact, it might not have been a list at all, but a heading such as "the Athenians," or "the Athenians and their allies," with the latter perhaps being named. 35 This is all speculation, but perhaps with a more comprehensive study of the monument we may achieve greater precision in its reconstruction. Since the discovery of the fourth century fragment with an apparent copy of A I, it has been widely agreed that A I, refers to the battle of Salamis, and not to Marathon, as had previously been thought. It has also been proposed that the epigram refers to both Marathon and the wars of 480-479 B.C, or to all the campaigns of the Second Persian War. 36 Most scholars agree that the second epigram commemorates Marathon, because it seems to refer

34

Some of them might well have been among those who decided to sail off to Sicily after the battle, Herodotus 6.22. In her study of an inscription from the temple of Zeus in Lebadeia, Turner persuasively argues that there was the so-called Epigraphic Wall in the temple, which included a long inscribed base surmounted by contiguous freestanding stelai; both the base and the stelai carried inscriptions pertaining to the building of the temple (Turner 1993). The monument which carried the Persian Wars epigrams was certainly of a different type than Turner's Epigraphic Wall (which she dates to the 3rd century BC); Turner's reconstruction, however, demonstrates how little we still know about architectural epigraphy and the ways of epigraphical display. 36 Earlier discussions are well summarized in ML, pp. 54-57, no. 26; Page is in favor of Salamis, FGE, pp. 220-221; Barron cautions that there might be various possibilities if the epigram referred to more than one battle, but, if "it was for a single battle, the only really likely occasion is Salamis," Barron 1990, pp. 137-138. Meritt (1962, pp. 294-298), however, defends Marathon and argues that the reference to the ships in A I should be interpreted as pointing to the fight by the Persian ships (Herodotus 6. 113-115). 35

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to a land battle that prevented Athens from being burned. 37 Verse 4, on which the Persian defeat, and the saving and not burning of the city depends, has been restored as meaning "pressed the strength of the Persians, or the frontlines of the Persians," with the restoration of OVvai-UV or TIPOI-lclXOVS or OTpaTlclV at the end of verse 4. These restorations presuppose that the middle voice participle KAlVcll-lEVOl can be equivalent in meaning to the active, transitive participle KAlVclVTES, with a parallel, for example, in 11. 5.37: T pwas o' EKAtvav

~avao(,

"the Greeks pressed the Trojans."38 But Page confesses, "I have not noticed the middle voice elsewhere so used, and there is no other example in LSJ.m9 To put it briefly, there is no evidence ofthe usage ofthe middle voice ofKAivcu in the active sense. Barron has revived the argument proposed by A. W. Gomme that the verses should be interpreted as referring to the campaign at Salamis. He suggests that the last line of the epigram actually refers to defeat, with the phrase 131at nepoov KAlVcll-lEVO[ pointing to those men who stayed and were killed on the Acropolis when all the other Athenians abandoned the city before Salamis. 40 There is, however, no evidence that the middle voice of KAivcu should have the passive meaning; in fact, the passive voice often has the middle sense of"reclining," "resting," or, when applied to places, "sloping down." Of people, it can mean simply living by the shore, as 11. 5.709, Atl-lVlJ KEKAll-lEVOS Kncptolot, describes Oresbios as living by the Kephisian lake. At 11. 16.67-68 the Greeks are leaning against the sea-shore, oi oe PllYI-liVl 8aAaoons/ KEKAtaTat, X~PllS 6Aiynv ETl 1-lOipav EXOVTES, while at 11. 15.739-40 the position of the Greeks is described thus: aAA' ev yap

Tp~cuv lTEOl~

TI6vT~ KeKAt~.tevot

lT\JKa ScupflKTclc.JV eKas fl~-te8a TiaTploos ains·

37

See, e.g., ML p. 56, no. 26; FGE, p. 221. Most notable has been S. N. Koumanoudes' identification ofnp6a8e TIVAOV in line 2 of A 11 with the narrows at the southern end of the Plain of Marathon (1978, pp. 237-44), which seems to lend good support to the identification of the victory in question with that at Marathon. This interpretation, however, entails that the epigram refer to the city's being saved from burning, and it requires the word KAIVC(I..IEVO[ 1 in line 4 to be understood in an active, transitive sense, which, as I hope to demonstrate, is not the case. That the victory which is being commemorated is that at Salamis was suggested by Gomme, but his brief discussion-an aside in his commentary on the funeral oration-was almost universally dismissed, 1962, pp. 98-99. See also Stupperich 1977, I, pp. 209-212. 38 Hammond even suggests that the Aristides' version of Marathon epigram ('EAAi)vc.uv TIPOI..IaxoiivTES 'ABrwaiOI Mapa8wvl/ EKTEIVOV Mf)Sc.uv evvea 1..1VPHl8as) should be amended from EKTEIVOV to EKAIVOV, which allows him to discuss the meaning "to rout" of the verb KAive1v as characteristic of the diction of the period (1968, pp. 26-27 and 33). 39 FGE, p. 225. 40 Barron 1990, p. 140

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The expression lTOVTc.p KEKAll..tEVOl has been called "an odd idiom,"41 and Richard Cunliffe interprets it as "having no other support or base,"42 on the basis of other Homeric expressions such as acrTiim KEKAtl..lEVOt "leaning on the shields," or Kiovt KEKAtl..lEVTJ "supporting herself against the pillar," where the forms KEKAII..lEVOt and KEKAtl..lEVTJ can be morphologically either passive or middle. The only clear usage of the middle participle KAtVOI..lEVOS is found at

Od. 17.340,43 where it means "leaning against," "supporting himselfby:" T~e o' ElTtl..lEAlVOV ovooO EVTocree evpac.vv

KAtVOI..lEVOS crTa6~..tc;l KVTiaptcrcrivc.p ...

In 480, the Athenians retreated to the sea shore-to Salamis, and relied on the sea by taking to the ships, and I suggest, therefore, that KAtVcll..lEVO[t? in the last verse is said of the Athenians. With lTOVTc.p KEKAtl..lEVOt in mind, I might suggest, for example, KAtVOI..lEVOl lTEAayet. The first half of this pentameter, acrTV l3iat n epcrov, then would depend on a lost

word in verse 3, and would perhaps refer to the abandonment of the city to Persian violence (to their 13ia). Another possibility might be that the Athenians were forced by the violence of the Persians (by means of their l3ia) to undertake some action, such as moving out of the city-with the word describing this action occurring in the lost part of verse 3. There might be numerous possible restorations for verse 3; it appears fairly certain, however, that KAtVcll..lEVO- in the last verse could not refer to the smashing of the Persians by the Greeks.

Now, if the Persians were not pushed away and defeated in line 4, the city does not need to have been saved from burning in line 3, and Tipecrat may then refer simply to burning or the intention to bum, but not to averted intention to bum. It has been argued, however, that "disaster [burning of the Acropolis] would not be mentioned in an epigram of this type. " 44 I would like in what follows to suggest some possible grounds for believing that a commemorative epigram on a monument that celebrated a splendid victory and stood in the Athenian Agora could in fact have referred to the disaster of the burning of the Acropolis and abandoning of the city. One of the major difficulties with the interpretation of the content of this epigram seems to have been the natural assumption that it described either Athenian 41

Janko 1992, p. 307. Cunliffe [1924] 1988, s.v. I
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victory and averted burning, or defeat and burning. Page contends that a disaster like burning the city would not have been mentioned in an epigram. Challenging this, Barron argues that the monument commemorated utter disaster and steadfastness in defeat. I suggest that burning of the citadel and abandoning of the mainland Attica did not constitute defeat: the evacuation of Athens was a planned action in accordance with the oracle at Delphi; it was a rationally devised component in a strategy that eventually led to a triumphant victory. The city was left to be burned (the Pythia predicted in the first oracle that the city would be brought low by fire and war, and in the second oracle she announced the impossibility of changing this prediction, Herodotus 7.140-141) but it was a means to save both that very city and all of Greece. It was a hard sacrifice on the part of the Athenians-Herodotus reports that the Athenians were devastated to learn the news of the destruction of the citadel-but it was probably viewed by them as an act of obedience to the oracle, which, as oracles are wont to do, proved true, and in the end the sacrifice of the Athenians was rewarded. An apt parallel to these events may be found in the events of 1812, well described by Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace, when Moscow was abandoned by her population as part of a devised plan (and also one that was debated among the war's leaders, with Kutuzov's plan eventually prevailing). The troops retreated, the civilian population was evacuated, and the city was then taken and burned by Napoleon. This apparent disaster for Muscovites marked the beginning of the inevitable end for Napoleon. Abandoning the city was considered a sacrifice and an act of bravery on the part of Russians, both the military and civilians, who were in fact brought closer together in this act of patriotism; and this event echoed strongly in the patriotic tradition throughout the nineteenth century and into WW II. Never did the tradition perceive this abandoning of the city as defeat, even a temporary one. I suggest that the Athenians felt something similar: pain and devastation, but also pride at the sacrifice. I find it hard to believe that they would have shunned a reminder of their desertion of the city. Not only were the Athenians unlikely to try to conceal this disaster-archeological evidence confirms that for about a generation the Athenians refrained from rebuilding burned temples45-but they actually could soon use it to their own advantage. Thucydides declares with characteristic frankness that the professed aim of the Delian League at the moment of its creation was "to retaliate for what they [the League members] suffered by plundering the King's territory" (1.96). The Athenians 45

For a recent discussion of this issue see, e.g., Mark 1993, pp. 98-104.

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certainly had one of the biggest claims, since their city had been sacrificed-many cities were burned, but theirs was abandoned for the sake of all the Greeks. Half a century later the Athenian envoys to Sparta spoke of the evacuation of Athens as an act of great patriotism and zeal (Thucydides 1.74.2-4). Here I would like to point to perhaps a distant reflection of this fire in the literary tradition. Timotheus in the surviving part of his Persae, which relates the final stage of the battle of Salamis in which the Persians are drowning and bemoaning their fate, entertains some obsession with images of fire and burning. In the badly preserved beginning of the fragment, where attention seems to be drawn to the destruction of the enemy ships, the fire-words are dense: "they swept away the firewood arm with the bulging heads;" "like fire the [... ] thong-bound [... ] was hurled from their hands ... and covers (?) burning with fire" (lines 1-20, approximately). 46 I wonder whether Timotheus intends here a mirror reflection of what the Persians did to the Acropolis when they, having established themselves on the Areopagos, set the Acropolis ablaze. The first half or even two thirds of Timotheus' poem is lost, but it has been suggested that the composition of the part about the defeat might reflect the earlier part of the poem that presumably described preparation for the battle on the Greek side (for example, that the preserved speech of Xerxes should have been paralleled by a speech of Themistokles at the beginning, from which a few words survive in the grammarians). 47 In this first part, therefore, we might have had the description of the fire that burned Athens. At the end of the poem, Xerxes laments: "0 ruin of my house, and burning Greek ships that destroyed the multitudinous youth of young men! ... the blazing strength of the fire will bum them with its savage body, and lamentable suffering shall befall the Persian land."

Historical tradition does not report any significant fire on the

ships; I suspect that it might be a purely literary device in Timotheus' poem: the fire that destroys the Persians reflects the fire with which the Persians destroyed the Acropolis. If I am right, it might be the case that the burning of the Acropolis occupied a prominent position in the subsequent literary tradition about Salarnis. The text following A 11 is lost and resumes, after a considerable gap of at least 2 quatrains on block C (if the restoration of the editors of the IG I3 503/504 is correct, block B had at least one quatrain and one quatrain was incised on the upper band of block C). The few 46 47

All translations ofTimotheus are those ofHordem 2002. Hordem 2002, pp. 127, 129-132.

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words which survive on block B do not allow any interpretation. 48 The quatrain on stone C was a continuation of the quatrain, now lost, on the upper band of the stone's front surface, since yap in verse 1 clearly indicates that this verse was not the opening verse of the epigram. The tone of the epigram on stone C is triumphant but the details are hard to grasp. There is something about Pallas in verse 2; verse 3 seems to refer to the Athenians. The somewhat unexpected way that Athens is described, ov8ap 8' cnreipo 1TOpTlTp6cpo, finds a parallel in a fragment of Aristophanes' play the Georgoi, in which Attica is called ov8ap aya8fis xSov6s:

w n6:\t cpiATJ KeKponos, a\JTocpves 'ATTtKf) xaipe :\mapov 8ane8ov, ov8ap aya8fis xSov6s. (PCG 3.2.112) The rare word nopTlTp6cpov seems a somewhat strange epithet to describe Attic landscape, which is not especially benevolent to keeping large cattle, but might be an implicit reference to the hecatombs sacrificed to Athena, and thus a way to state the prosperity of Athens. With several words pointing to the prosperity of Athens, I would suggest that the reference to cavalry or horsemanship or to something equine in verse 2 might also be a pointer to some facet of Attic prosperity, rather than a reference to a cavalry engagement. The first verse

hepKos yap

nponapot8e~

could perhaps have referred to the ships, but too little survives.

All together the fragments of this monument suggest the following picture. Since A I already comprises both the naval fighting and land engagements at Sa1amis and mentions a victory, it may well be the case that A 11 was a separate poem which focused on the events and narrated them at greater detail, including the burning of the Acropolis by the Persians and the Athenians taking to sea, and it might have continued on stone B. The employment of demonstratives in the first lines of AI and All might also indicate that the lines were opening lines of distinct units. The epigram on stone C might have belonged to a third "poem," the beginning of which is lost, and which seems to have been composed by a different composer from both A I and A 11. Besides unusually flowery vocabulary, epigram C has a surprising feature: the occurrence of the Doric dialect, as seen in aneipo, with alpha, and in nav8a:\es. also with an alpha instead of eta in the second syllable (in a position that requires this alpha to be long and thus perhaps a variant of nav8n:\f)s, attested in AP 9.282.6). There are, of course, words that are clear poeticisms, which are therefore sometimes spelled in Attic inscriptions 48

The three words which survive from the two couplets can hardly help to determine the events spoken of in the epigram, although veo01 (=vf)ocp) at the end of the third verse perhaps points to a sea battle.

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in accordance with other dialects; for example, we find the interchangeable Homeric forms

-ovva/-ovvn, or the parallel spellings 'A8nva(a and 'A8ava(a in archaic Attic inscriptions. But TJlre(pos is quite a common word (also outside of poetry) and we do not generally expect it to be spelled in Attica with an alpha. Furthermore, some expressions of C find interesting parallels, which have been noted by the editors of /G

e 503/504:

the rare nopTlTpocpov

occurs in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (line 22) and in Bacchylides (11.29). The word

nav8aAi)s is not attested in classical Greek outside Bacchylides, who employs it at least twice. 49 Thus, we have the composer of C, who employs Doric forms and uses expressions suspiciously characteristic of Bacchylides. A temptation to assign the lines to Bacchylides is strong. Yet, I am more interested not in who composed the epigrams, but rather in the fact that there were likely to be three poems composed by at least two poets. The tripartite division of both the Eion and Potidaia epigrams suggests to me that the inscription on the Persian Wars monument could also have been in three parts and (like the Potidaia epigram) composed by three different composers; but it is impossible to construct any defmitive argument for this. Leaving aside the question of the number of composers, I suggest that the entire inscription on the Persian Wars monument is likely to have consisted of three poems of different length, two of which referred to Salamis, and one which referred either also to Salamis or to another campaign of 480-4 79, or else was of a more general celebratory nature. To conclude my analysis of this inscription, I would like to discuss a couple of points which have been raised by the discovery of the later copy (if it is indeed a copy of A I). This fragment not only allowed scholars to restore the text of A I, but it also demonstrated that the epigram, particularly in line 3, might have inspired the composer of Simon. 46:

oif>e nap' EvpVI-lEf>OVTcl noT' ayAaov ~Aeoav ii[3nv ~-tapv6:~-tevot Mi)Swv To;ocp6pwv np6~-taxots aiXI-lllTa(, nei;o( TE Kat c.0Kvn6pwv eni VllWV, KclAAlOTOV 8' CxpETiiS 1-lViil-l' EAllTOV cp8tl-lEVOl. Line 3 of this literary epigram was used to restore the lacuna in A 1, 50 but the syntax of the resulting sentence in A I differs from that of Simon. 46. Indeed, OKvn6pov eni veov nav8a:Alwv oTeq>aVOIOIV (13.69) and K:Ae1w I navSaMs E!lais eveoTa~[ev cppaoiv (13.229); note that in the first example the quantity of the second alpha in nav8a:Ai]s is long, and, apart from the new epigram, this appears to be the only attested occurrence of the root -Sa: :A-, which theoretically should derive from the short aorist stem, and should therefore also be short. 50 Hiller was the first who proposed to emend verse 3 on the basis of Simon. 46, but his suggestion was all but ridiculed by everyone expect Gomme; Hiller's insight was proved correct (shortly after his death) by the discovery of the fragment of the later copy. 49

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in A I should be introduced by the article oi, to render the sense "the infantrymen and those (= the men) upon the ships." In Greek, the article might have been assimilated through crasis to the connecting Kai, resulting in [xot 6Kvrr6pov ElTt veo]v, or it could have been written in front of 6KvTI6pov, resulting in [Kat hoKvTI6pov ElTt veo]v. The later copy does not exclude either possibility. 51 The consequence of the variant Kat hoKvTI6pov is that it increases the number of letters in the missing part of A I, which is written stoichedon, by one letter, and this change in the number of missing letters might be important for restoration of the first couplet of the inscription. The text is believed to be missing 9 letters; if there was hoKvTI6pov, and not OKVTI6pov, the lacuna is 10 letters long. I have not inspected the stone, and so my suggestion is based on purely philological parallels, but the discovery of the New Simonides with its 6:86:]~aTov KEXVTat KAeos (IEG2 Simon. 11.15) is very attractive. The problem is that it is one letter too long: if we

restore the opening verse of A I as avSpov TovS' apETe[s KEXVTal KAELOS aq>8ljTOV] aiei on the basis of the New Simonides, we would need to postulate a lacuna of eleven letters. Perhaps, one can consider KEXVTO in place of KEXVTat, but it seems somewhat less plausible. The later copy also suggests that epigram A I was re-inscribed on a monument of different shape and (probably) type. The re-inscribed dedication of the Chalkidian and Boiotian spoils altered the order of the verses, but the shape of the base, on which it was incised, must have been close to the original base, and therefore the layout of the inscription, a couplet per line, was not changed.

The later copy of A I shows that the

epigram was inscribed by verse, not by couplet, as on the original monument. It seems possible, therefore, that only A I was re-inscribed (on a monument that was different from the original), since we hear echo of it in Simon. 21, which was likely a literary piece. What is remarkable is that there is no trace of the other epigrams of the Persian Wars monument in the later literary tradition, and, considering the scale of this monument, I fmd this absence surprising. A theory that postulates reconstruction of the monument sometime in the fifth or fourth century with transferal of only the text of A I might lend a possible explanation for the absence. 51

I failed to find any instance ofxoi that would be followed by a vowel, but this can be due to the low number of surviving attestations of xoi.

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3. Public Commemorative Epigrams: Features and Further Examples Thus far I have looked at possible evidence for verse epitaphs to Athenians who fell during the Persian Wars of 490 and 480-4 79 and have failed to find any sound attestation of such a genre. All the epigrams that I analyzed or mentioned were either dedicatory or commemorative, and the survey allows now a better definition of the latter. Commemorative epigrams celebrate an achievement or a victory, and commemorate, in the sense of praising, a person or event as worthy of remembrance, but are not associated in any explicit way with burials or dedications. They might include elements of narrative and sometimes point to precise historical details, but their genre is distinct from that of both verse epitaphs and dedications.

Years ago, FriedHinder suggested that the epigram commemorating the

deed ofthe tyrannicides (which I discuss below) was a new type of poem for a new type of monument, which could be called a "national political monument," but he did not delineate the features of the new genre, nor did he adduce more examples of it. 52 Day, in his study of epigrams commemorating the tyrannicides, touches upon some common features of Athenian epigrams that were inscribed on public monuments of the early democracy, but the topic of various genres is not addressed in his article. 53

Most

genres, however, exist in connection with others, and features of a genre in any particular period depend on the presence (or absence) of other genres. It is one of the important features of Athenian commemorative monuments and epigrams that they were set up and inscribed during the period when both private and public funerary monuments with verse epitaphs were absent. As for dedications, the tradition of inscribing an epigram on a votive monument continued from the previous century, and the number of verse dedications (and dedicated objects) seems even to increase significantly at the end of the sixth and beginning of the fifth centuries, in comparison with the earlier period. 54 The content of verse dedications started to admit of greater variety, too. 55 Most sixth century dedications are very matter-of-fact and can be described as "record" inscriptions: they inform the reader of who dedicated the object, to what god, and why the dedication was made; as I discussed earlier, they sometimes have metrical mistakes and often are executed with less care than verse epitaphs (for example, 52

Friedliinder 1938, p. 90. Day 1985b, esp. pp. 31-34. 54 Keesling 2003, pp. 36-62. 55 For example, 227 asks the goddess to be benevolent to the donor so that he could make another dedication; 243 narrates the peculiar circumstances of the vow; 266 employs elevated ceremonial language. 53

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193, 195, 209). Yet the epigram that was inscribed on the Athenian dedication of spoils from

Chalkis (179 = Simon. 3, ea. 507-501), while retaining conventional elements, is striking in its employment of poeticisms, even if they are partly drawn from earlier poetry. Three important features of the attitude of Athenians during the earlier fifth century towards inscribing epigrams on monuments can be summarized thus: 1) burials were not marked by monuments bearing verse inscriptions; 2) public and private votive monuments were often accompanied by elaborate epigrams; 3) there appeared a special genre of commemorative monuments which were inscribed with commemorative epigrams. At this point, I wish to illustrate the genre of commemorative epigrams with further examples. The Tvrannicides Epigram (430) The epigram (430=Simon. 1)56 that was incised on the base of the monument depicting Harmodios and Aristogeiton is the quintessential commemorative type:

LE

~ey'

'ABeva(otcn cp6os yeve' hev(K' 'AptoTo-J

Lyehov hhnrapxov KTeive KalJ hap~6BtOLSJ I [------------------------------- ] [------------ na]Tp[Ba yev e8hev. A great light came to the Athenians when Aristogeiton and Harmodius killed Hipparchus made their homeland ...

The honorands, Harmodios and Aristogeiton, are dead, but the monument is not a monument marking their burial and the epigram is not an epitaph. Evidently, the monument is also not a dedication to any particular god or gods. The verses commemorate the exploit of the Tyrannicides as the bestowal of liberty on the people of Athens, and notably it is with the triumphant reference to the Athenians that the epigram starts. The epigram is not only unconventional because of its genre, but also in its diction. Whoever was responsible for composing it, whether Simonides or some other poet, was undoubtedly a skillful poet. Presented with a name that could not possibly fit a hexameter or a pentameter, he came up with the trick of dividing the name of Aristogeiton between two verses. 57 The Eion Epigrams The so-called Eion epigrams (Simon. 40), which are preserved in the literary tradition, can also be included among commemorative verse inscriptions: 56

It is irrelevant for my discussion whether the preserved epigram stood on the base of the earlier group by Antenor or of the later group by Kritios and Nesiotes, or on both. 57 On difficulties of accommodating proper names in verse, see Kassel 1975, esp. pp. 213-214, where he discusses the trick of dividing between two verses a name that is impossible to scan.

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(a)

5

106

eK noTe TficrBe n6ATJOS &11' 'ATpefBlJm Mevecr8evs nye'ho ~a8eov T pculKOV 01-lnEBfov, ov noS' "01-lTJPOS E
Once from this city with Atreus' sons, Menestheus led his men over the sacred plain ofTroy, whom Homer once said to be a marshal in battle among the Greeks armed with the stout cuirass. Thus it is not unfitting for the Athenians to be called marshals of war and valor.

(b)

Tjv apa KCxKElVOl TaAaKapBtol, oi noTE Mi)Bcuv natcrtv en' 'Hr6vt, LTPVI-lOVOS Cxl-l
Indeed, those men were also of stout heart, who once brought upon the sons of the Medes at Eion, around the streams of Strymon, blazing famine and chilling Ares; they first discovered the helplessness of their enemy.

(c)

flYEI-lOVEOOI Be l-ll<J8ov 'A8T)Vatol TaB' eBcuKaV avT' evepyecrfT)S Kat 1-lEyaAcuV aya8&v· 1-lCi:AAov TlS TaB' iB~v Kat enEOOOI-lEVCUV e8eAi)OEl Cxl-l
The Athenians gave the commanders this as a reward for their good service and virtuous deeds; seeing this, future generations will also be more desirous to endure war's labors for the common good.

The epigrams commemorate the achievements of the Athenians in the campaign against the Thracian tribes in the area down the Strymon River. The tone is triumphant, with the verses alluding to present and past exploits of the Athenians in an attempt to inspire future generations to serve the common good. The Eion verses seem to form one continuous although clearly tripartite poem and this poem could have been influenced by the Plataia elegy: inclusion of references to the Trojan Wars and the mention of Homer in both texts might not be coincidental. Furthermore, the structure of the narrative in the Eion verses appears to follow a scheme which can be detected in the Plataia elegy (Trojan War--Homer-contemporary events). 58 The type of monument that bore the epigrams and the circumstances surrounding its erection can be surmised from the evidence in Aeschines and Plutarch. The monument comprised three herms bearing three epigrams and was set up in the Athenian Agora. Aeschines (3 .183) tells us that when the Athenian army defeated the Medes in battle (ev(Kcuv 1-laXOI-lEVOl Mf)Bous) and returned from Thrace, they asked the demos for a gift

58

Boedeker 1996, pp. 231-232.

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(Tov Bi;J..IOV DTTJOav Bcupeav). 59 The demos granted their request by giving them the high honor of setting up the herms, on condition that the names of the generals not be inscribed. One of the epigrams (c) says that TJYEJ..IOVEOOl Be J..IIOBov 'ABnvaiot TaB' eBcuKav, that is that the Athenians paid the honor to the hegemons, with, the epigram adds, the protreptic purpose of setting an example for future generations to follow. Epigram (b) refers to all the Athenians in the campaign: Tjv apa KCxKEiVOI TaAaKapBtol di lTOTE MiJBcuv ... BVOJ..IEVECUV

evpov CxJ..lflXaVLTJV (vv.l-4). So, from our point of view, and likely from the point of view of the general public at Athens, the Eion epigrams commemorated the achievements of all the Athenians in Thrace. Thus, the monument commemorating the achievements of the entire Athenian army was, as it appears from Aeschines' account, fmanced by the generals, while the commissioning of the monument was an honor granted to the generals by the Athenians. The Eurymedon Epigram Lastly, there is a commemorative epigram known as Simon. 45, one of the most disputed among the Simonidea. It is quoted in several literary sources, with some textual variants, and assigned by some to Simonides. It celebrates a victory of the Greeksprobably the Athenians and their allies-over the Persians on land and at sea. As to its occasion, it is connected either with the battle at Eurymedon in 468/7 (?) or with that at Cyprus in 450/49. The confusing evidence affects three major aspects of the epigram: 1) occasion; 2) authenticity; 3) authorship.

The following text corresponds, with the

exception of the variant reading in line 5, to FGE: e~

5

ov T' EvpWlTTJV 'Aolas Blxa lTOVTOS EVEIJ..IEV Kaln6Atas BvnTc;Jv Bovpos "Apns enexet, ovBev lTc.J TOIOVTOV emxBov[cuv yevET' avBpc;Jv epyov ev nnelp~ Kat KaTCx lTOVTOV CXJ..la· diBe yap ev yatlJ MiJBovs noAAovs 6AeoavTES otVlKc.JV EKaTOV vaOs eAov ev lTEAayet avBpc;Jv 1TAT)80voas· J..IEya B' EOTEVEV 'Ao\s vn' miTc;Jv lTAT)yeio' CxJ..lq>OTEpatS xepol KpcXTEI lTOAEJ..IOV.

5 K\mpctl P, Diod.: yailJ Arist. Ever since the sea divided Europe from Asia and fierce Ares holds sway over the cities of mortals, there was never a deed like this both on land and at sea among earth-bound men. For they, having killed many Medes on land, captured one hundred Phoenician ships laden with men at sea. And Asia moaned loudly, struck by them with both hands in the might of war. 59

Aeschines' account is a bit confused since the subject ofljTTJaav seems to be the army, if we take it with the preceding sentence, but, judging from what follows, I think that the generals should in fact be understood as subject. Plutarch makes Kimon solely responsible for the herms.

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The epigram is quoted by Diodorus (11.62) with the reading ev

Ku1rp~

108

in verse 5 but in the

context of the battle of Eurymedon. Aristides cites the text twice, once identifying the occasion as Eurymedon and once without offering an identification. His scholiast ascribes the epigram to Simonides, identifies the occasion as Eurymedon and supports Aristides' reading ev yailJ in verse 5. The Palatine Anthology assigns authorship to Simonides, offers the reading ev

Ku1rp~

and provides the lemma "on the Athenians who fought with Kimon

in Cyprus when he captured one hundred Phoenician ships." This epigram has been so much debated that discussion of the scholarship alone takes a recent study of Simonides over six pages. 60 Without going into the details of the debates, I want to clarify my position on two general points. I agree with Page and his sympathizers that we have one continuous text, not two epigrams, but I disagree that the verses are of poor quality. It seems safest to refrain from attempting to assess the quality of this epigram and it might suffice to point out that precisely those expressions that upset Page were the ones imitated in antiquity. 61 Secondly, I believe that no historical relevance can be attached to the sequence of battles in the epigram, that is we should not worry about whether the fighting on land preceded the sea battle. 62 First, I would like to consider the textual variants. Page writes that "it is generally agreed that the authority for KuTipc.ut ... is superior to that for yaint, but the decisive argument against yaint is that it leaves the epigram without any indication of the site of the battle." In my opinion, however, yailJ appears to be superior to substitution of ev yailJ with ev

KU1Tp~

Ku1rp~.

The

might be explained as an attempt to clarify ev yaiu:

the commentator who thinks that he knows what is meant by ev yailJ specifies the location, e.g. in the margin, and eventually the correction is taken into the text. If the original text had ev

KuTip~,

it is much harder to imagine the sequence of corrections: it is already mentioned

in verse 4 that the victory was both on land and at sea; why would one need to correct the specific location to repeat the general remark that the battle was on land? Page's second objection appears at first glance more relevant since many epigrams related to events of war (whether commemorative, funerary, or those accompanying the dedication of spoils) 60

Molyneux 1992, pp. 291-296. The first line, for example, which Page strongly criticized, was imitated in an epigram from Lykia (171, ea. 400). 62 See Molyneux 1992, pp. 292-296.

61

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indicate where the described event took place. 63 It is clear, however, upon closer examination that many do not provide such details. Thus, the Athenian dedication of Boiotian and Chalkidian spoils does not specify the location of the battle; the epigram that Pausanias had inscribed on the dedication at Delphi (Thucydides 1.132) referred to the enemies, but not to the battle at Plataia; an epigram from Lykia (177), the author of which surely knew the text of Simon. 45, talks about foes, but not about any particular battle, and the list can be extended. 64 Our text mentions the enemies (twice, in fact), and in this respect does not seem to differ much from other war epigrams from the time of the Persian Wars. Thus, arguments in defense ofKvTip~ over yailJ do not stand. All the sources in which Simon. 45 is cited, even those that have the reading KvTip~, with the exception of the Anthology, identify it as the battle at Eurymedon. There might be some additional help derived from epigraphical evidence for this identification. It has been noted that an inscription from Lykia (177) displays acquaintance with Simon. 45, but the Lykian text is likely to date to the end of the fifth century and is, therefore, of no help with the date of Simon. 45, apart from placing it in the fifth century. 65 I would adduce, however, the geographical proximity of the Lykian monument to the site of the battle at Eurymedon. If Simon. 45 refers to Eurymedon, a copy could have been displayed at some site in the newly conquered territory (this scenario would have been unlikely for Cyprus in 450/49, which was not conquered by the Athenians), and could have been eventually employed as a model for the Lykian inscription. Another inscription, the dedication in the Samian Heraion (421), which refers to a battle at Memphis66 and, therefore, should be dated between 460 and 454, might also have been influenced by Simon. 45: 63

Thus, Simon. 40 indicates that the action took place in the area of the Strymon River; a funerary example outside Athens is provided by an epitaph for the Parians who perished during the same campaign at the Strymon (155); for a dedicatory example, see 421 below; cf. also Simon. 4: although not a war dedication, it indicates the circumstances of the event, the bridging of the Bosporos by the Samian Mandrokles, on account of which the dedication was offered. 64 Kallimachos' dedication (256) is likely to have named the place of battle, but there it would be explained by the unique circumstances surrounding the setting up of the monument. 65 The Lykian part of 177, which relates some historical event, has not been satisfactorily understood. The text might be mentioning the defeat of the Athenian expedition led by Melesandros in 430/429 (see, however, ML, pp. 282-283, no. 93, who suggest that there might have been another general with this name at a later date), but other names in the inscription seem to point to the last quarter of the fifth century. It is perhaps impossible to learn whether Gergis was praised for defeating the Athenians, or some other Greeks; there could, on the contrary, have been a conflict with Persia or with surrounding states. But no matter what the political agenda of the Lykian dynasts in the late fifth/early fourth century was, they were eager to imitate and perhaps even surpass the Greek custom of putting up verse inscriptions, as 888 and 889 clearly suggest. 66 Although heavily restored, the reading [Me!l]
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[... ] epyo lTOAAOt [- --vestigia -- - ]67 I £Mell]otviKCt.lv TievTe Te Kat o[eK' eAovJ- 1 [ ... ] 'HYTJcra[y]6pTJV ZCt.luA6To Kat[----] I [vestigia incerta] ... of the deed, many men ... around lovely Memphis fierce Ares incited a naval battle between Medes and Greeks. And the Samians captured fifteen Phoenician ships ... Hegesagores, son of Zoiilotos and ....

