FIG. 32. ASSUR-BANI-PAL AND QUEEN.
It is a consequence of the assumption of a reclining position by the man in the reliefs, that the woman must be separated from him. In the somewhat unrestrained vase-paintings of Euphronius and his contemporaries we frequently find women reclining at table with men and sharing their cups. But these, as the disorder of the scenes clearly shows, were hetaerae, slaves of abandoned character. No wife, and no self-respecting concubine would even be present at a Greek banquet. When a husband dined at home, his wife might be present, but would probably not take a share in the repast. She would sit opposite her husband, to cheer him with her talk. But for a Greek wife to sit like the Queen of Assur-bani-pal drinking wine, and pledging her lord in a cup, would be an impossibility. Alike on the Tegean and the Athenian relief she is wholly occupied with her dress, like a true daughter of Greece. The Spartan wife had more in common with her husband.
FIG. 33. STELE FROM TEGEA.
Another marked divergence between the Spartan and the Athenian relief lies, so to speak, in its tense. In the former, the past is set aside, and we find allusion only to the life beyond the grave. The snake, the pomegranate, the offerings, all have reference to the status of the dead as hero and as an associate of the nether gods. But the Athenian relief might at first sight be supposed to be an excerpt out of daily domestic life. There is no symbolism, no exaltation. Husband, wife, and slave may have met thus a hundred times in their ordinary life on earth. In this we find the influence of the ordinary spirit of grave-reliefs at Athens, which, as we shall see in a future chapter, dwells on and draws from the past daily life rather than the more ghostly life of the future.
Yet a clear indication which unites the two classes of representation is furnished by the votaries who appear in both alike. They are in the Spartan relief very small in stature; a naive way of indicating how far below the hero they rank. The votary of the Athenian relief is scarcely smaller than his ancestral hero. Yet his presence is an undoubted proof of the connexion of the monument with actual worship. On many of the later representations of banquets, this is further emphasized by the introduction of the well-known symbolism of ancestor-worship. In some a snake is depicted in the foreground. In others a horse’s head appears in the background. In others the superhuman character of the hero is indicated by the lofty crown, which belongs to the god of the lower world, Hades or Sarapis, and which appears on the head of the reclining hero[85].
The Spartan monuments were probably in many cases set up as tombstones over the actual graves of ancestors. But the Athenian banqueting reliefs were not usually on tombstones, more often on memorial tablets preserved in chapels devoted to the cultus of the dead. This their shape clearly indicates. All tombstones are almost of necessity higher than they are broad, usually tall and narrow. But the banqueting reliefs are oblong in the opposite direction, broader than they are high. This difference indicates a different use and destination. In fact they come rather into line with the reliefs which belong to the worship of civic or local heroes, or those set up by grateful votaries in the shrines of Asklepius and other healing deities, than with the immediate memorials of the dead.
