It would be easy to multiply epitaphs of this kind, but they would lead us into regions of thought and belief outside the limits of this book, which is concerned not with the opinions of Greek philosophers and mystics but of every-day people.
A priestess of Zeus, at Argos[276], seems to have found a tomb in the sacred precinct of the god; whence her epitaph runs: ‘The divine ruler, to whom it was my honour to minister when alive, took my blameless life and gave me this favour among the dead. Hence I have not a tomb underground, but dwell in the place of the blest, in the golden home of the gods.’ Here there seems to be a play upon the place of burial, as involving a parallel exaltation of the spirit. An elegant epitaph by Dionysius of Magnesia, still extant, from Paros[277], begins by an inquiry as to the name of the dead person, then goes on to narrate the history of her life, and ends with an appeal to Persephone, and a kindly greeting to survivors:—
O Maid of many names, Queen ruling wide,
Her by the hand to pious places guide.
On all who, passing, greet the soul below
With kindly word, may God some good bestow.
This epigram brings us to the last class of extant epitaphs, that in which the passer-by is addressed in friendly or in threatening language. This kind is not exclusively late: we have already seen that the Spartan epitaph at Thermopylae addresses the wayfarer, and bids him carry a message to Sparta. But it is very common on late tombs. In an epitaph from Crete[278], of the first century, the wayfarer is requested to say as he passes, ‘May earth lie light on thee.’ In another, of the same age, from Pholegandros[279], we read, ‘Having duteously greeted me, the dead Diogenes, go, stranger, to thine own affairs, and may they prosper at thy will.’ The gentle custom of giving a passing greeting at the tomb, in the word χαῖpε, seems to have been usual among the Greeks. Thus easily one kept on good terms with the dead, and won their friendly wishes. On the other hand, any sort of violence done to a grave or its inmates brought down on the sacrilegious violator all kinds of plagues and miseries, which are sometimes, in late Roman times, set forth in the epitaph itself, in terrorem. Sometimes a sum of money is mentioned which the violator must pay as a fine to redeem his guilt; but sometimes he is threatened with direr penalties, gout and fever and many other diseases. The tomb of Annia Regilla, wife of Herodes Atticus, at Athens, bears an inscription in which the prayer is set forth that for any one who disturbs the grave the earth may refuse to bear fruit and the sea refuse to bear his ships, and that he and his race may perish miserably. Blessings are heaped on all who may honour the burial-place. Our minds naturally pass to the well-known epitaph on Shakespeare’s tomb at Stratford, which may perhaps have been framed on an ancient model.
At a decidedly higher literary level than the epitaphs collected from Greek gravestones are many of those put together in the seventh book of the Palatine Anthology. All real lovers of Greek letters are acquainted with the delightful epigrams written by poets of the Hellenistic age to adorn the tomb: gems of Callimachus, of Meleager, of Leonidas of Tarentum, and others. English poets, from Dr. Johnson to Mr. Andrew Lang, have devoted hours of leisure to rendering in English verse these flowers of ancient poetry, which are best characterized in the well-known words as slight things but roses, βαιὰ μὲν ἀλλὰ ῥόδα. If, however, we accept the comparison of the Epigrams of the Anthology to roses, we must remember that our roses are highly cultivated and civilized flowers. No person with any literary discernment would compare them to the brier-rose, the anemone, or the primrose.
In previous chapters of this work I have occasionally ventured on versions of Greek epitaphs from the Anthology. Yet, in view of the purpose and character of this book, we can make but careful and scant use of that collection. Roses may be a suitable adornment for a tomb, but when one is anxious carefully to study the form of the monument and to examine its sculptural decoration and its epitaph, roses may be in the way. As it comes down to us, the Anthology is put together on literary rather than historic principles. Dates and schools are mixed up with the most perplexing indifference. Epigrams of Simonides and Sappho are placed next to the verses of Callimachus and Archias, of Rufinus and Paulus Silentiarius, authors who between them cover a space of more than a millennium. And, moreover, in no department of Greek letters is the rhetorical and epideictic spirit, that pest of Greece, more rampant than in the epigram. The great majority of sepulchral epigrams were written, not to duly honour the dead, but to display the literary taste and ingenuity of the poet. So that while we admire greatly the finished and exquisite beauty of these poems, we can seldom suppose that they embody much feeling or contain much thought. One class of epitaphs in the Anthology, the anonymous, has more actuality, being commonly transcribed from actual tombstones: but from the literary point of view these are the poorest.
I propose, however, to give in this place renderings of a few of these literary epitaphs, selecting such as belong to an earlier period, and such as have some interest in their matter, and not merely in their style. In some cases I give a version of my own; in other cases I use the elegant translations which Dr. James Williams, of Lincoln College, has kindly placed at my disposal.
We find not rarely on Greek tombs of all periods colloquies between the dead and wayfarers. The following is a literary version by Leonidas[280] of such a dialogue, carried on in a style of stately courtesy:—
‘Lady, what name, what father dost thou own,
That lieth ’neath this shaft of Parian stone?’
‘Prexo, the daughter of Calliteles.’
‘Where wast thou born?’ ‘Beside the Samian seas.’
‘Who paid thee fitting funeral honours thus?’
‘The husband of my youth, Theocritus.’
‘How came thy death?’ ‘In childbed did I die.’
‘Thine age?’ ‘But two and twenty years lived I.’
‘And childless?’ ‘Nay, of mother’s care bereft,
Calliteles, just three years old, was left.’
‘Long life and ripe old age thy boy await.’
‘Friend, all good things be showered on thee by fate.’
The following bears the name of Sappho[281]:—