Sculptured tombs of Hellas — A Closer Reading

The Epitaph of Symmachus as a Window into Popular Piety

The frontispiece of the book presents an Athenian epitaph in which Symmachus, born in Chios, declares that his bones were hidden in Attic land, "to gods and men most dear." This brief poem encapsulates several themes Gardner explores: the attachment to place, the contrast between birthplace and burial site, and the simple piety of the deceased. The epitaph speaks of a life "out-lengthened to the utmost bounds of eld" and claims that "few griefs and many joys" filled it. Gardner uses such inscriptions throughout the book as direct evidence of how ordinary Greeks conceptualized death and commemoration.

Readers should note that Gardner treats these texts as primary sources, not literary ornaments. The Symmachus epitaph sets the tone for a work that privileges material and epigraphic evidence over philosophical or poetic accounts.

The Stele of Aristion and the Promise of Attic Art

Gardner devotes careful attention to the stele of Aristion, discovered in 1838 at Velanideza in Attica. He describes the warrior figure as "simple and in details clumsy" yet "singularly pleasing as a whole." The relief shows a soldier in helmet and cuirass, grasping his spear, as if on parade. Gardner notes that the hair and right hand reveal the limitations of the artist's technique, but he credits the German scholar Brunn with seeing in this work the whole promise of future Attic art, particularly in how the figure occupies the field and relates part to whole.

The passage demonstrates Gardner's method: he combines formal analysis with historical reception, noting that the relief still bears "delicate remains of colouring" that can be traced on casts. This attention to material details—the original surface, the corrosion, the traces of paint—characterizes his archaeological approach.

Alxenor of Naxos and the Artist's Voice

Another monument Gardner highlights is the stele from Boeotia executed by Alxenor of Naxos. It depicts a worthy citizen in a lighter mood, resting on a staff and holding out a grasshopper to a leaping dog. Gardner calls it a "delightful monument" and quotes the artist's inscription: "Alxenor of Naxos fashioned me: only look!" This direct address from the maker to the viewer is rare in surviving Greek art and gives the piece an intimate quality.

Gardner uses this example to illustrate the range of sepulchral reliefs, from formal portraits to genre scenes. The dog's constrained posture, he notes, results from the narrow limits of the monument—a practical constraint that shaped composition. The artist's pride in his work, expressed in the inscription, contrasts with the anonymity of many tomb carvers.

Mourning Slave-Girls and Domestic Art

In a section on statues from the Sabouroff Collection, Gardner discusses two seated female figures in attitudes of grief, which he identifies as mourning slave-girls placed on the grave of a mistress. He notes that their dress—coarse material with long sleeves—is not that of an Athenian lady but of maidservants who often appear on stelae attending their mistress. The workmanship is poor, and Gardner terms their style "domestic art," distinguishing it from the great sculptors of the fourth century.

This passage reveals Gardner's interest in social history: the statues commemorate not the deceased directly but her wealth and kindness to dependants. The slave-girls function as markers of status and sentiment. Gardner's classification of periods—pre-Persian, fifth and fourth centuries, later age—provides a framework for understanding such works within the broader development of Greek sepulchral art.

Gardner's book rewards readers who attend to the interplay between text and image, inscription and relief. The epitaphs he quotes often speak in the voice of the dead, while the sculptures show the living in acts of commemoration. By moving from burial customs to afterlife beliefs to monuments, he builds a layered argument about how material culture can reveal popular religion. Readers should approach the plates and engravings as integral to the argument, not mere illustrations.

There are mornings when I think of Gardner's quiet tombs, how they held sorrow without grand pronouncements. It makes me wonder about the houses those same Greeks might have known, the lived-in rooms behind the stone. I find myself drifting toward the warmth of the Romance of Roman Villas (The Renaissance) — Context and Discussion, a gentler kind of ruin, almost companionable. Different centuries, yet both whisper of lives fully held.