And who does not feel that the grandeur of the occasion exalts above all suspicion of prosiness the frigid simplicity of the following?
τόνδε ποθ' Ἕλληνες ῥώμῃ χερός, ἔργῳ Ἄρηος,
εὐτόλμῳ ψυχῆς λήματι πειθόμενοι,
Πέρσας ἐξελάσαντες, ἐλεύθερον Ἑλλάδι κόσμον
ἱδρύσαντο Διὸς βωμὸν Ἐλευθερίου.[167]
But it is not merely within the sphere of world-famous history that the dedicatory epigrams are interesting. Multitudes of them introduce us to the minutest facts of private life in Greece. We see the statues of gods hung round with flowers and scrolls, the shrines filled with waxen tablets, wayside chapels erected to Priapus or to Pan, the gods of the shore honored with dripping clothes of mariners, the Paphian home of Aphrodite rich with jewels and with mirrors and with silks suspended by devout adorers of both sexes. A fashionable church in modern Italy—the Annunziata at Florence, for example, or St. Anthony at Padua—is not more crowded with pictures of people saved from accidents, with silver hearts and waxen limbs, with ribbons and artificial flowers, with rosaries and precious stones, and with innumerable objects that only tell their tale of bygone vows to the votary who hung them there, than were the temples of our Lady of Love in Cneidos or in Corinth. In the epigrams before us we read how hunters hung their nets to Pan, and fishermen their gear to Poseidon; gardeners their figs and pomegranates to Priapus; blacksmiths their hammers and tongs to Hephæstus. Stags are dedicated to Artemis and Phœbus, and corn-sheaves to Demeter, who also receives the plough, the sickle, and the oxen of farmers. A poor man offers the produce of his field to Pan; the first-fruits of the vine are set aside for Bacchus and his crew of satyrs; Pallas obtains the shuttle of a widow who resolves to quit her life of care and turn to Aphrodite; the eunuch Alexis offers his cymbals, drums, flutes, knife, and golden curls to Cybele. Phœbus is presented with a golden cicada, Zeus with an old ash spear that has seen service, Ares with a shield and cuirass. A poet dedicates roses to the maids of Helicon and laurel-wreaths to Apollo. Scribes offer their pens and ink and pumice-stone to Hermes; cooks hang up their pots and pans and spits to the Mercury of the kitchen. Withered crowns and revel-cups are laid upon the shrine of Lais; Anchises suspends his white hair to Aphrodite, Endymion his bed and coverlet to Artemis, Daphnis his club to Pan. Agathias inscribes his Daphniaca to the Paphian queen. Prexidike has an embroidered dress to dedicate. Alkibie offers her hair to Here, Lais her mirror to Aphrodite, Krobylus his boy's curls to Apollo, Charixeinos his long tresses to the nymphs. Meleager yields the lamp of his love-hours to Venus; Lucillius vows his hair after shipwreck to the sea-gods; Evanthe gives her thyrsus and stag's hide to Bacchus. Women erect altars to Eleithuia and Asclepius after childbirth. Sophocles dedicates a thanksgiving shrine for poetic victories. Simonides and Bacchylides record their triumphs upon votive tablets. Gallus, saved from a lion, consecrates his hair and vestments to the queen of Dindymus. Prostitutes abandon their ornaments to Kupris on their marriage. The effeminate Statullion bequeaths his false curls and flutes and silken wardrobe to Priapus. Sailors offer a huge cuttlefish to the sea-deities. An Isthmian victor suspends his bit, bridle, spurs, and whip to Poseidon. A boy emerging into manhood leaves his petasos and strigil and chlamys to Hermes, the god of games. Phryne dedicates winged Eros as the first-fruits of her earnings. Hadrian celebrates the trophies erected by Trajan to Zeus. Theocritus writes inscriptions for Uranian Aphrodite in the house of his friend Amphicles, for the Bacchic tripod of Damomenes, and for the marble muse of Xenocles. Erinna dedicates the picture of Agatharkis. Melinna, Sabæthis, and Mikythus are distinguished by poems placed beneath their portraits. There is even a poem on the picture of a hernia dedicated apparently in some Asclepian shrine; and a traveller erects the brazen image of a frog in thanksgiving for a draught of wayside water. Cleonymus consecrates the statues of the nymphs:
αἳ τάδε βένθη
ἀμβρόσιαι ῥοδέοις στείβετε ποσσὶν ἀεί.
Ambrosial nymphs, who always tread these watery deeps with roseate feet.
It will be seen by this rapid enumeration that a good many of the dedicatory epigrams are really epideictic or rhetorical; that is to say, they are written on imaginary subjects. But the large majority undoubtedly record such votive offerings as were common enough in Greece with or without epigrams to grace them.
What I have just said about the distinction between real and literary epigrams composed for dedications applies still more to the epitaphs. These divide themselves into two well-marked classes: 1. Actual sepulchral inscriptions or poems written immediately upon the death of persons contemporary with the author; and, 2. Literary exercises in the composition of verses appropriate to the tombs of celebrated historical or mythical characters. To the first class belong the beautiful epitaphs of Meleager upon Clearista (i. 307), upon Heliodora (i. 365), upon Charixeinos, a boy twelve years old (i. 363), upon Antipater of Sidon (i. 355), and the three which he designed for his own grave (i. 352). Callimachus has left some perfect models in this species of composition. The epitaph on Heracleitus, a poet of Halicarnassus, which has been exquisitely translated by the author of Ionica, has a grace of movement and a tenderness of pathos that are unsurpassed:
εἶπέ τις, Ἡράκλειτε, τεὸν μόρον, ἐς δέ με δάκρυ
ἤγαγεν, ἐμνήσθην δ' ὁσσάκις ἀμφότεροι
ἥλιον ἐν λέσχῃ κατεδύσαμεν· ἀλλὰ σὺ μέν που,
ξεῖν' Ἁλικαρνησεῦ, τετράπαλαι σποδιή·
αἱ δὲ τεαὶ ζώουσιν ἀηδόνες, ᾗσιν ὁ πάντων
ἁρπακτὴς Ἀΐδης οὐκ ἐπὶ χεῖρα βαλεῖ.[168]
His epitaph on the sea-wrecked Sopolis (i. 325), though less touching, opens with a splendid note of sorrow:
ὤφελε μηδ' ἐγένοντο θοαὶ νέες· οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἡμεῖς
παῖδα Διοκλείδου Σώπολιν ἐστένομεν·
νῦν δ' ὁ μὲν εἰν ἁλί που φέρεται νέκυς· ἀντὶ δ' ἐκείνου
οὔνομα καὶ κενεὸν σῆμα παρερχόμεθα.[169]