In most respects we clearly have here an ordinary scene from the life of the women’s apartments. The mother has risen and breakfasted, and the nurse brings her the children. And yet there are in the scene certain details which probably have a special meaning. The position and attitude of the two elder children remind us oddly of the little worshippers who appear in the corner of the Spartan relief. And the wreath, though no doubt flowers and ribbons were continually used by both men and women in Greece for the adornment
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of their persons, is yet one of the most usual and characteristic decorations of the tomb. It appears that here, as in almost all the designs with which we are to deal, there is some allusion to death, as well as to mere domestic happiness. This, however, is denied by some very competent archaeologists; and we must postpone further discussion of the subject until we have passed under review a certain number of characteristic examples of the class.
A very simple and noble specimen of fifth-century work represents a mother and son, Chaerestrata and Lysander[192] ([Pl. XX]). The mother is handing to the son by the wings a little bird. The son, a dignified youth, wrapped in his himation ‘like an image of modesty’ as Aristophanes puts it, stretches out one hand to receive the gift. On the Lycian Harpy Tomb, a youth presents in similar fashion to a seated male figure a dove held by the wings; and this bird, as the smallest and least expensive of animal offerings, was a very usual gift to the dead. Lysanias is almost beyond doubt the person in whose honour the tomb was set up, and his mother’s gift can scarcely have failed to convey to the mind of a Greek spectator some sepulchral significance.
A group of a very different kind appears in our next example[193] ([Pl. XXI]). A young man named Dion is giving his hand to a very beautiful seated woman, Mica, whose drapery is quite a model of arrangement. Her attention is divided between her companion and the mirror which she holds up in her left hand. The pair are probably husband and wife, and one may conjecture, though it is by no means certain, that it is the wife who died, and to whom her young husband has set up this beautiful monument[194]. A similar relief, though of a later period, found at Naples[195], bears a simple and graceful epitaph:—
This pledge of love for Aste Daphnis made,
Who loved her living, and desires her dead.
The name Mica, Little-one, is fanciful, and quite unlike the rather stately names usual at Athens. We might be tempted to see in the seated lady a courtesan; but this view falls to the ground when we compare other stelae. On one tomb a Mica is in company of a Philtate, Dearest; in another she gives her hand to an Ariste, Best[196]. In another beautiful relief of the fifth century another Mica takes leave of her husband Amphidemus, who is represented as a warrior setting out for war[197]. It would seem then that there were certain families at Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries which chose to give fanciful names to their daughters. Generally speaking, the names both of men and women were assigned for sober family reasons, and not in mere caprice.