Of the tombs themselves, the recent excavations have also made us acquainted with the construction and the varieties. Cumanudis[198], a Greek archÆologist, now living at Athens, enumerates eight distinct types of tombs. His classification is rather too minute in some respects. For all practical purposes, there were four kinds of tombs, differing from each other in general form. They were variously known as (a) the stelae or shafts, (b) the kiones or columns, (c) the trapezae or square-cut tombs, and (d) the naidia [heroia] or temple-like structures. There were also tombs which were merely heaps of earth. These mounds were not, however, unimportant; for it was possible to display there a lavish expenditure. The tomb of Alyattes, the father of Croesus, according to Herodotus[199], was six stadia in circumference, that is, about two-thirds of a mile. It was made entirely of earth, except a base formed of great stones, and was declared by Herodotus to be a monument of art, second to none but those of the Egyptians and the Babylonians. This mass was raised by merchants, laborers and young women who obtained their money in a questionable manner. On many of the white lecyths, the mound can be seen to exceed the height of the persons depicted[200]. In a dialogue of Lucian[201], Hermes and Charon, from the top of Parnassus and Oeta, piled one on the other, contemplate the world and that which attracts their attention in the cemeteries of the large cities are the heaps of earth, the pillars and the funeral pyramids.

The stelae proper were slabs of stone, standing upright in the ground. They were often made of marble[202]. The shape was frequently that of a little chapel, and they were usually of one piece, the upper part being designated the epithema[203]. This epithema was sometimes rounded like a coping tile, and sometimes fashioned like a gable. The latter form of the triangular arch was suggestive of a religious purpose and the attributing of divine honors to the dead, for this pediment belonged to the house of a deity. It was usually adorned with acanthus leaves, worked into arabesques, closely resembling those on the coffins[204]. The stele of a warrior, found in the Attic deme of Icaria during the excavations by the American School in February, 1888, has been an object of considerable interest to archÆologists[205]. The slab of stone had been broken into three parts, but when compared with the well-known stele of Aristion, (found in 1838) the Icarian relief was found to correspond very closely with the older monument. The Icarian stele, when complete, must have been about eight feet high, and about a foot and a half wide at the base, tapering slightly as it rose. The figure is of a warrior in armor, holding an upright spear. There is unmistakable evidence that the details of the relief had been painted. The Lyseas stele (found in 1839) had a uniform surface, on which had been painted Lyseas, draped in a long himation, and engaged in pouring out a libation.

The stelae and the tombs were frequently adorned with reliefs in which the details were probably finished by painting. The chapel-like form was convenient for the artist in carving the relief, since this afforded a retreating background, and gave the figures the appearance of being within the chapel or temple.

A favorite subject was an idealistic representation of the dying scene[206]. The occupation of the deceased is also indicated, and a mounted horseman is cut in relief on the tomb of a knight who fell at Leuctra[207]; on the tomb of an athlete is seen his figure, with his strigil and dog[208]; one who had taken prizes for declamation, music, ball-throwing and ring-tossing is represented with a scroll, a lyre, the ball and the ring[209]. Many similar carvings and paintings have been recently discovered. Pausanias refers to this custom of decorating the tombs, and mentions the picture at Sicyon, on the monument of Xenodice, who died in child-birth, as particularly worthy of examination[210].

Many tomb-stones were evidently intended for general application, since the inscription sometimes fails to correspond in every respect with the relief, but other scenes were wrought out for the particular occasions on which they were erected. To this latter class must have belonged the monument at Athens[211], where the figures are of heroic size, representing a youth in the full vigor of early manhood, accompanied by an old man, leaning on a cane. In the hand of the young man is a stout club, an attendant is sleeping at his feet, while his dog is watchfully alert. There is no inscription to inform us who is commemorated by this monument, nor what artist has left this wonderful evidence of his genius and skill, but the subject is treated with marvellous vigor and grace.