In the Samian epigram, as in Simon. 45, the exploits are rendered by the word epyov; Ares is called 8ovpos (this is, however, a common epithet), while the verse that relates the number of Phoenician ships that were captured is remarkably close to v. 6 of Simon. 45: the Samian inscription has [vfi]as otviKCt.lV TIEVTE Te Kat S[eK' eAov] while in Simon. 45 we read otviKCt.lV eKaTov vavs eAov ev TieAayet. The quality of the epigrams as well as the significance of the occasions (reflected even in the number of captured ships) indicate that it was the author of the Samian text who knew Simon. 45, and not the other way around. 68 Finally, let us take into account the tone and diction of the epigram. The victory at Eurymedon, despite the fact that it takes Thucydides only one sentence to describe it, was very significant, and this corresponds well to the tone of Simon. 45. Furthermore, to say about Cyprus that it was the first battle which was fought at once on sea and on land would be a blunder, since everybody would know that there had been Eurymedon. Of course, the significance of anything can be exaggerated in a commemorative epigram; still, the author of Simon. 45, besides glorifying the achievement, takes pride in supplying factual information detailing the number of captured ships and pointing out that the ships were taken along with their crews. This remark can be translated into monetary value. Let us assume

that the Greeks captured one hundred ships (probably an approximation, not an exact number), with each ship having approximately 200 people on board. From Herodotus we know that the ransom paid by the Chalkidians and Boiotians to the Athenians amounted to 2 minae per person (5. 77), and in another place we learn that the amount of ransom accepted among the Peloponnesians was also 2 minae per person (6.79). If we assume that 67

Hansen reproduces some of the traces in line I. One obvious objection might be that there are not too many different ways to refer to the number of captured ships, that is the similarity of expression in the Samian dedication and Simon. 45 is due to the similar subject matter, not to any influence. Still, the apparent similarities seem to me to be more than coincidental.

68

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the Persians too paid at least that much, the ransom money received after Eurymedon would have been on the order of 4,000,000 drachmas, or ea. 666 talents. Indeed, tradition relates that several expensive public projects were undertaken with the money received after Eurymedon, such as the rebuilding the southern wall of the Acropolis and the laying of the foundation of the Long Walls (Plutarch, Cim. 13). To sum up my lengthy discussion, I wish to return to the three issues at stake in my examination ofthis epigram (authenticity, occasion, and authorship) and answer them in the order of decreasing certainty. The occasion is the battle at Eurymedon. The epigram is likely to have been composed before the Samian dedication, perhaps in the late 460s, and certainly by 400, the latter date being important because it precludes the possibility that the epigram was the product of fourth century mythologizing of the past; if we accept that it was composed shortly after the battle at Eurymedon, it might well have been inscriptional. 69 In this case, it was an epigram of the commemorative type, like the Persian Wars and Eion epigrams, and like these epigrams, it was probably composed by some famous poet who was specially commissioned for the occasion. The identity of this poet, however, cannot be determined. For about fifty years, beginning in the last decade of the sixth century and continuing through the first third of the fifth, a practice of setting up memorials to commemorate important events of the recent past flourished at Athens. Most of the events commemorated were related to war. The monuments with epigrams were set up at the busiest places in Athens for everybody to see, and what had been for the archaic elite a conspicuous means of both honoring their dead and demonstrating their status and good taste became for the early Athenian democracy a means of celebration and conspicuous self-representation. As for epitaphs, not a single one can be securely attested during approximately the same period of time in Attica. The absence of verse epitaphs does not mean that commemoration of the dead in general or war dead in particular was 69

The literary tradition preserves another epigram, Simon. 46, which is associated with the battle at Eurymedon and is an epitaph. I am inclined, however, to doubt its inscriptional authenticity. If it were contemporary and inscriptional, I would expect at least something to be said about this extraordinary battle. The MfjSot To~6<popol (line 2) seem to come straight from Herodotus 9.43, and the epithet is not very suitable to a conflict that involved fighting between (and capturing of) ships. The word np61.1axot appears to be purely decorative: are we to understand that those fallen fought with the front ranks of the arrow-bearing Persians? Finally, the first verse is basically identical to the first verse of an inscriptional epitaph (6), which suggests to me that either Simon. 46 was influenced by 6, or both derived from a third source.

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neglected. On the contrary, as has been recently demonstrated, the burial at Marathon explicitly evoked "the heroes of epic, heroes, whose arete now serves the polis, not themselves;" 70 the dead at Plataia71 received special honors, and so did the tyrannicides. Verse epitaphs in the archaic period had been associated exclusively with the elite and were to some extent means employed by the elite to demonstrate the excellence of a particular family. The association of this practice with elite families from the time of the tyrants would, I think, have made putting a verse epitaph on a public burial offensive to the sentiments of the early democracy. Besides the presumption that inscribing verse epitaphs was an aristocratic practice of the past epoch of the tyrants, it might also have been considered inappropriate to carve on a stone (intended for eternity) a verse inscription (intended to be easily remembered) that would lament the men who fell for the glory and liberty of Athens and Greece.

Literary tradition from Aeschylus' Persae to the Persae of

Timotheus seems to suggest that open lamentation of the war dead was perceived as a Persian trait and might have been viewed as unrestrained emotion, in contrast with Greek restraint. 72 4. Evidence for the Burial of the War Dead in Athens It appears from both the archeological and literary evidence that during the 460s the practice of setting up commemorative monuments with epigrams waned, whereas during approximately the same time the practice of setting up lasting inscribed funerary monuments to mark the burial place of the Athenian war dead came into being. For the remainder of the chapter, I will concern myself with the Athenian practice of inscribing verse epitaphs for the war dead. I will first outline the historical context in which verse epitaphs appear, taking into account the evidence that exists for a tradition of public burial of the Athenian war dead, and then proceed to discuss the surviving public verse epitaphs. The most significant information we have about the Athenian practice of public burial of the war dead and the tradition of marking public burials with monuments inscribed with epitaphs are 1) Thucydides' description of the burial of the war dead at the end of the first 70

Whitley 1994, pp. 227-230 and passim. This is so, if the reference in Thucydides (2.71) can be interpreted in connection with the institution of the cult of Zeus Eleutherios at Plataia; the reference to the tombs in 3.59 implies that the Plataians tended to the burials there. 72 One may wonder whether the story ofPhrynichos' Capture of Miletus (Herodotus 6.21) reflects the same attitude towards public reminders ofloss.

71

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year of the Peloponnesian War; this description attests the funerary ceremony, the so-called Patrios Nomos, as it was in the winter of 431, but also contains some references which bear on the origin of the practice; 2) fragments of casualty lists dating approximately from the mid-460s on and demonstrating thereby that by this date the Athenians marked public burials with inscribed stone monuments; 3) Pausanias' description of the part of the Kerameikos where the Athenian war dead were buried (in addition to reporting what he had seen, Pausanias also drew upon earlier descriptions of the Kerameikos). 73 Thus, we have spread out over time attestations of various facets of the practice of burial and commemoration of the Athenian war dead. The evidence is fairly coherent for some periods but less so for others, such as the first half of the fifth century. The greatest debate surrounds the issue of when the Patrios Nomos came to be what Thucydides describes, and the origin and evolution of the practice of marking the burial of the war dead with inscribed stone monuments. Although it is the latter issue that is more important for the analysis of the tradition of public verse epitaphs for the war dead, the former (the origin of the Patrios Nomos) is crucial for situating the latter in some historical context, and so I begin with discussion of the Patrios Nomos.

5. Patrios Nomos In the preface to Perikles' Funeral Oration (2.34), Thucydides describes a custom which he calls ncXTptos VOI-!OS, in accordance with which the Athenians held a common funeral at public expense (OTJI-lOOic;t) for those who died during the first year of the war. This custom comprised the following: the prothesis, during which the remains (Ta 6oT0:) of the dead were brought and set out in a tent for two days, and people could bring whatever offerings they wished; the ekphora, when cypress coffins were borne out on carts, one for each tribe, and among them one empty bier which was decked for those whose remains had not been recovered (everyone could join the procession, whether citizen or foreigner, as well as those women for whom it was appropriate); then the remains were buried in the Demosion Sema, which was situated in the most beautiful suburb of the city-there, Thucydides says, the Athenians always (aiei) buried their war dead, with the exception of

73

Pausanias is likely to have used such works as nep\ IJVTJIJ
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those who fell at Marathon; finally, a man chosen by the city gave a speech in praise of the dead, and then all departed. Numerous interpretations have been offered to explain and reconcile both the literary and archeological evidence for the introduction of the Patrios Nomos, or some parts of it, and consequently four different dates and persons have been suggested: 1) "at least as early as Solon, if not earlier," although, as Gomme writes, the time when the funeral oration was added is indeterminable; 74 2) the late sixth century, Kleisthenes; 75 3) the mid-470s, Kimon; 76 4) the mid-460s, the democratic faction after the disaster at Drabeskos in 465/4?. 77 I wish to reexamine separately the evidence for each part of the Patrios Nomos, as it is described in Thucydides, in order to reassess the origin and development of the tradition of public burial and commemoration of the Athenian war dead. Bringing Ta 6crT0: Home or Burying on the Battlefield a) Individual Burials When Kroisos asked Solon who the happiest man in the world was, the Athenian lawgiver responded that it was Tellos, the Athenian. Having briefly described Tellos' life, Solon concluded the story by stating that Tellos died as he was fighting for his city at Eleusis in a war with neighbors (Herodotus 1.30). If Herodotus' story is trustworthy, it furnishes 74

Gomme 1956, pp. 94-103. Stupperich argues that (1) "the separate burials in ten lamakes and the casualty lists on ten stelai, one for each tribe," indicate that the custom originated with the tribal reform of Kleisthenes. He claims that (2) "[t]he earliest attested public burials on the Academy Road belong to the period of the Tyrannicides and Kleisthenes himself," while (3) the earliest war monument would be the one for casualties from the war with Chalkis in 506, "whether those war dead were buried in the battlefield ... or whether they were brought back to the Kerameikos is another question." Finally (4), Stupperich directly connects the appearance of the state burial with the sumptuary law, the so-called post aliquanto legislation, which he dates to ea. 500 (Stupperich 1994, p. 93). 76 Clairmont aims to demonstrate that the ''burial of Athenian casualties and the concomitant custom of honouring the dead on their memorials with epigrams and lists of names began in the late 470s or the early years ofKimon's rule." He suggests that Kimon's bringing of Theseus' bones was of crucial significance for the introduction of the Patrios Nomos (Ciairmont 1983, I, p. 13). Clairmont finds archeological evidence to support his hypotheses in JG 13 1148, which he believes to be a fragment of a public grave monument set up ea. 470 (p. 125). 77 Basing his argument on the absence of casualty lists before 464 and on Pausanias' description of the Kerameikos, Jacoby (1944) proposes that the Patrios Nomos, as it is referred to in Thuc. 2.34, was introduced by the democratic faction ea. 465/4 and that it was around this date that the Demosion Sema was laid out. He defends the date offered by Pausanias and Pausanias' source for the introduction of the custom, while keeping Thucydides' description as ''the classical witness for the ceremonial of the state burial," (Jacoby 1944, p. 55); accordingly, he believes that Thucydides simply commits a mistake in 2.34 by citing the burial at Marathon as an exception, when in fact it was the rule (Jacoby 1944, p. 47); see also Pritchett: "I conclude that Kimon cremated the corpses of the fallen and brought the ashes to Athens for burial, and this action was a precedent which resulted in a law, passed a few years later, that the dead must always be brought back to Athens for burial" (1985, p. 178). 75

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the earliest known case of a public burial of an Athenian who died in a war; the burial is said to have been carried out at public expense and at the place of battle (Sru.toa(lJ and avToO Tfj TIEp

eTieae). There is no other evidence for burying and commemorating a war casualty at

the battle site in the seventh and sixth centuries. Several archaic funerary monuments which, according to the epitaphs, commemorated men who died at war did not stand on the battlefield. The memorials for Tettichos (13) and Kroisos (27) were set up in the Attic countryside, probably on family burial grounds. The grave monument for Xenokles (19) was in the Kerameikos. Fifth century evidence for the burial of an individual who died in battle is provided by a literary source: Herodotus says that Hermolykos, son of Euthoinos, who was ranked the best among the Athenians at the battle at Mykale, was killed a few years later at Kyrnos in the war with Karystos and was buried at Geraistos (9.105), the main port ofKarystos. Hermolykos therefore was buried neither on the battlefield nor in Athens. 78 Thus, our evidence, which spans the late seventh through early fifth centuries, indicates that two practices coexisted, that of burying and commemorating a fallen soldier on the family burial ground79 and that of burying him on or near the battlefield, with the latter practice being more honorable (and exceptional enough in Hermolykos' case to be emphasized by Herodotus ). From this, it may be deduced that the general practice was to bring the remains of the war dead home so that their families could bury them; in exceptional cases, the fallen could be buried on or near the battlefield. 80 b) Collective Burial In his description of the Kerameikos, Pausanias discusses the tomb of the Athenians

who fell in the war with Aigina, which took place before the Persian Wars (1.29.7). If this monument indeed marked the grave of those Athenians who fought with Aigina before the Persian Wars (there was no lack of fighting between the island and the Athenians after, too), this is the earliest attested monument for the collective burial of Athenian war casualties. In Pausanias' description, the next burial, when viewed chronologically, is the tomb for 78 It might have been the case that the Athenians had gained control over or even annexed the territory ofGeraistos and set up a monument there for Hermolykos as both a special honor to him and a claim on the new territory. 79 Although it cannot be proven that Kroisos, Tettichos, or Xenokles were actually buried at the sites marked by their grave monuments (i.e., that the monuments were not cenotaphs), there is no sufficient reason to doubt this assumption. 80 One wonders whether the latter was done primarily in those cases in which the successful campaign led to the annexation or establishment of Athenian control over the disputed territory.

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those who fell at Eurymedon in about 466 (KeiVTat

[eni Tij]

ne~ij

116

Se Kai oi cruv KillCUVl TO llEya epyov

Kai vavcriv au8TJ11Epov KpaTi)cravTEs, 1.29.14), followed by several

monuments from the mid and second half of the fifth century. Thucydides claims that the Athenians always buried their war dead in the Kerameikos, with the exception of those who fell at Marathon. His account presumes that the tradition of bringing the war dead home and burying them in Athens predates Marathon, since the burial at Marathon can be exceptional only if the tradition to which it was an exception preceded it. Thucydides seems to imply that the Athenians had a peculiar custom that was not commonly followed in other states. The evidence for public burials of the war dead in various Greek states confirms that it was indeed customary for other Greeks to bury their war dead on the battlefield. Among the most famous examples of battlefield burials are the Spartan casualties in Athens ea. 510 and at Thermopylai in 480; the Corinthian casualties at Salamis in 480; and various Greek peoples at Plataia in 479. Notwithstanding the common panhellenic practice of burying the war dead on the battlefield, those states that fought as allies of the Athenians could bring their dead to Athens to bury them in the Kerameikos. We know of a monument from the Kerameikos to the Argives who fought with the Athenians in 457 (135); Pausanias also speaks of monuments in the Kerameikos to the Thessalians, the Cretans, and others. The tradition of burying Athenian allies in Athens reinforces my supposition that the custom was peculiarly Athenian, because it suggests that the only occasion when non-Athenian states would not bury their fallen on the battlefield was after those battles in which they participated as Athenian allies and after which they would bury their casualties in Athens. As seen above, the stories told by Herodotus of individuals who died in battle imply that in exceptional cases a man who fought particularly bravely could be buried on or near the battlefield. Thucydides' account of the Patrios Nomos confirms that burial on the battlefield of the Marathonomachai was motivated by the exceptional bravery of those who fell there. There remains, however, the need to discuss the Athenian casualties at Plataia, which Thucydides certainly knew about, but for some reason failed to mention as an exception along with Marathon. Herodotus tells us that panhellenic arrangements under Spartan leadership were made for the burials of the casualties following the battle of Plataia, and they were conducted before the end of the campaign (9. 86). A state burial at Plataia

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seems to have been perceived as a claim of participation in the victory, 81 and it was certainly in the Athenians' interest not to refuse such a claim. This consideration explains why the Athenian casualties were buried there, but it does not clarify the silence ofThucydides. I can think of two reasons for his silence (one objective and one subjective). The objective reason is that the Athenian casualties were buried at Plataia not on account of their exceptional bravery but in accordance with arrangements of the allies to have their respective burials on the battlefield. 82 It would be a blunder on Thucydides' part, therefore, to say that the Athenians were buried on the battlefield at Plataia because of their exceptional bravery, which would have been necessarily implied had Marathon and Plataia been highlighted as exceptions of the same nature. The reasons for burial on the battlefield after Marathon and Plataia were different, and Thucydides knew this well, and he also knew that the Patrios Nomos admitted of exceptions only in certain cases. The subjective reason might be that Thucydides would not want to touch upon the great battle of Plataia in the part of his work which dealt with the first year (or rather first three years) of war, during which the events at Plataia were of crucial importance. As I tried to show, Thucydides could not cast Plataia as an exception from the Patrios Nomos of the same nature as Marathon; a more detailed account and explanation of why the Athenians buried their casualties at Plataia in 4 79 would not only have been out of place in the condensed preface to Perikles' funeral oration, but would also have upset the balance of this part of his work. Burying the War Dead Publicly (5nuooia) The next issue to investigate is what is meant by the word statement that the Athenians Ti;lTiaTpicp v61-1cp

8ru.too(~

xpw~-tevot 8n~-tooi<;X

in Thucydides'

Ta<pas eTiotnoavTo

(2.34). First, let us look at earlier attestations of the expression or its cognates in relation to burials. References to a burial as performed Bn~-tooi<;X or by the

8i;~-tos

are not exclusive

to Athens. Menecrates, the proxenos of Corcyra at Oiantheia, was buried by, in addition to his brother, the

8a~-tos

of Corcyra (143, ea. 625-600?); the Chalkidians in Simon. 2 were

buried 8nuooi~ (ea. 507-501); Herodotus tells the story of Archias from Sparta, who fought

81 Thus, according to Herodotus, there were empty barrows built by those people who were ashamed that they did not participate in the fight, 9.85. 82 Furthermore, even though the Athenians fought bravely at Plataia, it was common knowledge that the Spartans excelled all in courage (Herodotus 9.71).

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bravely in the unsuccessful attempt to capture the city of Samos from the tyrant Polykrates by siege, and who was buried and commemorated on Samos Sru.tocrilJ eu uno La!lic.uv (3.55), which must have been carried out after the fall of Polykrates. The earliest known person in Athens who received this honor was Tellos whom 'ASnvaiot Sn!loOilJ...

e8a"'JOV (Herodotus 1.30). These examples demonstrate that granting the honor of a burial Snllocric;x was not confined to democratic Athens (that is to Athens after the reforms of Kleisthenes) and that it dates at least from the late seventh century. The word seems to denote the participation of the citizen body in the funeral ceremony of a distinguished individual or group of individuals; what exactly the participation involved, whether it referred to sharing in the cost of the ceremony and grave marker (and perhaps to the securing of the burial plot), or to the state's assumption of some or all of the expenses, or else to the rendering of some other special honors (or perhaps any combination of the above) is impossible to determine. No matter what the practical connotation was, it appears important that the word signified that the chief mourner responsible for the burial was not a family member or a friend, but the entire community. Having said this, I think that the way the word Sn!locric;x is used in the preface to the funeral oration and in the speech itself seems to imply, in addition to the presence of the citizen body, the notion of "public expense," since Perikles calls the grave Tov Ta<pov

TovSe Sn!locric;x napacrKevacr8evTa (2.35). This particular characteristic of the Patrios Nomos might have been introduced in post-archaic times, and appears to have been one of the responsibilities of the Athenian state, perhaps similar to the pension provided for the children of those who fell at war (Thucydides 2.46). During the archaic period and the period of the Persian Wars, as well as subsequent anti-Persian campaigns, it might have been the responsibility of the surviving warriors and their generals to bring to Athens the remains of the war dead and to ensure their proper burial there; in these cases, state expenditure was perhaps involved to some degree. The fact that the earliest casualty lists, which were probably set up in accordance with state sanction, date to the mid-460s suggests that it might have been some unsuccessful campaign around this time that caused the Athenian state to assume this responsibility. A disastrous expedition could have changed the earlier practice by requiring the state to step in and undertake the full financing

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of the funerary arrangements. 83 This perhaps marked not a drastic change in the Patrios Nomos, but simply an adjustment of an earlier custom to the current situation. It must have been also important that during the fifth century the number of poorer Athenians who participated in military campaigns was perhaps increasing, and consequently that the state's responsibility for the funerary arrangements was not only honorary but practically necessary. The disaster of Drabeskos would be a good candidate for the first significant involvement of the state in the funerary arrangements also because the people who went there intending to settle as colonists were likely not to have been of great means, and thus state assistance was of crucial importance to the surviving families. Lastly, a defeat might have prompted deeper involvement of the state in funerary arrangements because there would have been greater risk of public discontent and civil disorder after a disastrous campaign. State organized honorary burial would have helped ensure that all the ceremonies were carried out in a dignified and appropriate way. Prothesis and Ekphora

The only thing that seems clear from Thucydides' description is that the prothesis and ekphora of the war dead at public funerals were not subject to the same restrictions that are specified in the so-called post aliquanto anti-luxury legislation for the prothesis and ekphora at private funerals. Indeed, the post aliquanto legislation forbids large gatherings

of people at funerals, while Thucydides reports that any citizen or foreigner can join the ekphora. Futhermore, Cicero seems to imply that Solon's restrictions on the prothesis and ekphora remained in force at the time of the post aliquanto legislation, the latter being the

continuation of Solon's policies to restrict funerary display, which do not seem to have applied to the public funerals as described by Thucydides. 84 Thucydides' description of the prothesis and ekphora is of no help for the dating of the origin of the ceremony. The fact that the remains were laid out in larnakes, one for each tribe, also does not allow us to assign to the ceremony a date after Kleisthenes. 85 Surely, ifthere were four larnakes before 83

In this hypothesis I follow Jacoby's belief that "something" must have changed in the practice of public burial in the mid-460s, but whereas Jacoby proposes this date (the disaster at Drabeskos) as the introduction of the Patrios Nomos, I believe it was only a change in the arrangement of procedures of a long standing custom (v61los). 84 According to [Demosthenes], Solon's legislation prescribed that the prothesis be held for one day and that the ekphora take place on the next day before sunrise (43.62). 85 Pace Stupperich 1994, p. 93.

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Kleisthenes, which were substituted with ten after his reforms, Thucydides would not need to specify it. Epitaphios Logos There remains the question of the introduction of the Epitaphios Logos, which, Thucydides has Perikles say, was a later addition to the Patrios Nomos. Perikles starts his speech by announcing that: "most of my predecessors in this place have commended him who made this speech part of the law" (2.35, trans. Strassler). 86 He does not name this person, but implies that his audience knows who it was. Cicero's brief description of the anti-luxury law also contains a clause regarding speeches at the funerals: nee de mortui laude nisi in publicis sepulturis nee ab alio, nisi qui pub/ice ad earn rem constitutus esset, dici licebat. The clause does not say that the post aliquanto legislation first introduced funeral orations to public funerary ceremonies-it rather implies that a practice of collective burials, on the one hand, and a tradition of giving speeches at funerals, on the other, had existed prior to the legislation-but limits and formalizes the practice. It might have introduced the specification that the funeral oration be given only at public funerals, and it might have made it a law that public funerals are to be followed by a funeral oration given by the person who had been chosen by the people. If Perikles implies, as he seems to, that a particular person introduced the stipulation that public funerals be followed by a funeral oration, and if this introduction coincided with the institution of restrictions on funerary display, which seems to have occurred ea. 500, this person is most likely to have been Kleisthenes. Furthermore, if it was Kleisthenes who added the practice of having a funeral oration delivered by a publicly chosen speaker, Perikles might be playing on his family tie to the originator of the law. 87 Perikles starts his speech with the proem in which he claims that even though many people before him praised the man who added an oration to the public burial of the war dead, to his mind, it is not a good custom. We can consider this to be a mere rhetorical device, but perhaps even if rhetorical such a criticism could be afforded only in view of the family connection between him and the one who introduced the custom. Perikles finishes the preamble by stating that whatever his disagreement is, he has to obey the law, which had been approved by the demos of Athens. He manages, therefore, to remind his audience 86

oi llEV 1TOAAoi TWV ev66:8e Ji8TJ eipT)K6Tc.uV E1Ta!VOVOI TOV npoo6evTa Tc";J v61l~ TOV Myov T6v8e.

87

I owe this observation to M. B. Wallace.

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ofthe special position of his family and himself, while at the same time displaying complete obedience to the will of the people. Patrios Nomos Reconsidered My survey of various components of what Thucydides describes as the Patrios Nomos demonstrates that the basic features of the practice, such as bringing the remains of the war dead to Athens, the prothesis, ekphora and interment in a common tomb, might have been characteristic of Athens from time immemorial. At some point there must have been provisions that a eulogy for the dead be delivered at public funerals and that the speaker had to be chosen by the people of Athens. This change was probably introduced by Kleisthenes at the end of the sixth century. About half a century later the Athenian state began to assume greater financial responsibility for the arrangement of the funerals and the subsequent commemoration of the war dead, and it is possible that this change occurred after some unsuccessful campaign of the mid-460s. It was after the state assumed greater responsibility that there appeared a special type of grave monument commemorating the burials of the war dead. The most prominent feature of these monuments was the casualty list of a given year, which could presumably be accompanied by a heading, which referred to the campaign, and, albeit not always, by a verse epitaph. If my suggestion is right that the introduction of inscribed stone grave monuments to mark the burial of the war dead was related to the Athenian state taking upon itself fmancial responsibility for the funerary ceremony, it might also elucidate the development of the commemoration of the Athenian war dead in the earlier part of the fifth century, before the 460s. As we discussed in the previous chapter, sometime around 500 changes occurred in the Athenian practice of honoring the dead, the most notable being the cessation in the tradition of marking burial sites with inscribed stone grave monuments, which had been characteristic of elite Athenian families during the time of the tyrants. After the liberation from tyranny and the reforms of Kleisthenes, setting up a monument with an epitaph was viewed as inappropriate and was avoided not only at private but also at public burial sites, which must have been marked by other means, such as, for example, an earth mound. 88 When in the mid-460s the Athenian state took over the responsibility for arranging funerals 88

Cf. the Soros at Marathon and XWIJ.OTa in Herodotus' account of the burials at Plataia, 9.85; for the association of the earth mound at Marathon with the typology of heroic burials, see Whitley 1994.

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and marking burial sites, the Athenians perhaps first indicated the location of the campaigns and inscribed only the names of the fallen men; from ea. 450-the earliest surviving examples date to 447/6-the Athenians started to add to the prose headings and casualty lists an epigram which would perhaps commemorate some or only one of the campaigns of the year. Approximately at the same time the practice of setting up commemorative monuments with epigrams waned, and the sixth century practice of inscribing a verse epitaph was revived and adjusted to a democratic mode of commemoration of the war dead. After an interruption of almost half a century in the practice of inscribing gravestones, the reemployment of an elite honor common in the sixth century would have been more acceptable than if the Athenians had appropriated the honor for public burials at the same time that they were denying them to private elite burials. Evidence from Pausanias and Plato Having outlined my hypothesis, I should examine it against Pausanias' testimony of what he saw and knew about the burial of the war dead in Athens. The part of Pausanias' description that bears on the analysis of the Patrios Nomos is his discussion of the monument to the Athenians who died at Drabeskos (1.29.4). If what Pausanias says (which I discuss in greater detail below) is interpreted as meaning that the casualties from Drabeskos (465/4?) were the first to be buried in the area of the Kerameikos designated for the war dead, then it contradicts Thucydides' statement that the war dead were always buried in this area except for those who died at Marathon, and it also contradicts Pausanias' own statements that there were monuments to those who fell in the war with Aigina and at Eurymedon, two conflicts which preceded the Drabeskos campaign. Let us review carefully Pausanias' description. He says that along the road leading from the city to the Academy there was nom llVfilla 'A8T)vaiots 6n6oots

6:no8aveiv OVVElTEOEV ev TE VOUIJaxims Kat ev llcXXatS

lTE~ais,

"a memorial to all the

Athenians who perished in battles at sea or on land" (1.29.4), with the only exception made for those, Pausanias repeats Thucydides, who fell at Marathon and were buried there on account of their courage, 01' 6:vopaya8iav. "All the others are buried down the road to the Academy . . . the first buried here are those who once conquered Thrace up to the area of Drabeskos when the Edonoi killed them in a sudden attack," oi oe aAAot KaTa TT,v

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6Bov KElVTOl TTJV es 'AKaBTHllOV ... npClTOI Be hacpncrav ovs EV epc;tKTJ lTOTe ElTIKpaTOVVTas I..IEXPI 8pal3ncrKOV TiiS xwpas 'HBcuvol cpovevovmv CxVEAlTICJTOI em8EI..IEVOI (1.29.4). One's understanding of this passage depends on one's interpretation of the word npClTOI, whether it is to be understood in its temporal or spatial sense. If it is temporal, Pausanias is deeply confused since in the following sentences he himself talks about two earlier public memorials, for those who fell in the war with Aigina before the Persian Wars and for those who were killed at Eurymedon. Gomme, who defends the spatial meaning of np&Tol, draws attention to the fact that Pausanias puts the Drabeskos memorial first on the list of war polyandria which he arranges in no chronological but rather in a topographical order. 89 Another consideration that supports the spatial meaning of np&Tol is Pausanias' apparent attempt to stay close and not to contradict such classical sources as Herodotus and Thucydides. 90 It seems justifiable therefore to expect Pausanias to ensure that his description of the monuments to the Athenian casualties does not blatantly disagree with what Thucydides says in the preface to Perikles' funeral oration; notably, Pausanias singles out Marathon as an exceptional case of burial on the battlefield and does not say a word about the Athenian burial at Plataia. If, however, npCJTOI in Pausanias' description were to be understood in a temporal sense, then Pausanias would have been guilty not only of contradicting himself, but also of disagreement with Thucydides. Furthermore, the narrative that immediately follows the description of the Drabeskos monument also suggests a spatial reading of np&Tol. Having described the Drabeskos monument, Pausanias notes that ecrTI Be E1..11Tpocr8ev ToO I..IVTli..IOTOS crTi]An ... ("in front of the memorial there is a stele") of Melanopos and Makartatos (1.29.6). The word

E1..11Tpocr8ev indicates that in the description of the Drabeskos memorial Pausanias was concerned with the visual and topographical, not temporal and historical, setting: the Drabeskos monument is the first in this part of the Kerameikos, and in front of this monument there is a stele for the two cavalrymen. The monument for those who fell in the war with Aigina (1.29.6) supports Thucydides' claim that it had been customary at Athens to bring the war dead home. The date of the conflict with Aigina is unfortunately 89

Gomme 1956, p. 97. For example, in the section that I am concerned with at the moment, Pausanias clearly bases his account of the two generals at Drabeskos on Herodotus 9.75.

90

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undeterminable. Pausanias identifies the Persian Wars as the terminus ante quem, but the hostilities with Aigina continued at intervals during the sixth and into the fifth centuries. 91 The monument to those who fell at Eurymedon (1.29.14) also poses no difficulty ifTipwTot in the description of the Drabeskos monument is understood as a topographical indicator. These two burials, for the casualties from Aigina and Eurymedon, would have been carried out in accordance with the Patrios Nomos, although they perhaps were not fmanced fully by the Athenian state, but by some other arrangement (for example, Kimon could have provided funds for the burial and commemoration of the Eurymedon casualties; and the survivors and relatives could have provided them for those who fell in the conflict with Aigina). 92 Plato is also cited in connection with the Patrios Nomos, since he seems to say in Menexenos 242c that those Athenians who fell at Tanagra in 458/7 were the first to be honored by the polis with burial in the mnema, in which the casualties commemorated in the speech are being buried (ev T(i)Be T(i) ~vfu.taTt Tt~n9evTes vTio TiiS TI6Aews TipwTot he9noav ). Most scholars have agreed that if TipwTot were to mean that the Athenian casualties after Tanagra were the first to receive public burial, then Plato was clearly guilty of a mistake. 93 Consequently, TipwTot has been interpreted as meaning that the Athenians at Tanagra were the first to fall fighting against Greeks for the freedom of other Greeks. 94 This interpretation, however, presupposes a mistake, too, since Tanagra was not the first occasion when the Athenians fought other Greeks, and Plato was likely to have known that. Whether the battle at Tanagra marked the first occasion when Athenians fought other Greeks for freedom is a disputable claim, too. I am inclined to think therefore that the historical facts are so distorted in this sentence that it can hardly provide us with any evidence, no matter how one interprets TipWTOI. It should be added in conclusion of this section that the site of what Thucydides

calls the Public Memorial (the Demosion Sema), To

Bn~6mov ofl~a,

o eoTtV E1rl ToO

KaAAtoTov TipoaoTEiov TiiS TI6Aews (2.34), and Pausanias refers to as the Memorial 91

It is also unclear what the relationship is between the description of the Aiginetan monument and the following sentence in which Pausanias tells about an Athenian decree that allowed slaves to be buried in a public grave. The puzzling juxtaposition of the two sentences might reflect some confusion surrounding this f:articular place in the text. 2 For my doubts regarding the inscriptional authenticity ofSimon. 46, see above. 93 See, e.g. Loraux 1981, p. 63, who calls it an "erreur volontaire." 94 See, e.g., Jacoby 1944, p. 54, and the recent commentary on the dialogue by Tsitsiridis 1998, p. 304.

