CHAPTER XII
INSCRIPTIONS

After thus entering into the question of the meaning of the Attic sepulchral reliefs, and discussing their relation to the Greek beliefs as to the future world, it is necessary to give some account of the inscriptions which accompany the reliefs.

By far the most usual inscription on an Attic tomb consists of a proper name, to which is added commonly a patronymic. In addition to this simple record, archaic tombs sometimes bear the name of the artist who executed them. Towards the end of the fifth century the custom comes in of adding also the place to which the deceased belonged. The reliefs of the best age are not signed by an artist, and in fact anything beyond names and demes is, in the fifth and fourth centuries, quite unusual. The strict canons of developed Greek art seem to have rejected any long or metrical epitaph as out of place or in bad taste. Later, in the third and second centuries, longer inscriptions, often written in elegiac metre, are far commoner.

Our plates and engravings furnish specimens of the ordinary kinds of inscriptions. The two archaic reliefs of Pl. IX bear the artists’ names, in one case Ἔ�γον Ἀ�ιστοκλέοσ[238], in the other Ἀλχσήνο� �ποίησεν � �άχσιος: to the latter signature is added a delightfully naïve comment, ἀλλ' �σίδεσθε, Just look! implying that in the artist’s own opinion his work is well worth looking at. The inscription on the tomb of Dermys and Citylus ([Fig. 55]) records the name of the dedicator, Ἀμφάλκης ἔστασ’ �πὶ Κιτ�λοι ἠὃ �πὶ Δέ�μυι.

After the archaic age, the inscriptions are simpler, as Ἀμφοττό ([Pl. XVII]), Ε�έμπολος ([Pl. XVIII]), Δημοκλείδης Δημητ�ίο ([Fig. 59]), Τυννίας Τ�ννωνος T�ικο��σιος ([Pl. X]), Κ�ατιστὼ Ὀλυνθία Ἄγ�ωνος θνγάτη� Γλαυκίου δὲ γυνή, and so forth.

When the tomb belongs to one person these inscriptions are simple, and there can be no ambiguity in their interpretation, nor is there any doubt to which of the persons represented in the relief the identifying inscription belongs. But when the inscription contains several names the matter is not so simple. Dr. Furtwängler lays down the rule that the names are the names of the dead; in that case, as the dead and the living appear together in the reliefs, there would be no necessary correspondence between relief and inscription. I find however, in the great majority of cases, that not only do the inscriptions agree with the reliefs, but that the names are placed over the figures in order to identify them. The analogy of Greek vases here helps us. On vases it is an ordinary custom to place over each of the persons of the design his or her name, merely for purposes of identification. It appears that the same custom prevails in sepulchral reliefs. Confirmation of this view will be found in abundance by any one who examines the Corpus of Attic Reliefs. And further confirmation is afforded by the epigrams of the Anthology. One records[239] not only the name of the person to whom the tomb belongs, and who appears in its relief, but also the names of the dog, the horse, and the slave who form his cortége. Another reads[240], ‘This is Timocleia, this Philo, this Aristo, and this Timaetho; all daughters of Aristodicus.’ In fact, to this general rule of the explicatory character of the inscriptions only a few doubtful exceptions make their appearance. One of these exceptions appears on our Pl. XXVII. The group consists of two ladies, whereas the names above are Μικίων ΑἰαντοδώÏ�ου ἈναγυÏ�άσιος, Ἀμεινίχη Μικίωνος ΘÏ�ιασίου, ΔημοστÏ�άτη ΑἴσχÏ�ωνος Ἁλαὲως—the names of one man and two women. But it appears that in this case a name was originally placed only over the seated lady: this was erased, and the three names which we find were inserted at a later period. We may safely therefore assert that at all events in the great majority of cases the names placed on the tombs identify the persons of the reliefs, and do not by any means necessarily give us a clue to the occupants of the grave.

It is pointed out by Dr. Weisshäupl, in an excellent paper on Greek epitaphs[241], which has been of great service to me in this chapter, that the term χαῖ�ε, Farewell, which is common in late Greek epitaphs, does not occur on the graves of Athenian citizens. The age of the deceased, in modern epitaphs one of the most indispensable features, is seldom stated on Greek tombs: a curious exception being found in the case of Dexileos.

Among the tombs which we engrave, only this of Dexileos ([Pl. XII]) bears a long or a detailed inscription. The record here tells us that the hero was born in the archonship of Teisander, and died in that of Eubulides, and was one of the five horsemen at Corinth. The last phrase is curious, nor is its meaning certain. Usually it is explained as meaning that Dexileos took part in some noted feat of arms with four other horsemen in the Corinthian war. But recently[242], Dr. Brückner has tried to prove that the πέντε ἱππεῖς were the adjutants of the Hipparchi, and persons of definite rank in the army.

After the age of Demetrius of Phalerum, when the sepulchral monuments of Athens become poorer and smaller, the inscriptions as a rule remain very brief. But on exceptional tombs of this age, and a larger number of the Roman period, we find long inscriptions in prose or in verse, giving the history of the occupant or moralizing on life and death. Already in another work[243] I have given a brief account of the general character of Athenian epitaphs. I therefore in this place prefer to take my examples not from Athens, but from other parts of Greece. There is, at all events in later ages, no great difference in character between the sepulchral inscriptions of Athens and those of other cities, if we except those districts of Asia Minor which were partly under the influence of Asiatic religions and ways of thinking. Where the epitaph has some pretension to literary style I give a rendering in heroic verse, in other cases a prose translation may suffice.

We may begin with the inscription of a public tomb. At all times these tombs bore epigrams of a nobler type than those of private persons. Commonly they were set up in some public place and were the scene of heroic honours. The epigram which they bore would be composed by some noted poet. Every one knows of the noble lines written by Simonides for the Spartans who fell at Thermopylae:—