AIUK3 no. 5 Funerary stele for Euthykritos of Eitea

Funerary stele for Euthykritos of Eitea

AIUK 3 (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) no. 5 Date: ca. 380-350 BC

Euthykritos of Eitea

Here the land of his fathers covered in a tomb one who had reached the goal of every excellence, (5) Euthykritos, beloved of his mother and father, missed both by his sisters and by all the companions of his youth with whom he had grown up.^[1]

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Greek text

References:

AIUK 3 (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) no. 5 (Translated text) (AIUK) (AIO)

IG II² 7839a (PHI)

Conze II no. 1006

Peek, GVI, no. 544

Kokula, Marmorlutrophoren L14

CEG 2, no. 527

Clairmont, CAT 2.297

Tsagalis, 135 etc.

Translation by: Stephen Lambert

AIO Images: 1 2

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Funerary

Findspot: Athens (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Loan 19)

Transliterations on Places on

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

The loutrophoros was a type of ceramic vessel with funerary associations which, in the second half of the fifth century BC, began to be used in marble form as a funerary monument. In life loutrophoroi carried water for wedding rites; in death they were placed on the tombs of persons who had died unmarried, the deceased receiving in death what they had not obtained in life. Sometimes the monument takes the form of a three-dimensional loutrophoros, but quite commonly, as here, the loutrophoros is depicted in shallow relief on a stele, and the relief loutrophoros is itself decorated with figurative scenes. In this case it portrays a clothed young (beardless) man with a dog sniffing the ground, shaking hands (dexiosis) with a naked youth, with a dog whose head is turned to look up to him. It was not uncommon for deceased males on loutrophoroi, as here, to appear naked, apparently an allusion to their unmarried status. The deceased is named with his demotic at the top of the stele on the epistyle, marking his citizen status.

A substantial minority of Classical Attic funerary monuments carry inscribed epigrams. Typically, like this one, they dwell in conventional terms on the deceased’s ideal qualities, in this case his excellence, arete, and the grief and loss occasioned by the death of the loved one, in this case on the part of the father and mother (who are clearly still living) and, in what seems to be a personal touch, sisters in the plural, but no brothers. Instead of brothers the epigram refers to youthful companions, perhaps alluded to also by the clothed figure in the relief. The wording has the effect of focussing attention on the fact that the deceased was his father’s sole male heir, heightening the poignancy of the message conveyed by the loutrophoros form, namely that he had died unmarried, and a reminder that these monuments could be cited in support of claims to inheritance and citizenship. The high quality of the monument, the leisured scene conveyed in the relief and the epigram with its allusion to arete seem designed to project an image not only of an ideal family, but one which was cultured and well-to-do. On the interplay of epigrams and relief sculpture on funerary monuments see now R. Stupperich,Thetis 23, 2018, 32-46 (SEG 68.11).

For more detailed discussion of this monument, see AIUK 3 (Cambridge), no. 5; for a general discussion of Attic funerary monuments, AIUK 3 (Cambridge), section 3; see also AIUK 2 (BSA) no.10 with notes. On arete, the most common abstract concept in 4th cent. Attic funerary epigrams, see Tsagalis, 135-58; on other aspects of the language of the epigram, Tsagalis, 78, 94, 100 n. 17, 199, 268, 270, 278, 321.

Added: 3 Sep 2018
Updated: 29 Jan 2024
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