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(Mnema) for those Athenians who died at war, TIOCH llVfilla 'A8T]va(ots 6TI6oots aTio8aveiv OVVElTEOEV EV TE VOVIlOXlatS Kal EV llciXatS lTE~ais (1.29.4), has not been

securely located, since no one of the approximately 132 fragments of inscriptions that are associated with public monuments from the Demosion Sema for the Athenian war dead has been found in situ. 95 There thus remains the possibility that new finds in the future might necessitate some changes to the suggested reconstruction of the history of the Patrios Nomos and to the tradition of commemorating Athenian war dead with inscribed stone monuments. 6. Public Verse Epitaphs

According to my reconstruction, the practice of setting up lasting inscribed grave markers on public monuments resumed in the mid-460s, primarily for the war dead, and some of these public funerary monuments might also have featured a verse epitaph. While private graves were perhaps marked with a modest gravestone with the name or names of the deceased, the practice of inscribing verse epitaphs seems to have been confined to the memorials of those who received public funerals from the Athenian state. The Epitaph for Argive Casualties (135) The earliest surviving example of a public grave monument which includes all three components of a typical state grave marker-a casualty list, a prose heading and an epigram-is not for the Athenian dead, but for Athenian allies, the Argives, who fought and fell at the battle of Tanagra in the summer of 458/7 (135): [To(]o' e.8[[avov Tav]aypat AaK[EOati-!Oiv(ov hulTO xepo](, Tiev8o[s- 6-7--

-1-- 4--

Tie]pt 1-1apvap[ev -].

These men died at Tanagra at the hands of the Lakedaimonians, grief. .. fighting around ...

The epigram is cut in three lines, with two lines incised horizontally from left to right and the third line incised downwards on the right margin. It appears therefore that the epigram was cut last, in the space that was purposefully left to accommodate it but which turned out to be too smalP6 The rather unpretentious epigram highlights the actions of the enemy: "These men died at Tanagra at the hands of the Lakedaimonians," declares the first verse; the second verse seems to contain some expression of grief and the statement that the men 95

Pritchett 1998, pp. 1-11. For detailed analysis ofthe fragments, see Meritt 1952, pp. 351-355; a brief account of all fourteen fragments can be found in Agora XVII, no. 4. 96

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died fighting for some cause (nept 11apvap[ev--]), the description of which is lost. We cannot know whether it was the idea of the Argives or the Athenians to set up such a monument; the initiative to bring the remains of the dead to Athens was likely to have been Athenian, since, as noted above, the Argives would not have followed the practice of removing the war dead far from the site of battle. It is possible, therefore, that the Athenians granted their allies the horrors that they customarily conferred on their own dead, including the setting up of an inscribed grave monument, although the arrangements were likely to have been left for the Argives to carry out:

the script of the monument is Argive,

suggesting that the Argives commissioned the inscription to their own mason (and poet, if the mason and the poet were two different people). 97 For the Argives, the burial of their dead in the Kerameikos was probably perceived as honorary, whereas for the Athenians it might have been done not only in deference to their allies, but also as part of Athens' imperialist propaganda, as a way to advertise the strength of its alliances and as an opportunity for broader public condemnation of the Lakedaimonians. Epitaphs for Distinguished Foreign Individuals (11, 12, 469) Around the same time, that is in the middle part of the fifth century, a place in the Kerameikos may have been designated for burying distinguished foreigners-those, that were buried Bnl-looic;x and for whom the Athenian state fulfilled the role of chief mourner. The earliest memorial that we know of is the one for Pythagoras of Salymbria, who was proxenos of the Athenians there ea. 460-450 (11): I.

11.

Tlv8ay6po. npo~evias apETiiS TE xaptl-l npoovc.:>v TE Kat 0\JTO I ev8aB' 'A8nva"lot Tlv8ay6pnv e8eoav I viov Bn11ooiat ~tovvoio, inn6j3oTov Be I TraTpiBa .IaAvj3piav '(KET' axos
I. OfPythagoras. 11. Here the Athenians buried Pythagoras, son ofDionysios, with public honors, in recognition of his and his forefathers' proxenia and virtue; grief for the deceased has arrived in his horse-grazed land.

It was later joined by the memorials for Silenos from Rhegion, who came to Athens

as an ambassador in 433/2, as we know from a stele (JG 13 53) recording an alliance between Rhegion and Athens in that year, and who died there (12): 97

Interestingly, this epigram is the only verse inscription in Athens that accompanies a public memorial and is incised in rather a careless way. See below for the layout of other public epitaphs.

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I.

[~tAT)vo].

11.

evpV)(opo( lTOT' e8a\YaV 'A8ijvat TOVOE TOV avopa I eA86vT' EK lTCCTpas oevp' ElTl OVIJ.I..laXlav· I EOTI Oe ~IAT)VOS na'is t:lKO, TOIJ. lTOT' e8pe\YEV I 'Pnytov evOai!J.OV cpc.::na Ot_KatOTaTOV.

127

I. [Of Silenos]. 11. Spacious Athens once buried this man, who came here from his fatherland for an alliance. It is Silenos, son ofPhokos, whom blessed Rhegion once reared to be a most righteous man.

and for Thersandros and Simylos, ambassadors from Corcyra, (469): ev8aoe 9epaav5pov Kat ~IIJ.VAOV avope no8etv~ I naTpfot KepKvpat, oe~aTo ya'ia Taq>c.lt" I npeal3es eA86vTas. KaTa OVVTVXtav oe 8av6vTasl natoes 'A8nva(c.lv OT)!J.OOtat KTEptaav. Here the earth has received Thersandros and Simylos in burial, two men who are longed for by their fatherland, Corcyra. The children of the Athenians buried them with public honors after they came here as ambassadors, but died by chance.

The date of the latter memorial is, however, problematic. The monument and the script suggest the first half of the fourth century, but excavations led by Ursula Knigge revealed that the grave goods and the archeological context of the burial are consistent with a date in the third quarter of the fifth century.98 Knigge argues that the Corcyrean ambassadors commemorated with the monument are the same men who came to Athens to appeal for help in 433/2, as is related in Thucydides 1.31-44, where, unfortunately, no names are provided. She suggests that Thersandros and Simylos were the ambassadors of 433/2, but, I would add, there were surely Corcyrean ambassadors in Athens every year thereafter until 425, and there is no need to associate Thersandros and Simylos with the embassy that is described by Thucydides, if all we know is that their burial dates to the third quarter of the fifth century. Knigge suggests that the memorial was renovated during the first quarter of the fourth century, perhaps in connection with the agreement of the year 375. 99 In any case, the date of the epigram cannot be safely determined; if the original monument had an epigram it was perhaps copied on the renovated monument, and in this case the date of the composition of 469 would have been contemporary with the burial, that is in the third quarter of the fifth century.

There are, however, other possible

scenarios. 98

Knigge 1972. Knigge 1972, p. 601. The new monument was certainly bigger than the original one, but it is rather impossible to determine whether the epigram on the new monument is a copy of an earlier one or a newly composed epitaph. 99

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The monument for the Corcyrean ambassadors and the monument for Pythagoras were found in situ, indicating thereby the location of the part of the Kerameikos where graves of the distinguished foreign individuals buried by the Athenian state tended to be. 100 Silenos' monument was not found in situ, but was built into a church building; according to Knigge, however, the general appearance of the gravestone, including the inscription, is similar to the appearance of Pythagoras' stele. Accordingly, Knigge suggests that all three monuments were near each other, and were originally of similar appearance. featured tall marble stelai which were mounted on stepped bases.

They

The epigrams on

Pythagoras' and Silenos' grave markers are carved on the upper blocks of the bases, and the names must have been carved on the shaft of the stelai, as we see in the case of Pythagoras, whose name survives on the shaft. 101 The epitaphs on the bases of the monuments for Silenos and Pythagoras are incised in neat Ionic script, with line divisions corresponding to verse ends. Knigge thinks that the original monument which marked the grave of the Corcyrean ambassadors looked similar. All three epitaphs consist of two elegiac couplets each; in addition to the name and the fatherland of the deceased, the epitaphs mention either what service they performed for Athens or on what mission they came to the city. All the epigrams emphasize that the Athenians provided public burial for the deceased: two inscriptions (that of Pythagoras and the Corcyrean ambassadors) explicitly say that the burial was performed bTJI..toolc;x, and in the epitaph for Silenos it is implied in the statement e6a'+'av 'A6fjvat. As was the case with the monument for the Argives, the Athenians must have granted the honor of public burial to these people, which perhaps included state participation in the arrangement of different 100

Knigge argues that under Peisistratos this part of the Kerameikos was specifically designated for diplomats and other important foreigners. Her argument is based on the archeological evidence gathered from the socalled South Hill, where two burials were uncovered. The earlier one had been plundered, but the later one was still untouched and contained objects dating to ea. 540. No objects in this grave appear to be of Attic provenance, and it is this fact that allows Knigge to suppose that the person buried here was a foreigner, perhaps an Ionian, and to develop this into the suggestion that Peisistratos founded a burial ground for distinguished foreigners. It can be argued, however, that Ionian objects were deemed of especial value, and their presence reflects the status of the buried man rather than his origin. Furthermore, even if the deceased of the South Hill was a foreigner, it hardly means that the area was kept for foreign burials through the sixth and fifth centuries (there is no evidence for a foreign burial in the area until the grave of Pythagoras, which is about 80 years later than the burial in the South Hill). The monuments for distinguished foreigners in the fifth century stand out and might have clustered together because they were set up at a time when the Athenians did not set up this type of monument for their own dead. In the fourth century, there does not appear to have been any s~ecial area in the Kerameikos for the burial plots of foreign residents. 1 1 From the monument for Silenos only the base with the epigram survives.

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stages of the ceremony. This honor would have also entailed conferral on the relatives or compatriots of the deceased of the privilege of setting up a grave monument over the burial site. The relatives or compatriots would have been responsible for doing so, and the fact that both surviving epitaphs are cut in the Ionic rather than Attic script probably reflects the preferences of the commissioners. 102 The burial sites of distinguished Athenians must have been marked by some kind of monuments-Pausanias reports, for example, seeing the tombs of Perikles (1.29.3) or Anthemokritos (1.36.3)-but these monuments, unlike the ones for distinguished foreigners, most likely bore no funerary epigrams: we would expect at least the one for Perikles to have been copied down, had it ever existed. The Epitaph for Athenians who Fell at the Hellespont (6) Several early public monuments for the Athenian war dead, including the casualty list of 458 for the Erechtheid Tribe, the so-called Nointeul Marble, have no verse epitaphs (JG 13 1147). The surviving public verse epitaphs for the Athenian war dead span a period of approximately twenty years, from after 449 to before 429. 103 The monument which carries perhaps the earliest surviving Athenian public verse epitaph is also the best preserved example of a public Athenian grave monument. It is a marble stele (JG 13 1162) with three lists of names of those men who perished at the Chersonese, in Byzantium, and in other wars, perhaps during the campaign year of 44 7, 104 when Perikles led an expedition to the area around the Hellespont with the purpose of both protecting the Chersonese from the Thracians and resettling it with Athenians. The casualty lists are followed by an epigram in the bottom

102

The preference for Ionic script is apparent in Attic fifth century inscriptions that in some way pertain to foreigners. Threatte 1980, pp. 35-37. 103 The cavalry monument with an epigram that was preserved in the literary tradition asAP 7.254 {=Simon. 49), of which a fragment was discovered (4), is dated by some scholars, including Hansen, to 458 or 457, and by others to the early years of the Peloponnesian War. Because of the uncertainty of the date and because it must have stood on a cavalry monument, I will discuss it below, along with another cavalry epitaph which dates to 429. 104 Other dates have been suggested. Thus, Kirchhoff (1882, pp. 623-630) proposed a date of 409 (on the ground that there was significant fighting in the Hellespont area in the later phase of the Peloponnesian War), while several scholars accepted the date of 440 or 439 when Byzantium joined the Samian revolt, e.g. Tod 1946, p. 102, no. 26. Meiggs and Lewis contest the date of 440 or 439 and point out that it would be "almost inconceivable that in either of the two years of the Samian revolt Samos should be included among 'the other wars', with fewer casualties than Byzantium or Chersonese," and suggest the date of 447 {ML, p. 128, no. 48). One can argue, however, that there could have been a separate stele for the casualties from Samos. I follow the date suggested by Meiggs and Lewis (and followed by both Hansen and the editors of IG I3 1162), although I think that 440 or 439 remains a possibility.

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part of the block. The epigram (6) says that the men died fighting by the Hellespont, which certainly covers the Chersonese, but is an unlikely description of Byzantium and hardly covers "other wars." The epigram is composed in simple and clear language and abounds in formulas (or expressions that were destined to become formulaic). Verse 3, however, does not appear to be formulaic and is a rather breathtaking line: hoioe nap' heAAEOlTOVTOV an6Aeoav ayAaov hel3ev I 13apVC(J..lEVOI, O
Had this epigram survived only in the literary tradition, one can easily imagine arguments against its authenticity as an inscription: three lines of formulaic poetry and a verse with images that could be deemed exclusively Hellenistic. Indeed, the third verse, in spite of (or perhaps because of) its brilliance, looks somewhat out of place in the otherwise straightforward epigram. The ending of the first verse reminds one of veapc'xv hel3ev 6AeoavTa of Tettichos' epitaph (13), and the word 13apVcXI-lEVOI is favored by the diction

of epitaphs for the war dead; some other formulaic expressions might actually be coined in this epitaph. Thus,

evKAetcra~-tnaTpioa

appears in the Potidaia epitaph (10, 432?) as

naTpio' evKAe\"oav, and this otherwise uncommon verb is employed twice in a patch-work

epitaph for Pythion of Megara (83, 446-425?). 105 The expression naTep' evKAetoas also occurs in Tyrtaeus 12.24, and if the expression of the archaic poet was indeed the model for the composer of the Hellespont epigram, the adjustment of an archaic notion to the spirit of the Athenian state, with the change of "father" to "fatherland," is noteworthy. Another expression, a8avaTov 1-lViil..la, is also not securely attested in earlier verse inscriptions. Hansen considers restoration of the word a8avaTov for the preserved aS- in two archaic verse epitaphs (20 and 22). Both stones, however, preserve only a few letters, and no restoration can be conclusive. The expression a8avaT6v 1-lE ( se. 1-lViil-la) opens the first verse of the Potidaia epigram, and reference to the memorial as immortal becomes common in later classical verse epitaphs. Of course, there is no way to know for sure 105

See Ch. 3.

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whether these formulas were coined in the Hellespont epitaph, or were borrowed from another epigram or literary source which did not survive. The quality of epigram 6 seems to favor the first hypothesis, since the poet who could put together verse 3 was perhaps well capable of creating what would become formulaic expressions. The Koroneia Epitaph (5) One of the most enigmatic (despite being relatively well preserved) verse epitaphs comes, as most scholars agree, from the monument honoring the casualties of the year 446 (IG 13 1163 ), 106 most of which would be those who fell at Koroneia. The epigram (5) is

incised on the base, which possibly supported ten stelai with the names of the dead; the casualties and the epigram are in different but contemporary hands. 107 The long epigram, four couplets in total, appears to refer to the defeat that the Athenians suffered under the command ofTolmides at Koroneia in Boiotia: 108

TAE!lOVES hoiov ayova !lCxXES TeAeoavTES aeATI[To] I cpovxas 801!-IOVlOS oAeoaT' E!l1TOAE!l0l" I ov KaTa 8[vo]!lEVEtOV 6:v8Jpov o8evos, aAAa TlS hV!lOS I he!lt8eov, 8elav tEI~OilOJv avTtaoas, I e(3Aacpoev 1rp6cppov· [-- 10- -] ~e 8vo11axov aypav I ex8pois 8epevoas [-- 9-- h]VIlETEpOl I ovv KaKot exoeTeAeooe, (3poToim 8e Tiom To Aomov 1 cppa~eo8m Aoy(ov 1TlOTOV e8eKe TeAos. 109 • 106

While the date of the memorial is not entirely certain, almost all scholars agree that the battle of Koroneia is the best candidate; see Bradeen 1969, p. 152, and more recently, Griffith 1988, p. 25. 107 For a reconstruction of the monument, see Bradeen 1964, pp. 21-29. 108 The epigram poses a few textual problems: it is unclear whether CxEAlT[To] is to be restored as CxEAlTTOV or aEAlTTc.JS, and whether SatiJOVios is to be understood as SatiJOViovs; moreover, [eiooSo]v in I. 4 derives from the fact that etooSo is written in smaller letters in the erasure (this restoration, however, is rejected by many scholars who attempt various emendations). For most recent discussions of the epigram, see the commentary in IG I3 1163 and Griffith 1988, pp. 24-27. I do not attempt to solve any of the textual difficulties and I try to base my analysis on what is undisputedly on the stone; it is for this reason that I attempt to re.produce the letters of the stone without all the proposed restorations of either CEG or IG I 3 1163. 10 The stone appears to have been damaged approximately in the middle part of verses 3 and 4, and a later and inferior hand inscribed ONANb. in verse 3 and Ell:Ob.O in verse 4. The first correction, ONANb., has been assumed to reproduce the lost text of the original, but the restoration of verse 4 has been disputed. The first problem is that Ell:Ob.O appears to be one letter too long to fit the gap in this stoichedon inscription; secondly, the very reading Ell:Ob.O has been challenged by Griffith (1988, pp. 26-27) who claims that nothing can be discerned in the gap, although he thinks that the traces suggest that the first letter of the lost word was an A. The fact that Ell:Ob.O would be too long to fit the gap has led to several suggestions such as [eAvOI]V by Peek and [es ept]v by Gronewald, followed by Hansen. I think, however, that if we can still see traces of Ell:Ob.O (although I have not examined the stone, I can see traces of El and 08 even on the photograph which accompanies Griffith's article) it must have been well visible when incised and must have made sense then, and I do not seen why it has to be emended to the hardly intelligible [eAvot]v or [es ept]v. I tend to assume

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Steadfast were you who, after lasting out the contest in the desperate battle, lost your illomened lives at war: not by the strength of hostile men, but one of the demigods, having confronted you along the divine path(?), zealously harmed you. . . having hunted a prey that is hard to fight for the enemies ... wrought to your misfortune, and made it clear to all future mortals that there is a true end to oracles.

After the battle of Oinophyta in 458/7 Boiotia, with the exception of Thebes, was more or less under Athenian control, and a considerable number of anti-Athenian Boiotian oligarchs went into exile. In 446 it became known in Athens that the Boiotian exiles had taken control of Chaironeia, Orchomenos and some other towns, and Tolmides was appointed to lead a small force of Athenians and allies there. They were successful in restoring control over Chaironeia, but on the way back, the Athenian contingent was attacked near Koroneia by Boiotian exiles from Orchomenos, who were supported by Locrians, exiles from Euboia, and others. The Athenians were defeated and Tolmides was killed; to save the prisoners the Athenians made a treaty with Boiotia. The treaty stipulated that Athens was not to interfere in the affairs of Boiotia, and the Boiotian exiles returned to power. Thucydides ( 1.114) gives a brief account of the events that followed: the Boiotian success at Koroneia re-enforced anti-Athenian feelings elsewhere, and, as a result, Euboia revolted from Athens. When Perikles, accompanied by an Athenian force, crossed over to the island, he learned that the Megarians, too, had revolted and had destroyed most of the Athenian garrison. He also learned that the Peloponnesians were preparing to invade Attica, and so he hastily brought his army back from Euboia. The Spartans marched into Attica as far as Eleusis and Thria and then withdrew; Perikles crossed over to Euboia again and subdued the island. Soon after they returned from Euboia, the Athenians made a thirty years peace with the Peloponnesians (Thucydides 1.115).

By late summer 446, Athens,

although she did lose control over important regions, emerged from the crisis that had begun with the defeat at Koroneia, uo and it was within this historical context that the war memorial for the year was erected and the epitaph composed. 111 The epitaph addresses the deceased and claims that they were overcome by no human enemies. "It was one of the demigods who ... destroyed you," pronounce the verses. What is exactly meant by this is unclear. According to Plutarch, Perikles opposed Tolmides' that El20ll0 is there and is not a product of wishful thinking on the part of the scholars, and that it was restored in place of the original E20ll0 at the same time when ONANll was restored in the previous line. 11 For discussion of the uncertain chronology of the year 446, see Meiggs 1972, pp. 181-182. lll Pausanias reports seeing the grave ofTolmides and his men (1.29.14).

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expedition, because he considered it to be too rushed, and Tolmides' eventual defeat strengthened Perikles' reputation as a wise politician. 112 Even though the story as it appears in Plutarch "may be the invention of fourth century rhetoric," 113 it might reflect some earlier tradition. The epitaph seems in fact to accord well with what Plutarch says; although the last two lines appeal to the universal idea that all oracles come true, they might be seen as also hinting at a certain rashness exhibited by the interpreter of this particular one. It has been even suggested that Perikles himself had a hand in the choice of the topic for the epitaph. 114 It might be the case then that the oracle in question was given to Tolmides while he was still

in Athens deciding on the expedition, and not by the same TIS

rn..u6ecuv who was responsible

for routing the Athenians; m in fact, I do not see any objection to the hero and oracle-giver being different divinities. 116 Only as a suggestion, I would propose the following restoration of events: in the early summer of 446 there was some disagreement concerning the expedition to Chaironeia; Perikles opposed it, perhaps because he thought it was being conducted at the wrong time or with too small a contingent. Tolmides anticipated no difficulty (and, as it turned out, justifiably so, since he had no trouble restoring Chaironeia), and he consulted an oracle and understood it to be favorable. The Chaironeia enterprise was a success, but the Athenian army was ambushed somewhere near Koroneia, as they were on their way to Haliartos. The disaster sent Athens into a crisis that was resolved by policies in which Perikles' role was exceedingly prominent (his personal initiative appears crucial in both the reduction of Euboia and, if we believe Plutarch, the Spartan withdrawal). When the monument was being set up in the Demosion Sema, at some time in the fall of that year, after the end of the campaign season, the situation in Athens was considerably more secure than it had been a few months earlier. It was therefore perhaps considered appropriate to have the verse epitaphs for the casualties of the year address the year's worst defeat in an epigram that stresses that the defeat was wrought not by humans but by divine intervention. 112

Plutarch says that the event "conferred on Pericles a reputation for great foresight since he now seemed and concerned for the polis" (Pericl. 18.3). 13 Meiggs 1972, p. 176. 114 Cameron 1940, pp. 128-130. He does not, however, elaborate on this suggestion. Otherwise, his article ~rovides a very interesting analysis of the language and images which are employed in the Koroneia epitaph. 15 Pace Bowra 1938, p. 82. 116 Cameron (1940, pp. 103-104) convincingly argues that assigning the cause of death to divine intervention is a common topic of consolation, and that "our text offers not the record of actual epiphany, but rather a post eventum interpretation of defeat." ~rudent

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Fragmentary Verse Epitaphs of the mid Fifth Century There are three fragments of stelai which may preserve parts of epigrams that accompanied casualty lists; the dates of all these fragments are uncertain. One fragment preserves the beginning of a verse: Bei-!OS

'EpexSetB~[v

- - - (7, post 450?). Another

fragment appears to bear the beginnings of three verses, but only four words are preserved (8, post 450?): , , [ ------------- - ]I Olu apeTEV EYEI-lOVOV [ - - - - - - - - - -]I cppa~eo8[ at - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ]I .,~,

i------------- ---- -].

The second verse starts with a reference to i)ye1-16vcuv, while the third has

cppa.~eo8[at,

the same verb that is used in the Koroneia epitaph. Was there some admonition as in the Koroneia epigram? Was the epigram only for the generals? 9 (post 450?) presents a similar situation: we have only a few words from three original lines, but in this case from the middle of the lines; the beginning of a word AEVKao[ m might indicate that the Argives were mentioned in the epitaph, since in the fifth century AEVKaoms is often applied to them. 117 The Potidaia Epitaph Casualties in the Potidaia campaign were commemorated on a monument in a long verse epitaph (10). The monument is usually dated to 432, the first year of the campaign (Thucydides 1.63), but the Athenians continued to fight in the region until 429 (Thucydides 2.70), and perhaps it is safer to leave the date of the monument as 432-429. The epitaph actually comprises three epigrams, two couplets each; and it has been well argued that the three epigrams were prize-winners in a competition. 118 The first three verses of the first epigram are badly damaged; what survives does not allow one to judge either the content or the quality of the inscriptions. It appears that this epigram is spoken by the memorial

(6:86:vaT6v l-IE Sa[ vo ---), which is rare in Attic epitaphs but common in Attic dedications and epitaphs from other parts of Greece. It would be tempting to suggest that the poet of the first epigram was not from Attica, but hardly much weight can be placed on just a few words. 117

See, for example, Aeschylus' Septem: 6 AevKaoms ... Aaos (92); Sophocles' Antigone: Tov AevKaomv 'Apy168ev cpwTa (106-107); Euripides' Phoenissae (1099): AevKaomv ... 'Apyeicuv oTpaT6v. The ~assage from Sophocles is problematic; see Lloyd-Jones' apparatus in the OCT edition. 18 Tod 1946, p. 128, no. 59.

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The second epigram is most famous for its eschatological reference:

ai8ep ~e~
The idea that the ether receives the soul and the earth the body of the deceased becomes common in verse epitaphs in the fourth century and later, and the Potidaia epigram contains the first attested occurrence of this theme in funerary verses. Euripides alludes several times to the concept; the allusion that appears in the Suppliants, which is commonly dated to 422, 119 resembles most closely the second Potidaia epitaph: 120

eaoaT' fJSTJ yiit KaAv
Potidaia epitaph, or was first introduced in it (that is first introduced to a wide audience, while itself being borrowed from contemporary philosophy). Perhaps it was first introduced and popularized by Euripides in his earlier plays and repeated in the Potidaia epitaph. Or it might have become popular first in the Greek West (if Kaibel 245 is by the Sicilian Epicharmus), 121 and it could have been a poet from the West who composed the second epigram for the Potidaia memorial. In any case, the belief seems to have been foreign to the Greeks of the archaic period, but well familiar to an Athenian audience of the last quarter of the fifth century. The third epigram also juxtaposes the notion of the mortality of the men who died in war (and are now longed for by the Athenians) and their virtue and the glory that they brought to their fatherland: 119 Collard 1975, I, pp. 8-14. 12 For commentaries on these lines in particular and on the concept in Euripides in general, see Collard 1975, 11, pp. 250-252. 121 Kaibel 245=23 B 9 DK OVVEKpi8n Kai 81EKpi8n KcbrfjMev, o8ev i;Mev, ml:AIV, ya 1-!EV eis yav, TTVEVI-1' avc.u.

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11. PUBLIC VERSE EPITAPHS AND COMMEMORATIVE EPIGRAMS

avBpas l,.lEI,.l TIOAlS heBe Tro8ei Ka\ Be[l,.lOS 'Epex8€9s],

I

Trp6cr8e noTEtBa(as ho\ eavov Ell Trp[o]lli!x9!S I TraiBes 'A8eva(ov·
I

e[AA]axcravT' apETEV Ka\ TraTp[(B') _EVKA[E]!.qgl'. This city and the demos of Erechtheus yearn for the men, children of the Athenians, who died in the front ranks in front of Potidaia; and by giving their lives, in return they obtained virtue and honored their fatherland.

The first verse reminds one of Tyrtaeus' depiction of the city's longing for a man who perished in battle, apyaAECUl Be Tr68cut Tracra KEKT)BE TIOAlS (12.28).

Although the

expression with the characteristic usage of the verb Tro8eiv to describe the longing of the living for the deceased does not seem to occur in earlier epigrams, it is very popular in the fourth century and later. 122 An Epitaph for Athenian Cavalrymen (4)

In addition to verse epitaphs for all the casualties of a given year, there remain verse epitaphs for the Athenian cavalry.

It has been suggested that the epigram, which is

preserved in the literary tradition as Simon. 49 and a fragment of which was found on a stone (/G I3 1181), commemorates the Athenians who fell at Tanagra in 45817, and if this is true, it is the earliest surviving public Athenian epitaph (4): LXatpETE aplOTEES, TIOAEI,.lOU l,.lEyaJ _KVBOLS EXOVTESJ I LKOpOl 'A8eva(ov, excroxol hlTITrjOOVvaLlJ" I Lho( TroTe KaAAtx6po Trep\ TraTJp(Bos 6LAecraTe hej3evJ, I LTIAefcrTots heAAavov avT(a Japva~,.teLVOlJ. Farewell, noble men who have attained great glory in war, Athenian youths who excel in horsemanship; you once destroyed your youth fighting for your lovely fatherland against most of the Greeks.

A drawing of the inscribed fragment, which itself is now lost, reveals letters that seem consistent with a date after the mid-fifth century. 123 Verse 4 has suggested to some scholars that the epigram refers to a major conflict, such as the one at Tanagra in 458/7. 124 Others contend that the epigram should be interpreted as commemorating those cavalrymen who 122

If Simon. 23 is an authentic contemporary inscription (which is rather unlikely) it would be the earliest occurrence ofno9eiv in an epitaph. 123 The drawing shows a developed Attic script with four bar sigma; the script, judging from the surviving first omikron in the word 6MoaTe, appears to be Attic. 124 This was the view of Wilhelm (1899, pp. 221-227), who identified the fragment with the AP epigram; recently the battle at Tanagra was favored by Page (FGE, p. 275), Pritchett, (1985, p. 181), and Hansen in CEG.

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fell while protecting the Attic plain in 431 in the incident at Phrygia, which is briefly narrated by Thucydides. 125 In the latter case, the epigram would possibly belong to the monument that Pausanias describes as the memorial for "those cavalrymen who died when they shared the risk of war with the Thessalians" (ilnreOmv cnroBavoOmv tiviKa avveTieAa[3ovTo oi

8eaaaA.oi ToO Ktvovvov, 1.29.6). Page, however, objects that the last line cannot refer to a skirmish in 431, since "it would be a gross exaggeration of a type uncharacteristic of classical epitaphs,»~ 26 and W. Kendrick Pritchett sides with Page in preferring the earlier date. This argument is rather unsatisfactory since verse epitaphs do not always permit literal interpretation, and exaggeration of enemy numbers is certainly within the tradition of classical epigrams. 127 The epigram could cover several events that involved cavalry fighting in the campaign of 431. During the presence of the Peloponnesians in Attica, the population of Attica remained within the city walls, but Perikles would constantly sent cavalry out to prevent raids on the lands close to the city (iTITieas 1-lEVTOI

e~ElTEI-llTEV

aiel ToO 1-ltl

1Tpoop61-lOVS cnro TfiS CJTpaTiclS ECJlTllTTOVTas es TOVS aypovs TOVS eyylis TfiS TI6Aecus KaKovpye'lv, Thucydides 2.22.2). Line 3 of the epigram thoi TIOTE KaAA.tx6po TiepiTiaT1pioos OtAECJaTe he[3ev1, would appropriately describe the cavalry fighting around the city.

As for the issue of the exaggeration of enemy forces in line 4, TIAeiaTots

heA.A.avov, I would point to Perikles' description of Spartan forces in the Funeral Oration. Perikles claims that the Spartans do not come to invade Attica alone, but bring all their allies (ovTE yap AaKEOatl-lOVlOl KaB' eavTovs. 1-lEB' cllTcXVTCUV Sees Tf)V yfiv til-lWV

aTpaTevovm, Thucydides 2.39.2). If Perikles could say that the Spartans come to Attica ~-teB'

aTiavTcuv, I do not see why the epitaph for the cavalrymen who perished in fighting

could not say that they fought TIAEtCJTOIS heA.A.avov.

I think, therefore, that Alfred

Domaszewski' s identification of the campaign as the one of 431 remains attractive, although other campaign years cannot be ruled out. 125 "There was a trifling affair at Phrygia between a squadron of the Athenian horse with the Thessalians against the Boeotian cavalry; in which the former had rather the best of it, until the hoplites advanced to the support of the Boeotians, when the Thessalians and the Athenians were routed and lost a few men, whose bodies, however, were recovered the same day without a truce," Thucydides 2.22.2, transl. Strassler. The date of 431 for the monument was first suggested by Dornaszewski (1917, p. 18) and followed by Raubitschek (1943, pp. 23-24) and Bradeen in Lewis 1979, p. 244. 126 FGE, p. 275. 127 Cf. the epigram at Thermopy1ai, Simon. 22a.

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A New Epitaph for Athenian Cavalrymen During rescue excavations in Athens in 1995, which preceded the construction of the new Metro system, a very interesting stele was found, which was dubbed the Metro stele. 128 It still awaits full publication, and my analysis below is preliminary and based on the reports that are available to date. The monument is a large stele (H. 2.10 m, W. 0.82-0.89 m, Th. 0.255-0.268 m) of Pentelic marble. The upper part of the stele, between one fourth and one third of the slab, is occupied by "a relief representation of a battle scene of a horseman with a footsoldier." 129 The relief panel is separated by a molding, below which an epigram consisting of two elegiac couplets is inscribed in primarily Ionic script with some Attic forms (for example, verse 1 has exev for EXEIV). The epigram tells about the prowess of cavalrymen (hnrfjes, verse 2) who fought by the walls of Alkathoos, 'AAKa86o lTapa

Teixemv (verse 3), which most likely points to the city Megara, since Alkathoos was honored as the founding hero of Megara whose wall he built with Apollo's help. 130 Below the epigram the tribe name Oivn(Bos is inscribed in large letters in the middle of the slab; it is followed by two columns of names, of which the first five names in the left hand column must have been from the tribe Oineis. Then there are seven more casualties from four tribes, Erechtheis (four names), Aigeis (one name), Pandionis (one name), and Kekropis (one name), and the names of these four tribes are inscribed in the same way as the casualty names, and are arranged in the regular tribal order. Only the tribe of Oineis, therefore, receives special treatment, seen both in the fact that its heading is cut in the middle of the slab in larger letters and in the disruption of the official order of the tribes, in which Oineis should have been listed after Pandionis. Like the epigram, the list is also in Ionic dialect, and, all together, 21 lines of the inscription are incised in this dialect (4 for the epigram, and 17 for the casualties). The list of names is followed by a vacat, and then by a prose heading: o'IBe

'A8eva(ov hllTlTES CxlTE8avov I EV Tavaypat Kat e LlTapT6Ao[t]. After this heading, there is a list of names of nineteen cavalrymen and of one mounted archer

(hmlTOTOXCJOTllS). The names are arranged by tribes and the tribes follow the official 128

Parlama 2001, pp. 396-399, no. 452. Parlama 2001, p. 396. 130 See, for example, the lengthy account in Pausanias 1.41-42. See also Seeliger 1893.