The siren was a familiar figure on the tombstone either singly or in couples, signifying that, by their song, the dead were constantly lamented and the living consoled. A small tombstone in the Berlin Museum contains a lady engaged in her toilet with the assistance of an attendant maid and, above them, two sirens are engaged in playing, the one on the lyre and the other on the flute.

Very frequently the scene represented typifies the separation of the deceased from the relatives who stand sorrowfully about. To the Greek, there was a solemn dignity in death and that sentiment finds expression in these reliefs by the representation of the deceased as seated and rather larger than the other persons of the group. The nearest relative bids farewell to the seated figure by clasping hands. In the particulars that have been mentioned, the scene, in every instance, is nearly the same but, in other details great variety is introduced. Now, it is a husband who holds the hand of his departing wife while her sister stands by her side and the long sleeved servant is behind the chair resting her hand upon the back of it, as if ready to render instant service. Again a mother is going away from her little daughter and, at the moment of departure, has placed her arm tenderly about the child and bends sadly over her. The servant stands as usual behind the deceased. In another scene, the infant in the arms of one of the group would suggest that distressing incident in family history, the death of the young mother in, or near child-birth. In this group too, there remains the hand and long sleeve of the servant. In all these pictures, if it is a lady who is commemorated, she is represented as holding her veil in a peculiarly graceful manner, which occurs so frequently as to suggest a symbol of departure.

Some of the monuments present scenes of every day domestic life or of a lady engaged about her toilet. In a relief, found at Athens, some kind of a repast or feast is shown. A bearded man reclines upon a couch and holds a plate or saucer in his hand, his wife is seated at his feet and a naked cup-bearer is near at hand. A friend stands at the head of the couch and the dog lies under it.

The lecyth was not an uncommon form of the funeral monument. The sculptor, in that case, made the vase of colossal size and decorated it with scenes of curious interest. On one of them Hermes Psychopompe is leading away a beautiful figure to the land of shades. The form of some of the monuments and the inscriptions on them indicate that they had a double purpose to serve and that, in addition to being memorials of the dead, they were votive offerings to the departed, who had become objects of worship.

In this connection, it may be instructive to refer to the vigorous contest which has been waged between different archaeologists over the interpretation of the representations of feasts on the sepulchral monuments, reliefs and pictures. The most probable explanation seems to be that the central figures are not deities[212] but the deceased receiving that nourishment which he required, as well after death as while living, that the patera or the wine cup is extended to receive the libation or the food, that the horse and dog were the images of those faithful domestic animals whose usefulness would be as great in the Elysian fields as during life. The pomegranate in the hand of the feaster confirms the opinion that he is a deceased mortal, that fruit being appropriate to the dead after the analogy of Persephone who was subtly induced by the god of the lower world to taste the pomegranate and thereafter could never return entirely to the upper light. The presence of the serpent is more difficult to explain, although the incident of the large snake that twined about the body of Cleomenes in Egypt and drove away the birds of prey may assist in clearing up the mystery. Plutarch says that some of the Alexandrians being terrified at the sight of the serpent clinging to the body of Cleomenes, it was pointed out that as bulls develop bees after death, and horses produce wasps, so the human body, as it decayed, turned into snakes. The wife of the deceased is seated because the reclining posture at the table was peculiar to the men and was never assumed by a modest woman.

The second species of tomb, the Kion or column was very shapely, having a double base and an Ionic fluting at the top. In the representations on some of the lecyths, are the figures of the friends of the deceased who have come to the Kion to offer services in various ways. The objects that are seen in their hands are varied, being mostly offerings for the dead, although some are articles necessary for the performance of the funeral rites, while others are articles of the toilet.

The third division of the tombs is the so-called trapezae. It was a tomb of this species that was used to mark the resting-place of the orator Isocrates and his immediate[213] relatives. It was probably this style of tomb that Cicero called the mensa, the expense of which Demetrius Phalereus limited[214].

