AIUK3 no. 4 Funerary lekythos [for a father and son?] from Epikephisia

Funerary lekythos [for a father and son?] from Epikephisia

AIUK 3 (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) no. 4 Date: ca. early 4th cent. BC

Hegemon of Epikephisia^[1] Relief

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Greek text

References:

AIUK 3 (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) no. 4 (Translated text) (AIUK) (AIO)

IG II² 6060 (PHI)

Conze II no. 1065

Budde and Nicholls no. 29

Schmaltz, Marmorlekythen A26

Clairmont, CAT 2.867a

Translation by: Stephen Lambert

AIO Images: 1 2 3 4 5

Monument type: Marble lekythos

Inscription type: Funerary

Findspot: “Upon the shore of the Propontis” (Clarke), probably mistakenly (Fitzwilliam Museum GR.20.1865)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] A video about this inscription is available on the AIO Youtube channel.

This funerary monument is a marble lekythos, a type of vessel that in ceramic form contained oil associated with funerary rites and was commonly deposited in graves. It would not originally have stood as by itself, but as one of a series of family monuments in a funerary enclosure (peribolos). Depicted in shallow relief on the lekythos is a dexiosis (handshake) scene between an older (bearded) man and a young man (unbearded), with a petasos (broad traveller’s hat) hanging at the back of his neck. He leads a horse by the bridle and is accompanied by a small slave-boy and two dogs. Most likely the younger man is the primary deceased, and the name label above the head of the older one, perhaps father of the younger one, may have been added later on the older man’s death. The younger man might perhaps have been named on another monument in the peribolos. The name + demotic formula marks out the (older) man (and implicitly probably the younger man) as an Athenian citizen. One aspect of such naming is that family tombs could be used as evidence in claims to inheritance of property and to guarantee citizenship status. The relief scene also projects the elite status associated with horse ownership and hunting, a status also suggested by the name Hegemon, connoting “Leader”. Such a public image is notable in a period when the horse-owning elite was apt to be tarred with the brush of sympathy with the brutal anti-democratic regime of the Thirty which briefly held power at Athens in 404 BC following her defeat in the Peloponnesian War; but for its redemption in the 390s, cf. RO 7a with note. For more detailed discussion of this monument, see AIUK 3 (Cambridge), no. 4; for a general discussion of Attic funerary monuments, AIUK 3 (Cambridge), section 3; see also AIUK 2 (BSA) no.10 with notes.

Added: 3 Sep 2018
Updated: 22 Feb 2024
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