The sphinx and the Siren may have originally found their place on tombs as ἀποτ�όπαια, stone images of daemons to drive away the real daemons. But they retain their place on the tombs of a more refined age to express sympathy with the mourners, and to add a gentle touch of sorrow to the delightful domestic scenes which usually occupy the front of the monuments. Sophocles calls the Sirens the daughters of Phorcys, who sing the ways of Hades; it cannot therefore seem inappropriate that the tomb of Sophocles himself was adorned with the figure of one of these spirits.
FIG. 48. HEAD OF STELE.
More obscure devices are sometimes mingled with the acanthus over the tomb. In a few cases ([Fig. 48]) we find a pair of goats butting one another over a drinking-cup[145]. The cup seems to show that there must be here some Dionysiac reference or meaning, though what it is we cannot say. In one case a female figure ([Fig. 49]), the import of which is hard to determine[146], stands over a tomb, with the acanthus-leaves for a background.
FIG. 49. HEAD OF STELE.
It is not rare in most periods of Greek art to place on a tomb, instead of a portrait, the image of an animal, or some other device, the meaning of which has to be discovered by the spectator. Sometimes it contains an allusion, usually to his name. We engrave ([Fig. 50]) a stele on which is represented a lion in relief[147], and as the name of the person whom the tomb commemorates is Leon, the allusion is clear. We may compare an epigram of Simonides[148], written for a tomb, which runs thus:—
Most brave of beasts am I; of men most brave
He whom I guard, reclining on his grave.
Leon his name, yet save he had possessed
The lion nature, here I should not rest.
FIG. 50. STELE OF LEON.