Death in Greece

Hum 110 | Reed Classics | Reed Library | Reed | Perseus

Humanities 110
September 24, 1999
Death in Archaic Greek Art
William Diebold

Monuments

Eleusis amphora: c. 675 B. C.; found in Eleusis; painted in Athens or Aegina by the Polyphemos Painter (Eleusis, Museum)

Dipylon amphora: c. 750 B. C.; found in Athens; painted in Athens by the Dipylon Master (Athens, National Museum)

Cleobis and Biton, first quarter of sixth B.C.; found at Delphi; probably carved in Peloponneseus (Delphi, Archaeological Museum)

Kroisos (Anavyssos kouros): c. 530 B.C.; found at Anavyssos (Attica); probably carved in Athens (Athens, National Museum)

Terms

Medusa
Gorgon
Perseus
kouros (pl. kouroi)

Texts

Croesus . . . asked who was the next happist person whom Solon had seen.

"Two young men of Argos," was the reply; "Cleobis and Biton. They had enough to live on comfortably; and their physical strength is proved not merely by their success in athletics, but much more by the following incident. The Argives were celebrating the festival of Hera, and it was most important that the mother of the two young men should drive to the temple in her ox-cart; but it so happened that the oxen were late in coming back from the fields. Her two sons therefore, as there was no time to lose, harnessed themselves to the cart and dragged it along, with their mother inside, for a distance of nearly six miles, until they reached the temple. After this exploit, which was witnessed by the assembled crowd, they had a most enviable death--a heaven-sent proof of how much better it is to be dead than alive. Men kept crowding round them and congratulating them on their strength, and women kept telling the mother how lucky she was to have sons, when, in sheer pleasure at this public recognition of her sons' act, she prayed the goddess Hera, before whose shrine she stood, to grant Cleobis and Biton, who had brought her such honour, the greatest blessing that can fall to mortal man.

After her prayer came the ceremonies of sacrifice and feasting; and the two lads, when all was over, fell asleep in the temple--and that was the end of them, for they never woke again.

The Argives had statues made of them, which they sent to Delphi, as a mark of their particular respect." (Herodotus, Histories, I, 31; trans. Sélincourt)

Stop and grieve beside the tomb
of Kroisos, dead, whom once
in battle's front rank
raging Ares destroyed.
(from the base of the Anavyssos kouros; trans. Hurwit)

Such a man is lamented alike by the young and the elders
And all his city goes into mourning and grieves for his loss.
His tomb and children are notable among men,
and his children's children, and his race thereafter;
His noble memory is not destroyed nor his name,
but he is immortal, though he lies beneath the earth,
whomever, excelling in valor, standing fast, and
fighting land and children, raging Ares destroys.
(Tyrtaeus, fragment 12, trans. Lattimore)