The heroum or fourth division of the tombs, possessed many of the features of the Greek temple, with which every student of art or literature is familiar. The imposing faÇade was always present, even when other parts were wanting, in consequence of the situation’s forbidding elaborate development of the rest of the exterior. The structure which the moderns have united in designating as a “chapel” bears the closest resemblance to the heroum. Indeed, the heroum differed from many small temples only in that its opening faced toward the west, while the entrance to the temple looked in the opposite direction[215].

There is a marked difference in this latter respect, between the Egyptian and the Grecian Tombs. In the great necropolis of the ancient Egyptians at Memphis and Thebes, the door, the external inscriptions and the entablatures of the tombs, almost without exception look toward the east; while, at Abydos the tombs often face the south; but, in neither place do they open to the west[216]. So general is this disposition of the opening that Champollion and other writers on the subject have made the fact the basis of an elaborate “assimilation” between the life of man and the career of the sun, declaring that the dead yearns toward the rays that shall illumine his night and draw him from his long sleep[217]. Accordingly he is placed so that he shall catch the first beams of the morning, or at noon behold the full vigor of the god of day.

The heroa must have been very numerous in Greece. That fact is indicated by a chapter from the history of the Peloponnesian war[218]. From the earliest times, the Athenians had been accustomed to live in the country and, before the time of Theseus, Attica was occupied by independent towns, each of which had its own king. So that in the Peloponnesian war, when Archidamus, the Spartan king, approached Athens, about the year 430, B. C., Pericles advised the Athenians who lived outside the walls to bring their families and their effects into the city. They followed the advice of Pericles but the city was crowded and, since they were without shelter they were obliged, with very few exceptions, to take up their abode in the temples and the heroa.

The Greeks were very proud of these elaborate monuments, which were reminders to the world of the virtues of their ancestors and relations, and these sepulchres passed down from generation to generation as an inheritance which the heir expected to transmit when he had been received therein[219].

These heroa as a rule, however, were erected in memory of some great man at that period when death had brought about an indefiniteness and haziness of view which exaggerated his achievements into heroic proportions. The Theseum was a notable instance of such a monument. Here, it was believed, were deposited the bones of Theseus after they had been brought back to Athens, and here was a general asylum for criminals[220] who fled from the penalty of their misdeeds. One of these tombs was erected over the remains of Lycus[221]; and a certain Germanicus, a didaskalos or school master, apparently obtained so great a reputation that a heroum was built in his honor[222].

A whole family was often buried in the same heroum. There is reported an instance of a man’s buying one of these temple-tombs for himself, his wife and child[223]; and, in the third century, a rich woman, probably of Thera, left by her will three thousand drachmas, almost six hundred dollars for the erection of a heroum (which she terms a museum), in honor of herself, her husband and her two sons. She directed that sacrifices shall be offered to them as heroes for three days in each year[224]. In the early period, when Athens was under Cecrops, the burials were simple and inexpensive, but, shortly after Solon’s time, it became so common to spend vast sums on the tombs that a law was passed to check the outlay. Cicero says that the elaborateness of the grave was limited to what ten men could accomplish in three days[225]; but Plato, in prescribing the limit which should be observed, states, as has been before mentioned, that it should only be as high as five men could build in five days[226]. Plato would add the further restriction that no stone monument should be built larger than to receive four hexameters in praise of the deceased[226]. From many indications in literature, however, there is reason to believe that Plato’s suggestion was not adopted. Diogiton, who was doing his best to defraud his wards of their money by spending as little as possible for their needs, purchased a memorial for their father at twenty-four minae (about five hundred dollars). This seems to have been considered a niggardly sum for the purpose[227]. On the other hand, the tomb which Phormio erected in honor of his wife cost him over two talents, which is over two thousand five hundred dollars[228]. In memory of Isocrates, there was erected a monument forty-five feet high, on which was a siren ten feet and a half in height, emblematic of his eloquence[229].

It was such expenditures as these that led Demetrius Phalereus, about the beginning of the fourth century before Christ, to make another attempt to check funeral extravagance. He tried to set a limit to the new tombs by forbidding any tomb but the kion to be more than four and a half feet high and by putting a special officer in charge of the matter, but all his efforts proved vain[230].

