Dining Imagery on Classical Athenian Funerary Reliefs

Wendy E. Closterman (Bryn Athyn College)

The vast majority of Classical Athenian tombstones employs a relatively small repertoire of standard images to commemorate the dead. The figure types emphasize idealized roles for men and women in civic and private life. Over the course of the fourth century B.C.E., the stelai also increasingly place the deceased in familial contexts, portraying groups of relatives together in one scene. Among the more uncommon iconographic types found on fourth century stelai is the banquet scene. The imagery typically features two individuals. A woman sits on the end of a couch on which a bearded man reclines, supporting himself with his left arm. With his right hand the man may hold a drinking cup, reach toward a table of food, or shake hands with the woman. Much of the work on funerary banquet scenes has examined their relationship with the more numerous votive banquet reliefs from which their imagery derives. This work has shown that unlike both Classical votive reliefs for heros and Hellenistic funerary monuments from the Greek East, the Classical Athenian funerary stelai do not include heroizing elements, nor does the word “hero” appear in any of the funerary inscriptions. Since the reclined banqueter on Classical tombstones is not portrayed as a hero, previous interpretations have focused on trying to understand this figure, often by considering whether he takes part in a symposium in this life or the afterlife. While building on earlier work, this study shifts the concentration from the individual male to the couple. As the inscriptions indicate, a stele with a banquet scene might commemorate a man, a woman, or both. Further, rather than interpreting the image as a symposium, this study notes the concurrence of both food and drink in the imagery and explores connections with various kinds of dining. By placing the banquet reliefs in the context of other contemporary multi-figured funerary stelai and by broadening the consideration of possible allusions made by the banquet setting, the paper explores how funerary banquet scenes presented an idealized portrayal of all those commemorated on the stones.