129

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order. 131 The heading and the casualties are consistently inscribed in Attic script. 132 It appears, therefore, that the stele comprises two casualty lists, one of which is for those who fell by Megara, and the other for those who fell at Tanagra and Spartolos. The editor suggests that the second list (in Attic script), for Tanagra and Spartolos, was cut first and referred to the campaign of 429 at Spartolos (Thucydides 2. 79) and of 426 at Tanagra (Thucydides 3.91), while the epigram and the shorter first list (in Ionic script) were cut later and commemorated the cavalrymen who fell by Megara in 409/8 (Diodorus 13.65). 133 Notwithstanding the plausibility of this hypothesis, the arrangement of the inscriptions does suggest that the upper list comprised the casualties from fighting near Megara and the lower one recorded those from Tanagra and Spartolos. The upper casualty list, however, includes the name of Menexenos under the tribal heading of Pandionis. This Menexenos is very likely to be Menexenos son of Dikaiogenes of the deme Kydathenaion, who according to Isaeus (5.42) was the phylarch of Pandionis and was killed in 429 at Olynthian Spartolos

(Meve~evos

B' 6 EKeivou vos cpuAapxc;:)v TiiS '0Auv9ias ev L1TapTWACtl). 134

The identification ofMenexenos has several consequences: a) it suggests that the entire stele was for the casualties of 429; b) it shows that the division of casualties into two lists cannot be easily explained by two campaigns (let alone two campaigning years), since Menexenos' name occurs in the list which, by its position on the stele, we would expect to record the casualties from the fighting at Megara; c) it shows that the epigram by itself might be of virtually no help in determining the date of the monument (indeed, had only the epigram of the Metro stele survived, it would have been virtually impossible to connect it with the year 429, which is when the conflict at Spartolos took place); 135 d) the stele displays Ionic dialect in what appears to be a public inscription as early as 429; e) the stele challenges the standard division of war monuments into private and public: it honors only the cavalrymen, 131

That is Erechtheis, Aigeis, Pandionis, Leontis, Akamantis, Oineis, Kekropis, Hippothontis, Aiantis, and Antiochis. 132 The only departure appears to be the eta in hmlTOTOX06TTJs, but I wonder whether it is a result of a faulty transcription. 133 Parlama 2001, p. 399. 134 Davies 1972, p. 145, no. 3773. The date is based on the assumption that Isaeus is talking about the same conflict as Thucydides desribes in 2.79, in which 200 Athenian horse took part. 135 Although Thucydides mentions no specific fighting at Megara and Tanagra in 429, he does say that the Athenians invaded the Megarid every year from 431 to 424, Kal ilTlTEc.uv KaiTiavoTpaTI~, "sometimes only with cavalry, sometimes with all their force" (Thucydides 2.31 ). As for Tanagra, it was hostile territory in 429 and thus there might have been some fighting that is not reported in our literary sources.

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who presumably were buried together with other casualties in the public grave in accordance with the Patrios Nomos. 136 Perhaps the strange arrangement of the inscriptions on the Metro stele can be elucidated by the sequence of campaigns in the year 429. During the early years of the Peloponnesian war, Megara was invaded twice a year (Thucydides 4.66, Plutarch Pericl. 30); and the Metro stele might have been originally commissioned to commemorate cavalry casualties of the tribe Oineis after the first invasion of Megara in the spring of 429; the cutter might have anticipated more casualties than there eventually happened to be. The initial fighting at Spartolos occurred sometime between late May and mid June (Thucydides 2. 79 137); and when the information about the casualties at Spartolos reached Athens, it was decided to extend the cavalry list that was originally planned for the Megarian casualties. The first casualties from Spartolos, perhaps, were those who fell during the initial success of the Athenians (Thucydides 2.79.2) and were few in number. Later on, the Athenians suffered heavy losses and eventually returned to Athens having lost a fifth 138 of their original number (Thucydides 2. 79.5-7). These casualties, joined by the casualties from Tanagra which perhaps were not numerous, would have been added to the stele later and by a different stone cutter from the one who recorded the epigram, the casualties from Megara and the initial casualties from the Chalkidike. The Metro stele makes it tempting to suggest that epitaph 4, which I discuss above, was once inscribed on a similar monument. There seems to be even some similarity in the phrasing ofboth epigrams; compare verses 1-2 of the Metro epitaph, o{8' apeTfis e8eAOVTES

exe Aoyov

e~oxov

av8pwv ... ilnres, with verses 1-2 in 4, aptcrTEES lTOAej..lO j..leya

Kv8os EXOVTES ... excroxot hmTIOOVVat. If 4 dates to the period of the Archidamian war, 136 It might have been the case of course that the years of plague disrupted the tradition of public burials of the war dead and there could have been no collective burial of the war dead for the year of 429, but this is speculation. Furthermore, it does not change the fact that commemoration of the cavalry casualties was separated from all the other casualties, whether the latter were commemorated with a monument or not. 13 Gomme (1956, pp. 212-213) argues that the expression Toii S' 01iToii 6epovs ... CxKI-lcl~OVTOS Toii oiTov should be understood as referring to the last ten days of May (even though the harvest in the Chalkidike would be about three weeks later), since, Gommes contends, Thucydides would be unlikely to think in terms of the Chalkidian calendar. Thucydides, however, reports that the Athenians, having arrived at Spartolos, destroyed the wheat, and that could most effectively have been done at the time when it was almost ripe (any earlier and the wheat would not burn, and burning is by far the most effective way of destroying the harvest). This consideration suggests that Thucydides might in fact refer to the Chalkidian and not Athenian time of harvesting, which takes us to mid June. 138 Thucydides reports that 430 men and all three generals were killed out of2,200 (2,000 hoplites and 200 horse).

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we might witness a new type of monument emerging at this time, which is also represented by the cavalry monument of the Corinthian War of 394, see below.

These cavalry

monuments were perhaps cenotaphs, since the fallen cavalrymen would probably have been buried along with other casualties and, in accordance with the Patrios Nomos, in a public grave. The Athenian state, which was responsible for commissioning the grave monument to mark the public burial, was unlikely to commission an additional monument for the cavalry, who came from the upper classes of society, but it must have granted the privilege of setting up such a monument to some group of private individuals, such as, for example, family members, fellow cavalrymen, or some other group. One may wonder whether the distinction that I am trying to make is of any relevance. I hope that it is, because it necessitates a correction in the textbook picture of democratic burial of the war dead in Athens. Casualty lists are often interpreted as a realization of Athenian democracy: every Athenian who gave his life for Athens was guaranteed a state burial, and it was a common burial for soldiers and generals together. It is clear, however, that while all the fallen soldiers were entitled to receive an honorable state burial, it was not forbidden to pay an additional and separate honor to a group of chosen individuals. 139 Multiple commemorations have long been familiar from the cavalry casualties of 394. At least two memorials are attested for the year 394 for casualties at Corinth and Koroneia: one, IG II2 5221, appears to be for all the casualties, while IG II2 5222 is only for the cavalry and perhaps for the cavalry of only one tribe. Furthermore, there is a memorial for the cavalryman Dexileos (IG II 2 6217), whose name also appears in IG II2 5222.

Thus,

Dexileos was probably commemorated three times: by the public memorial for the campaign year; by the memorial to the cavalry; and by the memorial to himself. This practice of multiple commemoration is less surprising in 394 after the practice of placing verse epitaphs on private grave markers had been resumed. The Metro stele, however, indicates that the practice of erecting additional monuments to commemorate the military elite (which the cavalry was) dates to a much earlier period.

The layout of this "elite"

commemoration repeats that of the public monuments (with epigram, prose heading and casualties arranged by tribes). 139

Bradeen mentions the possibility of a common public monument for a given year being accompanied by a special monument for cavalrymen or generals, but does not discuss the implications of this possibility (1969, pp. 151-152).

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The Metro stele also bears on another much disputed cavalry memorial, the monument for Makartatos and Melanopos (90). As mentioned above, Pausanias describes a grave marker of two cavalrymen, Makartatos and Melanopos, who perished in the battle with the Lakedaimonians at Tanagra. 140 Before the discovery of the fragment with the inscription (90), it had been universally accepted that Pausanias meant the great battle at Tanagra in 458/7.

With the discovery of the stele which depicts two cavalrymen but

preserves only Melanopos' name, three different interpretations have emerged: a) on the basis ofPausanias' evidence, the stele should be dated to the battle ofTanagra in 458/7; 141 b) on the basis of the letter form and the Ionic script, the stele should refer to some unknown conflict that occurred after 414/3, that is after the Spartan occupation of Dekeleia; 142 c) in the attempt to reconcile a) and b) Clairmont has suggested that the stele refers to the battle at Tanagra in 458/7 but it was not set up until fifty years later. 143 The problem with the first interpretation is that the identification of Pausanias' description with the battle at Tanagra in 458/7 is unwarranted. The Metro stele, for example, refers to a battle at Tanagra in 429, for which we otherwise have no evidence. The trouble with the argument based on the letter form and dialect is that while public Athenian inscriptions in genera1' 44 and those to the war dead in particular avoid employment of the Ionic script, the private ones do employ the Ionic alphabet, and the monuments for cavalry casualties might have been commissioned privately, although the casualties were buried OTJI..tocric;x (an arrangement reminiscent of the burials and grave monuments for distinguished foreigners in Athens). The Metro stele again provides an example of the usage of the Ionic alphabet in an epitaph for the Athenian dead as early as 429, in what is, one might say, a semi-public monument: it is public because it commemorates the men who were buried oru..tocric;x and for whom the chief mourner was the Athenian state; the formal arrangement of the inscriptions follows that of the public war monuments with casualty list; but the monument was probably privately commissioned and 140

"In front of the memorial [se. the Drabeskos monument] is a stele depicting fighting horsemen. Their names are Melanopos and Makartatos, who happened to die when marshaled against the Lakedaimonians and Boiotians at the boundary stones ofEleon with Tanagra," Pausanias 1.29.6 141 Pritchett (1996, p. 158) is inclined to a date of 458; in his support of this, he adduces Jeffery's brief note where she states: "It may be suggested that, judged by the forms of the Ionic letters ... , this inscription does in fact belong to the campaign ofTanagra in 458-7, as Pausanias said" (1958, p. 145). 142 Meritt 1947, pp. 147-148. 143 Clairmont 1983, I, pp. 140-141. 144 For rare exceptions, see Threatte 1980, p. 27.

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fmanced. The same situation might be applicable to the stele for Mak.artatos and Melanopos, and, if this is so, the employment of the Ionic script is no indication of a late date. Furthermore, the letter form on the stele for Makartatos and Melanopos is not unlike that of the epitaph for Silenos which dates to 433/2. Public Epitaphs in the Late Fifth Century Although the number of fragments that are associated with war monuments in Athens during the Peloponnesian Wars is relatively high, there is no more-or-less securely dated verse epitaph for the Athenian war casualties after 429, the year of the Metro stele. Plutarch tells us that Euripides wrote an emKi)Oetov for those who perished at Syracuse (Nic. 17) and cites an elegiac couplet:

o'loe

~vpaKocrlovs 6KT~

clVOpES,

()T'

viKas eKpaTncrav

llV TCx 8ewV E~ lOOV Cxll
These men won over the Syracusans in eight battles, while the involvement of the gods was equal on both sides.

Plutarch's story might well be an anecdote; if the couplet was indeed composed in relation to the Sicilian expedition, it is most unlikely that it was inscribed on the grave monument for the casualties (even the very word hnKi)Oetov does not necessarily mean an epitaph). Pausanias (1.29.11) has a vague reference to an elegiac inscription that says that the same stele stands at the grave of those who perished in Euboia and Chios, and on the Asian continent, and in Sicily, but the passage is rather unclear and the campaign year to which this epitaph could have referred is unidentifiable.

Perhaps, the tradition of inscribing

public grave monuments for the war dead continued-there survive public verse epitaphs from the fourth century-but somewhat waned with the resumption of the practice of inscribing verse epitaphs on individual private grave monuments.

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CHAPTER THREE. ATTIC VERSE EPITAPHS OF THE LATER CLASSICAL PERIOD

Introduction In this chapter I will investigate Attic verse epitaphs of the later classical period, that is from the resumption of the practice of inscribing them in the late fifth century to the legislation ofDemetrios ofPhaleron sometime between 317 and 307 (after which verse epitaphs became rare again). The body of Attic verse epitaphs of the later classical period is very different from that of archaic epitaphs and calls for a different approach. To begin with, there are more verse epitaphs from the later classical period-approximately 180 epitaphs-as opposed to between 50 and 60 from the archaic period. Although the absolute number of verse epitaphs seems high, the ratio of verse epitaphs to all epitaphs is strikingly small. Elizabeth Meyer calculates that verse epitaphs in the later classical period constitute a m eager 5. 7% of all epitaphs ( 181 out of 3163 ), 1 which is approximately ten times smaller than the corresponding ratio of archaic epitaphs. Thus, more than half of those people in the archaic period who chose to put any writing on a grave marker did so in verse, whereas only a tiny fraction of those who had grave markers inscribed in the later classical period chose to employ verse. In the archaic period, verse epitaphs were almost always associated with grave markers of grandeur, while in the fourth century, they were inscribed on different kinds of grave markers, from a simple plaque to a grandiose niche with sculpture in the round. Verse epitaphs in archaic Attica are usually seen to comply with certain conventions of content, diction and meter, but many later classical epitaphs fail to do so, thereby demonstrating that they were composed by individuals of little competence. Among those commemorated with verse epitaphs in the later classical period, we encounter people of various social strata, from members of the elite and wealthy families to slaves and freedmen. In describing the fate of the deceased, these epitaphs sometimes offer interesting insight into family relations, to the events leading to one's death or to some details about one's life, although at other times they say frustratingly little. Thus the range in the scale of monuments bearing verse epitaphs and in the quality of the epitaphs themselves is wider and much less uniform than in the archaic period. 1

Meyer 1993, p. 109, note 22. 144

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In what follows, I will first discuss the reappearance of private verse epitaphs in Athens, before briefly surveying the new typology of grave markers and burial complexes that appeared in Athens in the late fifth and the fourth century, as well as the principles behind the layout and display of verse epitaphs. I will also assess specific features of the verse epitaphs that were inscribed on the gravestones of members of affluent and elite families. This assessment will hopefully show what people with few financial constraints and (presumably) some awareness of literary norms considered appropriate for an epitaph, and what therefore constituted normative practice. Then I will turn to the analysis of patterns found in later classical verse epitaphs. Because the number of later classical Athenian verse epitaphs is relatively high, I will be more selective in the detailed discussion of inscriptions, not always providing a full text and translation, but will be continually referring to or quoting from numerous verse epitaphs. I will, however, provide texts of all epigrams relevant to my discussion that were published after the appearance of CEG.

1. Reappearance of Private Verse Epitaphs Private Verse Epitaphs in the Fifth Century During most of the fifth century only monuments for those who received public burial could be inscribed with verse epitaphs in Athens. The majority of these monuments were for the Athenian war dead and stood over the site of their collective burial. As we saw in the previous chapter, Athenian cavalrymen could be commemorated with separate monuments bearing verse epitaphs; this fact was not inconsistent with the stipulation that only those who received the honor of public burials could be commemorated with verse epitaphs, because the cavalry casualties did receive this honor, too. A few grave monuments for distinguished foreign individuals bore verse epitaphs, but again these individuals were those who received the honor of public burial from the Athenians. By the end of the fifth century there appear private grave monuments with verse epitaphs lamenting the death of different kinds of people, young and old, men and women alike. Although the graves of distinguished foreigners in fifth century Athens could be marked by gravestones with verse epitaphs, it does not seem that the burial sites of distinguished Athenians could have featured a monument with a verse epitaph. We do not know with certainty whether even the most distinguished Athenians could have been buried

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individually OTJI..looic;x in the fifth century. 2 It appears, however, that foreigners, even if not exceptionally distinguished, could be commemorated with privately set up gravestones with verse epitaphs.

There survive two funerary monuments with epigrams which

commemorate foreign individuals and date approximately to the second quarter of the fifth century, that is to the period when Athenians did not set up grave monuments with verse epitaphs to commemorate private individuals. The first one is an epitaph for the Megarian Pythion, who helped three Athenian tribal garrisons escape from Pagai. The garrisons had been sent to the Megarid when Megara revolted in 446, and they became trapped there by the Spartan king Pleistoanax as he marched with his men northward to Eleusis (Thucydides 1.114, Diodorus 12.5). According to the inscription, Pythion led them through Boiotia safely to Athens, and he also "honored" the commander of the Athenian troops, Andokides (the grandfather of the orator), with two thousand prisoners. Since this incident dates to 446, it provides the terminus post quem for the monument; the terminus ante quem seems to depend on the lettering of the inscription, which Meiggs and Lewis characterize as that of the third quarter of the fifth century. The epitaph, which Marcus Tod called "curiously illiterate," 3 consists of ten hexameters inscribed in the Ionic script, but Megarian dialect (83, 446-ca. 425?):

5

10

1-lVfil-la :r(oo' EOT' E]lTt O omwoas ElTTCx ~-t<e>v avopas, ElTTCx oe anoppTJ<~>as Aloyxas evl OWI..lOTl EKElVc.JV e'iAETO TCxV apETCxV, TiaTepa EVKIAEl~c.JV evl Otll-lc.Jl. o\hos avnp, os ecutOEV .A8T)Vaicuv Tples TWV es 'A8nvas, EVKAIElOE 'AvooKioav OlOXlAOlS avopan6ootmv. OVOE {OE} VaiTITJI-lCxVOS E1TlX80Vlc.JV av8pW1Tc.JV ES 'Aioa KOTel3a lTclOlV 1-lOIKaplOTOS ioeo8at.
This memorial is over the tomb of an excellent man: Pythion from Megara, who killed seven men and broke seven spears in their bodies, secured arete and brought honor to his father among the people. This man, who saved three tribes of Athenians, having led them from Pagai through Boiotia to Athens, brought honor to Andokides with two thousand captives. Having harmed no person on earth he departed to Hades, to be viewed by everybody as the happiest man. These are the tribes: Pandionis, Kekropis, Antiochis. 2

Although Plutarch says that the polis furnished the burial of Aristides (Aristid 27), the story is rather anecdotal and Plutarch explains the intervention of the polis by the fact that Aristides left no funds to pay for his funeral. Pausanias mentions the graves of several prominent Athenians of the fifth century, including Perikles, but he never says that these individuals were buried Srn.toalc;t. 3 Tod 1946, pp. 81-82, no. 41.

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The first part of the epigram (verses 1-4) praises Pythion's military achievements and depicts him as a brave hoplite (if we assume that the reference to A6Y)(as, spears, is not meaningless).

The number of slain enemies (seven) is suspicious and might rather be a function of praise than factual information. The Lykian Gergis in 177 is said to have killed seven men, and all in one day: ElTTCx Be cmAiTas KTeivev ev tii-IEPal 'ApKaBas avBpas (verse 10). Meiggs and Lewis note in the commentary to the Lykian inscription that the reference to killing seven men "is curiously reminiscent" of the epitaph for Pythion. 4 A model hero, who kills seven man in one day, might be (quite independently for both epigrams) Achilles, who, as Andromache relates, killed her seven brothers in a single day:

oi Be 1-101 ElTTCx Kao(yvnTol eoav ev 1-tEyapOlOIV oi I-IEV lTOVTES ii;l Ktov ill-laTt "AYBos e'low· lTavTas yap KaTelTecpve lToBapKns Bios 'Axt.A.Aevs. (Il. 421-423) The first four verses of Pythion's epitaph are of more general content than the rest of the epitaph; they run smoothly (although the first verse has no caesura) and are metrically superior to the rest. The second part of the epigram (verses 5-10) relates Pythion's service to the Athenians and declares him to be an enviable man. Verses 5-7 contain much specific information, and the choice of words, especially that of evKAetoe in verse 7 (already employed in verse 4), reveals some struggle to put facts into meter. Verses 8-9 are smooth and formulaic, and somewhat at odds with the rest of the inscription. Indeed, one may wonder how verse 8, which says that Pythion never caused any pain to men on earth, accords with the praise of Pythion's military achievement in the first four verses. Surely Pythion caused pain to those seven men in whose bodies he broke his seven spears! The type of service Pythion rendered to Andokides and his men must have been of crucial importance to the Athenians, and commemoration of this was felt appropriate by those who buried him. The epigram might have been composed by another Megarian since the Megarian forms TT ayO:v or Tav apETav point to an author of this origin. The verses reveal a zealous composer who was not highly skilled, and, by their awkwardness, they also seem to suggest that there was no current tradition to imitate. Moreover, the detailed narrative found in Pythion's epitaph is foreign to Athenian inscriptional verses of both the archaic period and the fourth century, reminding one of epic, while the exceeding praise 4

ML, p. 283, no. 93.

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of Pythion's deeds and the absence of expressions of grief or lament are somewhat in the spirit of Athenian public verse epitaphs of the fifth century. Another epitaph for a foreigner who served the Athenians is one for the Phrygian Mannes. The epigram, which hardly scans in places, is carefully incised on a small marble plaque, 5 (87, ea. 431-421 6):

pvywv OS aptOTOS eyevaT' elv eu(p)V)(OpOlOlV 'A8ijva(t)S, MaviVT)S 'Opvj..tatOS, 0 j..!Vfjj..ta T68' eaiTi KaAov. Kai j..la .81' ovK elOovl ej..lavTo aj..leivc.J uAOTOj..IOV w I ev TWl TTOAEj..t(c.J)l ane8avev Mannes from Orymai (?), who was the best Phrygian in spacious Athens, is the one whose this beautiful memorial is. 'And I swear by Zeus that I have not seen a better carpenter than myself.' He died in war.

This epitaph is peculiar in many respects. The name, Mannes ofPhrygia, suggests not only a foreigner but even a slave, albeit perhaps emancipated. The meter is miserable and the epitaph should perhaps be considered prose with poetic expressions. It is a good example of a failed attempt to compose a verse, which never happens in archaic Attica but is not infrequent in the later classical period. In the first two verses, which are meant as a couplet, an attempt is made to incorporate the name and origin of the deceased into a poetic canvas: the second halves of the verses scan, while the first (with the name and references to the place of origin) fail to do so. The last line of the inscription, separated by a vacat, does not seem to be intended as verse, and it is remarkably reminiscent of the prose headings on public memorials with casualty lists. An inscription that comprised a couplet and explanatory line in prose referring to death in war must have been the pattern for the composer of Mannes' epitaph. Still, this model (which I believe came from public inscriptions) must have seemed insufficient for explaining how good Mannes was, and so the composer inserted the third "verse": "And I swear by Zeus I saw no carpenter better than myselfl" Both epitaphs, for the Megarian Pythion and for the Phrygian Mannes, seem to be attempts at resembling public Athenian verse epitaphs with their praise for the services that the commemorated men rendered Athens. Although neither epitaph can be dated with certainty, their orientation to public Athenian verse epitaphs conforms to the suggestion that 5

H. 0.18 m, W. 0.245 m, Th. 0.035 m; for a photograph, see Masson 1987, p. 273 fig. 3. There is in fact no definite argument for these dates. Thucydides reports a cavalry engagement in 431 of the Athenians and Thessalians against the Boiotians at Phrygia, an unidentified location in Attica (2.22.2). Wilhem suggested that the place was called Phrygia because of its inhabitants, who were from Phrygia proper, one of whom was Mannes; but even if this is correct, it has no relevance for the dating of this epitaph. 6

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they were inscribed during the period when the Athenians themselves reserved verse epitaphs for those who were honored with public burials and monuments. Date and Causes of the Reappearance of Private Athenian Verse Epitaphs Let us look first at the earliest post-archaic Athenian verse epitaphs and investigate the dates which have been suggested for them by IG I3 and CEG. There is one verse epitaph for an Athenian, Lysanias from the deme Poros (85), which is dated on purely epigraphical grounds by both Hansen and the editors of IG I3 to ea. 440-420?. It is a small limestone stele (H. 0.30 m, W. 0.16-0.17 m, Th. 0.123 m) with no decoration apart from the inscription; the script is Ionic. Nothing in this inscription warrants the particular date given in both corpora, and one can as easily assign a date towards the end of the century. Two other verse epitaphs (84 and 86) for which Hansen reports Hans Diepolder's dates, ea. 440-430 and paulo post

430 respectively, are associated with sculptured stelai. The editors of IG I3 , however, prefer dates at the end ofthe century, ea. 420-410 for 84 and ea. 410? for 86, and the earlier, that is Diepolder's, dating of the reliefs of both stelai has been challenged by several archeologists. 7 Thus the two corpora implicitly suggest the following developments: the material in CEG seems to imply that both sculptured gravestones and epitaphs reappeared in Athens ea. 430, while the editors of IG I3 suggest (again implicitly, since they take no clear stand on the question considered here) that sculptured gravestones bearing a prose epitaph or simply the name of the deceased reappeared by ea. 430 (which is the date for several relief stelai with the name of the deceased), while the practice of inscribing gravestones with verse epitaphs did not resume until ea. 400?. To sum up, there is one verse epitaph for an Athenian (85) which is dated on epigraphical grounds to ea. 440-420 by both IG I3 and CEG; otherwise, the earliest dates for verse epitaphs for Athenians in IG I3 are ea. 420-41 0? or ea. 420-400?. It seems therefore that only by ea. 410 can the practice of inscribing gravestones with verse epitaphs be said to have resumed in Athens. There has been a fair amount of scholarship dedicated to the question of the reappearance of sculptured gravestones in Athens, and stylistic studies of early Attic funerary reliefs often claim the dates ea. 440-430 for the earliest classical gravestones. 8 The opinio communis seems to be that sculptured gravestones reappeared at burial sites for individual Athenians 7

See, for example, Clairmont's discussion of the relief of 86, which he convincingly dates to the late fifth century (1970, pp. 73-76, no.ll), and of the relief of 84, for which he suggests a date in the fourth century (1970, pp. 89-91, no. 22). 8 See, e.g., Stears 2000, pp. 37-41, esp. 41.

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ea. 430, but the explanations of the phenomenon differ. Some scholars see the plague as the chief factor that changed the attitude of the Athenians towards burial and commemoration, because during the plague, as Thucydides reports, VOIJOI Te mxvTEs

~vveTapax8TJcrav

oTs

expwVTO 1Tp6Tepov 1Tepl TCxS Ta<pas (2.52.4). Others suggest that the growing casualties from the war might have also encouraged the citizens of Athens to honor their deceased family members with carved gravestones, perhaps in imitation of public memorials. 9 Yet others see the availability of highly trained sculptors, who recently finished the Parthenon, as a decisive factor in the resumption of the tradition of sculptured tombstones. 10 Meyer adds to these a fourth factor, a change in the concept of Athenian citizenship, and she attempts to tackle together the issues of the reappearance of sculptured gravestones and of the changes in sepulchral inscriptions. Meyer 11 bases her thesis on the assumption that in general grave monuments with private epitaphs signal that the deceased belonged to a larger group, that of the "best men" in the sixth century, and that of a civic group, the polis, in the later classical period; public epitaphs on fifth century public grave monuments signified belonging to the polis by listing the dead by names, without their patronymics, and under tribal headings. Because, during the fifth century, the polis held a monopoly on the honor of commemoration with an inscribed monument, the reappearance of inscribed private gravestones indicates a relaxing of the state's monopoly and reflects a feeling on the part of ordinary citizens that it was their private right to assert their membership in the polis. Meyer suggests that the state's monopoly on commemoration involving inscribed monuments began to break down around 430, 12 because then, with the plague and the war, "[u]prooted and irrevocably committed to being inhabitants of a beleaguered city, Athenians started to consider seriously the nature of their politeia and their own role in it." 13 Meanwhile, those who fell in war continued to receive the honor of public burial in the Kerameikos. Pressure 9

Clairmont 1970, p. 43. See Johansen (1951, pp. 146-147); Clairmont (1970, p. 43) considers the war and plague to be "external" causes, while the sculpture of the Parthenon "is the preliminary per se for the creation of grave reliefs." 11 Meyer 1993, p. 109. 12 Meyer 1993, pp. 112-113. 13 Meyer 1993, p. 113. It should be noted, however, that the people of Attica were confined to staying inside the city walls only during the period of the Peloponnesian invasions in the summer which did not last for more than 40 days; perhaps some countryside people would choose to remain in Athens the year round, but some would certainly return to their farms, and in any case we can guess that they would bury their dead in their family plots in the countryside and not in Athens (with the possible exception of those who died during the invasion). Thus, while the plague certainly disturbed patterns of burying, the temporary move during the Archidamian War to within the city walls probably did not cause much change in burial practices. 10

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on the citizens and disruption to patterns of both living and burying caused by the plague, along with the high public honors bestowed on those who died while on service, should be, Meyer argues, considered factors contributing to the reappearance of epitaphs for private individuals, by which Athenian citizens claimed their place within the civic body of the polis. Meyer's article compellingly postulates a correlation between the practice of inscribing gravestones and the evolution of the concept of citizenship in classical Athens, although the attempt to connect the reappearance of sculptured gravestones with a change in the practice of identifying the deceased in sepulchral inscriptions (from the name with the patronymic to the name with the demotic) is not convincing since they are phenomena of a different nature and do not coincide in time. Indeed, there are gravestones which bore just names of the deceased prior to ea. 430, such as /G I3 1254, 1270, 1280-1282, which date to ea. 450?, while the spread of a new type of epitaph, which routinely included demotics, dates to the beginning of the fourth century. To put it more simply, there does not seem to be any significant change in the practice of inscribing gravestones ea. 430, even if there is a change in the typology of monuments. We are concerned, however, not with the general Athenian practice of inscribing gravestones, but only with the practice of inscribing verse epitaphs, which seems to have resumed by ea. 410 for private monuments and which was primarily confined to the monuments of those who were honored with public burial prior to this date. And here, I believe, Meyer's suggestion that the Athenians' reassessment of their role in the politeia was a crucial factor in changes to the practice of commemoration is very valuable.

Something happened that made the Athenians change their view of the public character of commemoration with verse epitaphs and made them claim this practice as private family business. Public verse epitaphs for the Athenian war dead praised the service of the fallen men to their state; by 410 the Athenians must have felt that they had the right as private people to express their grief and lament the loss of their family members as private people. Let us reexamine possible evidence concerning the attitude of the Athenians towards the politeia during this period. The early years of the war and the plague certainly took a toll on the Athenians. Thucydides (2.59) reports that their spirit had changed already in 430: after the second invasion of the Peloponnesians, "the Athenians when their land was laid waste for the second time, and the disease along with the war was pressing, started

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IlL ATIIC VERSE EPITAPHS OF THE LATER CLASSICAL PERIOD

to experience a change of spirit" (oi 'A8r)Vaiot,

Kat

152

ws il TE yii a\rrwv ETETI-ITJTO TO oevTepov

nv6oos ElTEKElTO CXI-ta Kat 6 1TOAEI-IOS, i)AAOlc.JVTO TCxS yvw~-tas).

At this stage,

however, their anger was mostly directed at Perikles: "in complete desperation, they started to blame Perikles" (TiavTax68ev TE Tfj yvw1-11J aTiopot Ka8ecrTTJKOTES eveKetvTo TctJ

neptKAei). The Athenians became angry and started to panic, but from what Thucydides describes it does not appear that they questioned their politeia. They channeled their anger against Perikles and fined him, but soon elected him general again and entrusted him with the state (2.65). Both the war and the way in which the state was run continued without much change. Moreover, the constitution and provisions of the state remained the same after Perikles' death, and, although his place was taken by far less capable individuals, it was not immediately clear that the state should be run differently. It took a major failure, such as, I think, the Sicilian disaster, to make the Athenians question their politeia. After news of the Sicilian disaster reached Athens, Thucydides narrates, the Athenians first did not believe it. Once the news was confirmed, they were angry with everybody who promoted the expedition, TI
TctJ yeyeVT)I-IEVC+>
KaTcXTIAT)~lS

1-tEYlOTTJ Of], "already distressed at all points

and in all quarters, after what had now happened they were seized by a fear and consternation quite without precedent" (8.1, trans. Strassler). At this time, however, they could not have afforded to panic and wait passively for a miracle to remedy the situation, as they did in 430 when they first attempted to send an embassy to Sparta, and having failed in it, let Perikles lead them out of the crisis. The situation was far graver in 413, and there was no hope for a leader like Perikles; indeed, the very concept of leadership became at dangerous odds with democratic policies. Having described the despair of the Athenians, Thucydides continues to tell how they quickly collected themselves and decided what actions to take, in both foreign and domestic affairs; they then elected an advisory board of elders-likely in recognition of their wisdom and experience (as opposed to the domination of younger leaders of previous years). It was after the failure of the expedition, therefore, that the Athenians became disillusioned with the state and questioned its unlimited responsibilities and righteousness. It would be wrong to say that the Athenians became less concerned with the war

and turned to private life; quite the opposite, following the Sicilian disaster they implemented

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a sound plan of action to equip a fleet and continue the war. But the general excitement for the war was over, and perhaps readiness to sacrifice private considerations for the sake of public good was no longer there. Let us attempt to look at the issue of commemoration of the war dead from inside an Athenian family at the beginning of the war and at the time of the Sicilian expedition. In the funeral oration following the first year of the war Perikles tells the bereft families that the greatness of Athens should be their consolation, that they should rejoice at the thought that the fallen men strengthened the power of Athens by their bravery and sense of duty. Those who are still capable, he explains, should beget children who will not only help them forget the children that they lost, but who will fortify the state, since just policy can be expected only from those who bring to the decisions the interest of a father. To modem sensibilities, Perikles' consolation is rather bleak and tasteless 14 in its blatant justification of loss of life for a great cause. The Athenians perhaps felt differently, at least as long as they could appreciate the cause. In the summer of 415 most Athenians favored the expedition, and thought that it would be the safest enterprise possible. Describing the reaction of the Athenians to Nikias' speech, Thucydides refers to the presumed safety of the expedition four times within a few sentences (6.24.1-3): Nikias thinks that his plan will either put the Athenians off or will ensure the safest expedition, 1-!CxAtaT' <&v> o\hcus aoq>a.Ac;Js EKTIAevom; the Athenians believe that the expedition would be the safest, e8ol;e Kai CxOq>CxAEla vvv Si] Kai

lTOAAi] eoeo8m; the older men are sure that with such a force they will meet with no disaster, ou8ev &v oq>a.Aeioav 1-!EyaArJV 8vval-ltV; and the younger men are confident in the safe return, eue.A m8es OVTES ocu8i]oeo8at. We can imagine, however, that when the Athenian men returned after the vote, their women, which may have included mothers, sisters, aunts, wives, daughters, 15 were hardly happy to learn about the new enterprise. The men perhaps told them at least some of what was discussed that day, such as the riches of Sicily, and doubtlessly they told them the part about the guaranteed success and absolute safety of the expedition. The Athenian women by this time were probaly utterly exhausted with 14

Cf. Gomme's commentary "There is a bleakness in the personal consolation of the parents, children, and widows of the fallen (from 44.3 to 45) which is in marked contrast to the warmth and splendour of all the rest of the speech in which the greatness of the city and the opportunities and qualities of the citizens are lauded," (Gomme 1956, p. 143). 15 In difficult times, many women of a family might rely on one man. Thus, Aristarchos in Xenophon's Memorabilia (2. 7.2-12) has to feed fourteen women who came to live with him at the time of the revolution.

