Besides the monuments erected especially to nurses, we often find the nurse shown on the grave-relief of a mother in the act of handing the child to her for the last farewell,[[301]] or holding in her arms a young child enveloped in swaddling clothes.[[302]] The representation of the nurse in this connection is quite in keeping with her relations towards the family during the sad hours which preceded the burial. While the immediate members of the family were considered as the chief mourners, they did not look upon it as a condescension to allow the sympathetic heart of the nurse to unite its share of grief with theirs.[[303]]
In addition to the sepulchral inscriptions mentioned above, we have literary evidence of the existence of other monuments in honor of nurses. Theocritus furnishes the following:
ὁ μικκὸς τόδ’ ἔτευξε τᾲ Θραΐσσᾳ,
Μήδειος τὸ μνᾶμ’ ἐπὶ τᾷ ὁδῷ κηπέγραψε Κλείτας
ἕξει τὰν χάριν ἁ γυνὰ ἀντὶ τήνων
ὧν τὸν κοῦρον ἔθρεψε. τί μάν; ἔτι χρησίμα καλεῖται.[[304]]
The use of χρησίμα in the last line is in accordance with the custom referred to before.[[305]]
Less complimentary to the nurse is the following selection from the Anthology, ascribed to Dioscuridus:
Τὴν τίτθην Ἱέρων Σειληνίδα, τὴν, ὅτι πίνοι
Ζωρὸν, ὑπ’ οὐδεμιῆς θλιβουμένην κύλικος,