Fig. 115.
departed the fitting honour and adoration. There seems to be little attempt at representing real portraits on most Greek tombstones; they are ideal types, often of extraordinary beauty, now and then, perhaps, with some slight resemblance to the dead, but by no means realistic portrait statues. But whether it is a scene from real life that is represented by art, or the bitter last farewell, or whether it is any hint of the life in a future state, which last is by no means uncommon, these reliefs are always distinguished by their moderation in the expression of pain, and a peaceful feeling of calm and worthy expression of sorrow, which can but have an elevating effect even on those who have grown up in the views of Christianity. This is the case even where some simple stonemason has roughly expressed in stone the thought of parting and reunion; how much more, then, in those magnificent
Fig. 116.
creations of the finest period of Attic art to which the examples represented above belong.
There were many other shapes adopted for these tombstones. Very often the stelai were decorated with painting instead of reliefs; in some the surface was extended and the background hollowed out, which gave them an altar-like character, and they were often framed in correspondingly by pillars and gables. Occasionally the stones bore the shape of a vase, especially of the oil-flask, so important in its association with death, and this, too, might be decorated with sculpture. Sometimes they set low columns of round or square shape on the grave, on which they often represented a siren, who had a special significance as singer of mourning songs; sometimes whole statues—ideal pictures or portraits of the deceased—were placed there, though the custom was more common in the Hellenic period than in the best ages of art.
Childish affection and belief led them to decorate these graves still further with wreaths, fillets, growing plants, etc. These were often renewed, and especially on the anniversaries of birth and death the relations came with libations and sacrifices, pouring out sweet odours or wine, or by other means showed that the memory of the departed was not gone from them. There are many pictures extant, especially on vases, depicting the care of the graves. Fig. [115], from a vase painting, shows two women approaching a stele, carrying plates with flasks and fillets. Similarly, in Fig. [116], the weeping woman at the end of the stele is drawn with especial grace.
Thus the Greeks held the memory of their dead worthily in honour, although their time of mourning did not last nearly as long as is customary with us, but