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the years of war, when they often had to serve both as master and mistress of the household, dreading the news of their men's death, while raising the children alone. The new campaign was not even a defensive campaign to protect the country; it was aggressive, but with a high chance of success, and so for this "guaranteed" future success the Athenians were willing to sacrifice the present integrity of their families. That many men in Athens were concerned with the influence of the continuing war on the welfare of their families is reflected in the plays of the period. The Sicilian expedition was voted for in the same year that Euripides staged the Trojan Women which depicted the women of Troy in such a poignant way. In this anti-war play, Euripides chose to affect his audience by depicting the fate of those women who lost their men at war. The Greeks in the play are momentarily victorious, but doomed to lose, as the audience is informed in the prologue of the play. And then, what is to happen to their women? Concern for one's womenfolk (which amounts to concern for one's family) is at the heart of the play, which must have been a sensitive issue at the time. 16 In 414 Aristophanes challenged the imperialistic policies of the Athenian state in the Birds, and a few years later, in 411, he depicted in his Lysistrata the anger of all the women of Greece at the continued fighting. The means that the women devise to achieve their aim and the way that they carry it out are of course very funny, but, as is often in Aristophanes, the aim itself is not funny, nor is the fact that the women cannot take war anymore, which is the cornerstone of the plot; it is something that everybody knows, and in itself this fact was no laughing matter. The humor exists somewhere between the "realistic" premise and "idealistic" end. The idea of "private" life seems to have become increasingly important while the idea of the sacrifice of one's life to the common good, the need for which was proclaimed by the politicians of the new generation, was decreasing in popularity. When the Sicilian campaign failed so dramatically, the Athenian men had not only to comprehend it themselves, they had to confront the Athenian women (many of them now widowed), as well as elderly parents who were bereft of children, and children who were bereft of fathers. The men, who had assured the civilian population of ultimate victory, lost and mismanaged the campaign; in their zeal to fulfill their military responsibility, the men 16

The theme of the vulnerability of the family bereft of the head of the family is prominent in the beginning ofEuripides' Heracles, too, which is tentatively dated to the early to mid 410s, and also his Heraclidae, which might be of an earlier date.

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failed their personal responsibility to their families. As a result, there was probably not only disillusionment with the politeia but also reconsideration of the value of one's family and one's responsibility to it. Preparation for funerals (ceremonies, burial, visitation of the tomb, and consequent ritual sacrifices) as well as lamentation of the dead were to a large extent tasks of Greek women. While the state was thriving and the war successful Athenian women could comply, even if perhaps begrudgingly, with the state's monopoly on some aspects of the commemoration, which, notably, excluded lamenting the dead since the war dead were rather to be praised than lamented. The unwavering commitment of the interests of a family to the interest of the state, to which Perikles appealed in 431, was probably questioned after the Sicilian disaster. After years of war, the Sicilian disaster was perhaps the last straw, and the women of Athens might have felt that they were owed at least this, the possibility to adorn the graves of the deceased members of their families with gravestones inscribed with epitaphs lamenting them, and they would not have wanted anymore to shun from expressing their grief publicly (and a carved epitaph is public in that it is accessible to any reader). Men, whose ultimate responsibility it was to arrange for a grave marker, perhaps, in turn, felt their obligation to both the deceased and to the surviving members of the family, and wished to pay their final duty to the former and please the latter by setting up a beautiful monument, both to commemorate him/her and to express the unity of the family. It has been commented on many times that late fifth century epitaphs often commemorate children and women especially, 17 and it has been suggested that the citizenship law of 451150 could provide an explanation for the phenomenon of introducing Athenian women to the public eye, while the demographic crisis that followed the start of the Peloponnesian Wars caused the Athenians to grieve especially for the loss of male children. 18 The number of monuments and epitaphs to children remains quite steady from the end of the fifth century through the fourth; no peak can be detected during the time of the Peloponnesian Wars, and girls are commemorated virtually as often as boys. The problem with explaining the high number of gravestones for women by the introduction 17

Aristomache (86, ea. 410), Anthemis (92, ea. 420-400); Ampharete (89, ea. 410); Biote (97, ea. 420-410), Mr,t:hina (93, ea. 410-400); three more epitaphs are expanded prose with some poetic flavor: for Metopis (/G 13 /G I 1298, ea. 420-400), Aristylla (/G 1311, ea. 430-400), and Habro (1324, ea. 450-425). Three verse epitaphs are for children: Mnesagora and Nikochares (84, ea. 420-400); Phyrkias (95, ea. 410-400); Thy-- (91, ea. 420-400). 18 Osbome 1997; Oakley 2002.

e

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of the citizenship law is that the reappearance and gradual increase in the number of carved inscribed gravestones corresponds to the period when the citizenship law was allowed to lapse. Furthermore, epitaphs for women, whether prose or verse, usually do not announce a woman's citizen status: the woman's patronymic is often mentioned, but the demotic of her father-a detail necessary for claiming her citizenship status-can seldom be found. I think, therefore, that although the citizenship law could have had implications for the attitude to women at Athens, it was rather a change in one's view of his family, that it was a unity deserving public recognition, that effected change in the funerary display and commemoration of women. Verse epitaphs at the end of the fifth century-prose epitaphs seldom extend beyond the name of the deceased-refer to women in various ways: they are both the commemorated and commemorating; they are daughters, mothers, sisters, wives, even friends. Encountering them, we feel as if we witness a challenge to Perikles' admonition at the end of his funeral oration, where he claims that the biggest virtue of a war widow 19 is to be least talked about among men, whether in praise or rebuke. It has been argued that when private carved tombstones return, "the atmosphere

of the reliefs is private and non-heroic, and the same is true of classical epitaphs," and the dead are often depicted as members of a family group. 20 Meyer disagrees with Humphreys' suggestion that the depiction of family is "the defining quality of the late fifth and fourth-century commemoration,"21 because some people are commemorated alone, not as members of their families, and because the virtues praised in fourth century epitaphs are not particularly familial. Meyer contends that while archaic epitaphs declare that the deceased belonged to the community of the best, classical epitaphs emphasize membership of the deceased to the larger civic unit of the polis, and the "shift is not from type to individual, from an emphasis on aristocratic virtues to an emphasis on 'private' or 'family' virtues, but from members of the group of 'best men' to members of the civic group, the polis, as a whole.'m In fact, the two hypotheses, the one that stresses the family and the one that stresses membership in the po/is, are easily reconcilable, because it is through the family that an Athenian belonged to the polis. As I suggest, the Sicilian disaster was a crucial factor 19

The widow was perhaps often de facto head of the oikos and consequently carried out more responsibilities and held a more prominent social position than most women. 20 Humphreys, pp. 89-90. 21 ~eyer,pp. 107-108. 22 ~eyer, p. 109.

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prompting Athenians to reconsider both their politeia and the role of their families within it. Perhaps the idea that an oikos is the smallest unit of the state was even consciously reflected upon at this time. It should also be noted that late fifth century verse epitaphs, especially those for women and children, very often contain no praise of the deceased, which is in sharp contrast to the diction of public verse epitaphs. These private verse epitaphs simply lament the loss of the beloved;

they are there not because the deceased deserved them by their

lives, but because they missed the lives they deserved.

2. Later Classical Attic Verse Epitaphs in Context Periboloi Burial practice in the late fifth and fourth centuries is marked by the appearance of new types of grave markers and by the development of the so-called periboloi, within which various grave markers were set up. Periboloi were burial precincts surrounded by stone or mud brick. Stone periboloi are attested in Greece in the sixth century, 23 but the earliest surviving periboloi in Attica date the end of the fifth century; if earlier ones did exist in Attica they could be built of mud brick and, consequently, did not survive. 24 Most Attic periboloi were rectangular in plan and had walls on three sides. The fourth side was often left unprotected to provide access to the plot. In those cases where space was limited, the periboloi had complete, four wall enclosures. The monuments were mounted on the walls, although some smaller markers, such as trapezai or plaques, could be used to indicate a particular grave. 25 Periboloi could feature the so-called high stele, naiskos stele, and stone lekythoi or loutrophoroi. A high stele was usually a thin, tall stele crowned by an anthemion molding; its shaft was often decorated with a pair of rosettes and inscribed with the names of several people who were buried in the plot. The high stele may have been accompanied by a naiskos type stele, on which figures in relief or free-standing sculpture were placed within a portico-like frame (with pilasters or antae on the sides and crowned by the pediment). Sometimes lekythoi and loutrophoroi were depicted on stelai in relief, and may in turn have 23

For example, the recently excavated peribolos in Arta (Ambracia) is an excellent example of a sixth century f,eribolos; for photographs see Andreou 1986 [ 1991 ], pis. 97-100. 4 In fact, one of the earliest periboloi in the Kerameikos has mud-brick walls which have been miraculously ~reserved due to soil erosion, Garland 1982, p. 141, no. A 19 • 5 It seems that most periboloi had several graves, but there might have been precincts that marked the burial site of one person. Thus, multiple monuments survive in the precinct of Dionysios of Kollytos (593) but they all appear to be associated with the grave complex ofDionysios; there are, however, other grave monuments of the third and second centuries in this precinct.

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borne figures in relief. Marble lekythoi and loutrophoroi in the round, both plain or with reliefs, were sometimes set up inside periboloi or mounted on the corners of the walls. Typology of Classical Grave Stelai Clairmont has designed a fairly useful classification of classical stelai, from the later fifth through the fourth centuries, which I employ in my study and will briefly survey here. Naiskos stelai constitute the first type (!); 26 "[t]he second type of gravestones (Il) closely depends on the naiskos stelai, but some of their architectural features are barely indicated. " 27 Type three (Ill) consists of slabs which have sunken panels with reliefs in the upper part of the shaft. 28 The slabs can be crowned with various finials and the shafts sometimes have rosettes above the sunken panel. "Type IV is characterized by lintels or moulding projecting above the slabs, the sides of which are frameless; the figures stand or are supported by a projecting base in the lowermost part of the stele."29 The most refined examples of this type look like naiskos stelai without pilasters on the sides, while the simplest examples can be close to Type Ill. Types II and IV comprise works of different quality and, I assume, price, whereas Types I and Ill set the extremes: naiskos stelai (Type I) are certainly the most elaborate and were probably costly, while stelai with sunken reliefs (Type Ill), even if of fairly high quality, are likely to have been the least expensive. Notably, no surviving peribolos, and it is important to remember that only big stone ones had a chance of surviving, produced a stele with a sunken relief, and the burial site of no member of a propertied family has been associated with such a stele. Display and Layout of Verse Epitaphs Verse epitaphs occur on all four types of grave stelai as well as on markers which have no reliefs, such as high stelai or simple plaques. In the case of high stelai, epigrams are often inscribed on the shaft and sometimes on the base. On gravestones of Types I, II and IV, that is of those which include architectural elements, epigrams are positioned either on the architrave or on the base. On the grave stelai of Type Ill, epitaphs are carved right on the shaft, either below or above the relief panel. Finally, there are numerous stelai which bear epigrams and names but otherwise have no or little decoration, although some of them might have had a painting which is now completely lost. The verse epitaphs on such stelai 26 27

28 29

Clairmont 1970, p. Clairmont 1970, p. Clairmont 1970, p. Clairmont 1970, p.

46. 47. 47. 48.

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are often positioned in the upper or middle part of the shaft, and there is often some correlation between the layout of the inscription and the formal characteristics of the epigram. Thus, those epigrams that satisfy formal metrical requirements tend to be written with attention paid to line and verse divisions, while epitaphs which display lack of literary competence on the part of the composer are often incised with little care for visual effects. Verse Epitaphs Associated with Large Periboloi The old debate about the cost of a grave monument with an epitaph has recently been revived by a team of Danish scholars who came to the conclusion "that even poor citizens could easily afford a grave monument inscribed with their names." 30 It may of course be impossible to determine how much the simplest stone with epitaph (verse in particular) cost, and the appearance of a monument is not necessarily always a direct function of the financial status of a family. Nevertheless, some tendencies can be identified, and while a single gravestone, with the exception of conspicuous and clearly expensive monuments, may not be indicative of the status of the family of the deceased, a large stone precinct attests a certain level of affluence. In this section I hope to outline some features characteristic of verse epitaphs that were incised on monuments associated with large precincts. In my discussion of Attic periboloi I follow Garland's nomenclature, and I refer to his plan of the periboloi in section A of the Kerameikos (Fig. 5).

The "Terraasen111 11ge"

Figure 5.

Periboloi in Section A of the Kerameikos

30 Nielson et al. 1989, p. 412. See also Oliver's follow-up, where he cautions against too radical an approach (Oliver 2000, pp. 59-78)

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In the area of the Kerameikos three periboloi that were excavated not far outside the Sacred Gate along the so-called Street of Tombs each yielded a gravestone with an epitaph. Two of these periboloi (A3 and A9), which had grave monuments bearing epitaphs 593 and 568 respectively, were built on the so-called Terrassenanlage, the ground on the southern

side of the Street of Tombs, which was converted to a cemetery at the turn of the fourth century. 31 The other peribolos (A20) that yielded a gravestone with an epigram (102) was located across from the Terrassenanlage on the other side ofthe Street of Tombs (Fig. 6).

Figure 6.

Peribolos of Koroibos of Melite (Azo). The naiskos on the left is the stele of Hegeso; the high stele bears five names of (the first-born?) males of the family; the stele on the right bears the epitaph for Kleidemides, CEG 102

The periboloi found in this area are, according to Garland, the costliest and most imposing in the whole series, and would have been very conspicuous. Garland calls attention to the fact that various processions, such as the Dionysiac, Eleusinian and Panathenaic, started at the Sacred Gate, and doubtlessly "this fact in turn greatly enhanced the prestige of families that could afford to bury their dead outside it."32 31

One of the very first precincts here was the spectacular peribolos ofDexileos (A 1). Garland 1982, p. 135. Among the famous precincts here one can point to the enclosure which is associated with the family of Alkibiades (A 19). 32

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Figure 7.

161

Peribolos of Dionysios of Kollytos (A3 ), CEG 593

The peribolos of Dionysios son of Alphinos (A3), who was commemorated with a long verse epitaph (593, between 346/5 and 33833 ), is one of the most ostentatious in the Kerameikos (Fig. 7). The commemorated man has been identified with Dionysios son of Alphinos of the deme Kollytos, a cleruch on Samos who served there as the treasurer ofHera in 346/5, and a cousin of the orator Hyperides. In a recent article Christian Habicht 33

The precinct was partly destroyed in 338 B.C. and rebuilt soon afterwards; see Garland 1982, p. 138 and Knigge 1991, pp. 123-125.

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convincingly argues that the date of Dionysios' death was not much later than 346/5, 34 and that Dionysios was in his early thirties when he died. Dionysios' epitaph, which mentions his mother and sisters but no wife or father, suggests that he had no living close male kin, such as a father or brother, and was not married. It is tempting to think that Hyperides could have had a hand in the design of this truly grandiose monument and epitaph. The monument comprises a tall marble naiskos (H. 1.82 m; W. 1.03 m), whose base and architrave each carry a verse epitaph, and a tall limestone pillar surmounted by a marble sculpture of a bull. 35 The deep naiskos included a painted depiction of two men, but the painting is virtually lost. The naiskos and the pillar are joined together by metal clamps, and originally they must have given the impression of a single monument, enforced by the fact that the bull, seen from the street, appeared to crown the naiskos. The stonecutter of the inscription carefully considered the decorative appearance of the text. He wanted to have line and verse divisions coincide, but he had surfaces of different area to inscribe, the one in the architrave being narrower and longer than that of the base. To solve this difficulty, having inscribed one epigram on the base, he used smaller letters on the architrave and inscribed the text in two rows and in two columns, one couplet per column. Both epitaphs are metrically correct and rather elaborate. On the architrave we find:

68els l-l6x8os ElTOIVOV E1T1 avBpacrt TOtS 6:ya8oimvl ~TJTElV, TJVPTJTOI Be aepoe
The base contains the following inscription: CJWI-la 1-1ev ev86Be o6v, ~IOVVOIE, yaia KaAVTITEl,l \I'VXT"JV Be 6:8avaTov Kotvos exet Tal-lias·l oois Be
Dionysios was the treasurer of the Samian Hera in 346/5, and Habicht points out that to carry out this office Dionysios most likely had to be at least thirty. The anthropological analysis of the skeleton of Dionysios from the burial in the Kerameikos suggests that it belonged to a man no older than thirty-two years. If the conclusion of the anthropological study is correct, it means that Dionysios died very shortly after moving to Athens following his service on Samos in 346/5. For discussion of the family tree, see Habicht 1991. 35 Clairmont 1970, pl. 31:76.

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While the earth here covers your body, Dionysios, the common treasurer holds your immortal soul. Having died, you have left to your friends, mother and sisters eternal yearning for your affection. Your two fatherlands, one which was your fatherland by nature [se. Athens], the other by law [se. Samos], loved you for your great virtue.

Just as the sculptor, or perhaps we should even say the architect, wanted to impress the viewer with the monument, the composer of these epigrams also aimed at grandeur. The result is a polished and balanced text which can hardly count, however, as high poetry. It gives us a list of expressions and images characteristic of later classical Attic epitaphs: it is

not hard to seek praise of a virtuous man; the bridal chamber of Persephone; the separation of the soul and body of the deceased; the eternal pain that the deceased leaves to the living; the euphemistic reference to Hades as "the common paymaster," and even the juxtaposition of physis and nomos in the reference to Dionysios' two fatherlands. A spirit of wealth and grandeur permeates everything in this precinct. In addition to the grave marker of Dionysios, two stone lions are believed to have come from this precinct and to have once stood on the east and west corners of the plot; two marble statues of kneeling archers have also been connected with the complex. Whatever the source of the family's money was, it certainly was abundant, and one may remember that Hyperides' name was associated with, as Davies puts it, "Tpuq>i) of one kind or another," 36 while the fact that Dionysios was the treasurer of Hera also indicates the wealth of his branch of the family. In the Attic countryside grave monuments with verse epitaphs were discovered in association with periboloi from the demes of Myrrhinous (473, 561, 562, and 591) and Rhamnous (SEG 43.88; 597). At the latter location, a verse epitaph was found in a long known peribolos (M 2) 37 and was published by Basileios Petrakos (SEG 43.88, 4th century) 38 after Hansen had completed CEG. Two monuments have been connected with this precinct: a large naiskos stele with a relief depicting a standing couple and a seated man, and a rosette high stele. The shaft of the latter bears the records of the deaths of seven individuals over three generations, and its base, which was found recently, carries a verse epitaph for Euphranor son of Euphron (whose name also appears first in the list of the names on the high stele ). Recent studies of the peribolos, which resulted from the growing number of archeological finds, led to a new reconstruction of the complex which allows one to assess, among 36

Davies 1971, p. 519. Garland 1982, p. 162. 38 Petrakos 1991, pp. 58-59= SEG 43.88. 37

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other things, the display and legibility of the verse inscription. The walls of the peribolos measured ea. 2.72 m in height/9 which means that the epitaph for Euphranor, which was incised on the base (H. 0.43 m) of the stele mounted upon the wall, was approximately three meters (10ft) above the ground, and with the height of the letters at 0.02 m the inscription could be comfortably read by a person standing in front of the peribolos. The epitaph for Euphranor has been assembled from numerous pieces, and the left side of the stone is still incomplete. 40 Petrakos' text reads: ev8atl,.lc..:JV [6] eavwv [E]vq>pavc.up, Evcppovos v6s,l ev8[a]8' E[T]V K]at hwv EKaTC:>V Kat lTEVTe' ElTt TO\lTOIS,I T(pel]s 1Tat8[c.uv] yeveixs em8~v, lTclVTaS KaTaAEtlTc.uV·I T[OVVEKEV evalc.uv] ETV[I,.l'] os lTpWTOS KaTe8ap8evl Evq>pavc.up TioAAoimv e!3n ~T]Ac.uTos es "At8ov.

In verse 2, I would suggest restoring ev.8[a]8e [Keh]at in place of

ev~[a]S'

e[nv K]at,

reading therefore: 41 ev8atl,.lc.uv [6] 8avwv [E]vq>p~vc.up, Evq>povos v6sl ev.8[a]8e [Keh]at e:rc?~ EKaTOV Kat lTEVTE' ElTt TO\lTOlS, KTA. The deceased Euphranor, son of Euphron, is blessed, he lies here one hundred and five years old; having seen three generations of children and having left them all behind, wherefore, truly of happy life, Euphranor, who first [se. of four generations] died, went envied by many to the realm of Hades.

The epigram is metrically correct and manages to tell the reader some specific information about Euphranor, who lived a very long life and saw three generation of his descendants, 42 who all outlived him. In addition to some common formulas, the epitaph includes a remarkable word, KaTe8ap8ev. The meaning "to die" is not common for this word in literary language of

the fifth or fourth centuries, but is attested in a fragment from Aristophanes' lost play, the Tagenistai, in which the speaker discusses the advantages of the underworld. He compares 39

This figure is based on the sum of the heights of the courses, as reported in Petrakos 1991, p. 21. The height of the wall in the earlier restoration was estimated at 3.29 m (1975, pp. 6-11, and 1976, p. 9, fig. 4), because then it was thought that the front wall of the peribolos consisted of five courses as opposed to the current restoration of three courses of main masonry. 40 For a photograph (which was taken at the time when the restoration of the left hand side seemed completely hopeless), see Petrakos 1975, pi. 3. Unfortunately, Petrakos' publication of the text of the epitaph (1991, p. 59) is not accompanied by a photograph. 41 I am troubled by the restorations in line 4 since ETVJ.Ia does not seem to be attested as an adverb (as ETVJ.IOV) elsewhere; perhaps, even ETVJ.IOS would be a better possibility; but probably the right solution is still to be found. I have considered T[vJ.1(3ov To0Se 6avwv?] eTV[X'] os npwTos KaTe8ap6ev, which is paralleled by EvpvJ.ieSov, TVJ.1(3ov ToOSe 6avwv ETVXES (AP 7.659), but it entails somewhat awkward syntax. 42 See Section 3 for discussion of references to old age in verse epitaphs.

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burial to a dinner-party and imitates the farewell to the deceased in the following way (fr. 488.11-12):

na:s ya:p Myet Tt<; "6 ~aKapiTTJS oixeTat, KaTe8ap8ev· ev8ai~cuv, oci OVK CxVlclOETat." And everybody says: "So-and-so is blessed who goes away and rests; happy he is, since nothing grieves him."

Some similar expression may actually have been part of the traditional farewell at the funeral ceremony. The fact that Aristophanes includes it in the context of a mock comparison of life and death implies that it was quite familiar to the audience. The employment in Euphranor' s epitaph of KaTe8ap8ev in proximity to

ev8ai~cuv,

and ei3TJ ... E<; , Atoov in place of

Aristophanes' oixETat, suggests to me that the diction of his epitaph was influenced by some normative expressions from funerary ceremonies. Members of Propertied Families There are a few gravestones with epitaphs which are not associated with an elaborate stone precinct but which commemorate members of families whose high financial status is attested in other sources. We know that the people who set them up were from propertied families and most likely could afford costly monuments, but did not necessarily choose to have them. Mnesarchides son ofMnesarchos ofthe deme Halai (Aigeis), who was trierarch several times, and who is attested in Demosthenes' speech against Meidias (Dem. 21.208 and 215),43 was commemorated with a simple stele bearing his name, with patronymic and demotic, and a verse epitaph in four hexameters (600, saec. IV?). Below the epigram, the names of two more members of the family have been added. From the verse epitaph for Philokrates (I) son ofPhrynichos of the deme Achamai, 44 who probably was the grandfather of Philokrates (11), a trierarch in 322, only a fragment survives. The verse epitaph (565, ea. 350?) was incised on the architrave of a naiskos stele, 45 and it appears to be in two elegiac couplets. A member of another trierarchic family, Exekestides son of Aristodoros of the deme Kothokidai46 was commemorated with a verse epitaph of one elegiac couplet (602, saec. IV?); the name of another person, probably his son, was added to the stele. 43

The speech dates to 348, which provides the terminus post quem for the death of Mnesarchides. Davies 1971, p. 542. 45 Clairmont suggests that a fragment of a stele depicting a young man as a hunter (CAT 1.030/2.030) was originally part of the same monument as the architrave with Philokrates' epitaph. 46 Davies 1971, p. 176. 44

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Kallimachos son of Kallistratos of the deme Melite was commemorated with a dignified couplet incised on the architrave of a naiskos that is now lost (523, ea. 360? 47):

eveaS' cl:vi]p 6:ya8os KETal KaAAICnpaTO v6s,l KaAAh..taxos iis KeKpolTi<S>os MeAtTevs Here lies a distinguished man, Kallimachos, son of Kallistratos, of the deme Melite of the tribe Kekropis.

The inclusion of the name, patronymic, demotic and tribal affiliation is rather unusual and is perhaps meant to impress the reader with the skill of the composer of this simple and well-balanced epigram. The names of Kallimachos, his father and two women, presumably members of the family, were engraved on the cyma above the epigram. To conclude this section, I wish to analyze a verse epitaph for a woman whose family we know about from literary sources; she is Phanagora wife of Philon the son of Kallipos of the deme Axione (510, ea. 390-365 48 ). The stele which bears her verse epitaph is one of several simple grave markers of the family ofPhilon son ofKallipos (I), father ofKallipos (II) of the deme Axione; in addition to the epitaph for Phanagora, there are several other inscriptions. The name of Phanagora's husband, Philon, was added in the space between the architrave and the epigram sometime before ea. 350. Later on, two more names were added on the architrave and below the epigram. 49 Although the identification of the activities of Phanagora's husband, Philon, is debated, Phanagora's son Kallipos (II) is well attested. He was a prominent public figure in the middle of the fourth century, a sole trierarch in 366/5, a pupil of Plato and first a friend, then the assassin and successor of Dion. 50 Phanagora must have died between 390 and 365 51 47

The prosperity of the family by ea. 360, which is the approximate date of Kallimachos' memorial, cannot be ascertained, but was perhaps above average. Euxitheos, the speaker of Dem. 27, was a remote relative of our Kallimachos (Euxitheos' maternal grandfather, Damostratos of Melite, was paternal great-grandfather ofKallimachos), and his branch of the family, by his own account, was far from prosperity in the first half of the fourth century. In 345, which is the likely date of the speech, Euxitheos, however, could afford to commission a speech from Demosthenes, and his opponent called him evnopos. In another branch of the family, to which Kallimachos belonged, the marriage of Kallimachos' great aunt (half-sister of Euxitheos' mother) to Diodorus of Halai, who seems to have belonged to the liturgical class, could be viewed as evidence of the relative well being ofDamostratos' family. See Davies 1971, p. 94. 48 Davies 1971, pp. 274-275. 49 The inscribed marker of Phanagora is not of the type of high stelai which are usually reserved for lists of names, since it measures only 0.9 m, and the addition of the names does not seem to have been planned in advance, as was the case, for example, with the high stele from the burial ground of Kalliteles (I) of Myrrhinous (473). 50 RE s.v. Dion (10). 51 The date 390-365 is suggested by the analysis of the finial of the stele, Mobius, pp. 30, 88.

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and, as appears from the position of the inscriptions, predeceased her husband. At the time of her death, Kallipos was still in Athens, and thus either he or Philon were responsible for setting up the stele and commissioning the epigram: ev8a5e Ti]V Tracrns apeTiis ETil TEpl-la 1-lOAOcrav I avay6pav KaTEXEI epcrecp6vns 8aAa~-tos. Here, the bridal chamber of Persephone holds Phanagora, who reached the pinnacle of all virtue.

The epitaph is simple, metrically correct, and formulaic. The same verses (except for the name, obviously) are used in one of the two epitaphs for Mnesarete (513), who, in view of the outstanding quality of sculpture on her tombstone, 52 is very likely to have been a member of an affluent family, too; the hexameter can be found in the epitaph for Euthykritos from Eitea, with the necessary change in gender, ev8a5e TOV TiclOllS apeTiiS ETit TIEpl-la 1-lOAOVTa (527.1), while the metaphor of the bridal chamber of Persephone (which I will

discuss in Section 7) appears in half a dozen verse epitaphs. Our survey of the verse epitaphs that commemorate members of propertied families and/or originate from large precincts shows that an epigram was usually placed either on the base or architrave of a naiskos stele, or on a high stele, or even on the shaft of a simple stele. In the two latter types, the absence of decoration and crowding of the names do not signify

the family's paucity of means, as clearly shown by the stelai commemorating Phanagora or Mnesarchides. These types of monuments could be simply considered appropriate by their families, and several names could be added to the same monument, perhaps, to emphasize the unity of the family. A high stele could display the names of family members who were commemorated by separate monuments within the same burial ground, and bear a verse epitaph for the one buried first, as in the case of Euphranor. 53 It is noteworthy that although some verse epitaphs discussed here were inscribed on very simple and undecorated stelai, no stele of Clairmont's Type Ill was inscribed with a verse epitaph for a member of an affluent family. These stelai, which generally comprise a sunken panel with relief, a verse epitaph and a prose record, might have been designed to combine on one slab the elements, such as an image, record and verse, which on the monuments in periboloi could occupy different sculptural and architectural entities, such as the niche, base and architrave. 52

CAT2.286. The stele with 473 is of the high stele type and bears two lists of names and a verse epitaph for Kalliteles (I) in the lower part of the shaft; his name is the first in the second list of names.

53

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Perhaps, the stelai of Type Ill stood in burial grounds with low or no walls at all, and were common among those families whose status was below the upper class. Verse epitaphs commissioned by those people who must have had some ability to appreciate literary competence, such as those who commissioned epitaphs for Phanagora (510) or Dionysios (593) show little variation and individualization in praising and describing the deceased. In a way, the sparing use of descriptive terms and expressions, when found in a compact and balanced couplet, such as the epitaphs for Phanagora (510) or Kallimachos (523), reminds one of archaic epitaphs for members of the elite in which such adjectives as

6:ya86s rather signified that the deceased belonged to the elite than characterized him as an individual. In other epitaphs, seemly expressions can be somewhat devalued by being pointlessly repeated with little variation, such as in the epitaph for Dionysios (593). We will see below that later classical Athenian verse epitaphs for people of somewhat lower status often present more individualized pictures of the deceased. In respect of formal requirements of meter, diction, spelling and legibility, verse epitaphs for affluent and elite Athenians are correct both metrically and grammatically, and are carefully incised with line divisions corresponding to verses; not a single epitaph deviates from its metrical scheme, whether elegiac or hexametric, suggesting that the unusual combinations of pentameters and hexameters commonly found in the later classical period were not poetic variations 54 but resulted, quite frankly, from the incompetence of their composers. The inclusion of the name of the deceased in the verse seems to have been considered a priority. 55 This tendency to include the name in the verse epitaphs of the affluent also reminds one of the verse epitaphs of the elite of the archaic period. 3. Commemorated Deceased Death in War During the fourth century the Athenian state continued to commemorate the war dead with public monuments with casualty lists and verse epitaphs (466, ea. 350; 467, 338; 468, saec. IV?), but once the Athenians started to set up grave monuments privately some families would commemorate those who fell at war with a private monument set up in the family 54

Pace Clairmont 1970, pp. 50-51. Only one epitaph which is associated with a peribolos (560) does not have the name of the deceased (Antiphon) in the verse, most likely because it could not fit a dactylic foot. 55

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burial ground. At least some of these monuments were cenotaphs because the men would be buried in the public grave for the casualties of that year, and this fact, I think, allows us to understand better the attitude of the Athenians towards material display at burial grounds. Setting up a grave monument for a person who was actually buried in another, sometimes very close (if the family precinct was in the area of the Kerameikos) 56, place was perhaps motivated not as much by religious demands, since we presume that the oaT& of the war casualties were interred and further commemorated in accordance with appropriate funerary rituals, as by the desire of the family to claim the dead and his memory for the family. At the same time, the family would take care to display this private claim publicly: the monument of Dexileos, set up in his family's burial precinct, dominated the area and would have been well observed by wayfarers leaving Athens through the Sacred Gates. This additional commemoration of the war dead at the family precinct must have enhanced this family's standing, and therefore it is not surprising to fmd that later classical verse epitaphs for those who fell in war generally display features of the epitaphs of the elite. A cavalryman from the deme Phlya57 was commemorated with a relief stele which bore an epigram in two couplets (99, ea. 400), as well as the name and demotic of the deceased in prose-it is unclear whether his name was also included in the verse since the inscription is badly preserved. The epigram is spoken by the deceased who claims to have destroyed many enemies (lToAAos wAeoa

Bvo~-te[vecuv])

and to have set up Tp61Tata

of his own virtue. The deceased of 488 (saec. IV in.?) seems to have been praised in two verse epigrams inscribed on the two sides of a single monument, in one and two couplets respectively. 58 The epigrams are incised with correspondence of line and verse divisions, and the surviving couplet is not trite:

[ei] TOtwvBe avBpwv ElllTOAlS, cmoT' &v atiT[i;s] I [e]x8poi OTTJOalEV Znvi TpOlTatOV eBos. If the polis had consisted of men like this, its enemies would never have set up a monument as a trophy to Zeus.

