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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



of the poor, but not in all, for sometimes they 

 accompany reliefs of an elaborate character, or 

 are placed on tombs of great size and preten- 

 sions. Than such an epitaph nothing could pos- 

 sibly offend less against good taste, and it was 

 probably thought somewhat sentimental and 

 gushing at Athens to indulge in a longer met- 

 rical sepulchral inscription. When longer in- 

 scriptions occur, they seldom bear much sign 

 either of taste or education. Their grammar is 

 often doubtful, and, when in metre, they halt 

 terribly. They clearly belong to the same class 

 of compositions as the lame verses which abound 

 in English graveyards. It would seem that the 

 swans who sang thus only found their voice at 

 death, but the death of friends, not their own. 

 The chance of such publicity for one's verses as 

 may be gained by placing them on a tomb 

 proved too attractive for tbem to forego. 



In the case of early reliefs we find usually 

 not only the name of the dead, but also of the 

 artist who did the work. In later times this cus- 

 tom dropped, and we have scarcely in any case a 

 clew to the name of the sculptor. This fact is 

 the more curious, inasmuch as in other remains 

 of antiquity, vases, gems, and coins, to insert the 

 artist's name becomes more usual as we approach 

 the best time of art. Not many epitaphs of an 

 earlier period than the year b. c. 400 are pre- 

 served, nor are these, except in the case of pub- 

 lic tombs, of special importance. One is inter- 

 esting to students of epigraphy, as it bears an 

 exact date, the year b. c. 430, when the plague, 

 following in the wake of the Peloponnesian army, 

 invaded Attica : "lam the tomb of Myrine, who 

 died of the plague." Another, of an ordinary 

 Attic type, has a grace and charm which is sel- 

 dom absent from the productions of Attica 

 while yet unsubdued : 



" Let the reader pass on, be he citizen or 

 stranger from afar, having pitied for a moment a 

 brave man who fell in battle, and lost his young 

 prime. Having shed a tear here, go by, and good 

 go with you." 



To the period between the falling of Athens 

 into Lysander's hands and the times of the Roman 

 Antonines belongs the vast body of the epitaphs. 

 For a more exact chronological classification the 

 materials at present scarcely exist, it being espe- 

 cially hard to determine the period of those in- 

 scriptions which are not accompanied by reliefs. 

 It is best, therefore, to divide them into classes, 

 not by a determination of date, but rather by a 

 consideration of drift and content, and to con- 



sider all as belonging to one long period, a period 

 when the Athenian Empire had indeed passed 

 away, and external conquests were not to be 

 hoped for ; but when Athens still ruled in the 

 realm of mind, and attracted to herself the flower 

 of the culture of Hellas and the world. I have 

 already said that the commonest sort of inscrip- 

 tions comprised only the name of the dead, his 

 father's name, and that of his deme. But not un- 

 frequently a few words of comment were added. 

 The person who paid for the erection of the tomb 

 liked to see some record of his liberality. Thus, 

 a stone marks the spot where " His sons buried 

 Julius Zosimianus, the head of the School of 

 Zeno," that is, the head of the Stoics of Athens. 

 Another records that " Polystratus set up this 

 portrait in memory of his brother." We fre- 

 quently find the trade or calling of the deceased 

 mentioned in his epitaph. One Herakleides is 

 stated to have been the greatest master of the 

 catapult, a warlike machine, which seems to have 

 required some skill in the handling. Many other 

 trades are mentioned in connection with the dead. 

 One was a bathing-man, another a midwife and 

 physician, another a priestess of the all-producing 

 Mother, probably Kybele, another second in rank 

 in joyous comedy, another a bull-fighter. On one 

 tomb the record ends quaintly, after mentioning 

 that the grave contained one or two named per- 

 sons, with the phrase, " also the others who are 

 represented in the relief," where the stone-mason 

 or his instructor seems to have grown tired of a 

 bare list of names, and stopped short in the midst. 



All the longer inscriptions which are found 

 on Attic gravestones, if we except only the class 

 of minatory or deprecatory epitaphs, which I re- 

 serve to the last, are in metre. To this rule there 

 are few, if any, exceptions, so that the ancient 

 epitaph-writer could, at least, unlike the modern, 

 claim the dura necessitas as a reason for attempt- 

 ing a metrical composition. I shall, however, 

 render into English prose rather than verse the 

 specimens of these selected for purposes of illus- 

 tration, as it would convey quite a false impres- 

 sion if I were to disguise their oddities and crudi- 

 ties under the smooth mantle of the English he- 

 roic verse. 



The metrical epitaphs are of four kinds. 

 Those of the first kind are in the form of a dia- 

 logue between the dead and the surviving friend, 

 or in some cases of a mere direct address to the 

 dead. The simplest form which such an address 

 can take is the XPV^ #aZpe—" Farewell, lost 

 friend " — which is so usual on tombs of a certain 

 period, but which does not, apparently, appear op 



