I

On a Classical Attic stele, family members turn to one another, the key figures often joined in a handshake. Posture and gesture become paradigms of the society's ethical norms. The various schemata of standing and sitting and the arrangement of the figures according to their status are all signs that have specific meanings. Both the dead and the living are represented, with few exceptions, with beautiful faces, "beautiful" meaning ideally proportioned and without expression.^[6] The only figures that appear mourning are servant girls and slave boys. Attributes and ornament are usually omitted altogether.

On the Hellenistic grave stelai from Smyrna (and many other cities), by contrast, the figures stand beside each other like statues, looking out at the viewer. There are clear indications that these deliberately imitate or include quotations from public honorific monuments or lavish funerary aediculae. The poses of the figures are precisely those of statues, and occasionally a socle or base is indicated.^[7] In addition, the most elaborate of the stelai take the form of small aediculae.^[8] In Smyrna, there are also the characteristic wreaths with the inscription inside. This type of honor from the popular assembly may be considered a kind of substitute for the much sought-after golden wreaths conferred jointly by the boule and the demos. It transforms the tomb into a kind of small public monument. The extensive series of empty socles itself bears eloquent testimony to the important place of honorific statues in the agoras of Hellenistic cities.^[9] Such a statue was the quintessential expression of public recognition by one's fellow citizens. Some people set one up in their own homes when they were denied a public one, as is evident from the case of Kleopatra and Dioskourides on Delos (fig. 3).^[10] The poses match those on the Smyrna reliefs exactly, and we may conclude that the latter truly reflect the commonly accepted self-image of the free citizen.

The pose of the body, the position of arms and head—these are the key elements of the visual language in which these figures are expressed.

[6] See, most recently, B. Schmalz, Griechische Grabreliefs (Darmstadt, 1983), with full bibliographies. There is still no thorough iconographic study of the Classical Attic grave relief.

[7] E.g., P.-M. 1 nos. 532, 831; 2 no. 1475 (from Miletos); more common on the later reliefs.

[8] E.g., P.-M. nos. 405, 415, 539.

[9] E.g., M. Schede, Die Ruinen yon Priene (Berlin, 1964), 48, fig. 57. See also W. Höpfner and E.-L. Schwandner, Haus und Stadt im klassischen Griechenland (Munich, 1986), 86, fig. 68 (Kassope).

[10] R. Lullies and M. Hirmer, Griechische Plastik , 4th ed. (Munich, 1979), pl. 279; Inscriptions de Délos , ed. F. Durrbach et al. (Paris, 1937), no. 1987.

Added to these is a rich assortment of attributes (absent from Classical stelai) which are to be read as symbols of the praiseworthy qualities of the deceased.^[11] Among these attributes are male and female servants, usually also rendered in miniature. Again in contrast to the Classical grave relief, the difference in scale vividly emphasizes a difference in social status. Let us now attempt in more detail to decipher the individual elements of the pictorial language.