The other side of the monument, where two more couplets were inscribed, is particularly damaged. The surviving fragments show that here the deceased was said to have been destroyed 56

As it was, for example, in the case of the family ofDexileos (A1). The stele was found in Chalandri, that is in the territory of the deme Phlya, where the deceased's family must have had their burial plot. 58 Unfortunately, the stone is lost, and it is impossible to check the readings, which look somewhat suspicious to me (especially in the second epigram). 57

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by Ares, wAecre 8ovpos "Ap<ns>; this expression, which is used to describe death on the battlefield in Homer and Tyrtaeus, was also employed in the archaic epitaph for K.roisos (27). Another man who was killed in war was commemorated with a verse epitaph that also called upon Ares (489, saec. IV in?): 59

TOS 6:ya86s EOTep~ev "Apns, Eq>lATJOE s· ElTa!VOS I Kal yi}pat VEOTTJS ov napeScux' v(3picrat· I Kal r[A]aVKlclOTJS Snios CxlTO TiaTpiSos epycuv I TjA8' en[l] lTclVOEKTOV epcreq>oVTJS 8aA
wy

Of those virtuous men whom Ares loved and Praise cared for, and whom Youth would not surrender to the violation of Old Age, Glaukiades was one; as he was defending his fatherland from foes, he went to the all-receiving bridal chamber ofPersephone.

The articulation of praise in this epitaph is characteristic of later classical funerary verses: the epitaph sets out some generalizations and universally accepted truths ("Ares loves virtuous men," and "Youth does not give them up to the Old Age") and characterizes the deceased as one of those to whom these concepts of virtue are applicable. Diognetos son of Euadetos of the deme Paionidai, presumably a hoplite who fell in the campaign of 338, was commemorated with an epigram (594, 338): 60

e'i TtS TCJv 6:ya8CJv llVeiav exet ev Sopos aAKe"ll npCJTov Kpivcuv {cuv} &v TovSe SiKTJS llETEXOl"l avTt yap Tis "''VXiiS apETfjt n6Atv ecrTecpavcucrev, I . _8e~llOS ?V napa(3as evOoKtllc.JV npoy6vcuv If anyone gives any thought to those who excel with the spear and in doing so judges this man to be the first, he would be just. For in return for his life this man crowned the city with virtue, not having transgressed the precepts of his glorious ancestors.

The epitaph is neatly inscribed on a marble base that supported, according to the editor, "probably a huge marble lekythos or loutrophoros. " 61 The name of the deceased is not included in the verse, perhaps because the chief mourner wanted to keep the name together with the patronymic and demotic, which was impossible in a dactylic verse, and therefore included it only in the prose heading. Overall, both the inscription and the base which carries it point to a family of means and taste (which is also in conformity with the hop lite status ofDiognetos). 59

There does not appear to be any published photograph of this monument, but the drawing of the inscription (Mylonas 1879, p. 359) shows carefully and neatly carved letters. 60 Matthaiou (1985, p.133) argues that the letter forms of this inscription point to a date in the third quarter of the fourth century, while the spellings c'xAKEi and ~E~IlOS suggest a date in the decade between 340 and 330. All these considerations make the battle of Chaironeia very plausible for this epitaph. 61 Themelis 1984, p. 110; for photographs and drawings of the base and the inscription, see pp.105-106, figs. 2-4.

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Virtues of the Deceased Diognetos' epitaph (595) begins with a conditional statement that generalizes the virtues of the deceased, and this type of generalization can be found in numerous Attic verse epitaphs from the later classical period. In simplified form the conditional statement runs, "if there is some prize for X, the deceased will be judged to be the first" (where X is a variable virtue or skill). In the epitaph for Euphanes (559) the prized virtue is OlKatOCJVVfl, and in the epitaph for Mnesarchides the list of praised virtues runs over three verses, and the fourth verse concludes that Mnesarchides had them all (600).

This type of pseudo-

conditional praise could be employed not only at the beginning of an epitaph, so that 571, for example, concludes by stating that if there is any award to good people (ehrep XPllCJTois

yepas .eoTiv) under the earth in the realm of Persephone and Pluto, the nurse Melite surely got the prize. Another variation on this type of praise is found in the unreal conditional sentences that begin some epigrams, for example, in 568, the epitaph for Makareus, who, it is said, would have achieved more in the art of tragedy, had he not died so young; in 488 the unreal conditional sentence ("ifthere were a city of such men," etc.) emphasizes the excellence of the man who died in war; 575, a partially preserved epitaph for Herakleia, seems to say that if it were possible for mortals to be counted among the immortals, she would have received this honor:

[ei 8E!llS ~V] 8VT}TtlV evapi8!ltiO[V-- -ea. 6-- o]voav 6:8av6:T~:usl vo[11iom, ooi] To yepas T68' &vi ~v (verses 1-2) If it were right for a mortal to be counted ... among immortals, this would be your reward.

Interestingly, while praise of the deceased with some variations on this type of conditional clause is sometimes employed in other areas of Greece (629 from Euboia, 640 and 645 from Thessaly), it seems to have been an especially favored opening for verse epitaphs in Athens, and it reflects the same tendency of composition displayed in those inscriptions where praise proceeds from the description of general and abstract notions to the assertion that the deceased had some share in these abstractions, as in 489. An epigram from Samos (683) is the only one outside Athens62 which opens with conditional praise, but, curiously, it displays 62

Another verse epitaph of this type, from Amorgos (670), belongs, I think, to the late fourth or even third century, when some formulas and expressions peculiar to Attic verse epitaphs of the fourth century started to be employed all over Greece.

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other peculiar Athenian characteristics and might have been composed for the wife of an Athenian cleruch. The virtuous deceased is sometimes described as having achieved all virtues, ml:ons

apETiiS eni TEPI-10 1-lOAovoav (or 1-lOAOVTa), as in 510, 513, and 527, or simply as possessing all virtue, as in 516 (TTCIOTJV exo[uo' apETf)]v). The latter expression is preceded in 516 by two epithets of praise,

o~cppcuv

and evovvETOS, which are notable for not being

gender specific since both grammatically and semantically they can be applied equally to a man and to a woman. Epithets or expressions of this type are clearly favored in later classical verse epitaphs. Not harming anybody is often praised as a virtue, too; the deceased of 541 and 554 died [ovS]eva Avnf)oaoa and ovSeva AVTTWV, respectively; Phanostrata in 569 is praised as [o]v6evi Avnn

a. Among virtues, ocucppoovvn, StKatoovvn, and apETf) stand out as those most commonly extolled in later classical verse epitaphs for both men and women, and sometimes these virtues are personified, so that the deceased is praised for having honored Prudence and Virtue, as in K.leidemos' case (102). The tendency to generalize praise is also clear in expressions which amount simply to stating that the deceased is praiseworthy. For example, Kallimedon of 561 is said to hold the highest praise (nAel'o;[o]v enatvov) of virtue; Archestrate of 543 (ea. 350?) is said to have had TTAEtOTOV enatvov of "her ways,"

[T]p6ncuv; the epitaph for Dionysios son of Alphinos starts by saying that it is easy to find praise for virtuous men. Verse epitaphs for women are sometimes more individualized. The way in which 573 (post. ea, 350) praises the deceased is somewhat peculiar:

o\Jxi TTETTAOVS, ov xpvoov eSaVI-lOOEV El-ll3tcul fiSe, aAAa TTOOIV TE avTiiS ocucppoaV[VTJV T(e)-- -].1 avTi Se ofis fii3TJs, .8tovuo(a, titKias Te TovSe Tacpov KOOI-lEt oos noms 'AvTicp[tAos]. She did not admire garments or gold during her lifetime, but her husband and prudent ways. And instead of your youthful age, Dionysia, your husband Antiphilos adorns this grave.

Despite its initial appearance, the first verse might be saying more than that Dionysia was above vanity. The expression Ta xpvo(a Kai Ta il-lcl:Tta in some court speeches63 refers to the only movables that were "owned" by a woman and remained with her disregarding 63

For example, [Demosthenes] 59.35 and 46; [Demosthenes] 25.56; lsaeus 2.9.

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any change to her status-she would keep them in case of divorce even though the divorcing husband was legally obliged to restore only her dowry. 64 Thus, Ta xpvcr(a Kat Ta h..taTta probably designated a female's property. The statement that Dionysia did not admire "gold and dresses" (with poetic mhrAot substituting for il..laTta, which is not a poetic word and is used in verse only by Aristophanes and Hipponax) amounts, therefore, to saying that she had little personal concern and truly cared for her husband's well-being. Perhaps attempts on the part of a wife to accumulate some personal wealth which would, practically speaking, belong to her in case of divorce were common. Girls were married at a very young age, and often faced divorce65 or widowhood since their husbands were much older. Dionysia was not concerned about accumulating personal property, and so it was left to her husband, Antiphilos (if this was in fact his name and not, e.g., the participle avTtq>[tAwv], or the name 'AvTtq>[aVTJS]), to bestow her with gifts. Now, he adorns her tomb instead, 66 and the tombstone that Dionysia's husband procured seems to have been a fair representative (albeit poorly preserved) of a naiskos type stele. A verse epitaph for two sisters praises them for their relations with each other, both emotional and financial (541, ea. 350?): I.

Kat ~wcratTIAO\hov TiaTptKov ~..tepos I eTxov 6~-tofws, Ti]v aliTwv q>tA(av Kat I XPiJI-laTa Taih' ev61..1t~ov.

And while alive they equally shared in their father's wealth, considering their mutual love and possessions to be the same.

This epitaph is followed by another verse epitaph (11) which is completely formulaic and thus in stark contrast to the first one: 11.

[ov]Seva AvTii)cracra, TEKVc.:IV S' emSovcrl[a ETI] TiaiSas Tfjs Kotvfis 1-lOlpas Tiacrl[tv ex1.~t TO 1-lEpos.

Having caused grief to nobody and having looked upon her children's offspring, she has a share of the fate that is common to all.

The verse epitaphs are followed by the names of the deceased with the patronymic and the father's demotic, Anaphlystios, which suggests that the sisters were Athenians, and therefore should have had no direct share in their father's property. I assume that they were epikleroi; still, legally, their property was not theirs but belonged to their respective kyrioi. 64

Schaps 1979, pp. 10-12. See Lacey 1968 [1984], pp. 108-109. 66 It seems noteworthy that usage of KOOIJEW with the meaning "decorate" or "adorn" is without parallel in verse epitaphs of this period. 65

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The epigram, however, indicates that they had a say in the question of the division of the property. 67 Thus, the verses reflect perhaps a common although not legal situation in which women could exercise some fmancial control and perhaps had some power in arranging their lives, probably more so than in the archaic period. Origin of the Deceased In the archaic period verse epitaphs for foreigners usually mention the origin of the

deceased as a cause for grief, while in later classical epitaphs the origin is generally a reason for praise. When verse epitaphs in classical Athens mention the foreign origin of the deceased68 it is done in order to praise the deceased's homeland, as if the glory of the place extends to all who can relate to the place. Young Pythokles was brought up by

"Ecpecros KAEVOTciTTJ n6Aecuv (485, verse 4); Atotas the Paphlagonian boasts to be ofthe stock ofPylaimenes, the king of the Paphlagonians who fought in the Trojan War (572); the Theban origin of Potamon the flute-player enhances the claim that Hellas judged him to be the first in his art (509). Sometimes, Athens, the place where the deceased resided and died, is praised along with the person's homeland. Theogeiton (545), who is said to be from Thebes, is buried KAetva'i's ev 'A8rJVatS, while the homeland ofHerseis (104) is not named at all, but she too is said to have died KAetva'i's ev 'A8f]vms. The epitaph for Symmachos son of Simon from Chios turns into a hymn to both Chios and Athens (606, saec. IV?):

TIAElOTa 1-leV eucppav8els 13t6TC:Ul, Atmms Se eAaxfcrTatS I XPTJOcll-lEVO), yf)pcus TEpl-la 1-lOAwv npos aKpov, I X'los ~-tev yeveav 13AaaTwv, naTpos Se Lf~-tcuvos I LVI-ll-lOXOS ev SaneSots KeKponias eKAt8T)V. I i} ~-tev KaAAtK6~-tots TIT6p8ots 13oTpvwSeos otVTJS 69 I X'los ayaAAOI-lEVTJ LVI-ll-lclXC:Ul EOTtTiaTpfs, I ai Se Seo'i'm 1-lciAtcrTa cp(Am 8vT)To'i'a( Te ·A8fivm I cr&~-ta aov ey KOATIOlS Kp\J\vav CxTio
M. B. Wallace suggests to me that they might have decided not to divide their property and lived together, and I find this suggestion very attractive in light of the second line which equates the sisters'
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Having gotten the most out of life and tasted the least of troubles, at the utmost limit of old age, I Symmachos, a Chian by race and the son of Simon, died in the plains of Kekropia. Chios, which rejoices in the beautiful curls of the shoots of the clustered vine, is fatherland to Symmachos, while Athens, most dear to both the gods and mortals, covered your lifeless body in her bosom.

Activities of the Deceased The occupation in which the deceased excelled is commonly lauded in later classical Athenian verse epitaphs. Already in Homer the four sorts of demiourgoi are distinguished from ptochoi and identified by their activities: ~avTtv

il iT'JTfipa KaKwv nTEKTova Bovpc.uv,

il Kat 8eomv Cx0156v, 8 KEV TEPTITJO'IV ae(5c.uv (Odyssey 17.384-385) Later on (19. 135), herald

(Kfjpv~)

is added to the list of seer, doctor, shipwright, and bard.

These people could do things that few could; they did not labor, and they surely demanded high fees. Some of these activities, such as medicine or the priesthood, are often mentioned in fourth century verse epitaphs all over Greece, but Athens presents by far the longest list of activities that were considered worthy of being talked of and praised in verse epitaphs. a) Soothsaying and Priesthood A simple and dignified elegiac couplet (473) announces that Kalliteles was

~avTtS

oocp6s and avfJp 51Katos, and that he was the son ofMeidoteles, also a mantis. At least one

other member of the family appears to have been a seer or to have borne a name indicating that soothsaying ran in the family: fragments of a base carrying the beginning of two verses (562, ea. 350?) have been tentatively associated with a gable that is inscribed with 'lep6TITT'JS. [M]e(5c.uv (SEG 23.155a). Interestingly, the family was particularly well disposed to the

employment of verse epitaphs: in all, there survives evidence for four verse epitaphs/0 ranging in length from a couplet for the earliest one (473, ea. 380?) to a six couplet inscription divided into three parts for the latest one (591, ea. 350-325?). This increase in length of the epitaphs inscribed for members of one family reflects the general tendency over the course of the fourth century towards a gradual increase in the grandeur offunerary display. 71 The epitaph for Kleoboulos of Achamai (519, ea. 375-350?), uncle of the orator Aeschines, tells the reader that Kleoboulos was

~aVTlS

aya86s, as well as a brave soldier:

70

473, 561, 562, 591. Compare this with the "progressive tendency towards extravagance," that Garland (1982, p. 127) comments on in relation to the development of Attic periboloi in the fourth century. 71

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rAaVKO lTai KAe613oAe, 8av6vTa oe yaia Ka[AVlTTEl] Cx~-tq>6Tepov 1-lclVTlV TE aya8ov Kal Bopl~-t?ixeo8at] ov lToT' 'Epex8ews ~-teyaAi]Topos ~e~~eg>a[vwoe] Bi;~-tos aptoTevoavTa Ka8' 'EAAaBa ?K?~~s [?ExovTa]. The earth covers you, Kleoboulos the deceased son of Glaukos, who were both a good seer and spearman and whom the demos of the greathearted Erechtheios crowned (?) as one who excelled in Hellas and had fame (?).

The author of this epitaph, who is likely to have been Aeschines himself, appears to have taken pains to lay claim on various honors. It is a unique epigram, which alludes to the deceased's military, religious, and civic activities (if the reference to the demos' crowning with a wreath intends to hint at reciprocal gratitude for some civil service). Out of all these activities, the religious one is emphasized three times: in the epigram, in the prose ascription which reads KAet613oAos 'Axapvevs

~-tcXVTlS,

and in the relief which depicts

an eagle carrying a snake, 72 a suitable image for a seer. Another epitaph for a seer, which is in a private collection in Hamburg, has recently been published by Clairmont.73 The epigram is carefully incised on the top part of the shaft of the stele, under the lintel, while the name, nvpptxos, is inscribed in larger letters below the epigram and close to the right hand side of the stele, suggesting that there was a painted depiction in the middle of the stele. The provenance is unknown, but Clairmont, on the basis of archeological features of the stele, suggests that it may well be from Attica. He dates the monument and the inscriptions to the second quarter of the fourth century, without, however, explaining why. The epigram consists of two hexameters (SEG 41.226):

ev8aBe Ti}V iepi}v KEq>aAi}v

8e6~-taVTlV

EXEl Yii I

~i]Aov a1r' i]ya8eas 8vT)Tois i]yi]Topa XPTJO~-twv. Here the earth holds the holy seer of the god from sacred Delos, the rnarshaler of oracular responses to mortals.

If the epigram is from Athens and does date to the fourth century, these facts have several consequences. The epigram displays striking similarity to the epitaph for Homer which is preserved in the Anthology and in the Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi. The first 150 epigrams of Book 7 of the Anthology are epitaphs for famous men (primarily late literary exercises),

72 73

Woysch-Meautis 1982, pi. 34:234; Scho111996, pi. 48:2. Clairmont 1991, pp. 47-50 and fig. 1, wherefrom SEG 41.226.

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beginning with Homer. The epigram which interests us is listed among eight other epigrams composed for the bard. No author is assigned to it (AP 7.3): ev8a5e TTJV iepf)v KE<paATJV KaTa ya"la KOAVlTTEl avBpwv i)pwcuv KOOI-lTJTOpa, Se"lov "01-lTJPOV. Here earth covers the holy man, divine Homer, the marshaler of heroic men.

The same couplet is cited at the end of the Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi (337-339) as an epitaph for Homer which was allegedly inscribed upon his tomb on the island oflos/4 and variations on the epigram are found in about a dozen epitaphs for famous people composed throughout the Roman Period. 75

The latter fact suggests to me that the

original epigram was also for a famous person, Homer being a good candidate; and consequently it seems to me more plausible that the original version (or its close variation) was the one preserved in the Certamen and after which the Hamburg epigram was modeled/6 and not the other way around. It may also be significant that both the Hamburg and Homer's epitaph consist of two hexameters, a fairly rare, though not unheard of, metrical arrangement in later classical epitaphs. 77 In the case of Homer's epitaph, the employment of hexameters was perhaps motivated by their appropriateness to the epic poet himself and to the archaic milieu in which the contest of Homer and Hesiod is set. The composer of the Hamburg epitaph may have simply followed the pattern and adopted the meter which incidentally suited well his commemoration of "the marshaler of oracular responses," which, when in verse, were of course in hexameters.

74

The date (whether sixth century, fifth/fourth century or Hadrianic) and the authorship (pre-Alkidamas, Alkidamas, or late compilation) of the Certamen have long been debated. Interest in this work seems to be on the rise; for example, there was an entire panel at the APA Meeting in New Orleans, January 2003, dedicated to Alkidamas, where at least three out of five speakers talked at length about the Certamen. See APA Abstracts 2003, pp. 23-27. For recent treatment of Alkidamas' place in the literary tradition of the fourth century, see O'Sullivan 1992. 75 In his review ofMerkelbach and Stauber 1998, Habicht comments on an epigram from Sardis (04/02/05, p. 403) which is a variation of the Homeric epitaph, and collects ten more epitaphs that were influenced by the alleged epitaph for Homer on Ios (Habicht 1999, pp. 97-99); notably, several of these late epitaphs are for famous people of the past such as Alkibiades and Cicero, while others are for contemporary individuals. I have located two more epigrams, which I plan to include in a separate discussion of this topic. 76 If so, the part of the Certamen that cites the epitaph for Homer should date to no later than the fourth century, and thus might well have been composed by Alkidamas himself. 77 It is also repeated in the epitaph for Alkibiades, which corresponds to Homer's epitaph verbatim, except for the name, of course: e\16a8e TIJ\1 iepa\1 KecpaAfJ\1 KaTa yaia KaAVlTTet Cx\18pw\l iJpww\1 KOOillTOpa, 6eio\l 'AAKEI(3ta8rJ\I (/G XIV 763).

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The second line of the Hamburg epitaph is curiously paralleled by the beginning of an epitaph for Nikomachos ofPeiraieus from Lemnos, which was found in Athens (475, 404-38778 ):

Arn..tvo c:nr' nya8eas Kev8et nxcpos ev8a5e yafas I avBpa cptA01Tp6(3aTov· NtKOI..laxos 5' OVOI..la. Here the burial covers a man from the sacred earth of Lemnos; he was fond of his livestock, and his name was Nikomachos.

The expression Ar11..1VO

alT' Jiya8eas

was perhaps borrowed from Homeric epic where

Lemnos is one of the places characterized by the epithet Jiya8en (1/. 2.722; 21.58, 79), along with Lesbos, Nysa, Pylos, and Pytho. Although the precise meaning of the epithet is "sacred" or "very holy," it "need not, in a particular case, imply any superior sanctity."79 The precise meaning, however, seems most appropriate in the case ofPytho, that is Delphi, which is called Jiya8en in Homer (Od. 8.80), Hesiod (Th. 499; Fr. 60), and Pindar (P. 9.71). The author of the Hamburg epitaph made use of this precise meaning, as he fittingly applied the epithet to Delos, another home of Apollo. 80 Although the number of verse epitaphs for persons involved in religious activity is low in late classical Athens, it seems to be more than a coincidence that men commemorated in this way are described only as soothsayers and not as priests, whereas women are in fact described as priestesses. 81 There must have been many men in Athens who were priests, whether for a certain period of time or for life, and some of them were probably of old families of significant means and high social standing, but it seems that it was not considered appropriate to refer to their religious service in verse epitaphs. This phenomenon could perhaps be best explained by the relatively little authority exercised by priests in classical Athens, as well as by the fact that holding a priesthood did not contribute to one's career and consequently to one's social standing. 82 The activities related to soothsaying, whether those 78

The dating is based on Koehler's assumption that Nikomachos had been a cleruch on Lemnos and was expelled from the island between 404 and 387; see Koehler in /G 11.3.2453 (''Nichomachum e cleruchis Atticis insulae Lemni fuisse intellexit Pottier; idem in eo falsus est, quod titulum post annum 387 lapidi incisum esse censuit. Nichornachum Athenis mortuum esse consentaneum est inter annos 404 et 387, quo tempore cleruchi Attici Lemno expulsi sunt."). Clairmont sensibly points out that Nikomachos might have never returned to Lemnos, even after 387 (1970, p. 155), or, he might have died on a trip to Athens before 404 or after 387 and was buried there, although he generally resided in Lemnos. Although Hansen agrees with Clairmont, he prints Koehler's date. 79 Heubeck et al. 1988, p. 256. 80 Interestingly, Apollonius of Rhodes also calls Delos Tiya9en (1.308). 81 Two verse epitaphs from outside Attica, 628 for Leukos, a prophet (llcX\/Tl)) from Euboia, (saec. IV?), and 720 for Timarete, an attendant (np6noAos) of the goddess Enodia, conform to the principle observed in Attic material. 82 For discussion of religious authority in Athens, see Garland 1984.

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of XPTJOIJOA6yot or of 1JcXVTEIS,83 were much more authoritative, and those who practiced them "are frequently described in terms which suggest that they enjoyed considerable prestige."84 The activity of a soothsayer was therefore a claim to status, and it is not surprising that references to it were included in verse epitaphs. In addition, surviving Athenian grave stelai which include verse epitaphs commemorating soothsayers (473, 519, SEG 41.226, and perhaps 562) suggest that they were set up by families of some considerable

status and means (or by those who wanted to appear to be of such status). Studies of Athenian funerary reliefs provide further evidence that for a man of elite status a priesthood was not an activity to be singled out and commemorated on a gravestone, since no naiskos type stele representing a priest has been found thus far. There survive a few grave stelai which represent in relief men with some attributes of cult (such as a sacrificial knife) and thus probably were meant to commemorate priests; 85 all of these stelai are of Clairmont's Type Ill (with sunken relief panels) and were probably set up by families of very modest means. None of these stelai contains an epitaph identifying the deceased as a priest; if there is an inscription at all, it never goes beyond naming the deceased (with or without the patronymic and demotic). For these families, which probably wielded little authority in any particular field and had relatively low social standing, depicting the deceased as a cult attendant must have been important for distinguishing the deceased from other people of his circle. The commemoration on funerary monuments of priestesses was somewhat different from that of priests. 86 As in the case of the latter, there survives no naiskos type grave stele representing a priestess, while a few stelai of Clairmont's Type Ill represent a woman with what appears to be a cult attribute, such as a temple key or a cymbat.B7 Unlike in the case of priests, however, it appears that those families that could consider commissioning a verse epitaph could be proud of the fact that the deceased was a priestess: there are two verse epitaphs, both of fairly high quality, which refer to the deceased as a priestess. 83

Garland (1984, p. 113) points out that despite apparent differences in meaning, ancient sources make no clear distinction between the words XPTJOI-IOA6yos and 1-lcXVTIS. 84 Garland 1984, p. 81. In his Statesman (290 d-e), Plato claims that both the priest and the seer have great social standing and are conscious of their self-importance, and although he points to Athens (along with Egypt) as an example, surviving evidence demonstrates that he is speaking of an ideal rather than real Athens. 85 For the discussion of the representation of priests on grave stelai, see Scholl 1996, p. 136 note 936 and 142-148, pl.39: 1-3. Kosmopoulou 2001. 87 See Scholl 1996, p. 136 note 936.

rr

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Myrrhine, the priestess of Athena Nike was commemorated at the end of the fifth century with a plain stele with apparently two verse epitaphs, 88 separated from each other by punctuation (93, ea. 410-400):

KaAAtllaxo SuylaTpos TllAauyels llViilla , f) npc.:n..,l NiKllS Cxllq>ElTOAievae vewv· evAolyiat 8' OVOil' eaxle OVVEillTOpov, wls CxlTO 8eias Mvplpive i]KAtlSll avlvruxias hvllculs.: npwTE 'AS..,vailas NiKes e~os 6:11l
M. B. Wallace has drawn my attention to the fact that although the two epigrams seem to be very close in content, the important difference is that the second emphasizes the democratic nature of Myrrhine's office. The first epigram tells us that the deceased was fittingly called

(i]KATJ811 for eKATJ811) Myrrhine, and the comment ano 8eias ... avvTVxias refers to the fortunate coincidence that the priestess of Athena Nike bore such a name, while the second epigram clarifies that Myrrhine was chosen by lot, eK navTcuv KAi)pcuL There remains though the question of what is meant by npwTll in both epigrams. Myrrhine could have hardly been the first priestess of Athene Nike, since the sanctuary of Athene Nike on the Acropolis is well attested already in the archaic period. 90 Although it has been suggested that the cult had been originally served by "some other official, the priestess of Athena Polias perhaps," until the priesthood of Athena Nike was established in accordance with the so-called Nike Temple Decree (JG 13 35) in the 440s,91 it seems more likely that the decree reorganized the already existing priesthood and established a new procedure for the selection of the priestess (by lot), as well as for her salary. 92 Myrrhine then would have been the first priestess of Athene Nike who was chosen by lot in the mid 440s, and this is the implication of the word npwTll in the second epigram. It has been pointed out, however, that the epitaph explicitly links Myrrhine to the temple ofNike (verse 2) which was not built 88

Pace Rahn ( 1986, p. 202) who prefers to understand it as one poem of six verses. llVppivT), or "myrtle," may have been used in Nike's cult, and there seems to be an acknowledgement of this in line 3 (for similar play on a name, see 517). 90 Mark 1993, pp. 31-35. 91 Mark 1993, pp. 104-107. 92 So Schlaifer 1940, pp. 259-260; Jordan 1979, pp. 32-33 and note 54; Garland 1984, pp. 77-80. 89

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until after the completion of the southwest wing of the Propylaia, perhaps in the mid 420s. 93 This link has been thought to contradict the orthodox dating of the Nike Temple Decree to the mid 440s, since, it is held, Myrrhine could not have been the first priestess in the temple of Athene Nike chosen by lot in both the mid 440s and the mid 420s. Attempts to resolve this apparent contradiction have led some scholars to lower the date of the Nike Temple Decree to 425. 94 I agree that the epitaph explicitly links Myrrhine with the temple of Athene Nike, but I think that this assumption does not entail lowering the date of the Nike Temple Decree. Too little attention has been paid to the fact that Myrrhine's epitaph consists of two epigrams. It is the first epigram that says that Myrrhine was the first attendant in the temple ofNike; 95 it also happened that Myrrhine was the first to serve the cult of Athena Nike (the word

e8os denotes simply a shrine and does not necessarily imply the existence of a temple)

as a priestess chosen by lot from all eligible Athenian women about twenty or so years earlier, and this is reported in the second epigram. 96 I. Papademetriou suggested97 and Lewis further elaborated on98 the identification of

this Myrrhine, the priestess of Athena Nike, with the Myrrhine of Aristophanes' Lysistrata. This identification has been generally accepted, 99 and it provides the terminus post quem, 411-the date of the performance of Lysistrata-for the epitaph. If Myrrhine became the priestess of Athena Nike in the mid 440s when she was about fifteen, her date of birth can be set ea. 460. She would have been about fifty years old when Lysistrata was produced and, if her gravestone dates to the last decade of the century, died shortly thereafter. The inscription is carved stoichedon (12 letters in a row) on a narrow stele (H. 0.98 m, W. 0.17-0.18 m). The stonecutter seems to have forgotten to carve the end ofthe first verse; verse divisions were of no concern of his, as he was occupied with the stoichedon arrangement. This arrangement produces a decorative effect and although random word breaks might 93

Mark 1993, pp. 76-92 and 140-141. Gill2001, esp. p. 266. 95 Note that she is said to have served NiKTIS ... vewv, the temple ofNike, as it is also called in the account of the expenditures for the temple, IG 13 36.36. 96 The reversed chronological order is of no significance since epigrams generally allude to the most memorable events of one's life or qualities of one's character and do not follow the historical sequence of events. 97 Papademetriou 1948/1949, p. 146. 98 Lewis 1955, pp. 1-7. 99 Pace Henderson 1987, pp. xl-xli. Henderson argues that priestesses of Athena Nike held the post only for a year or two and that the cult was established in the 440s. According to Henderson, it would follow that the Myrrhine of the epitaph could not have been both the first priestess of the cult and the priestess in 411, when Aristophanes produced his play. Henderson claims that "[t]he format and content of the epitaph rather suggest that Myrrhine held a low-echelon post whose only distinction was that she was the first to hold it."

94

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annoy the modem eye, the Athenians must have been used to official inscriptions carved in a similar manner. If the date of the reappearance of private Athenian epitaphs is correctly set at ea. 413, Myrrhine's grave marker would be one of the earliest. Perhaps at this time the style of engraving epitaphs was not yet perfected, and the stonecutter of the epitaph followed the layout and style of official inscriptions. It is somewhat surprising that the cutter who was capable of incising the letters so neatly could leave out two words in the first line. Here too, perhaps this mistake was due to the fact that the engraver was not accustomed to verse epitaphs, and so the apparently formulaic ending, which was not a formula for him, easily slipped his memory. About fifty years later another verse epitaph was composed for a priestess named Chairestrate, wife of Menecrates of Ikaria, who was priestess of Kybele, the Mother-of-All. Chairestrate's grave was in the Peiraieus and was marked by a small stele (p.H 0.5 m, W. 0.35-0.38 m) with a sunken relief and an epigram (566, ea. 350): 100

l-ll1Tpos TTavToTeKvov TTpoTToAos 1 oe11viJ Te yepmpa T&t5e Ta
Although the grave marker of Chairestrate is very modest and the relief is rather primitive, the epitaph is well balanced and, to my mind, more interesting and dignified than, for example, Mnesarchides' epitaph (600, also in four hexameters). The opening verse of Chairestrate's epitaph sounds elevated, and makes one wonder whether the priestess was referred to as OEIJVi) and yepatpa in the rites of Kybele, since both adjectives are not commonly applied to ordinary people. Chairestrate's family must have been proud of her priesthood and made efforts to commemorate her as a priestess; her husband also took care to ensure that she was presented in the epigram as a beloved and revered wife who was fortunate enough to have seen her children and grandchildren. The formulaic fourth verse fits well with the rest of the epitaph and is a good example of an appropriate, and not overly indulgent, use of stock expressions. Both the type of stele (Type Ill) and the way the epitaph was inscribed are below the standards of affluent families, but the verses display greater literary competence and better taste than many others.

°Clairmont 1970, pl. 13:26; CAT 1.934.

10

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b) Medicine Doctors traveled throughout the Greek world, and it is not seldom that we hear of a foreign doctor at any certain place (the very foreign origin perhaps contributing to a higher reputation). In Athens, a modest painted stele with a simple verse epitaph commemorated Aristokrates son ofPnytagoras, who was probably ofCyprian origin (500, saec. IV in.?)

iaTpOS 6VT]TOlOIV VolocuV 0 KpciTlOTOS CXlTciVITcuv ev6a8e TlvvTaly6po KEiTat 'AptOTOIKpciTT]S. A healer of illnesses among mortals, here lies Aristokrates, son ofPnytagoras, the best of all.

