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A SEPULCHRAL RELIEF FROM TARENTUM. 105
it
A SEPULCHRAL RELIEF FROM TARENTUM. 107
I.
But in the main, all that here follows refers to the oblong
class of reliefs. They are far more complicated, and introduce
a number of additions to the simple banqueting group, which
are found but seldom on the simple reliefs of square form. These
additions we must briefly discuss in order. As they multiply,
so do the difficulties of the naturalistic method of interpretation
increase. In order to help the imagination of the reader, I
the reverse type of this curious piece 1 which was minted in the
reign of Philip the Arab:-- BIZVHNflN. Asclepius reclining on a
couch and Hygieia seated in front of him; a tripod before the
couch, also a serpent twining round a staff. A votary approaches
bearing an amphora of wine, and on the other side a horse enters.
In the back-ground is armour hung on a tree.
II.
(the mouth being the Greek purse) that the piece of money was
placed and left. The same men who supposed that souls went
into a far country, yet believed heroes to hover about the spot
on which they were buried, like the virgins of Leuctra who
appeared to Pelopidas, when he happened to sleep at the spot
where they were buried, or like the sages whose tombs became
oracular. The upper stratum of belief was occupied by those
notions of religion and a future state which were sanctioned by
poetry and art, and public cultus; but in the background still
lurked many feelings which had arisen at a time when the
grave was regarded by all as a dwelling-place, and the dead as
by no means inaccessible to the favours and the requests of the
survivors.
If, having acquired and assimilated these facts, we now turn
to the Spartan and Athenian reliefs successively, we shall find
ourselves in a position to solve some of the difficulties which
they present, and which have in former days perplexed archaeo-
logists. We may begin with the Spartan class. These reliefs
show us in connexion with the dead man as hero a number of
symbols. The hero himself holds a wine-cup. Fiirtwiingler
suggests that this contains an allusion to the libations which
used to accompany funerals. This is doubtless true; but the
hero is not pouring a libation, but receiving it. This is no
trivial distinction, but involves the whole question whether the
wine-cup is merely introduced in a spirit of vague symbolism to
typify certain rites which belonged to funerals, or whether it is
introduced not with a mere symbolical intention, but with a
very literal and real one. It appears to me that our hero holds
out his wine-cup to be filled, conveying thereby a very broad
hint to his votaries that he hopes to receive plenteous draughts
of wine at the recognised festivals of the dead. In the case of
some sepulchral reliefs this is quite evident. I will instance
a stelM of the fourth century from Tanagra; 1 on which is a
hero standing beside his horse, holding out a vessel which
a lady who approaches fills from an oenochoe. The san e
subject is found on a stel. from Thebes,2 and many others.
And there is the same meaning in the case of those statues
of the gods in which a patera is held in their hands. On
coins the patera in the hands of deities is especially common.
1 SabourqffCollection,P1. xxix. 2
Mittheilungen, iii. 376.
H.S.-V OL. V. K
130 A SEPULCHRAL RELIEF FROM TARENTUM.
Some students imagine that the deities who hold paterae are
occupied in sacrificing to one another. Some archaeologists
explain the fact by saying that the patera is the symbol of
worship: it should, I think, rather be considered that the gods
hold out to their votaries empty vessels for them to fill with
libations or incense.
The hero of the Spartan reliefs also holds sometimes a
pomegranate. It is well known what use is made of this fruit
in the legends of Cora. In the lower world she tasted a pome-
granate subtly offered her by Hades, and as a consequence
could never entirely return to the upper air and the light of
day, but was obliged to remain for four months of the year as
queen of the world of shades. The pomegranate then is the
characteristic food of the shades;' they eat it at their feasts,
and it is brought to them by votaries together with fowls and
with eggs, which are recognised archaic symbols of future life
beyond the grave. The wife of the hero draws her veil forward;
a natural and characteristic act no doubt in a Greek matron.
Yet the frequency of the action in case of those seated ladies on
Attic tombs who are taking leave of their friends to go on the
last journey suggests that to grasp the veil may be a sign in
these cases of departure to another world, just as to rest the
head on the hand is a recognised sign of grief. The three
animals which occur on the Spartan reliefs are the snake, the
horse, and the dog. The snake and the dog appear as friends
and companions of the hero; the horse only comes in relief in
the background.
III.
If we return next to the class of oblong tablets found in Attica
and elsewhere in Greece, presenting the subject of a banquet,
we shall find that they have lost much of their mystery. We
shall no longer hesitate to see in them the dead hero and
ancestor with his wife, as they still exist after death in the
pious thought of their family.
Indeed among the sepulchral reliefs of Peloponnesus is one
1 Furtwaingler takes it otherwise, seeds enter still into the composition
as the symbol of wifely love and devo- of the cakes, K4XAv3a, above spoken of
tion. But it is sometimes placed in (p. 109).
the hands of virgins. Pomegranate
A SEPULCHRAL RELIEF FROM TARENTUM. 131
1 It is not unusual to find the head iv. 40). But this fact gives us no
of a horse without his body, painted on help.
late Italian vases (see Mon. deli' Inst.
A SEPULCHRAL RELIEF FROM TARENTUM. 133
IV.
V.
fact the objects in the hands of the seated figures on the Harpy-
tomb and of their suppliants are nearly those which we find on
the Spartan monuments. One of the seated figures holds the
patera, the receptacle for incense, one an apple or pomegranate
and a flower, while another holds a fruit in each hand. A
dove, a cock, a flower and a pomegranate are the offerings
brought to the ladies by their votaries. A seated male figure
receives the, to him, more appropriate gift of arms, arms which
remind us of those sometimes suspended on the wall in the reliefs
of which we have above spoken. It might perhaps be replied
that as we know so little about the religion of the Lycians, we
must be cautious in applying to the reliefs on their tombs
arguments taken from Greek religious custom; but here again
the close likeness between the reliefs of Lycian and those of
Peloponnesian tombs forbids us to suppose that they can belong
to entirely different classes of representations embodying diverse
religious reliefs.
This theory then seems very promising; but before we accept
it, we must wait until its author, or some other archaeologist,
takes it up in detail, and furnishes us with an exact and well-
reasoned explanation of the different groups represented on the
four sides of the tomb. That the tomb should have been erected
in honour of three men and two women is not likely. Nor is it
the custom of early art to represent worshipper and worshipped
as of the same stature; but on the Harpy-tomb, standing and
seated figures are nearly of the same size. We require also
fuller explanation of the mysterious harpies themselves, and
the prey they are bearing away; for we can scarcely subscribe
to Milchhoefer's view that they are merely inserted to indicate
a locality-the under world. There thus opens before us an
interesting problem, one of many which recent excavations in
Greece have suggested: and I cannot but hope that in the
future our universities, with their new interest in archaeology,
may produce followers of Oedipus bold enough to attempt, and
able enough to solve them.
PERCY GARDNER.