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As well as shrines of gods and heroes, there were tombs all along the road to the Academy that passed through the Thriasian Gate (Pausanias 1.29,2). Beyond the Gate was a neighbourhood that served as the public burial ground. Here, according to ancient Athenian custom (patrios nomos), the bones of fallen warriors were buried. Exactly when this custom started, and whether it continued unbroken after its introduction, we do not know, but it was certainly not observed for the dead from the battles of Marathon and Plataea. The only surviving description of the topography of the Demosion Sema, the public graves of Athens, is in Pausanias. Its accuracy is open to question: even if Pausanias was using fourth century B.C. sources, the terrain of the Kerameikos had undergone over the years. |
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The earliest public graves that have been found to date lie in a line parallel with the Themistoclean walls, from which they were separated by the Processional Way. They were covered over after the end of the Peloponnesian War, and district was later rebuilt. It was at this time that the public graves started to take over, not only the north and south sides of the outwork built parallel with the Themistoclean walls in the second half of the fifth century B.C., but also at points on both sides of the road to the Academy and the Thriasian Gate. The earliest public grave yet excavated that can be identified with certainty, the Grave of the Lakedaimonians, dates to 404/3 B.C., but Pausanias gives us a catalogue of the monuments - twenty in all - to men killed in battle during the fifth century B.C.
A number of public graves had elaborate carvings - usually showing horsemen and warriors - and an inscription with the name of the deceased. Apparently the production of these funeral monuments was unaffected by the tomb legislation of the Classical period that strictly limited the number of relief sculptures.
The city would honour its fallen with special ceremonies on the day of the funeral and annually thereafter.
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