The name of the father of the deceased, Pnytagoras, might indicate that the family was from Cyprus, because the name was famous there. The editor of the epigram, Dina PeppasDelmusu, suggests that the Aristokrates of the epitaph is the Aristokrates mentioned by Galen (12.878.16). 101 Although the pharmacological works in which Aristokrates of Cyprus is mentioned depend more than other works of Galen on earlier writers, the identification is rather doubtful since the name is very common, and our Aristokrates is about half a millenium older than Galen. Surprisingly, there are not, on the whole, many verse epitaphs for doctors in Athens. If 62 is an epitaph, it is the only archaic example, but it might well be a dedication. 102 Only one verse epitaph in the later classical period speaks of an Athenian doctor, and in this case it is a woman, Phanostrate, the daughter of an Athenian of the deme Melite (569, post ea. 350?): I.

11. Ill.

avoo[TpaTTJ nomen patris] I Me~t:recus. 'AvTtcptAT]. avooTpiaTTJ. llaia Kai iaTpos avooTpaTT] ev66:8e KEiTat I [o]v6evi Avnn

a, ml:mv Se 6avo0oa no6etvfl.

I. Phanostrate, daughter of- - - - of the deme Melite. 11. Antiphile. Phanostrate. Ill. Midwife and doctor, Phanostrate lies here; she caused pain to nobody and died missed by all.

The epitaph is incised on a narrow stele (H. 0.62 m, W. 0.39 m) below a sunken relief which depicts a seated woman, a standing attendant and three children; 103 perhaps their presence points to Phanostrate's occupation as a midwife. Being a midwife was probably one of the very few professional activities that an Athenian woman could be proud of; it might have 101

Peppas-Delmusu 1963. For a photograph of the inscription, see pi. 74:1. Dedicatory inscriptions already in the sixth century sometimes mention the occupation of the donor, e.g. 188 is by a builder(?) or shipwright(?), tekton, while 191 is by a potter. A study of the representation of the donors in archaic and classical Athenian dedicatory inscriptions, both verse and prose, and comparison of them with the representation of the deceased in epitaphs of the same period might be fruitful, but is beyond our scope here. 10 Clairmont 1970, pi. 25:53. 102

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been the case that Phanostrate used to be a nurse-an activity that, as I discuss below, could even harm the family reputation-but later on in her life 104 started practicing midwifery. Phanostrate's epitaph puts emphasis on the latter occupation, and adds that she was also a doctor, iaTp6s. ws Perhaps, Phanostrate could not only assist delivery but offered advice to the expectant mother and in regard to the newborn. Apart from these two, no other epitaph for a doctor survives from fourth century Attica, and the medical profession is seldom attested in epitaphs in Athens until the Roman period. There survives, however, a curious record of a medical failure of Athenian doctors (that is of those who lived in Athens, whether Athenian or foreign). The Anthology preserves a dedicatory epigram, 6.330, ascribed to Aeschines the rhetor, in which he thanks Asclepius for healing the wound on his head, which the arts of men failed to find any treatment for. A fragmentary inscription found in Epidauros matches the epigram preserved in the Anthology, while the surviving part of the prose heading, ---- ]~i]Tov 'A8nvaios fits the

orator's patronymic. 106 The entire text ofthe inscription is restored thus (776, ante 330): I.

II.

[Aioxlvns 'ATpo]~i]Tov 'A8nvaiosl (' AoK.Anmwt c'x]ve8nKev. t8vnTwv ~-tev Texvms c'xnopov~-tevos, e1is Se To 8eiov I lEAlrlOa m]:oav excuv, npo.Amwv EVlTCxlSas 'A8i]vasJI lia8nv e.A8wv, 'AoKAT)lTlE, npos TO oov CxAOOSJI IEAKOS excuv KE<pa.Aiis EVtaVOIOV, EV TplOtllT)OlVJ.

I. Aeschines son of Atrometos the Athenian dedicated this to Asclepius. 11. Disappointed by the skills of men and possessing utter hope in the divine, having left Athens with beautiful boys, 107 I was healed in three months after I arrived at your grove, Asclepius, with a wound that I had had in my head for a year. 108

Athens indeed does not appear in any sources to have been a center for medicine; doctors in general are, of course, mentioned (for example, in Thucydides' description of the plague), but one wonders whether it is more than the result of chance that no famous doctor attested in literary sources was of Athenian origin. 104

In Plato's Theaetetus, Sokrates, whose mother Phainarete was a midwife, tells the eponym of the dialogue that while midwives could not be barren they had to be past the age of childbearing to assist other women in birth (149 b-e). ws The meaning of i) iaTp6s, however, can also be "midwife," that is it may simply be synonymous with 1-1aia. Cf. Hesychius, s.v. 1-1aia: TiaTpos Kat IJT}Tpos 1-liJTTIP· Kat Tpocp6s. Kat mpt Tas TtKTOI1oas iaTp6s, (i'))

Kat OIJ<paAoT61JOS.

106

The identification was made by Herzog, although at the time the fragment was lost and he had to rely on an earlier and erroneous transcription which had ME TO 9eiov, Herzog 1931, pp. 39-41. In 1961 Peek rediscovered the fragment and was able to read traces of eis Se To 9eiov confirming thereby Herzog's conjecture (Peek 1961, p. 1002). The fascinating history of the inscription is summarized in Forbes 1968. 107 Starting with Herzog, all students of this text have commented on the epithet EVTIOI5es, which is never afsplied to a city, except in this epigram. 18 Forbes kindly calls the epigram "passable poetry," but notably does not provide a translation (1968, p. 447). An attempt to translate these verses, which has only one verb with five participles attached to it, supports the initial impression of a clumsy and heavy composition.

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c) Theater and Music Athenian verse epitaphs suggest that artistic activities in the fields of poetry, music and theater were perceived as particular subjects of pride and praise. A characteristic feature of verse epitaphs for men of arts is the commonly employed statement that all Hellas would miss the commemorated man or judge him to be the first in his art. The tragic actor or playwright Makareus of the deme Lakiadai (568, post ea. 350?), as his epitaph claims, could have "become the charioteer of the art of tragedy for the Greeks," had he not died so young:

ei cre T\JxTJlTpo\hrel-ll.j.IE Kal i]AtKias ElTej3ncrev,l EAlTiBt y' Tjcr8a 11eyas Twt Te BoKEil-l, MaKapeO,I i]vi?XOS TEXVTJS TpaytKfiS "EAATJOlV ecrecr8al"l crw
The monument ofMakareus is associated with a large peribolos (A9) on the South side of the Street of Tombs in the Kerameikos. 109 It included two marble lekythoi and a wide naiskos, only small fragments of which survive. Nevertheless, the length and features of the surviving roof cyma and base, ea. 2.5 m, attest a very large memorial which combined architectural and sculptural elements. The architrave bears the names of Makareus of Lakiadai and Archebios (whose identity is unknown), while the base of the naiskos displays the verse epitaph. Euthias, either a comic actor or a playwright, was commemorated in the Kerameikos 110 by a tall naiskos stele, the base 111 of which survives in situ and carries a verse epitaph that says that all Greece admires and misses him (550, ea. 350):

cre 'E:h:has lT cro
~TJAOl

All Hellas admires and misses you at the sacred competitions, Euthias, and not unjustly because it was in technique and not in talent that you were rated second in the sweet-laughing comedy with vine wreaths; for you were first in wisdom.

109

Garland 1982, pp. 139-140; Knigge 1991, pp. I 13-114. There appears to be confusion over the find spots of the monuments of Makareus (568) and Euthias (550). Hansen reports that fragments of 568 were found "in Ceramico ad ecclesiam S. Trinitatis," but he does not mention that it must have been the old church ofHagia Triada, which, before it was taken down in the 1930s and replaced by a new church on the Peiraieus St., was located approximately on the north side of the Street of Tombs across from the Corner Terrace. The grave marker of the comoedus Euthias (550), which is said to exist "in Ceramico prope ecclesiam S. Trinitatis in situ," must be by the new church. Thus, these two memorials were not located close to each other, though this is the impression one gets from the description in CEG. 111 The dimensions as given in IG II2 11387 are H. 1.36 m, W. 0.43 m, Th. 0.37 m. 110

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The text is somewhat puzzling. The word

TO~IS

186

seems to point to the result of a competition

in which Euthias scored second in his TEXVT). If Euthias was a comedy playwright, he must have been rated second in the only competition that he took part in, unless he was consistently rated second. Perhaps second was the best prize he had ever received. The epigram hastens to add that in his nature and wisdom, though, he was first. This juxtaposition of TEXVT) and
'EAAaSos VIJVc.utSo[v-------------- -]I ~wvTa T' e1TaiSevcra[v---------- ]-1 oi Se KaAws iipc.ues [- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -] I

[- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ].1 112

See O'Sullivan 1992, pp. 70-79. Their decision was, however, overriden by the presiding king Panedes, who chose Hesiod, Certamen 205. 114 I have some reservations about Hansen's text, which I find difficult to understand and to render into English, and I am unaware of any existing translation or coherent interpretation of the inscription. 113

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Ill.

187

owv, 8e65c.u[p(e), - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - ] I 'EAA6:5t OT][----- 13------- -- -] apiJOVta,l ov Kat ano [yAwOT]S IJEAlTOS] yAVKlC.UV M[ev avSf)], I ilv ou Aaf3C:.:,[v tioKets TEP\J'lX]6po~s oo~f~s.l evvea nte[p(Sc.uv Movowv a]ye5T]OEV EKclOTT]I o6v, 8e65c.u[pe, Tacpov ?AevKoii] 'lov oTecpavots, I yiiv KaTa K[flpv;ao' aTs a\Jx]f)oavTa [o]e nAe(oTmsl QVTllTaAc.u[v VlKatS 'EAAas an]aoa no8ei.

I. Hymnoedus of Greece ... while you were alive they educated you ... and to whom? heroes did well .... 11. Of yours, Theodoros, ... Greece ... harmony, from whose tongue too a voice sweeter than honey flowed, and you having grasped it exercise the delightful wisdom of the dance. Ill. Each of the nine Pierian Muses has bound your tomb, Theodoros, with wreaths of white violet and having announced with pride throughout the land your many victories over your rivals, all Greece longs for you.

The text is assembled from three fragments. More than half of the original inscription is lost, but the grandeur of both the monument and the verse is apparent. 115 On the basis of the first line of the first epigram, it has been assumed that Theodoros was "ein unbekannter attischer Hymnode," 116 with hymnoedus meaning, presumably, singer of hymns. Hansen reports, however, Lewis' suggestion that Theodoros of our inscription is the famous Athenian actor by this name who is mentioned in various literary sources and in an inscription from Delphi, and whose floruit fell within the first half of the fourth century. 117 I find this hypothesis very attractive since a) words cognate with UIJVC.Ut5- are used in classical Greek without specifying the singing of hymns, but refer to the singing of various types of songs (as is also true for the very word "hymnos," which in tragedy, for example, is used for songs, particularly dirges, but also for prayers 118); b) the modem meaning, which seems to be read into the classical word, is very much affected by the biblical usage of the word. It seems, therefore, that hymnoedus may be a poetic way of describing something else, for example, a rhapsode or an actor, since both entail solo-singing as opposed to choral singing. The word 115

The width of the surface bearing the epitaph was not less than 1.0 m and probably more, according to the dimensions of the fragments. For discussion of all three fragments and further conjectural restorations, see Peek 1953,pp. 312-317. 116 Peek 1940, pp. 425-426. 117 ''D. M. Lewis, privatim, defunctum, quamquam vs. 1 VJ..IVC:..:n86s vocatur, fortasse tragoedum celeberrimum saeculi quarti esse putat; qua de re et de supplementis alibi disseraturus est." The inscription at Delphi records Theodoros' contribution to the rebuilding of the temple of Apollo at Delphi (FD Ill 5.3.67-70, 362 BC):

8e68wpos 'AST]vaios/ VlTOKpiTCXS 8paxl-las/ ei3SeJ..1tiKOVTa. 118

See Harvey 1955, passim and especially pp. 165-168. Notably, Stefanes' dictionary Dionysiakoi Technitai, which seems to list numerous "theatrical" (and it is clear that the epitaph is to somebody who is connected with theater) activities throughout the Roman period lists no 'technites' as hymnoedus.

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\moKptTTJS is not an elevated and poetic word, while paqJ'lJ86s, although it does occur in poetry, was perhaps not considered as highly poetic as UllV'lJ86s (and it is different metrically). If Theodoros was either a rhapsode or an actor, is it possible to know which? The answer might well be "no" since the two might be indistinguishable; in the fourth century, rhapsodes are often closely associated with actors, presumably protagonists. Thus, Plato calls Ion both rhapsode and actor (Ion 536a), and Aristotle implies that the arts of rhapsode and actor were related because both involved reciting and acting out poetry which they did not write themselves (Rhet. 1403b). A fragment of Ephippus recounts an actor's practice of reciting monologues (PCG F 16) outside the theater and dramatic performances. At the same time, rhapsodes in the fourth century would dress up and act out the works that they recited. The distinction between the arts of a rhapsode and actor, therefore, appears to have been blurred. Theodoros was cast as the best tragic actor of his time, and ancient authors especially comment on the power and character of his voice (Aristotle Rhet. 1404b), which seems to be alluded to in the epitaph. There is one further consideration: Pausanias says that the grave memorial of Theodoros was situated along the Sacred Road right before the Kephisos,

Trp\v Be il 8tal3flvat Tov Kn
119

Peek 1931, p. 475.

°CAT 2.235; the dimensions are H. 0.88 m, W. 0.33 m, Th. 0.08 m; for a photograph of the relief, see also

12

Clairmont 1970, pl. 18:35.

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'E.A.Aas 1-lEV lTpcuTeia TEXVflS auAwv CxlTEVEII-lEV 8nl3atcut nocll-lCUVI, Tcl
s·

Greece awarded the Theban Potamon the first prizes in the art of the flute, and this is the grave which received his body. In remembrance, the praise of his father Olympichos was increased because he fathered a son who would become a touchstone for wise men.

Potamon was buried in Attica, 121 and so was later his wife (whose name, Patrokleia, was added to Potamon's epitaph), which must indicate that the family had settled there. The relief depicts a scene of dexiosis between Potamon and his father Olympichos, with the former standing and the latter seated; both men are holding flutes. The Olympichos of this epigram might be the Olympichos mentioned in the Pindaric scholia. 122 The prominence ofPotamon's father in the epigram must be due to his fame as a flutist, the art that was continued by Potamon. All together, there are four verse epitaphs that commemorate men of the theater and music. 123 They are of various quality and grandeur, from the modest homage paid to the Theban Potamon to the grandiloquent verses in the memory of Theodoros. There are, however, a few common features, the most prominent being the claim that all Hellas judged the deceased to be best in his art, or the variation that all Hellas laments the loss of the artist. Another common characteristic appears to be the elusiveness of the descriptions. Indeed, in three out of four cases, while we are certain that the deceased was involved in the world of theater, we cannot say for sure whether he was an actor or a playwright or somebody else, since the references seem to be deliberately vague. The only exception-the epitaph for the Theban flute player-is the most modest and straightforward epigram of the group, and it comes from the simplest monument, too. Perhaps the simplicity is due to the fact that Potamon was a metic, or that the art of the flute was not too highly esteemed in Athens (and these two facts might well be connected). Despite the importance of flutists' contributions to festival performances, they could not reach the same degree of renown in Athens as leading actors or playwrights. In an anecdote reported by Plutarch, Alkibiades refused to play the flute, because he claims it is unsuitable for a free citizen. He mocks the Thebans who, 121

The gravestone was found in the Attic countryside, at Moschato near Neon Phaleron. See Hansen's note on verse 3, where he refers to the following scholiast's remark (scho/1. Pi. Py. 3.137b Drachmann): 'AplOT65ru..t6s q>T)OIV 'OAvj..mixov avAT)TOV BIBaoKOj..Ulvov VlTO TIIvBapov yeveoeal KaTa TO opos, OlTOV TTJV j..IEAETT)V OVVETi6el, Kat \j/Oq>OV iKavov Kat q>Aoyos KaTaq>opav. 123 In fact, there survive three fragments of what appears to be a grave monument with a verse epitaph for an a0186s (615, saec. IV?), bringing thereby the number of poets, musicians and actors commemorated with verse epitaphs in later classical Athens to five. 122

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according to him, should be the ones to play the flute, because, as he states, they do not know how to converse, anyway (Plutarch, Alcib. 2.5-6). Plato bans flute-playing from his ideal city (Resp. 399d), and Aristotle devotes a special discussion to why the flute should not be played by free men (Polit. 1341 ). d) Craftsmanship Some crafts could be proudly referred to in later classical Athenian verse epitaphs, much in the same manner as arts of theater and music, and indeed it is not always easy to draw the line between arts and crafts. The art, or craft, of pottery is described in a rather peculiar way in an epigram carved on a monument that consists of a square base surmounted by a cylindrical stone, which might have supported a marble vase (567, post ea. 350?):

yfjy Kat vBc..:>p Katmip eis TaVTO TEXVlll crvvay6VTc..:>V I BaKxtov avTtTexvc..:>v npwTa q>epovTa q>vcret I 'EAAas EKplVEV anacra Kat C!lv npov8nKev aywvas I flBe lTOAlS, lTclVTas TwvBe eAaj3e CJTE<pavovs. Of those who by their craft compete to mix earth, water and fire into one, all Greece judged Bakkhios first by his nature, and of those contests that this city has arranged, he won all the garlands.

The prose inscription on the cylindrical part of the base contains the name, patronymic and demotic of Bakkhios son of Amphi[- of the deme Kerameis. This Bakkhios is likely to be the brother of Kittos who made a Panathenaic amphora in 375/4, 124 while his sons were the recipients of the citizenship grant in Ephesos before 321, which they were granted in appreciation of the so-called black-glaze technique that they practiced and taught in Ephesos. 125 It is generally accepted that the epigram is an epitaph, although Geffcken casts it

as a dedicatory inscription. 126 The format, prose heading with the names and the demotic, followed by an epigram which has no reference to a dedication, does point to a funerary inscription, but the complete absence of lament and reference to death is somewhat surprising. The proud description of the art of pottery in the first couplet of the epigram is striking because of its resemblance to three of the four Empedoclean primary elements,

nvp Kat vBc..:>p Kat yal'a Kat nepos OlTAETOV \Apes (Empedocles 17.18 DK), or to Plato's 124 Preuner 1920, pp. 69-72. 125 KiTTW1 Kal BaKxiwt natal BaKxio 'AST]vaiOts, enet5t1 enayyeAovTat Tfit n6Aet Toy Kepall[ov]l TOll llEAava epyaaea8at Kal Tfjt Sewt TTJV v5piav Aalli30VOVTES TO TETOYilEV[ov]l EV TWI V61lW1" e5ol;e Tfjt 13ovAf)t Kal Twt 5f)llwt· TlAaTwv eTmv· eTvat a6Tovsl noAiTas napallevovTas ev Tf)t n6Aet Kal ETIITEAOiiVTas & enayyEAAOVTa[t]l Tf)t 13ovhf)t· EAaxov
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discussion of elements which exist by nature and by chance, but not by art, Triip Kat uBcup

Kat yiiv Kat aepa q>VOEI TIClVTa eTvat Kat TVxlJ q>acriv, TEXVTJ Be ovBev TOVTCUV (Laws 889b). The impressive description is set within the usual framework of Hellas awarding the first prize to the skills of the man being honored (or celebrated, if it is not an epitaph). e) Occupations of Foreigners All the activities that I have surveyed so far were within the Homeric demiourgoi, and they all probably increased the fame of the persons who practiced them, while also contributing to the prestige of the city that fostered them. Families of some laborers who were foreign residents in Athens also took pride in the crafts that they practiced, and they must have put considerable effort into commissioning gravestones with reliefs and verse epitaphs-perhaps in imitation of the Athenian tradition, which sometimes were of no lower quality than monuments for the Athenian elite. Sosinos, the copper-smelter from Gortyn, was commemorated with a naiskos stele depicting a seated bearded man who might be holding some attributes of his profession. 127 The relief represents the Cretan craftsman in a manner worthy of the Olympic Gods of the Parthenon or the Temple of Zeus in Olympia. The lintel bears the carefully incised and nicely spaced prose heading

~cucrivos

r opTVVIOS

xaAKOTITTJS. The epigram is engraved below it, on the architrave (96, saec. V ex.): IJViil-la BtKatocrvvns Kat crcuq>pocrvvns apETiiS TE I ~cucrivo EOTllOaV TialOES CxlToq>8tl-lEVO. His children set up this memorial to the justice, prudence, and virtue of their deceased [father], Sosinos.

This epitaph seems to be rather in the tradition of archaic inscriptional verses than those of the later classical period, which, surprisingly, seldom exhibit such simplicity. Another foreigner, the miner Atotas (the prose heading has 'ATC:nas IJETaAAevs) from Paphlagonia was commemorated with quite a peculiar and boastful verse epitaph (572, post ea. 350?): I

11

127

'ATC:nas IJETaAAevs. novTOV an' Ev~eivov naq>Aaywv 1-!Eya8VIJOS 'ATwTas I Tis yaias TTJAOV crlcrl&l-l' avenavcre lTOVCUV. I TEXVlll B' OVTIS ept~e· nvAatl-lEVEOS B' CxlTO pi~ns I Eil-l'' os 'AxtAAiios XElpt BallEtS e8avev.

Clairmont 1970, pl. 8:15; CAT 1.202.

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I. Atotas the miner. 11. Great-hearted Atotas, the Paphlagonian from the Pontus Euxine, freed his body from toils far from his land. Nobody could compete with him in his craft. For I am from the stock of Pylaimenes, who died overcome by the hand of Achilles.

Pylaimenes, the king of the great-hearted Paphlagonians, appears as a minor character in the Iliad fighting on the side of the Trojans. In Homeric scholarship, he is most famous for being killed in 5.576-579 and then appearing alive in 13.643-659, an inconsistency that already ancient commentators were fond of pointing out. In addition to these two conflicting passages, Pylaimenes is listed in the catalogue of the Trojans and their allies in Book 2:

nacpAay6vc..:>v 5' f)yeho nvAatllEVEOS Aamov Ki'jp E~ 'EveTWV, oBev TJiliOVc..:>V yevos aypoTepawv, o'( pa KvTc..:>pov exov Kat Li]OallOV CxllcpEVEilOVTO Cxllcpl TE napBevtov lTOTallOV KAVTCx BwllaT' EVatOV Kpw11vav T' AiytaA6v TE Kat U\vTJAovs 'EpvBivovs. (Il. 851-855) Commenting on this part of the catalogue, G. S. Kirk 128 points out that Apollodoros and Eratosthenes must not have had verses 853-855 in their text of the Iliad because their criticism of Homer (reported by Strabo, 7 .298 129) for not knowing Asiatic geography and in particular the coastline of Paphlagonia would have been hardly possible if their text were not missing this passage with its description of Paphlagonian coastal cities. This fact alone suggests, according to Kirk, that the verses were later interpolated into the catalogue. Furthermore, the listing of as many as five towns is without parallel for a single contingent on the Trojan side. Kirk concludes that "these verses [se. 853-855] do look like a learned interpolation of the post-Homeric era of Black-Sea colonization," and refers to Allen's suggestion that the verses could have come from a catalogue of the Trojans in the Cypria. 130 The epitaph for Atotas strengthens the assumption that there was a separate tradition that dealt at some length with the Paphlagonians and their interaction with the heroes of the Trojan War; various bits of this tradition may have made their way independently into the Iliad, which could have, for example, resulted in the discrepancies in the depiction of the fate ofPylaimenes. In addition to the confusion over his death in the Iliad (with him dead in Book 5 and alive in 13), the killing ofPylaimenes is attributed in different traditions to different heroes. In the Iliad, he is killed by Menelaos: 128

Kirk 1985, pp. 258-259. It appears therefore that Strabo knew vv. 853-855 as Homeric, whether from the Iliad or another work which he believed to be composed by Homer. 13 Kirk 1985, p. 259. 129

°

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"Ev8a nuAat~evea EAETT)V c'XTaAaVTOV "Apr}"( apxov nacpAayoVc.JV ~eya8v~c.JV CxOlTIOTCcc.JV. TOV ~EV ap' 'ATpetons oouptKAEITOS MeveAaos EOTaoT' EYXEY vv~e KaTCx KAniOa TUXnoas. (11. 5.576-579) Another version survives in Comelius Nepos (Datames 2.2), who mentions that, according to Homer, Pylaimenes was killed by Patrokles, Thuys dynastes Paphlagoniae, antiquo genere, ortus a Pylaemene il/o, quem Homerus Troico bello a Patroc/o interfectum ait. Nepos could

have simply mis-remembered the reference in Homer, but there is a possibility that he had meant not the Iliad but some work in the Epic Cycle, which was sometimes attributed to Homer in antiquity. Yet Dictys Cretensis (3.5) offers still another version, the same as in Atotas' epitaph, in which Pylaimenes is killed by Achilles. Dictys' testimony would not have had much credit as evidence for an earlier tradition, since many various myths featuring the life and deeds of Achilles in the area around the Black Sea were still current in the Roman imperial period. Atotas' epitaph, however, demonstrates that Dictys had access to a source with the same version of the myth as was known in the fourth century. As for the relation of Atotas' epitaph to other late classical verse epitaphs, the change of speaker in the epitaph from the third person to the first is curiously reminiscent of the inscription for Mannes the Phrygian (87); even the composition of these epitaphs follows the same structure, although Atotas' epitaph is a product of a far more competent composer. The first halves of both epigrams are spoken in the third person and report the origin of the deceased and praise him, while the rest of the verses are spoken by the deceased who each claims his unsurpassable superiority in his respective skill, Kal e~aUTO c'x~eivc.J VAOTO~OV,

~a

b.(' ovK eToov I

boasts Mannes; TEXVlll 0' 0\iTIS Epl~E, states Atotas.

Moving down the social scale, we discover that in late classical Athens verse epitaphs could proudly announce the occupation of a deceased slave (or freed slave or descendant of a slave) or perhaps a metic. A shearer named Manes was commemorated with a hexameter (626, saec. IV/111?): 131

XPllOTOS c'xvf}p Mavn[s]l VaKoTiATllSI ev86:oe KE[iTat]. The good man Manes, the shearer, lies here.

131

See also Meritt 1960, p. 71 and pl. 21:131, andAgora XVII, no. 903.

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The social status of Manes is suggested by his name which was a common slave name in Attica, his profession, and also the epithet XPTJOTOS which appears to be used to praise slaves in Attic epitaphs. 132 The word, vaKOTlATTJS, is rare and occurs only in several comic writers and later grammarians, so it must have been a common word in everyday life but was never employed in literary language outside comedy. There also survives an epitaph to a wool-weaver (?), 133 dated to the middle of the fourth century, which is in prose but certainly modeled on verse, IG 112 13178: [ev]86:8e KeiTad .. 7 .. eipoTIIA6Kos evevflKolvTa ETTJ

j3ej3twKwls cq.tEI-llTTws. 134 Although the composer of this epitaph failed to comply with metrical requirements, the apparent effort is noteworthy, since it shows what was perceived by hardly literate people as appropriate in a verse epitaph: the opening with ev86:8e KEiTat, the proud announcement of the longevity of the deceased, and the praise that he had lived his life blamelessly. Verse epitaphs could commemorate female of lower social status, too. Nikarete is made to say in her epitaph (537, ante ea. 350?):

epy(a]TlS oaa yuvi")
Although certainty is impossible, I wonder whether the word epy6:TtS means that she worked for hire, and if so, she would probably have been a slave or a metic. The epitaph is reminiscent of the epitaph for Manes the shearer (626), also a single hexameter ending with a similar formula. 135 In addition to the inscription for Nikarete, there are two very interesting verse epitaphs from Athens for nurses, who were both non-Athenians. 136 Literary sources demonstrate that an Athenian woman could also work as a nurse, but this occupation was hardly something that her family would have been proud of. Euxitheos, the speaker of 132

Raffeiner 1977, pp. 14 and 26-28; Scholl1996, pp. 176-182. Compare also IG 112 12034 (saec. IV), MavTJs XPTJOTOS I Kai81Katos. 133 The word eipolTAOKOS is a hapax, and the meaning is assumed on the analogy with such words as OTE<paVOlTAOKO) or OXOIV101TAOKO). 134 According to Kirchner, the name of the deceased was erased. One can hardly imagine damnatio memoriae in this case; nor does the common explanation of the reuse of the stone seem to work, since there is too much personal information here, such as the occupation and old age. The only explanation that occurs to me is that the engraver carved the name hopelessly wrong, and it was erased and painted over correctly. 135 Manes' epitaph may well be spoken in the first person, too. The stone preserves only KE-, which has been restored to KE[iTal. 136 For a recent discussion of representation of nurses on classical Attic gravestones see Kosmopoulou 2001, esp. pp. 285-292 and 306-311.

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Demosthenes 57, has to defend himself against allegations that his mother was not an Athenian woman because she used to sell ribbons in the Agora and serve as a nurse, TiT8TJ. Euxitheos explains that she had to do it when "the city did not fare well, and everybody was in trouble,"

Ti TI6Ats i)TVXEI KalmivTes KaK(;)s eTipaTTOV (35).

It is not surprising,

therefore, that no surviving epitaph commemorates an Athenian woman as a nurse, but foreigners who served as nurses could be commemorated with verse epitaphs, which were probably commissioned by the families for which they worked. Malikha from Kythera, the nurse of the children of Diogeitos was commemorated with a nice small relief stele with a verse epitaph (534, ante ea. 3'50?):

<e>v8aS<e> 137 yfj KaTexet TiT8TJv TialiSc.Jv 6toyeiTo EK TleAoTiovvi)olo Ti)vSe StKatoTaTT,V. Here, the earth covers that most trustworthy 138 Peloponnesian nurse of the children of Diogeitos.

The name and origin of the nurse, MaAixa Kv8T)pia, are in the prose part inscribed below the epigram, whereas the verse mentions only her master, Diogeitos. Judging from the prominence of Diogeitos' name, we may assume that he was responsible for setting up the grave stele and commissioning both the relief and verse epitaph for the nurse of his children. 139 The stele is of very modest size (p.H. 0.25 m, W. 0.28 m), but features somewhat simplified elements of a regular sized naiskos stele, with a pediment, inscribed architrave, antae and high relief depicting the deceased. Another nurse, Melitta, daughter of the isoteles Apollodoros, was commemorated with a stele with a clumsy but touching epitaph (571, post ea. 350?): I.

11. Ill.

IMeAtTTal 'ATioAAoSwpov I iooTeAoO 8vyaTTJp. I MeAtTTa. 1 TiT8T).

137

The stone has IN6A.D.I but it should be noted that both iotas in this word are followed by a larger space than iotas elsewhere in the inscription. Perhaps, the stonecutter intended to carve horizontal strokes later, but forgot to or was confused by the letters directly underneath: I.D.WN.D.IO KTA. Furthermore, it seems that the horizontal strokes of both epsilons may in fact be discernible on the photograph whether in paint or lightly chiseled, Clairmont 1970, pi. 10:18. 138 I am inclined to this translation of the word 8tKatOTcXTTJ, since the connotation of"mostjust" seems less appropriate; compare also IG 112 12034 (above n.117) in which the commemorated slave is called XPTJOTOS Kal 8iKmos. For discussion of the word 8iKmos in Greek epitaphs commemorating slaves and freed slaves, see Raffeiner 1977, pp. 13-14. 139 The island ofKythera was in Athenian possession until386, and perhaps it was before this date that Malikha was brought to Athens. According to Plutarch, Alcibiades' nurse was a Laconian; perhaps, it was common in some upscale Athenian families to employ services of a nurse from the Peloponnesos, cf. Plut. Lye. 16.3 on Laconian nurses.

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ev8aSe TTJV XPTJOTTJV !i[T8]TJV KaTa yaia KaAtllTTIEl 'ITITIOOTpCcTTJS, Kai VVV TI[o].8ei oe. Kai ~woav a' e
I. Melitta, daughter of the isoteles Apollodoros. 11. Melitta. Ill. Nurse. IV. Here the earth covers the good nurse ofHippostrate [who] even now misses you. I loved you when you lived, nanny, and still now I honor you, even when you are under the earth and I will revere you as long as I live. I am sure that to you first, if there is any award to good people under the earth in the realm ofPersephone and Pluto, prizes, nanny, are given. 140

It has been attractively suggested that young Hippostrate herself composed the epitaph for

her beloved nurse. 141 The girl was not skilled in verse composition but had some idea of what type of expressions is appropriate in an epitaph. As in the epitaph for Malilrna, Melitta's name is not in verse, although it is not a difficult name to fit into hexameters, while the name of the child whom she served is. Nurses, even free or freed, could remain with the family that they once served, or come back to them when elderly. The speaker of [Demosthenes] 47 tells the court how his old nurse came back to live with his family: [She] had been my nurse, a devoted soul and a faithful, who had been set free by my father. After she had been given her freedom she lived with her husband, but after his death, when she herself was an old woman and there was nobody to care for her, she came back to me. I could not suffer my old nurse, or the slave who attended me as a boy, to live in want {55-56, trans. A. T. Murray).

