AIUK46 no. 20 Grave stele of Aristokles

Grave stele of Aristokles

AIUK 4.6 (BM, Funerary Monuments) no. 20 Date: early-mid iv BC

After many pleasant sports with my age-mates, sprouting from the earth I am earth once more. I am Aristokles of Piraeus, son of Menon.^[1] (relief)

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Greek text

References:

AIUK 4.6 (BM, Funerary Monuments) no. 20 (Translated text) (AIUK) (AIO)

IG II² 7151 (PHI)

GIBM I 92

Conze II no. 1161

Peek, GVI, no. 1702

CEG 2, no. 482

Clairmont, CAT 2.209a

Scholl, Bildfeldstelen no. 435

Tsagalis, 78 n. 46, 169 n. 100, 292, 321

Translation by: Robert Pitt

AIO Images: 1 2

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Funerary, Metrical (elegaic couplets)

Findspot: Athens, built into a Greek School near the church of the Megali Panagia (BM 1816,0610.384)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] Elgin's agent Lusieri aquired this stele in 1802 from a Greek school near the Megali Panagia, the church within the Library of Hadrian, where it had previously been recorded by Chandler and Stuart & Revett. A bearded Aristokles, clad in a himation, is depicted upon a rearing horse, holding onto the horse’s mane and perhaps once painted reins, enjoying the leisure sports mentioned in the inscribed epigram; an attendant runs along behind him carrying some sort of stick. The depiction of Aristokles as a horseman and the epigram's references to youth and age-mates, may imply that he had taken part in the tribal anthippasia competition (cf. the horses on the anthippasia monument in AIUK 9 (Brocklesby), no. 1).

Athenian funerary epigrams employ first person verbs either to allow the grave to speak or, as here, to give voice to the deceased. The idea of the earth receiving or hiding a body is common in such funerary verse, but here we have a new expression in ‘I am earth’, which passes over any allusion to the continued enjoyment of such games and pleasures in the afterlife (on the absence of allusions to expectation of post-mortem existence in Attic funerary commemoration, cf. AIUK 3 (Fitzwilliam), pp. 32-33, and for a conventional reference to Hades and Persephone in another epigram, cf. AIUK 4.6, no. 37). 'Sprouting from the earth' is an allusion to the myth that the Athenians were an autochthonous race, sprung from the earth of Attica. In general on epigrams on funerary monuments cf. AIUK 3, no. 5, with notes. For more detailed discussion of the inscription see AIUK 4.6 (BM, Funerary Monuments), no. 20.

Added: 6 Apr 2022
Updated: 18 Mar 2025
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