Funeral monuments made their reappearance in Athens fifty years after they had been banned by Kleisthenes. The first of the new ones were put up in 450 B.C. or thereabouts, and were rectangular stelae each with a crowning pediment and a single figure in relief. On the whole they were not of very high artistic quality. Gradually they recaptured the Archaic lustre; and a few - such as the stelae of Ampharete or Eupherus or Mnesagora - are excellent specimens of Attic sculpture. It is known that leading sculptors of the time - particularly in the 4th century, also did funeral sculpture.

It was towards the end of the 5th century that the simple stela started to assume the shape of a little shrine. There were normally two figures, one of whom would be seated. (This is what we see on the Hegeso stela). The sculpture's subjects as a rule have some connection with the life of the dead person. Thus we might find an athlete; a warrior; a woman with her infant on her arm; a young boy with his slave; or a child with its pet animal. Typical examples are the stelae of 'The young man with the cat', of Lyceus and Chaeredemus, of Aristion, or of Dexileus. For all their well-developed plasticity, the figures' features remain idealized. The sculpture has a generalised melancholy, a sorrow that is held in check. We shall look in vain for lamentation or despair.

From the beginning of the 4th century onwards, the stela transformed itself into a true miniature shrine, and the figures were done in the round. The compositions had several figures, to lay stress on the weight and importance of family ties. We can see this in the Ctesileus and Theano monuments, as in the monument for Proclides and his family. There was high drama in these scenes of farewell and in the lonely figures, one looking at the other (as for example with the figure of Aristonautes). Other kinds of grave monument were now becoming popular too. Most typically these were a statue; or a relief of a Siren, a lion, a goat, or a bull; the tall stela with crowning palmette; or a marble lekythos or loutrophoros with rich relief carving or inscribed decoration; or - though this was rarer - a marble lebes with griffin heads.

The carved sarcophagi which we already find at Xanthus in Lycia in the 5th century became extremely popular at Sidon in Phoenicia in the early 4th century: but they seem not to have been used at Athens. The production of lavish funeral monuments in Attica ended in about 317 B.C., the year when Demetrius of Phalerum banned them.

| introduction | arts | literature | education | religion | Classical period

Note: Click on the icons for enlargements and explanations.
Underlined links lead to related texts; those not underlined ones are an explanatory glossary.