The inscription that was carved on the tomb contained, as is still the custom, the name and a few notices about the life of the departed. In addition to those details, the Greeks, at a later period, sometimes set forth a curse on any one who should presume to desecrate the grave in any way. Although this peculiar protection of the last resting-place is not at present resorted to among us, yet it is but a few centuries since the custom was not uncommon in England. It will be instructive to compare one of the older imprecations of the Hellenes with the famous inscription on the tomb of Shakespeare, composed possibly by the bard himself. The Englishman wrote:

That is somewhat more concise, if not quite as pointed as some Greek inscriptions, one of which reads as follows:

“I summon to the guardianship of this tomb the lower gods, Pluto, Demeter, Persephone and all the others. If any one despoils it, opens it, or in any way disturbs it, by himself or an agent, may his journey on land be obstructed, on the sea, may he be tempest-tossed and thoroughly baffled and driven about in every way. May he suffer every ill, chills and fevers, remittent and intermittent, and the most repulsive skin diseases. Whatever is injurious and destructive in life may it fall on him that dares remove anything from this tomb[231].”

On the other hand, some of the Grecian tombs, like that of the English poet, contain also all manner of blessings and wishes for the absence of evil for him and his posterity who may guard the tomb and perform the sacrifices and other customary rites[232].

To make sure that no one disturbed the bones, directions were sometimes left in wills that the grave of the testator be watched by slaves[233].

These inscriptions, if they contained imprecations so elaborate as that presented above, must have been rather extended. In some states of Greece, the inscription was very short. The Sicyonians, on the columns which they raised to the dead, usually placed the name of the departed, without stating his ancestry, but exhorting the passer-by to wish well to his remains[234]. Lycurgus would not permit the Spartans to inscribe the name of the deceased on the tomb, unless he had fallen in battle; or if the deceased were a woman, unless she had died in some sacred office[235].

At Athens, there are found monuments inscribed to deceased children and it would seem that this honor was bestowed without reference to the age of the dead. A tomb has been discovered with an inscription to a child of seven that was lost on a mountain[236]. Two other epitaphs are dedicated to children who were but two years old ere “disease had stopped their life[237].”

If we still possessed the book of Diodorus, or according to some, Heliodorus, entitled “About Monuments,” it would undoubtedly prove a mine of information. Plutarch has referred to him, to determine the places of sepulture both of Themistocles[238] and Hyperides[239].

In the tomb, with the dead body, were placed various vessels and trinkets. In the coffin found at Same, were two small lacrimatories of unbaked clay; a wine beaker; the kylix, a kind of libation vessel; the prochoos, a pitcher usually having two handles and used for holding pure wine or water; an alabaster box for jewels, called the kylichne; and a bacchic mirror cover[240]. The child’s coffin, previously mentioned[241], disclosed eleven different vessels and four clay images of Gaea Olympia in a sitting posture. The vessels were three lecyths, two large cotyli, one small cotylus, used for catching the blood of the victim which was sacrificed, a lamp, a diota, and a sort of child’s plaything[242].

Besides these vessels, tombs have been found in which all sorts of jewelry figured as parts of the contents, such as golden finger rings set with garnets, gold ear-rings wrought in fantastic shapes, and cornelian ear-rings. Some of the tombs contain wreaths of laurel, oak, olive, or myrtle, sometimes interwoven with gold; while a brass buckle with an allegorical representation of Cupid in the palestra, a golden girdle, female statues, figures of Persephone and Hecate, a statue of a priestess of Dodona with a dove on her shoulder, and mirrors with brazen handles and backs have all been found[243].

This custom of interring valuables with the deceased was very old. When the so-called grave of Alcmene was opened by Agesilaus, there were discovered within, a small brazen armlet and two jars, containing earth which had become petrified. This grave must have been dug in very ancient times, for tablets of brass were found within written in unintelligible characters[244].