The person who supported his nurse in old age would surely then provide for her burial once she died. While one was obliged to provide for his elderly parents, he was under no obligation to care for his nurse, but doing so was certainly a sign of a particularly responsible head of a family, which is how the plaintiff in [Dem.] 47 wants to present himself to the court. The activities (and the epitaphs in which they are mentioned) that I have discussed in the preceding sections can be roughly divided into three categories. The activities that the Athenians would proudly include in verse epitaphs were from the list of those that were

140

I generally translate TiT9TJ as "nurse," but in Hippostrate's address I render it as "nanny." In the commentary on this epitaph in CEG Hansen follows Kaibel (no. 48) and says that "epigramma manifeste, ut mihi quidem videtur, a puella Hippostrata conscriptum est ('Nutricem Hippostrate deflet vulgaribus epigrammatum sententiis verbisque abtuens. '[Kaibel])." 141

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practiced by the Homeric demiourgoi, namely those in the fields of religion, medicine, and art. All the epitaphs in this category meet the requirements of meter, diction, and content. Most of them are associated with monuments of some grandeur and are both neatly carved and prominently displayed. Even though the low number of monuments does not allow one much certainty when highlighting particular trends, it might be more than a mere coincidence that the only stelai of Clairmont's Type Ill (sunken relief stelai, which I believe were not employed by affluent people) are for women, Phanostrate (569) and Chairestrate (566). The stele for the third woman in this category, Myrrhine (93), is very simple and has no decoration at all. It would be wrong, however, to jump to the conclusion that Athenian women were honored with simpler and cheaper monuments. Both the surviving grave stelai and verse epitaphs demonstrate that a female member of a family was often commemorated with very fine (at least certainly very expensive) monuments-such as the monuments for Hegeso or Demetria and Pamphile in the Kerameikos or that for Mnesarte from the Attic countryside, to mention just a few. An explanation for the fact that the three simplest monuments are for women perhaps lies in the attitude towards the activities that these women performed, as well as in the relatively low financial status of their families. The men in these families were probably either farmers or practiced some activity which was not deemed praiseworthy enough to be mentioned in a verse epitaph for an Athenian (that is they were not soothsayers, artists or doctors). The fact that the deceased was a priestess or a female doctor would have been a matter of particular pride for these families and they would have wanted to commemorate it in the epitaph incised on a monument which was perhaps at the upper limit of what they could afford. The reliefs on the monuments for Phanostrate and Chairestrate are not of high artistic quality, but both must have been made to order, as is clear from the fact that they allude to the activity of the deceased. Chairestrate is represented with a cymbal, an important attribute in the rites of Kybele, and Phanostrate is accompanied by three young children, which seems fitting to her profession as a midwife. The epitaphs combine appropriate formulas with some specific information, and show that those who commissioned these verses might not have been rich but did have some literary understanding or at least were sophisticated enough to secure competent work. The second category consists of monuments with verse epitaphs for foreign residents of Athens and perhaps also for slaves or freed slaves. Perhaps in the quest to imitate the

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laudatory epitaphs of the Athenians, they would refer to those activities of the deceased which an Athenian would not have found appropriate to refer to in a sepulchral inscription, such as those of a copper-smelter (96), a carpenter (87), a miner (572), or a shearer (626). The quality of both the monuments and epitaphs in this category varies widely, from an excellent grave stele with a dignified epitaph (96) to a plaque with an attempt at a verse (87). Curiously, we do not find in this category monuments of Clairmont's Type Ill, but either of Type I, which tended to be the type employed by affluent families, or simple stelai with no decoration, which were employed by families of various strata of society. In the third category, which is related to the previous one, I would include the two

monuments with verse epitaphs for nurses which were probably commissioned by the families that they served. The monuments are modest: the one for Malilrna (534) is a scaled down variant of a naiskos stele, and the one for Melitta (534) is a sunken relief stele. Malikha's epitaph is a correct couplet, while Melitta's was composed by the girl whom Melitta nursed, and who did not have much knowledge of formal verse requirements (but the fact that she had some is impressive). The families who commissioned monuments with epitaphs for Malikha and Melitta were probably of above average means; inscribing a verse epitaph for a nurse was perhaps not only an act of mourning and expression of gratitude for her services, but also a display of the family's benignity and care for all the members of the oikos. Untimely Death and Death in Old Age Sometimes late classical verse epitaphs explicitly say that the deceased was a young child (485, 564), but more often they refer to the parents of the deceased implying thereby the grievous lot of untimely death (e.g., 486, 492, 518, 527, 585, 593). A reference to the young age of the deceased is often expressed through such words as

fil311

or i)AtK(a with the

meaning "prime of youth" or ''young age" (97, 480,482,527,528,573,575, 577, 591). Some epitaphs tell the exact age of the commemorated person: Philetairos was twenty-two (480), Pamphile was nineteen (538); the deceased of 553 was thirty; the deceased of 584 was twenty, Hegilla in 590 was twenty-four; Kleoptoleme (591) was twelve; and the deceased in 557 was just nine years old. Inclusion of the precise age in verse epitaphs appears only in the fourth century; in the archaic period it is always just the deceased's youth that is mentioned. Another new feature of later classical verse epitaphs is the occasional reference to the old age of the deceased. Once verse epitaphs reappear in Athens at the end of the fifth century

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they often proudly announce that the deceased died in old age, having lived a "good" life (and here various things could be meant, from not having suffered any disease to not having harmed anybody) and having seen multiple generations of descendants. Here, too, the precise age is sometimes given, and we hear of people seventy (554), ninety (531 and

592), one hundred (477) and even one hundred five years old (SEG 43.88); about others, we are simply told that they were old. Overall, the old age of the deceased is mentioned in at least sixteen verse epitaphs. 142 References to descendants-a sign of both a fortunate and long life-are generally formulaic: an epitaph might say that the deceased died having seen or having left behind his or her children's children: na{owv naiOas KaTaAe{nw[v] (524), TEKVWV 01 emoovol[a ETl]

TiaiOas (541), naiOas TiatOWVI ElTIOOUOaV (563), EVOalj.lCoJV TiatoaS TiatOCoJV ElTIOOUOa (566), naiOas yap na{owv eTOov (574), na'iOas [yap]lna{owv emowv (601), Tpeis na'iOas Kal eK TO\hwv hepovs na'iOas npomo[ovoa] (613), T[pei]s na{o[wv] yeveas emocbv (SEG 43.88). Those who died in old age and saw their descendants are not infrequently designated fortunate and blessed. The deceased is EVOalj.lCoJV (477, 524, 566,

613, and SEG 43.88), or 6A(3tos eva{wv (601), or 6A(3tos evyi)pws avooos (579), or lrAElOTa ... evcppav8els (3t6Twl (606). To die old and avooos is fortunate, and so is to have lived without harming anybody, [ovo]eva Avni)oaoa (541) or ov8eva Avnwv (554). While the young age of the deceased is lamented in epitaphs in any Greek state, references to old age are characteristic only of Athenian verse epitaphs in the later classical period. I am aware of only one apparent exception, the epitaph for Tropo from Samos

(683, ea. 400-375): 143 ei TO OlKatOOVVTJV CxOKElV npos anavTa KpclTl[OTOV], I TovTo ool ti XPTJOTfJ [olv cp{Aov 'e[~]eAmes
142 143

477, 524, 531, 541, 554, 563, 566, 574, 579, 592, 595, 597, 601, 606, 613, and SEG 43.88. CAT2.359c.

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The verse is inscribed on a stele of local marble below a sunken relief, which represents a seated woman shaking hands with a standing man. Clairmont points out that the relief displays dependence on Attic grave stelai, and suggests that a Samian artist worked under the influence of Attic stelai. The epigram, in turn, shows heavy influence of the Attic tradition. The opening of a funerary epigram with a conditional sentence of praise was popular in later classical Athens (see above). The last verse was probably an attempt to imitate Athenian verse epitaphs, too; 144 actually, Tropo might not even have been old since a Greek woman could easily be a grandmother by the age of thirty five, but the formula itself, which in Athens often accompanies epitaphs for those who died old, creates the impression that Tropo was old too when she died. Grievous Fate

In some cases, the particularly sorrowful circumstances of death are described. Death out of grief for the loss of a child is the subject of 561 and 526, the epitaph for Xenokleia, whose eight year old son perished at sea. She could not survive the ordeal and died from longing (TI68c.ut) for her son: Ke'i'Tat aTioofvtKOS Tiatoos Tiev8ooa

TeAevTf)v. Death in childbirth is lamented in the epitaph for Kleagora, wife of Phileas of the deme Melite (604, saec. IV?). Kleagora finished her journey in the light of life when she brought to light her child, eis
6p<pavov

e~ ~eyapots

TiaiOa AmoOoa

lTOOEl

(576, post 350?). 544 (ea. 350?) relates

the fate of a father with his son and daughter, who all perished in the Aegean. The epitaph for the Phoinician Antipatros son of Aphrodisios from Askalon tells about his violent deathhe was killed by a lion, TjA8e yap eixSpoAec.uv Ta~a 8eAc.uv oTiopaom (596, ea. 340-317). 4. Chief Mourner

Verse epitaphs of the archaic period often tell the name of the person who commissioned the monument and his or her relationship to the deceased. The most commonly mentioned relations are parents and children. Athenian verse epitaphs of the later classical period seldom state explicitly that a certain person buried and set up 144

Clairmont's suggestion that Tropo was the wife of an Athenian cleruch cannot be excluded; in this case, the epitaph dates to after 365 (Ciairmont suggests a date in the second quarter of the fourth century), CAT2.359c.

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a monument for the deceased; instead, epitaphs often refer to one or several survivors of the deceased to whom grief and longing for the commemorated person are left. The deceased is often no8etv6s /li or ~nAc..n6s /li, and ~fjAos or n68os is left to those for whom he or she was dear, parents or friends. The deceased leaves the light of day, and to all dear ones, he or she leaves grief and pain, IJEya nfilla
nev8os oiKTp6v (518), etc. The verbs Aeim:u and Avnecu and their cognates are among the most frequently employed words, and Aeincu can govern both the grieving survivors and the grief that the deceased left, for example, npoAmooa n6mv Kat 1-lllTEpa ...

Kat KAeos a8avaTOV (486), or fioe lTOOIV T' eAmev Kat aoeA<pos 1-lllTPl TE nev8os (513), etc. Pain and grief at the loss of the deceased is sometimes assigned to an impersonal "all,"

miat, but in many instances various members of the family are specified in the epitaph. Thus, epitaphs will allude not only to the parents, but also to the siblings of the deceased, who are said to grieve the death of their brother or sister; for example, young Pythokles from Ephesos died Tfjl TE KaatyvtiTlll nev8ea lTAElOTa Amwv (485. 6); Euthykritos of the deme Eiteaia was 1-lllTPt
TEKVOV (513. 1-2); Archestrate, daughter of Lysandros, speaks in the first person, nev8os 1-lllTPt Amovoa Kamyv{]Tcut Te n6oe1 Te/ natoi T' EIJWI 8v{]toKcu (543.7-8). Quite often, even family members outside the immediate oikos, both dead and living are mentioned together in a verse epitaph-not necessarily as the grieving survivors but as information about the family of the deceased, perhaps to emphasize its unity. This tendency of referring to various relations of the deceased (including grandchildren and grandparents) seems peculiar to later classical Athenian verse epitaphs. Verse epitaphs in other areas of Greece speak of parents commemorating children, or husbands commemorating wives, and the other way around, but very seldom do we encounter a reference to a sister or a brother, and when we do, the references are to those who were responsible for setting up the monument, as in the case of the Cyprian Aristokrates who was buried by his brothers (712, post ea. 325), or Athanadotos of Kilikia who set up a grave marker for his father, mother, and sister (741, ea. 375-350). In both cases, no other living relative is mentioned. In

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contrast, in Athenian epitaphs we are told of surviving parents, siblings, spouses, children and grandchildren (often in some combination, such as the parents and the spouse, or the parents and the siblings) grieving for the loss of the deceased. Of them, perhaps only one was technically responsible for arranging for the grave marker, but epitaphs do not usually single this person out, and it is noteworthy that no verse epitaph associated with an affluent or elite family says who commissioned the burial. When Athenian epitaphs do state explicitly the identity of the person who carried out the burial, they seem to do it for some special reason and present burying the dead with some special pride. Thus, the epitaph for Beltiste, daughter of Noumenios of Herakleia, praises more her son for carrying out the burial than the deceased herself (533 ante ea. 350?):

I.J.TJTEpa e8T)Ka I 6cric.us 6criav, TOtS lnamv i5ecr8at, I av8' wv evAoyiasl Kat enaivc.uv cl~IOS Eii.J.t. I buried piously my pious mother for everybody to see, and an account of this I deserve 145 praise and good reputation.

The tombstone of Beltiste, which was found in the Peiraieus, is a medium size marble stele that might have had a painted depiction of the deceased. This type of stele was perhaps at the upper end of what Beltiste's son could afford and he did his best to meet what he must have perceived as the standards of proper burial and commemoration in Athens, where he was a foreigner, and was anxious to announce it in verse. Some epitaphs specify that the burial arrangements were carried out by a woman, probably because this was not a standard situation. Hedytion, who was called Cicada, was buried through the piety of her daughter, as her epitaph, spoken by the deceased herself, says, evcrel3iat SuyaTpos

Be I hci
(592, verse 5). Euthylla the

hetaira set up a stele over the grave of her friend Biote (97). The epitaph for Herakleia laments that she left the house of her mother, wtxlou

anocp8ti.J.[E]~TJ

I.J.TJTpos nlpoAmoucra

I.J.E[A]a8pov (575. v.4), and some other funerary verses mention only the mother as the living kin (e.g., 557, 587), although it might not necessarily mean that the mother was responsible

for the memorial. The fact that a woman could be responsible for setting up a gravestone is noteworthy because theoretically (and legally), as in the archaic period, in the later classical period it should have been the responsibility of the man who was the kyrios or the heir of the deceased. Yet, there "existed a gap between the behavior that the laws of Athens prescribed 145

Hansen reports that Ebert privately suggested to him that Beltiste's son's name might have been Axios.

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for women and the way they might act in reallife," 146 and in practice women in later classical Athens perhaps enjoyed greater freedom than Athenian women of the archaic period. The law said that a woman could not carry out a transaction exceeding in value a medimnos of barley. 147 Many examples, however, are known of women dealing with larger amounts, 148 including the mother of Philon who gave three minae to a man, Antiphanes (who was no relation of hers), to bury her since she did not trust her own son (Lysias 31.21). Schaps demonstrates that the restriction means that the transaction carried out by a woman would be void "if it were to come into the court," 149 and then the kyrios of the woman could legally claim back the property that she had alienated. Commissioning a grave monument was a transaction most likely not to be challenged in court. Perhaps a woman who would commission a tombstone was not too closely related to her kyrios and enjoyed greater freedom of action, particularly in the sphere of burying her close kin; it could be especially so if the deceased kin was also female, as in some epitaphs above (575, 592), and was perhaps under the same kyrios as the woman who acted as the chief mourner.

5. Addresses and Reflections Archaic Attic verse epitaphs most commonly address the passer-by, although a few epitaphs address the deceased (19, 50, 69). Many epitaphs do not, however, include any address and are spoken as an impersonal statement. Later classical verse epitaphs, on the contrary, seldom address the passer-by (487, 492, 544, 597), and in none of these four cases do they ask the passer-by to lament the deceased in the manner of archaic verse. Two epitaphs speak of the lamentable fate of the deceased: Kallimachos of 492 died far from his fatherland and without seeing his friends and parents; and the family commemorated with 544 perished in the Aigean, but 492 just wishes farewell to the passers-by, xaipeTe 8' oi nlapt6vTes (which is also found in 487), while 544 calls on the passer-by to reflect on

the inescapable lot of death, ?V TO x

ewv e'l~-tpTat, I opa TEAOS TillETEpov viiv. The address to the passer-by in the epitaph of Hieron reminds one of the archaic epitaphs, but the content of the address is very different. The epitaph asks for no lament, but proudly tells the passer-by of the family ofHieron (597, ea. 350-320?): 146

Harris 1992, p. 319. Isaeus 10.10. 148 Schaps 1979, pp. 52-53. 149 Schaps 1979, p. 54. 147

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ailTEiav aTefxwv cXTpan6v, ~eve, cppa~eo afillal lTEVTE Kamyvi}Tc.:>V, oi yevei]v eAmov· I [wv 'l]epwv EllOAev TIVIlaTos (3aa(Aeta 'Atao I yi}pat vnoAAmapwt 8u11ov anonpoAmwv. Traveler, as you tread this high path, pay attention to the memorial of five brothers, who all left descendants, of whom Hieron was the last to come to the palace of Hades, having left his life in comfortable old age.

A later classical Athenian verse epitaph could address the grave (530), an abstract virtue (102), Hades (591), or sometimes, especially when the epitaph was spoken by the deceased, the survivors who mourn the loss (for example, 520, 591). In the last verse of 530, the speaker of the epitaph changes from the husband who addresses the grave to the deceased who addresses her husband: Kat av xaipe,
Notwithstanding the speaker and the addressee of epitaphs, fourth century

Athenian verse epitaphs often seek to affect the reader through reflections on mortal nature and the inevitability of death. "To have a share in the lot which is common to all" is a stock expression that reminds the reader of his lot, too: TfjS KOlVfjS llOtpas n&al(lV EX]El

TO llEPOS (541), Tfis Kotvfjs llOtpas n&mv exw TO llEpos (554), Tilv lTOVTc.:>V KOlVDV 110ipav [exet]l
90,95,97,479,484,491,495,502,511,512,515,518,519,522,526,543,546,548,550,551,555,559, 561,564,565,568,571,573,575,578,587,593,599,600,603,604,611,623,624. 151 89,477,480,482,492,501,520,524,528,532,544,552,553,556,557,560,574,585,586,590,592,596, 605, 613, 622.

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i) mJ:cnv KOIVi] TOlS c':nroylyVOI-IEVOIS (543), or the KOIVOS TOI-IlOS which refers to the

Hades (593), who is also described as Ko1vov epoecp6vns m:Xcnv . . . 86:Aal-toV (593), K~IVOTacpi]s

86:Aai-IOS (563), or

Bvo~vVETOS Bml-l~V

(557). Some epitaphs appeal to the

emotions of the reader, TtS Spi}vc.vv c'xBatis at the fate ofXenokleia, asks her epitaph (526). 6. Monument Later classical verse epitaphs in Athens relatively seldom point to the grave or the gravestone. The word ofil-la occurs only in four verse epitaphs, 152 of which three feature some variation on the archaic pointer ofil-la T6Be, (481, 494, 504), and one is an epitaph with an address to the passer-by that calls attention to the ofil-la (597). It seems that in the archaic period it was felt necessary or simply appropriate to identify a monument as a grave marker; in the later classical period, epitaphs point to the burial, for example, KEV8El Tacpos ev86:Be

yafas (475), or ev86:Be ...

xe~v

EKclAV\jJE Tclq>Cf) (527). Quite often verse epitaphs

contrast the grave, which holds the body, and the memory (or virtue, or soul) of the deceased which could not be concealed by the grave; for example, the epitaph for Eurymachos, which closely resembles a literary piece Pep/. Aristot. 61, highlights the separation of the soul and puissant thoughts (\j)Vxn and tmepcp1aA01 BlaVolm) which the ai8i}p holds, from the body,

owl-la, which the grave holds (535, ante ea. 350?). 7. Peculiarities of Poetic Diction and Meter Throughout my analysis I have been referring to expressions and themes peculiar to later classical Athenian verse epitaphs, and here I would like to pay a little more attention to some of these frequently employed tropes. The Bridal Chamber of Persephone The metaphor of the bridal chamber of Persephone, Tiepoecp6vns (usually spelled as epoecp6vns) 86:Aa1-1os (489, 510, 513, 575, 592, 593) to describe death is relatively common in later classical Athenian verse epitaphs. There are variations, such as Bw1-1a

epoecp6vns (511), or descriptive references such as napc'x epoecp6ve1 (603) or napa epoecp6ve1 TIAovTc.vv( TE (571), all amounting to the same euphemistic reference to 152

I omit 598, in which the word is virtually completely restored.

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death. It occurs in epitaphs for both men and women of different ages and marital status. Thus, although the epigram does not say it, we know that Phanagora (510) was married to Philon and had children; the epitaph for Nikoptoleme (603) says that she left eternal remembrance to her husband; and Kekrope, whose epitaph (592) speaks from the first person ev8avaTCuS I Se crTeixcu

~TJAc.:>Ti]

epcreq>6vns

8aAa~-tov,

verses 3-4, was

ninety years old and buried by her daughter; whereas Dionysios (593) was about thirty years old and likely unmarried. In no other part of Greece, nor earlier in Attica, is Persephone ever mentioned in epitaphs, although there are verse epitaphs that employ references to the House of Hades, such as, for example,

Sw~-taT'

el3as 'A(Sa (163 from Thera), or 'A(Sa So1-1a 1-lEAav

(SEG 41.540 from Ambracia). The house of Persephone can be found in archaic and

classical poetry (for example, Theog. 974, SCJ~-ta

epcreq>6vas, Soph. El. 111,

SCJ~-t'

S~l-laTa

nepcreq>OVTJS, Pind. lsth. 8.55,

'AtSov Kat nepcreq>OVTJS); while in Sophocles'

Antigone the chorus alludes to Antigone's tomb with the metaphor of a bridal chamber:

TOV TiayKOlTTJV o8' 6pCJ 8aAal-lOV/ Ti)vS' 'AvTlYOVTJV c'xvvTovcrav, 804-805. The first surviving instance of the expression "the bridal chamber of Persephone" occurs in Euripides' Suppliants .153 As in the case of Antigone, the context of the play makes this figurative

expression attain literal meaning. Before jumping from the cliff into the funeral pyre of her husband, Capaneus, Evadne sings:

epcreq>6vas ii~cu 8aAcXI-lOVS, cre TOV 8av6VT1 OVTIOT1 El-lCXl TipoSovcra \jJUX
The commonly accepted date for the play is ea. 422, see Collard 1975, I, pp. 8-14.

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plot, suggests that they were perhaps coined in Attic tragedy, and then borrowed for epitaphs, where their meaning was simplified and reduced to a poetic way of referring to death. Gods and Personifications Archaic epitaphs seldom mention gods; Ares and Hades are the only exceptions. Athenian verse epitaphs in the later classical period contain numerous references to various gods. In addition to Ares (488, 489), Hades (490, 591, SEG 43.88), and Persephone, we encounter Plouto (571), Zeus (488), and Hymenaios (538, 587), as well as the heroes Achilles (572) and Erechtheus (519). Virtues are often personified. For example, the epitaph for Kleidemos son ofKleidemidos (102) says that he honored Prudence and Courage; Kallias Skambonides, who was the archon eponymos in 412/11, is said to have had Justice as his assessor (484, saec. IV in.?): Tjp~as

'A8nvaiotm 8tKmloovvnv Se ml:peSpovl KaAAia, eKTTJOCU Saij.lovla oej.lVOTcXTTJVI...(lines 1-2)

You ruled the Athenians, Kallias, and obtained Justice as your assessor, a most august spirit...

Such notions as old age or youth could also be personified (489); and in general later classical epitaphs often seem to prefer to avoid straightforward and simple statements in favor of what must have been perceived as more poetic expressions. In Attic archaic verse epitaphs, expressions are often simple and straightforward. The deceased is

8av~v

(8avouoa) or aTio
o~
or
verse epitaphs often employ expressions that are markedly poetic, from personifications of virtues to the usage of words that are confined to poetry (such as, for example, forms of the verb

~A~oKcu);

the deceased is not simply 8av~v or 8avouoa, but "leaves the light

of the day," "comes to the anchor" (601), etc. These expressions appear sometimes to have been employed by composers who had little knowledge of technical requirements, such as the appropriate sequence of syllables in a metrical unit, the combination of metrical units, the place of the caesura; and it appears therefore that they were employed by them as some kind of markers or tokens of verse.

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The absolute majority of later classical Athenian verse epitaphs is in elegiac couplets; there are instances of the employment of hexameter154 and very rarely of iambic (622, 530, verses 3-4); otherwise, there are numerous examples of sepulchral epigrams that consist of the random juxtaposition of hexameters and pentameters, or even of a single pentameter (617). Clairmont concludes his discussion of the meter of classical verse epitaphs by saying "that the metres in the epigrams of the classical period reveal more variety while the archaic age clings rigidly to the elegiac couplet, single hexameter lines or, at the most, two successive elegiac couplets." 155 It has been also suggested that various combinations of hexametrical and pentametrical lines might have been introduced by Simonides as experiments, which were later imitated. 156 A survey of later classical epitaphs, however, clearly shows that the departures from regular couplets occur in epitaphs that also tend to display other infelicities. They never occur in the more polished epitaphs associated with affiuent elite families. The seeming variety of metrical arrangements, therefore, seems to be simply due to the literary incompetence of the composer and chief mourner. The composition of verse epitaphs in the archaic period was practiced by those who had literary competence to do it themselves or to choose an appropriate composer, whereas in the later classical period the practice of inscribing verse on gravestones was available and appealed to people of various classes, tastes and degrees of literary competency. It was no longer a privilege of the cultured elite, as it was in the sixth century, or of the Athenian state, as it was in the fifth century, but a practice in which virtually anybody could have a share.

154

Longer hexametric epitaphs tend to praise rather than lament the deceased (519, 566, 600, SEG 43.88, etc); perhaps the epic meter of hexameters was felt to be more appropriate for praise than lament. In the funerary legislation that Plato imagines in his Laws (958e ), the size of the headstone is specified as being no bigger than is enough to accommodate "a eulogy of the dead man's life consisting of not more than four heroic lines." Heroic lines are hexameters, and Plato's prescription conforms to the suggestion that in the fourth century the choice ofhexameters in a verse epitaph was correlative to a feeling that hexametric eulogy (as opposed to elegiac lamentation) was an appropriate, dignified and perhaps conservative way to commemorate the deceased. In some cases, however, the choice of hexameters would have had no special connotation, as, for example, in 599, whch is the product of an incompetent composer. 155 Clairmont 1970, p. 51. 156 Ceccarelli 1996, pp. 55-58.

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CONCLUSION

The aim of my study has been to show that verse epitaphs, when studied in their integrity and in context, are important sources for Greek social history, as they permit acquaintance with a wider range of people than found in literary sources. Inscribing verse epitaphs was seen as a status claim, the content of which varied with time and involved different circles of people. In the sixth century, the practice was confined to the elite, whether Athenians or foreign residents in Athens. The elite cared for and could afford splendid works of sculpture, which were set up at prominent and publicly accessible places to commemorate deceased members of their families. Moreover, they were well versed in the culture of archaic symposia, where elegiac poetry was frequently performed, and they could (if not compose verses themselves) ensure that a verse epitaph would meet the necessary requirements of content, diction, and meter. A verse epitaph was for the elite so intrinsic a feature in the commemoration of the deceased that restrictions on other features of elite burial display, such as on the grandeur of the gravestones, also affected the practice of inscribing verse epitaphs, which came to a halt ea. 500 BC. I have tried to demonstrate that the interruption in the employment of verse epitaphs, whether it was dictated by legislation or not, was accompanied by some resentment towards this type of elitist display, which must have been associated with the elite families of the period of tyranny in Athens. As a result, the practice was not immediately transferred to the public commemoration of the war dead in the fifth century; for there is in fact no evidence for verse epitaphs at the burial sites of the war dead until the middle part of the fifth century. Unlike the Corinthians or the Spartans, those Athenians who fought and fell during the Persian Wars were not honored with monuments bearing verse epitaphs. Instead, during a period of at least fifty years (from the reforms of Kleisthenes to at least the mid sixties or even later) there developed a special genre of inscriptional verse which I call public commemorative or celebratory epigrams. These inscriptions were composed to commemorate the Athenians' most significant achievements, and they were inscribed on monuments that were set up in the most frequented places for all to see and admire. The people of Athens took special care to ensure that these public verses were of high quality and might have been commissioning them to famous poets of the day; the verses

209

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210

may even have been results of poetic competitions.

Indeed, they included, in addition to

praise, elements of narrative and occasional mythological digressions and in this respect appear to have been not unlike the genre of historical elegy seen in poems like Simonides' Plataia elegy. At some point in the mid fifth century the practice of inscribing verse epitaphs resumed in Athens, perhaps first in the commemoration of highly distinguished foreigners who died in Athens and were granted the honor of public burial. The burial sites of Athenian allies could also be marked with a monument bearing a verse epitaph. In perhaps the mid 460s, public burials of the Athenian war dead started to be marked with stone monuments featuring casualty lists and a heading that recorded the campaigns of the year. It may have been at this time that the Athenian state undertook fuller responsibility for the arrangements of funerals and commemoration.

It is impossible to say when funerary

monuments for the war dead started to be inscribed with verse epitaphs, in addition to the heading and casualty lists; the practice is well attested from the early 440s to the early 420s (or, more precisely, from 447 or 446 to 429). The state was perhaps commissioning at this time as well the composition of verse epitaphs to some poets, and at least one monument (for the casualties ofPotidaia) appears to bear three epigrams composed by different poets. No verse epitaphs for individual Athenians are attested for the major part of the fifth century. Even the burial sites of the most distinguished Athenians are unlikely to have been marked with verse epitaphs, which must have been perceived as a distinction confined to the burials of the war dead. After the Sicilian expedition, however, the attitude towards the distinction between private and public commemoration changed significantly, and, I suggest, the failure in Sicily led the Athenians to reconsider the nature of their politeia and the concept of the subordination of private, especially family, interests to alleged public interests. Athenians started to feel that it was appropriate to commemorate deceased family members with monuments inscribed with verse epitaphs. Whereas in the archaic period verse epitaphs were associated with funerary monuments of grandeur, which were set up by elite families, in the later classical period, verse epitaphs could be inscribed on both conspicuous and modest grave markers, and modest markers could be employed by families of various social strata.

In my

discussion of later classical practice, I have attempted to outline some features of verse

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211

epitaphs that seem typical of the preferences of those people who could afford what they wanted. These features demonstrate that affluent families could ensure that verse epitaphs met formal requirements of meter and diction, but that they were not especially interested in poetic originality or the individualized characterization of the deceased.

Verse

epitaphs were probably perceived not as a genre of poetry, in which a fresh word or image might be appreciated, but rather as a normative way of praising and lamenting the deceased, as well as of giving some biographical information about him or her. As in the archaic period, there seems to have persisted in the later classical period the notion that anything besides the name and origin of the deceased, whether some information about his or her life or an expression of grief on behalf of the survivors, could be conveyed only in a metrical inscription. The exceptions (that is those cases when the inscription clearly was not meant to be metrical but still relates more than the name of the deceased) are very rare. Consequently, those people who wanted a funerary monument to tell something memorable about the deceased opted for verse epitaphs even if they had little knowledge of the formal requirements of verse. There was a sort of popularizing of the art of verse epitaphs in the later classical period, as observed in the different kinds of people commemorated in verse, from an archon to an actor, from a trierarch to a slave, from an upper class wife to a nurse. The upper stratum of society, much in the tradition of the archaic period, seems to have preferred abstract praise for the deceased, portraying him or her as the ideal embodiment of one or more virtues, whereas within the middle class there can sometimes be detected a desire to praise some particular skill or character trait of the deceased, or to tell about the particularly grievous circumstances surrounding his or her death.

Thus, epitaphs for members of less affluent families contain greater

individualization of the deceased, thereby allowing a glimpse at some aspects of family life among members of the Athenian middle class in the later classical period. My study has, I hope, given an indication of the potential wealth of verse inscriptions in general and of epitaphs in particular as a source for social history. Athenian material provides the best opportunity for a case study, but the investigation could be extended to other areas of Greece and beyond the fourth century.

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Woysch-Meautis, D. 1982. La representation des animaux et des etre fabuleux sur les monuments .funeraires grecs, Lausanne. Zinserling, V. 1965. "Das attische Grabluxusgesetz des frtihen 5. Jhdts.," Wissentschaftliche Zeitschrift der Friedrich-Schiller-Universitiit Jena 14, pp. 29-34.

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TABLE 1. ARCHAIC ATTIC EPITAPHS

total: CEG

99 !GP

43 Verse

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 48 49

1194bis 1196 1198 1197 1199 1251 1200 1201 1202 1203 1203bis 1261 1241 1265 1240 1204

X

1274ter 1242 1266 1207 1208 1206 1269 1210 1205 1255 1243 1211 1214 1213 1275 1216 1215 1268 1248 1218 1219 1365 1257 1229 1220 1271 1225 1357 1223 1227 1226 1228 1224

X

50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58 59 60 61 63 64

Meter*

X

el el

X

h

X

el el

X

26 Prose

3 Prose with poetic color

9 Likely verse

18 Unclear

575-550 560-550 X

550 550

X

550-540 550-540 550-530 550-530 550-530 550-530 550-525 540 540-530 540-530 540-530 540-530 540-530 540 540-520 530 530 530 530 530 530 530 530-520 530-520 530-520 525 525 520 525-500 525-500 520-510 520-500 510 510 510 510 510-500 510-500 510-500 510-500 510-500 510-500 510-500 510-500 510-500 510-500

X X X X X X X X X

el el? ia el el X

X X

? el el X

X X X

el h h X X

X X X X X

el h el el el? X X

X X X X X X X X

el el ia el el el h el X X

X

el el h

X

el

X X

Date**

X

X X

223

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TABLE

65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 78 470 471 inedita

1249 1380 1258 1277 1234 1231 1263 1260 1236 1278 1235 1279 1273bis 1273ter 1274bis 1194 1195 1209 1212 1217 1218bis 1221 1222 1229bis 1230 1230bis 1232 1233 1234bis 1238 1242bis 1244 1246 1247 1252 1253 1256 1259 1262 1267 1272 1274 1276 1349 1362 1366 1367 1368 1372

224

X X X X X X X

el el el el ia h X X

X X X X

el el el ? X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

510-500 500 500 500 500 500 500 500-480 500-480 500-480 500-480 480 550-540 550-540 540-520 650-600 575-550 530 530-520 510-500 510 510-500 510-500 510 510-500 510-500 500 525-480

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

550-540 550-525 500-490 540-530 7mc. 500 500 510 500 540 530-520 500 575 510-500 530 490 520-490 500 500-480 525-500

I exclude the following texts which are included in CEG: 41 and 67 which I doubt to be sepulchral; 76 and 77 which I do not consider Attic; and the following texts from /G 1245, 1264, and 1273, since there is insufficient evidence to regard the pieces as funerary.

e: e

* el = elegiac couplet(s); h = ** all dates are approximate

hexameter(s); ia = iambic; el? = probably elegiac; ? = either elegiac or hexametric

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