This practice of burying various articles with the dead must have continued during the best period of art in Greece. That fact is attested by the workmanship of the vases that have been exhumed. They are many of them of the finest quality and artistic excellence. The custom however, had died out before the Christian era, for the colonists whom Caesar had sent out to restore Corinth, in moving the ruins and digging open the sepulchres, came across works of pottery and brass, the workmanship of which was greatly admired and the vessels sold readily at fabulous prices as curiosities[245].

There seems to have been no one place at Athens selected for the situation of all the tombs except for those who died in poverty. Those Athenians who left no land or money behind them were entombed in a public cemetery. This place was situated just outside the city[246] on one of the roads to the Peiraeus[247]. The Itonic gate, through which the bodies of these paupers were carried, was, on this account, called the “gravegate[248].” The people of the richer classes, when they possessed a bit of land, often directed that they should be interred therein; so it happened that there was no large assemblage of graves at any one place. In one of Demosthenes’s orations, the stone-cutter comes to the house that he may complete the tomb in the neighboring field[249]. More frequently the graves were constructed by the side of some much traveled road where the passer-by might observe the monument. From an inscription on a child’s tomb, we learn that “her parents sorrowfully buried her at the junction of three roads[250].” The square cut tombs of Isocrates and his relations, which have been described, were situated near the Cynosarges, the great exercising ground[251], while Thucydides was buried in the family burying ground of Cimon[252], near the Melitic gate[253].

The place of interment, as one might suppose, belonged exclusively to the family, and strangers were forbidden burial there by some well accepted law of the Athenians[254]. This law, together with that making it a crime to destroy a tomb, is attributed by Cicero to Solon[255]. Accordingly, from the fact of a person being buried in the tomb of a certain family, the orators sometimes argued his relationship with that family, for the purpose of establishing the connection of some direct descendant. By that method, Demosthenes sought to prove the descent of Eubulides from Buselus[256], and, in the same manner, demonstrated to the court the citizenship of Euxitheus[254].

In the earliest times, the reason for selecting the former residence of the deceased as a place of burial was that the departed might be near his family[257]. Later, however, in many of the states, there were enactments passed which prohibited interments within the city limits. At Delos, after 425 B. C., the Athenians cleared the whole island of those already interred there, and commanded that, thereafter, all corpses should be carried to the adjoining small island of Rhene[257]. Among the Sicyonians, there was an ancient law against burials within the city walls, and it had been so religiously observed that even when the great Aratus died, the people hesitated about entombing him in the city until re-assured by a special dispensation from the Delphic oracle[258]. The Athenians were so particular about preserving the very letter of a similar law that even the cenotaphs of those who had been slain in battle were erected in a beautiful suburb of the city[259] on the way which led to the Academy[260].

The motive of these states in requiring burial outside the walls, was without doubt, to avoid the ceremonial contamination supposed to arise from the proximity of corpses.

Possibly, as was the case in ancient Rome, the effect on the sanitary condition of the city made it desirable to remove the burying ground[261]. The very existence of such laws indicates that the citizens must, at some time, have experienced the ill effects of burials within the city.

There were states, however, which, for various reasons, preferred that the interments should be within the walls. That was the case at Sparta, where we should naturally expect to find laws directly the contrary. Lycurgus even permitted the Spartans to raise tombs near the temples. This he did that he might insure the graves against the violence of the enemy[262], and that, at the same time, he might accustom the youths to the sight from infancy, so that they might have no horror of death[263]. Again, the Tarentines, in compliance with an oracle, buried all their dead within the walls in a part of the city toward the east[264]. The Megareans also had within their city, the sepulchres of those who had fallen in the war against the Medes, and likewise a heroic monument called the Aesymnium. The origin of this custom was as follows: Aesymnus, having been sent to Delphi to ask the oracle what the Megareans should do to be happy, returned with the response that this might be if a number of them were “congregated together.” This they interpreted to mean the burial of their dead in one place, and accordingly, they instituted a new cemetery in the city[265].